Maria Tomchick

Culture Crash: X-Men vs. Buck

2011-06-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is a match made in hell. Cowboy vs. Mutants, and the cowboy comes out the winner.

X-Men: First Class might have been a good film, except the scriptwriters forgot the first rule of comic book adaptations: comic book worlds are not the real world. They should have dropped the stupid Cuban missile crisis plot line and invented a fictional mad scientist who holds the world hostage, ala James Bond. Instead, we get mutants in rubberized, bullet-proof, superhero suits clustered around a black-and-white TV watching old JFK speeches. Yech.

I’ll stick to the boy-on-boy wrestling between Professor X and Magneto. If you’re like me, you’ll be going to this movie to see James McAvoy in the aforementioned rubberized suit, but you’ll soon be asking yourself where did that glorious Michael Fassbender come from? This is his coming out party: other than a bit part in Inglourious Basterds, most people haven’t seen him before. Except maybe in Centurion before it went to DVD. (Note: must log into my Netflix account…)

That’s as close as you’ll get to seeing anything sexy in this film, however, because January Jones and Rose Byrne pull out all the stops in their battle for the Cardboard Cut-out crown. Jones is the winner by a lacquered blonde hair. Byrne, on the other hand, gets the award for Female Stick Figure. Somebody buy that girl a pizza.

You don’t go to see comic book films for the message, but usually there’s one struggling to dig itself out from beneath all the rubble left from the action scenes. X-Men pretends to have something to say about humanity and acceptance of people’s differences. Instead, it sends the message that living in the closet is the best, safest, and most humane thing to do. Yuck.

Buck, on the other hand, provides more than just a man in his chaps. It’s a documentary about Buck Brannaman, the cowboy who trains (not “breaks”) horses. Brannaman, who was rescued from an abusive family situation when he was a young boy, uses his past experiences with people to inform his relationships with animals. His message: if you want a big animal to respect you, you have to respect it…and violence has no place in that relationship.

The filmmakers follow Brannaman as he drives around the country teaching clinics to horse owners. They interview Brannaman, his wife and daughters, his step-mother, several of his friends and clients, the former town sheriff, and Robert Redford, who starred in The Horse Whisperer. And if they could have, they would have interviewed the horses, too, I’m sure.

Brannaman, it turns out, is a very entertaining guy. But he shares the stage with dozens of horses. And, even if they can’t speak, their body language communicates volumes about the kind of respect a person can win by being polite, firm, and nonviolent.

I recommend that you go see Buck; but take a pass on X-Men: First Class, unless you’re dying to see Magneto lift a nuclear submarine ass-first out of the ocean. (Damn, I wish I could do that!)

Why Does Greece Matter?

2011-06-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

If you read or watch the news much, you’ve seen news reports about problems with Greece’s economy and its debt. Greece can’t pay back its lenders, and somehow that’s a disaster for the world’s economy. But Greece is a small country, right? How can its problems possibly bring down the whole of Europe and threaten the US economy, too?

Welcome to a world of massively increased bank profits based on hugely magnified risk.

Greece’s debts are not terribly big; for example, French and German banks (its biggest lenders) hold about $90 billion in Greek debt. That’s less than the US spent on the war in Afghanistan last year. For a small country that’s a lot of money, but for the global financial system, it’s peanuts.

So why can’t European banks restructure the debt and give Greece more time to pay off its loans? Answer: healthy banks could do this, but European banks are not healthy. They lack the capital to cover the lost income from Greece’s regular debt payments. European banks are structured the same way US banks are: loans have been used as capital to support making further loans. In accounting terms, banks have treated their loans as tangible assets instead of the intangible assets that they truly are.

That’s common practice in the worldwide banking industry, and most of the negotiation over new reform rules for banks is about what banks should consider “capital” and how much capital banks should have on their books vs. how much money they can lend out. Regulators want banks to stop considering loans as capital, and they think banks should hold more cash as capital. The strictest regulators want banks to hold 14% of all their assets in cash (capital) to offset losses on loans. The banks are holding out for 7% or less, and are arguing about what should be considered “capital.”

Why are the banks fighting against a regulation that would help to stabilize the banking industry and avoid a situation where the collapse of a small country’s economy could threaten the health of their entire industry? Answer: profits.

The more loans a bank can make, the more income it generates. Requiring banks to sit on piles of cash and stop using loans as capital would severely cut down on the amount of loans banks can make, thereby reducing the banks’ income. Huge bank profits mean huge bonuses for bankers and big profits for shareholders. Financial industry stocks have driven much of the growth on Wall Street in the past 15 years.

Okay, so French and German banks would be in trouble. Big deal, right? Why should the US and other countries care about a few foreign banks? If they fold, then that means more business for our banks, right? Wrong. The global financial industry is interconnected. One bank failure can lead to massive problems for all other banks. Think back a few years ago to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. The collapse of one bank sent a shockwave through the worldwide banking sector. It led to the near demise of AIG and forced the merger of several large US banks in order to avoid another Lehman Brothers. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system both in the US and abroad; in fact, the Federal Reserve loaned more money through its discount window to foreign banks than it did to US banks.

But haven’t things changed since then? Well, no. If anything, things are more precarious now. The big banks are even bigger, having swallowed up several of their large competitors and many mid-size banks, too (and taken on bigger debt loads in the process). The Dodd/Frank bill that was supposed to bring real reform to Wall Street contained only a vague restructuring of the regulatory agencies, while leaving the details of new reforms to those agencies to work out. Wall Street and the Republicans in Congress have fought against every change that the regulatory agencies have tried to make, and been extremely successful at stopping any meaningful reforms.

As a consequence, US exposure to Greece’s debt problems may be higher than anyone knows. The US market for derivatives is probably the largest in the world, although no one knows for sure because derivatives are still the unregulated Wild West of the financial world—traded privately, with no reporting to the SEC. In the year since Greece’s troubles first came to light, European banks have probably purchased huge numbers of credit default swaps to insure their investments in Greek debt. In other words, if Greece defaults, US banks may have to make payments on those credit default swaps to European banks. This is what brought AIG to the brink and, while Greece is not as big a problem as the AIG mess was, nobody really knows how big a mess it is, and that’s enough to scare everybody.

Credit default swaps are another risky way that banks boost their profits. But US banks aren’t the only ones with exposure to Greece. US money market funds buy a lot of short-term debt of other financial industry players, and foreign bank debt is particularly popular. Spooked by the 2008 collapse on Wall Street, many investors are keeping their savings in money market funds, which in turn have to hunt for enough short-term debt to buy to ensure a small income for investors. It’s not clear that these funds could sell off their European bank debt even if they wanted to. With record cash inflows and investors demanding safe and steady returns, and with an economic downturn that’s stifled public works projects around the world, where else could money market funds go to buy “safe” debt?

So the pressure on the Greek government is enormous. Twenty or thirty years ago it would have been routine for lenders to refinance or restructure a nation’s debt, as so many developing countries did during the 1980’s and 1990’s. But now the only solution is to force the Greek populace to absorb tax increases, job cuts, wage cuts, cuts in social services, and a sell-off of public assets. These austerity measures were used in the 1980’s and 1990’s, too, but never during a worldwide recession and under conditions that make it impossible for Greece to increase exports to help stimulate it moribund economy.

The global banking industry, because if its own greed, now has to squeeze blood from a stone. From here on, the choices are simple, but stark: Greece will either become the poorest nation in Europe, destabilized by riots and a crippling collapse of its economy, or the banks will have to restructure Greece’s debt. If the banks give in, then maybe the financial ripples will be small. But don’t bet on it, because Greece is not alone: Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, and even Italy are also in trouble because of their debts.

So things are not looking good for Greece. Unfortunately, the political and social turmoil there may get a whole lot worse. Political leaders may find out that allowing banks to operate without any oversight can lead to severe political repercussions, ones they never expected.

Improvements at Metro? We'll See!

2011-06-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

No more empty Metro buses running to the ‘burbs! Metro may end the 40/40/20 rule.

The King County Council’s transportation committee voted last week to change the way Metro allocates bus service. In the past, Metro used a 40/40/20 ratio to allocate new bus service: 40% would go to south county routes, 40% would go to east county routes, and the remaining 20% would go to routes inside the city of Seattle (even though the vast majority of bus riders live inside the city). The 40/40/20 rule was a compromise with the conservative members of the county council who didn’t want to fund new bus service unless their constituents in the suburbs and rural areas of the county got the majority of new routes.

But in the last two years, as Metro has struggled to provide funding for basic bus service in the face of an economic downturn, the 40/40/20 rule has proven to be a huge liability and a system-breaker. Last year Metro had to balance its budget by cutting 75,000 hours of service. The cuts were spread evenly across the system, based not on ridership or demand, but on the service hours on each route. The in-city routes, which had received only 20% of new service hours in the past decade, were forced to take 60% of all the cuts last year, leaving a lot of Seattleites and north-county riders standing at their stops while full buses passed them by.

Last year, an advisory group recommended that Metro transit do away with the 40/40/20 rule. The county council is finally on the way to making that a reality. The full council will vote on new allocation criteria within the next few weeks. Under the proposed new rules, service levels will be based on the number of households on each route, the number of jobs in a given area, the number of low-income households on each route (as lower income folks tend to use the bus more than wealthy folks do), and the location of natural “growth hubs” (for example, major employers, like Microsoft or the University of Washington, or major retail areas, like the Northgate Mall, Bellevue Square, or Southcenter.)

Under the new rules, Metro expects that only 1% of its bus service will shift to in-city routes, which doesn’t match the expectations of most in-city riders I’ve talked to. Nor is it a cure for Metro’s worst problems: its growing budget shortfalls and its worsening on-time record.

Crowded buses are one thing. Buses that run chronically late (when they bother to show up at all) is another. Metro’s on-time record for its in-city routes has become abysmal. There is no excuse for making passengers stand for more than half an hour in the downtown bus tunnel at 7 pm waiting for a bus to the University District; yet this is becoming a common occurrence--and these are the most frequently travelled routes in the entire system. It’s also common to stand in the bus tunnel for long periods of time (20 to 40 minutes) with no buses arriving at all, but plenty of empty light-rail trains at seven minute intervals.

Even worse are the drivers who are routinely early and who suffer no consequences for it. I recently flagged down a #67 bus that was speeding by a stop a full ten minutes early. The driver shrugged his shoulders and said: “those times are just estimates.” Well, no. They're not, at least not for the rider. We expect the bus to be on-time when we’re standing outside in the rain in 40-degree weather. Ten minutes late is okay, but ten minutes early? Never!

The main cause of Metro’s on-time problem is simple: Metro recently shortened drivers’ layover times at the end of each route. Now drivers have every incentive to zoom through their routes early; otherwise, they barely get a bathroom break before they have to begin their next route. This is a prescription for a chronic on-time problem. Extending driver’s break times, of course, would cost money which Metro doesn’t have.

The King County Council is currently looking at a proposal for a $20 car tab fee to fund Metro transit. But for the proposal to pass the council, it would need a supermajority of 6 out of 9 council members to vote for it. Four of the most conservative council members have already said they’ll vote it down. Alternatively, the council could vote with a simple majority (5 to 4) to put the tab fee on the ballot for voters to decide in November. They should do this as soon as possible, so transit advocates have time to gear up a campaign in support of the ballot measure.

Without that funding, Metro will have to cut 200,000 service hours next year in order to plug the hole in its budget. The bus system is already in trouble; a cut of 200,000 hours could cause one of the nation’s largest and most reliable transit systems to collapse.

My Favorite Films at SIFF 2011

2011-06-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

Here’s a list of the best films that I saw at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival:

Documentaries:

How to Die in Oregon (directed by Peter Richardson) – Oregon’s Death With Dignity law has been in force for a while now, and Richardson wanted to find out who is using it and why. The film is a finely crafted, humane, and hopeful examination of a subject that no one wants to think about until it happens to them or someone they love: if you’re nearing the end of your life and the pain becomes too much to manage, what do you do? This was, hands down, the best documentary that I saw at this year’s festival. It will have a repeat showing as part of The Best of SIFF program at the SIFF Cinema (in the Seattle Center) on Sunday, June 19, 2011, at 1 pm.

The Interrupters (directed by Steve James) – My second favorite documentary this year is about a group of Chicagoans, many of whom are former gang members, who are working to decrease the number of shootings and related gang violence in poor neighborhoods of Chicago. They call themselves “violence interrupters,” and this film follows them around as they do their jobs. It’s a long documentary (over 2 hours), but each story is important and complex, just like real life.

My other favorite documentaries, in no particular order, are:

Mama Africa – a film directed by Mika Kaurismaki, one of the Finnish Kaurismaki brothers (Aki is the better known brother here in the US, and his film Match Factory Girl is a must-see). Mama Africa pieces together the story of South African singer Miriam Makeba, who was exiled from her home country for her anti-apartheid activism. She came to the US to pursue her career in the early 1960’s, but was blacklisted after marrying Black Panther spokesman Stokely Carmichael. Then the two of them moved to Africa, where she proceeded to have a long and illustrious career singing (and teaching) African music in numerous native languages. Add to that her incredible voice and some great concert footage, and you have a thoroughly enjoyable film.

Project Nim (directed by James Marsh) – It was the Sixties, so why not adopt a chimpanzee into your family? This film follows the fortunes of the first chimpanzee to be raised like a human baby, as part of an experiment to try and teach an animal human language (and, almost coincidentally, human culture). In the process, it also reveals the shocking treatment of animal test subjects in laboratories. After watching Nim frolic with his human brothers and sisters and hang out with his 20-something friends at a university laboratory, it’s difficult to watch him get sold off to a medical laboratory. Will Nim be rescued? What happens to the other chimpanzees who were sold along with him? Watch the film and find out.

Revenge of the Electric Car (directed by Chris Paine) – A follow up to Paine’s very popular film Who Killed the Electric Car, this documentary will probably also get a wide release. It’s slicker than its predecessor, with a bigger budget and a lot more access to the movers and shakers in the auto industry. That access shows in the tone the film takes: it unquestioningly portrays all efforts to build an electric vehicle, whether it’s Tesla Motors’ fits and starts, Nissan’s drive to be the first with a vehicle on the market, GM’s new Volt, or some random guy in a battered warehouse converting gasoline cars into EV’s. I suppose you could call that being objective or comprehensive. But I couldn’t help thinking, “Why all this fuss about the personal automobile, when we should be trying to get more people out of their cars and into mass transit?” Still, this a great film for your car-loving, beer drinking buddies; take a few to see this (when it gets wide release) and have a good argument afterwards.

Best documentaries I didn’t get to see:

At the top of this list is If a Tree Falls (directed by Marshall Curry), a documentary about the Earth Liberation Front. I had a ticket to see it, but the film was cancelled by a twitchy theater manager who thought there might be a bomb in the building (there wasn’t). Shame on SIFF for sending 90% of the audience home, then continuing the screening for an audience of only 20 people, and then not giving one of its “to be announced” slots to it so it could be shown again in Seattle. (It screened in Everett, but who’s gonna go all that way to see one film?) Fortunately, it will be showing again in Seattle sometime in July.

Another documentary that deserves a wide release is the film that won the Grand Jury Prize at SIFF for best documentary, Hot Coffee (directed by Susan Saladoff). Also, animal lovers and nonviolence activists should see a great little film entitled Buck (directed by Cindy Meehl) about Buck Brannaman, who trains horses (not breaks them) and trains people how to get along with, and communicate with, their horses.

Feature Films:

I love a good feature film, but there has to be a theme or message that resonates with me. My favorite this year was the following:

King of Devil’s Island (directed by Marius Holst, in Norwegian with subtitles) – A prison for boys on a rock off the coast of Norway is the setting for this historical film that examines how young people choose to resist abusive power, and the consequences. This powerful film will have another showing at The Best of SIFF at the SIFF Cinema on Sunday, June 19, 2011, at 8 pm. I highly recommend that you see it.

There were four other feature films I enjoyed, in no particular order:

Route Irish (in working class British English, so you should turn on the subtitles) – one of Ken Loach’s better films about a security contractor returning from Iraq who investigates a cover-up surrounding the death of his best friend.

All Your Dead Ones (directed by Carlos Moreno, in Spanish with subtitles) – Shot in the director’s home province of Cali, Colombia, this black comedy is about a simple farmer who finds a pile of bodies in his cornfield, but can’t get the local officials to do anything about it because it’s Election Day. Sounds a little like here, doesn’t it? This film hasn’t been shown in Colombia yet, but (gulp) the director wants it to be. My fingers are crossed.

The Names of Love (directed by Michal LeClerc, in French with subtitles) – Sexy, French, funny, leftist Characters who can laugh at the themselves. What more do you need for a fun film experience?

Maybe a little chaos and a lot of sound? Sound of Noise (directed by Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjarne Nilsson, in Swedish with subtitles) subverts the musical genre by supplying an entertaining film about experimental music. One scene of tuxedoed and diamond-clad audience members fleeing a concert hall reminded me of a recent Seattle Symphony audience’s tepid reaction to a fantastic program of modern music at Benaroya Hall. As one of the movie’s heroes puts it: “You have to forgive them. Music is all they know.”

I urge everyone to check out SIFF’s Best of SIFF program this coming weekend. You can find more info at www.siff.net.

City’s Snow Response: B; State’s Response: D

2010-11-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

Seattle’s 2008 snow storm took the city by surprise. Well, the city council president and the mayor, anyway, who were both out of town at the time at the time the snow hit. The ensuing chaos, in which the city’s department of transportation failed to plow and salt major arterials, led to the election downfall of then-Mayor Greg Nickels. Nickels was oft quoted by the press and his critics as having given the slovenly DOT a B grade for their snow response effort, when everyone felt the DOT failed miserably.

The 2010 snow storm, on the other hand, couldn’t be termed a surprise by anyone. Except maybe the Washington State Department of Transportation, which posted their entire road crew on snow plow duty and left not a single person available to open the northbound express lanes on I-5 on Monday night. This led to the single worst traffic commute in modern Seattle history.

The state DOT gave one excuse for why this “happened.” Apparently, the express lanes and their entrance ramps rank at the bottom of the snow plow list of priorities. But, hey, at 3 pm, they could have devoted one snow plow, or one truck of sand, or one salt sprayer, or even just one guy to open the damn gates and let us take our chances! Instead, people sat for hours in a parking lot on northbound I-5 literally inching their way home. The bus I rode from downtown to the NE 45th Street exit in the University District took over two hours. Unforgiveable. Especially when you’re seeing only two to three inches of snow.

And, just like in 2008, Metro Transit gets a barely passing grade. Again. At least this time, Metro chained up buses in preparation for the snow. But did they train drivers how to navigate slippery streets and find alternative, less hilly routes? No. Did they make it easy to find information on their websites on bus reroutes? No. In fact, the website offers a place for you to sign up for email or a twitter feed of storm-related updates about “your bus routes.” Which completely ignores the fact that many impoverished and elderly Metro riders don’t carry a cell phone that can receive text messages. Also, who’s going to stand around in 20 degree weather with a cell phone in their mitten-less hands? It also shows how clueless Metro officials are about how people use the bus system. No one rides only one route, okay? How hard is it to post updates on a blog right on the home page of their website?

Fortunately, this snow storm came in the week leading up to the Thanksgiving Holiday, which means many people decided to take an early holiday and stay home for a couple of days. The weather forecasters tell us we could be in for more snow. Hopefully, the state DOT and Metro will have implemented a few changes before that happens.

Local News: Williams Shooting and Sticking It to Seattle

2010-11-13T16:54:00.000-08:00

This week’s local news brought one surprise and one not-so-surprising announcement:

1. The surprise: a person involved in the investigation of the police shooting of native American wood carver John T. Williams told the press this week that the carving knife found with Williams’ body was in a closed position.

In the initial reports of the shooting, the folding knife was cited as the reason why Officer Birk pulled his car over, jumped out, pursued Williams, and eventually shot him. A witness at the scene, however, told the Seattle P-I that he didn’t see Williams holding a knife at the time of the shooting.

The Seattle Police Department is now, finally, asking witnesses to come forward and speak to the homicide unit (206-684-5550), which means they may file charges against Birk—especially since many of the things Birk said immediately after the killing have been proved to be lies.

2. And now for the not-so-surprising announcement: a state lawmaker has said Seattle will definitely be on the hook for cost overruns on the downtown traffic tunnel being built to replace the viaduct.

Democrat Larry Seaquist of the 26th District that covers parts of Tacoma and Gig Harbor said he’ll make sure that Seattle residents pay for cost overruns on the tunnel, and not stick state residents with the bill. Seaquist said that his constituents had to agree to pay tolls to use the new bridge over the Tacoma Narrows, so Seattle residents should have to pay for the tunnel. If necessary, he’ll make sure that happens.

Gov. Gregoire has threatened to veto any bill that forces Seattle to pay for tunnel overruns, but a veto is not always the final say. If two-thirds of the Legislature support such a bill, they can override her veto. And sticking it to the big city is a very popular stance in state legislatures right now.

This Week's Roundup: the Elections, Metro, Patenting Genes & QE2

2010-11-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

The following are my notes from this morning’s radio show, Eat The Airwaves, which you can find on KEXP 90.3 FM in Seattle, every Saturday morning. It’s also available online at KEXP.org as the last half hour of Mind Over Matters.

1) A general analysis of the elections – you can find my notes written up as an article entitled “The Real Reasons the Republicans Won,” on the Eat The State! website at www.EatTheState.org

2) Dino Rossi vs. Patty Murray for U.S. Senate

Rossi was the second biggest recipient in the U.S. of money from 501(c)(4) organizations which aren’t required to disclose their donors. He received a total of $5.4 million from them, and the largest chunk came from Karl Rove’s group Crossroads GPS ($3.6 million total). Rossi’s total haul from outside the state: $11 million; yet, he still couldn’t defeat Democratic incumbent Patty Murray, who received $8 million in funds from outside the state, and less than a million from 501(c)(4) groups. This is probably Rossi’s last hurrah. I can’t imagine the national Republican Party would be willing to waste any more money on him.

3) Voters defeated any initiative to increase taxes, but also stopped privatization initiatives in their tracks

It’s no surprise that voters didn’t want to tax themselves during a recession, and even voted down Initiative 1098 to impose an income tax on the wealthy. But the shocker was watching the two liquor privatization initiatives 1100 and 1105 and the initiative to privatize the state’s workers’ compensation program go down in flames. How can we explain this?

More conservative voters come to the polls during midterm elections and, while they tend to support conservative goals like privatizing government services, this time they clearly bought into the negative advertising that privatizing liquor sales would make hard alcohol more available to underage drinkers. They also mistrusted evil insurance companies to handle the state’s workers’ comp system—proving that conservatives can also have a healthy dose of common sense.

4) Regional Transit Task Force

The 28-member Regional Transit Task Force issued its report on the state of the Metro Transit bus system. The taskforce was formed 8 months ago by the King County Council to find ways to retain bus services with dwindling tax revenue.

Their biggest recommendation: ditch the 40/40/20 rule for new bus service. That rule was formed as a compromise to get rural council members to support taxes for transit service. It specifies that any new bus services be allocated 40% to East King County, 40% to South King County, and 20% to the City of Seattle. Unfortunately, most of the ridership—hence, most of the demand for new or increased service—is in Seattle.

Also, they recommended getting rid of the 60/20/20 rule for service cutbacks. Because cuts are spread evenly throughout the system and most of the routes are in Seattle, the cutbacks tend to be as follows: 60% in Seattle and 20% each in East and South King County.

Instead, the taskforce recommends that the county council and Metro draft a new, transparent policy for service changes based on population densities, job concentration, geographic coverage, and integration with other transit agencies. Hmm. It took them 8 months to figure that out?

5) Good news for Metro

Metro Transit received two grants from the Federal Transit Administration. The first is $4.7 million to test a prototype electric-battery powered bus. Currently, Metro has an aging fleet of electric trolley buses that run on overhead wires, and are due for replacement. The electric-battery powered buses would not need overhead wires, which are expensive to maintain; they would plug into charging stations. They’re popular in other countries around the world, especially in Europe, but are brand new in the U.S., and Metro was lucky enough to get a grant to test them here.

The second grant is for $6 million to buy hybrid diesel-electric buses to replace old diesel-only buses. This is another step forward in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the heavy vehicle transportation system, which is the fastest growing source of emissions in the U.S. Hurray for Metro!

6) Stop patenting my genes!

This past week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a friend of the court brief that said genes should not be eligible for patents unless they are significantly altered. This is a major change in U.S. government policy: the Patent and Trade Office has issued thousands of patents on genes, including about 20% of human genes.

The brief was filed in a case brought by the ACLU, The Public Patent Foundation, and various medical researchers and groups against Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, who hold two patents on genes implicated in breast cancer: BRCA1 and BRCA2. In March, Judge Robert W. Sweet of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying that merely isolating a gene doesn’t change its nature and make it eligible to be patented. Myriad and the University of Utah are appealing.

7) QE2 has arrived

This week, the Federal Reserve announced a second round of quantitative easing, nicknamed “QE2” in the European press. Quantitative easing refers to a process whereby the Fed prints more money and uses it to by longer term government bonds in an attempt to lower long-term government interest rates. Long-term government interest rates determine mortgage rates and the rates for many corporate bonds.

The idea is that lower long-term rates will make it easier for more people to refinance their mortgages (of course, that won’t help anyone going through foreclosure). It’s also supposed to raise stock prices (investors will get out of bonds and buy stocks, which have a better rate of return, thereby increasing stock prices). This is supposed to increase the value of people’s portfolios and make them more willing to spend money, which will stimulate the economy (consumer spending makes up about 2/3 of all economic activity).

However, the Fed hasn’t taken into account a few important lessons from the recent recession:

First, not enough Americans hold stock to make this an effective spur for consumption. With record levels of income disparity and a shrinking middle class, the whole stock ownership thing has bypassed most Americans.

Second, stock prices have fallen dramatically and have a long ways to go to make up for the losses of the last two years. It’s going to take a while for even folks with substantial portfolios to feel like spending again.

And finally, Most Americans who do own stocks own them in a retirement fund, which makes up only a small portion of their “wealth”…with the biggest portion being the value of their home. Until house prices recover, consumer confidence will continue to sag.

8) QE2 is pissing off the whole world.

Printing more U.S. dollars means a greater supply of them, which weakens the value of the dollar relative to other currencies in the world. Other nations’ goods become more expensive for U.S. consumers to buy.

Americans are the world’s main consumers—except for China’s enormous population, and their consumption is limited by their limited buying power. (China keeps the value of its currency low so that the whole world can continue to afford its products, but that also limits what Chinese people can buy.)

By printing more U.S. dollars, the Federal Reserve is creating inflation on an international scale, which is pissing off some of our major allies. They look at us and say, “Why can’t you be more fiscally responsible? Why can’t your government cut military spending, manage healthcare costs, and do more stimulus spending to create jobs? That’s what you need. Instead, you’re printing more money? What’s wrong with you?”

I have to agree.

Tunnel Budget: A Moving Target

2010-10-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

This week a coalition of social justice groups announced a new initiative to limit the City of Seattle’s liability for cost overruns on the downtown traffic tunnel being built to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Now, here’s the thing I’ve never understood: what exactly is the real budget for the tunnel?

The local media, including The Seattle Times, the P-I, and local TV news programs, call the tunnel a “$1.96 billion project.” But the Washington State Department of Transportation says the total budget is $4.2 billion.

Okay, so local media must be referring to the City of Seattle’s portion of the project, right? Wrong. Because the state’s portion of the costs is capped at $2.8 billion. When you add $2.8 billion to $1.96 billion you get closer to $5 billion than $4.2 billion.

To make matters worse, my memory recalls that WashDOT’s original estimate was in the neighborhood of $7 to $11 billion. Then they started tinkering with the design and cost estimates in an attempt to make the tunnel seem affordable in comparison with the other options, particularly the surface street option, which was the most affordable option of all.

Instead, we have this boondoggle of a tunnel that seems to have no fixed budget. Maybe that’s because it’s the largest traffic tunnel in history—another fact that gets left out of local media reports.

This week, Gov. Gregoire announced that two companies have submitted bids for the tunnel construction. These bids are top secret, apparently, since she gave no details, other than to say that they both came in under budget. Whatever in the hell that means.

Seattle residents have to remember, however, that while the state’s costs are limited to $2.8 billion, Seattle’s costs are unlimited. Hence the initiative being drafted by the Sierra Club, Real Change News, and other social justice groups. They’re hoping to get their initiative drafted and signature gatherers deployed in time to get it onto the August ballot. Tunnel construction is due to start in late 2011.

Stay tuned.

Civilian Review Board? Anyone?

2010-09-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

This week the ACLU sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle Police Chief John Diaz protesting the shooting of Native American wood carver John T. Williams by a Seattle police officer. The letter called for a review of training procedures at the Seattle Police Department. It hinted that failures in leadership might be responsible for a recent increase in violence against homeless folks and people of color by SPD officers, and that the department might try to cultivate some “cross-cultural” skills.

Even this mild letter provoked indignation from SPD Chief Diaz and the local pro-business press (The Seattle Times). Mayor McGinn took a wait-and-see attitude: let’s all wait for the results of the inquest and the Firearms Review Board’s ruling. Well, past inquests have, without fail, ruled in favor of the police department. The Firearms Review Board is run by Deputy Police Chief Clark Kimerer, so we can’t hold out any hopes for that.

Where are the calls for a civilian review board? Community activists still want one, but in this one-newspaper town, there’s no media forum for debating the issue. So the idea of a civilian review has disapeared from view. Except here, of course.

G-20 Inside and Out

2010-07-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Canadian government spent $1 billion on security for the G-20 summit in Toronto, but still wasn’t able to keep a few black-bloc protestors from smashing store windows and burning two police cars. Or perhaps I should say “and” instead of “but,” because it was clear that the police were not concerned about property damage. If anything, the sacrifice of two police cars was a small price to pay in order to justify the hundreds of millions spent on new equipment and overtime for 20,000 police, soldiers, and intelligence officers.

Wait a minute—what do they mean by “intelligence officers”? Go to YouTube and search for “g-20 protests” and you’ll find a video of plainclothes police that shows exactly where Canadian tax dollars went: to pay dozens of cops in t-shirts and jeans wielding sticks and beating protestors. One was even dressed as a black-bloc protestor, leading to the question: did the police infiltrate protest groups in order to cause violence and justify the crackdown on peaceful protestors? The answer appears to be “yes.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the barriers, the heads of state for the 20 most developed nations were fussing about what to do to appease their restive populations and save the global economy. Their economists cast the problem as a simple either/or choice: either governments continue to go deeper into debt by spending money on economic stimulus plans to save the global economy, or governments can cut spending on social programs to pay down their debts and avoid bankruptcy (but this might further hurt the economy). The Obama administration’s official policy is that the US government can do both at the same time, without giving any convincing details about how they will accomplish this impossible feat.

No one mentions the third way—the only sane option in the face of the worst economic downtown since the 1930’s—that governments do what nearly every household in the world has been forced to do over the last two years: cut spending on nonessential items and use the savings to pay down debts and buy necessities.

In other words, to save the global economy and government balance sheets, governments must do the following: stop financing wars and military appropriations and do away with corporate give-aways. In the case of the US government, which finances both sides of the war in Afghanistan, ending two wars in the Middle East would save enormous amounts of money. Ending the inefficient and ineffective efforts to prop up the housing market (hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plus billions of dollars in no-interest loans to big banks, plus tax credits for homebuyers and mortgage holders) would free up plenty of money to pay down the deficit.

And there would be lots of money left over to finance necessities that create jobs in the US economy: healthcare, education, infrastructure (telecom systems, transit systems, water and sewer systems, etc.) and social services.

History shows that this third way is the only one that works; it’s what saved us in the 1930’s and 1940’s. But it’s “politically impossible” to discuss, much less implement, because it is, in fact, Socialism.

And we need to try it again.

Two More Great Documentary Films

2010-06-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

On the last weekend of the Seattle International Film Festival, I saw two documentaries that I recommend people seek out:

Last Train Home was about the largest annual human migration in the world: when 130 million Chinese workers leave their factory jobs to return home to the countryside to visit their families for Chinese New Year. The filmmaker follows one family over the course of four years to gauge the impact of China’s position as the main manufacturer to the world. This film was much better than I expected it to be, and definitely worth seeking out, especially if you’d like to know who makes your blue jeans, t-shirts, iPods, and other inexpensive, imported goods.

Plug & Pray – a film about computer technology, robots, and artificial intelligence might seem like something only an egghead would care about. But this film centers on interviews with Joseph Weizenbaum, a retired computer science professor at MIT, who is critical of the impact of computers and handheld devices on our culture and lifestyle. His realist viewpoint is juxtaposed with interviews of computer scientists and engineers who are trying to bring about a future where people will become human/machine hybrids. Their stated goal is to find a way to cure disease, but eventually their real goal is revealed: eternal life—but only for a select few. If you think genetically modified food is bad, this film will scare the heck out of you.

This year, like every year, SIFF had a lot of really good films. But Seattle is a film mecca year-round, with several independent screens. For example, SIFF will be showing The Best of SIFF this weekend: three days of films that were voted the best of the film festival by audiences and the SIFF jury. (The SIFF Cinema is located in the basement of McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center.)

Also this weekend, Northwest Film Forum will be showing The Oath, a documentary I reviewed on May 31st (see my blog post for that day). It will run from June 18th through the 24th. Check it out.

More SIFF Films

2010-06-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here’s a few of the better feature films I’ve seen at the Seattle International Film Festival this year:

Crab Trap – a fine little film set in an Afro-Colombian community on the coast. Having just won an electrical hook-up from the Colombian government, the residents find themselves fighting a white developer who wants to turn their beach into a tourist resort. Meanwhile, another outsider, who wants to hire a boat to sneak him out of the country, finds himself caught like a crab in a trap because all the local fishermen have taken their boats far out from shore in search of an ever-dwindling supply of fish. A beautiful film with its own leisurely pace.

Southern District – Set in a wealthy household in the Bolivian capital, this film was remarkable for the director’s use of long, single-scene shots that pan away from the characters to show the house and all its rich possessions. The house eventually becomes the main character of the film. Few films have done a better job of showing how wealth can so effectively create tensions with a family while isolating it from the rest of the world, and even the lower-class servants who also inhabit the house.

Winter’s Bone – A 17-year-old girl is the head of her Ozark mountain family, since her mother’s mental breakdown and her father’s arrest for cooking methamphetamines. Her father puts the house up for his bond to get out of jail and promptly disappears under mysterious circumstances. Not convinced that he disappeared on his own, the daughter goes in search of him. Her search reveals hidden, disturbing secrets about her rural community. This film deserves a wide release, but don’t hold your breath. Look for it on DVD.

Cell 211 – winner of Spain’s Goya Awards, this film is intense and violent, but also contains a critical look at the brutality of prison life. The main character is a prison guard starting his first day of work who gets caught in a prison riot and is forced to pretend he’s an inmate to survive. Eventually, he comes to sympathize with the prisoners.

And these three documentaries were outstanding:

American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi – This film was a fascinating look at who Condoleeza Rice really is and what motivates her. Many folks have been perplexed by how an intelligent, African-American woman could become involved with the Bush neo-cons. This film shows you how.

The Two Horses of Genghis Khan – I found this film particularly moving, maybe because I’ve been reading about the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress its 50 minority populations. Two Horses follows the travels of a Mongolian singer/songwriter who goes in search of the lyrics of a traditional Mongolian song her grandmother used to sing to her. With beautiful cinematography and lots of Mongolian music, it reveals that the Cultural Revolution is far from over.

The Tillman Story – Far better than I expected it to be, this film tells the story of Pat Tillman, the major league football player who gave up a multi-million-dollar career to enlist in the army after 9-11. Expecting to fight in Afghanistan, he was shocked and disillusioned to find himself deployed to Iraq. It tells the story of how the Pentagon and Bush administration used his death for propaganda purposes, and how his family eventually found out the truth.

The film festival continues through Sunday, June 13th, and I hope to see at least six more films. I hope they’re as good as the ones I’ve seen so far.

Gaza: The Media Blockade

2010-06-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Israeli troops boarded a boat in international waters that was carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. During that raid, at least nine people were killed, all of them activists who are working to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Aside from the horror I felt at hearing this news, I was dumbstruck at the ineptitude of the news reports of the raid. The US media not only fell down on the job, it fell into a black hole.

The worst offender was the New York Times, which adhered entirely to the Israeli government line. They reported, as uncontested fact, that activists on board the boat fired pistols at the Israeli soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from helicopters hovering above. They reported that nine people died, but not that the dead were activists, members of the flotilla, not Israeli soldiers. Instead, after mentioning the number of dead, The New York Times never mentions them again at all; it lingers instead on the wounds suffered by Israeli soldiers and makes much of the fact that two soldiers were treated for bullet wounds. Apparently, The New York Times reporter never thought to ask if the wounds were from friendly fire.

Oh, and by the way, pipes and knives were found on the boat. I can think of many uses for spare lengths of pipe on a ship. And knives—for heaven’s sake. What else are you going to use to cut rope, or—for that matter—cut your vegetables to make soup?

The Associated Press wire service articles were little better. They relied on quotes from soldiers and the Israeli government and when they did quote an activist, it wasn’t a person who’d been on the boat during the raid. The articles never mentioned the names of the organizations that sponsored the flotilla, and only one article mentioned that a group formed by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter (the group remained unnamed, of course) condemned the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest humanitarian rights violations”—but that quote was in the second to last paragraph of a 20-paragraph article. [“Israel boat raid sparks condemnations, protests,” by Selcan Hacaoglu and Lee Keath, AP, 5/31/09.]

Both the New York Times and AP articles barely mention the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and when they do, they quote Israeli government assurances that residents of Gaza are well provided for. No other viewpoint is sought, no effort is made to find out what is really happening inside the Gaza Strip, as if fact-based reporting might reveal inconvenient truths about one of America’s biggest allies in the Middle East.

As I told a friend today, the US press corps’ silence over the effects of the Gaza blockade remind me of a similar resounding silence over the brutal effects of sanctions the US government imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990’s. Like the continuing blockade of Gaza, the Iraq sanctions came after an outside force--the US--destroyed most of Iraq’s vital civilian infrastructure in the first Gulf War. Israel, having bombed the heck out of Gaza, is now starving the Gazans of the equipment needed to rebuild and provide clean water, food, electricity, sanitation, medical care, safe housing, and other necessities to its residents. And this is provoking a major outcry from nearly every other nation of the world except the US.

And the US people remain insulated from that truth.

Seattle International Film Festival

2010-05-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

I’m a cinephile who’s always had a love/hate relationship with the Seattle International Film Festival. In the early 1990’s when I first started going to the festival, it was devoted almost entirely to foreign films, which made it a paradise for those of us who hunger for films not made in Hollywood.

But even back then, there were problems with the way the festival was run. It was almost entirely run by volunteers, and it showed. Morning screenings often started late because the volunteers had slept in. You had to wait—sometimes for hours—in a long line to buy your tickets from a single box office. And each venue differed in how efficiently it was run. You might show up at 6:30 for a 7 pm film and find yourself standing in the rain until 7:30 while the volunteers went through a shift-change.

Sometimes even the films suffered. I recall one memorable screening of a Russian World War II film that switched halfway through to a scene of Polish teenagers climbing through a bedroom window in modern-day Gdansk. (The projectionist apologized by saying that the reels must have gotten mixed up at the office because Russian words looked exactly like Polish ones to him.)

Over the years, the little foreign film festival with sparse audience attendance has evolved into a behemoth that screens documentaries, foreign blockbusters, independently made US films, and the rejects from major Hollywood studios. It’s easier to obtain tickets and the screenings start on time, but you still have to wait an hour in line at each screening in order to get a good seat. And if you find a foreign gem, it’s only after much sifting.

Yet I still attend the festival, every year, with the hope of finding one or two (or maybe a few more) really good films that I wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. This year, I’m focusing on documentaries and foreign films with a political subtext.

Here’s a list of the documentaries I’ve seen so far:

Queen of the Sun – an artful film about the honey bee and everything it does for the human race. This film examines the state of the American honey bee and various threats to its existence, including commercial agriculture, monoculture crops, pesticides, the use of antibiotics in commercial bee hives, and Colony Collapse Disorder. But the film is uplifting, with its focus on independent, organic beekeepers, whose ranks include aging hippies, retired scientists, and a third generation beekeeper engaged in urban guerrilla beekeeping on the rooftop of her New York apartment building.

The Oath – filmmaker Laura Poitras, who directed My Country, My Country which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, interviews Abu Jindal, the brother-in-law of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan. Almost immediately, it becomes clear that Abu Jindal, who works as a cab driver in Yemen, knows more about the inner workings of Al Qaeda than 90% of the detainees being held in indefinite detention at Guantanamo. The film reveals the complexities of the US war on terror by going inside the mind of a man who was once, and may still be (despite his protestations to the contrary), a true believer in jihad. I found this film fascinating because I couldn’t definitely pin down who Abu Jindal is and what he truly believes. Whether that’s a reflection of the man himself or the limitations of the medium—a film made by a Western woman—is still a question I’m asking myself days after I saw this film.

Gerrymandering – a worthwhile topic for a film, but first-time director Jeff Reichert has invested more time in making this documentary visually entertaining than in defining his message. Tellingly, the film lacks a coherent historical timeline of gerrymandering in US politics. It sort of resembles…well…a gerrymandered Congressional district: all over the map without a valid reason for how it was cobbled together.

Turtle, the Incredible Journey – billed as a family-friendly film, there’s a lot more in Turtle for adults to enjoy than in most films made for children. It narrates the lifecycle of the loggerhead turtle, which goes on one of the longest migratory routes of any animal on the planet. The filmmakers captured a lot of stunning undersea photography. If you get a chance to see this one on the big screen, go for it.

So during my first week at the festival, I’ve had three good hits and one miss. Not bad so far.

Yemen: Victim of the Green Revolution

2009-11-02T14:09:00.000-08:00

One of the lead stories in the Sunday New York Times international section was titled “Thirsty Plant Dries Out Yemen.” It was about the cultivation of qat, a mildly narcotic plant that most Yemeni, both men and women, imbibe on a daily basis.

Yemen, the author notes in an aside, is a major provider of foot soldiers for Al Qaeda, and the implication is that Yemen’s deteriorating economy and environment, along with the scourge of drug use, is providing fertile ground for Al Qaeda recruiters.

True enough, but reading further into the article, we find the following deeper roots for Yemen’s current predicament:

“For millenniums, Yemen preserved traditions of careful water use. Farmers depended mostly on rainwater collection and shallow wells. In some areas they built dams, including the great Marib dam in northern Yemen, which lasted for more than 1,000 years until it collapsed in the sixth century A.D…But traditional agriculture began to fall apart in the 1960s after Yemen was flooded with cheap foreign grain, which put many farmers out of business. Qat began replacing food crops, and in the late 1960s, motorized drills began to proliferate, allowing farmers and villagers to pump water from underground aquifers much faster than it could be replaced through natural processes. The number of drills has only grown since they were outlawed in 2002.”

Proponents of neoliberal economic theory, with its emphasis on free trade and promoting the use of industrialized processes over traditional ones, often cite the “Green Revolution” of the 1960s as an unqualified success. The expansion of plantation style agriculture and the wide use of pesticides and herbicides, tractors, irrigation ditches, and single-crop plantings supposedly brought prosperity to the Third World.

Yemen, however, is an example of what went wrong. Traditional Yemeni farmers who had relied on rainwater collection and water conservation, who had grown drought tolerant plants to feed the population, were put out of business by cheap, imported grain. The only crop they could grow and make money from was qat. Qat, however, requires a lot of water. And so we have another example of the disastrous results of the Green Revolution.

Ironically, the World Bank is now trying to reintroduces drip irrigation and rainwater collection in Yemen, along with the cultivation of drought tolerant plants, but it’s an uphill struggle. We should keep in mind that it’s easier to preserve traditional agricultural practices than to reintroduce them after they’ve been decimated by the ravages of the free market.

And we should remember Yemen’s problems when big agribusiness companies like Monsanto point to the Green Revolution as a good reason for developing and releasing genetically-engineered crops into the environment without proper testing. While the Green Revolution may have been a bonanza for Monsanto, it has brought environmental destruction, poverty, drug use, and—as we now know—has contributed to the rise of Al Qaeda.

Source: “Thirsty Plant Dries Out Yemen,” Bryan Denton, New York Times, Sunday, 11/1/09.

Slash Healthcare Costs, Tip #2: Ditch the Cell Phone (Before You Drive Into a Ditch)

2009-10-08T22:41:00.001-07:00

The title says it all. Yes, researchers have studied the effects of cell phone use on your driving skills. They found that using a cell phone while driving is equivalent to having a blood alcohol level of 0.08%--the legal limit for driving under the influence of alcohol.

It’s also equivalent to having a couple of noisy kids in the backseat throwing their stuffed toys at you and screaming, “Mommy! Mommy! Bobby hit me!” It’s equivalent to eating a hamburger with one hand and sipping a soda with the other, or plucking your eyebrows, or checking your email on your crackberry, playing video games, listening to your IPod, or fiddling with your overpriced, underwhelming satellite navigation system—all things that people do every day while they’re behind the wheel: drive while distracted.

About 6,000 people die per year, every year from distracted driving—mostly because of cell phone use while driving. Tragically, it’s often not the cell phone user/driver who’s killed, but the pedestrian, bicyclist, passenger, or other driver who gets nailed by the thoughtless jerk who couldn’t wait to answer that text message or phone call.

Of course, most people involved in cell-phone-use-while-driving accidents aren’t killed outright. They’re injured and have to go to the hospital or see a doctor. They often end up needing a series of treatments for chronic pain, or neck or back injuries that can take years and endless physical therapy sessions and surgery to help them heal. If they fully heal, and many don’t.

Approximately 800,000 people every day drive with a cell phone in hand. The Insurance Institute says that it makes no difference whether you hold the cell phone in your hand or use a hands-free device; both are equally distracting. In fact, the hands-free device may be more dangerous, since it gives us a false sense of safety.

An easy way to save millions in healthcare costs each year would be for Congress to pass the bill introduced in the Senate by Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) that would force states to pass laws banning driving while text messaging or risk losing 25% of their federal highway funding. Currently only 18 states ban text messaging while driving.

Only 7 states ban cell phone use in the car. The US public could save a lot of money passing a federal law that bans cell phone use while driving, except to allow drivers to dial 9-1-1 in case of an emergency.

Simple, yes, but is anyone proposing a bill? Hello? Is anyone there?

Sheila Bair's Big Gamble

2009-10-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Last week the FDIC shut down another three banks, bringing total bank failures in the US so far this year to 98. Last year there were 25, and in 2007, there were only 3.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is not just the government entity that insures your cash deposits in the bank; the FDIC also has the unenviable task of unwinding banks that have run up massive debts and have no cash on hand to pay them off or cover their customer’s needs. When too many customers (depositors) learn of the rickety state of their bank and line up to demand their money, it’s called a run on the bank. Runs can drain a bank down to nothing, and the FDIC has to make the call when it’s time to close the doors and sell off the remaining deposits and assets to another, healthier bank, thus avoiding a situation where the FDIC has to make good on all the remaining cash demands of the depositors and creditors of the bank long after all the cash has been drained away.

Unfortunately for the FDIC, the pool of healthy banks willing (and able) to buy up the assets of ailing banks has dwindled, leaving the FDIC with a lot of assets on its hands that may in the long-term be worth money, but right now can’t be sold for even pennies on the dollar. The FDIC’s own cash pool, which comes from annual fees paid by banks (about 12 to 16 cents for every $100 of deposits) has dwindled.

In 2008, the FDIC spent $20 billion of its cash reserves on 25 bank failures; this year, that figure is more than $30 billion. Last week, the FDIC’s cash reserves went into the red—meaning that they need to raise cash fast to cover more expected bank failures. The FDIC estimated earlier this year that they would spend approximately $70 billion total by the end of next year, but raised that estimate recently to $100 billion, so the need for cash is hanging over FDIC Chair Sheila Bair like the sword of Damocles.

Big investment banks, like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, have been keeping an eye on the situation and trying to figure out how to make money from it all. Last month they proposed loaning money to the FDIC so Sheila Bair, who’s been a major critic of how Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have run the financial industry bailout (without strengthening regulation in the process), can avoid going to her enemies for a loan.

The FDIC has two ways to raise more money. It can borrow money from the US Treasury (with Timothy Geithner’s approval) or it can levy a special assessment on banks. But the FDIC had already issued a special assessment last May, and Bair’s critics wailed that another special assessment would only drive more ailing banks into the ground. Bair didn’t much like the prospect of borrowing money from Goldman or JP Morgan at usurious rates or, heaven forbid, at adjustable rates (a type of loan that should be illegal, after all the damage it’s done to the economy and to people’s personal balance sheets, but of course it’s not—that would stifle business). So Bair came up with a compromise.

The FDIC will ask banks to pre-pay their annual assessments through 2012. In other words, Bair is taking an interest-free loan from banks. In order to avoid harming the banks that are still struggling, she gave them the okay to not report the prepayments on their financial statements, so their cash reserves will look better than they really are.

How is this different from the accounting tricks that banks have been using to hide their debts and overvalue their risky investments to make their cash reserves look good? According to Bair, the difference is in degree. The few pennies that make up the FDIC assessment will be small change compared to the other expenses on banks’ financial statements. But those assessments will add up to $45 billion to replenish the FDIC fund.

The other, more important question is this: will this $45 billion be enough? By the FDIC’s own estimate, they’ll need at least $50 billion to get through the end of 2010. By asking banks to pay their assessments through 2012 right now, that leaves a gap of two years when the FDIC can expect zero income from its main source but will still have to close down troubled banks. A taxpayer bailout will be inevitable.

The fact that Sheila Bair—the only top regulator in this country who’s been outspoken about the causes of the crash—can’t turn to either the Obama administration or to Congress to replenish the FDIC’s fund is a symptom of just how sick our system is. She’s betting that things will get better between now and next year, that new financial regulation will be in place, that the economy will turn a corner, and that Congress and the American people won’t view a request from her to replenish the FDIC’s fund with taxpayer money as a taxpayer bailout that marks her as the same kind of leach as Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America or Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae.

I hope she’s right.

Don't Break Out the Champagne Yet

2009-10-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

Economists have been spewing happy talk lately like it’s going out of style. I thought they would have learned something from the last two stock market bubbles fueled by irrational optimism. Apparently not, because the consensus now is that the recession is over and that the US economy has entered a “slow” or “Jobless” recovery.

At least they’re being somewhat cautious about their excess exuberance. I can’t say the same thing about investors, who’ve driven the stock market over 10,000 again without any sign that these stock prices are justified. We might blame the Fed for this, with Ben Bernanke’s insistence that a summertime bump in housing sales means the recession is over; never mind that sales are mostly in the low-end of the market, and overall housing prices are still falling in most parts of the country. No one knows what will happen once the First Time Homebuyer Credit expires later this year.

The phenomenon of a “jobless recovery” is an interesting one, worth more discussion than it usually gets in the media. Economists toss out the term as if we all should understand intuitively what it means, leading to a widespread suspicion that it is, in fact, a meaningless term. But it does have a meaning—just one that, for political reasons, economists and politicians would like to keep secret from the average American.

In US economic history, recessions (including the Great Depression) were followed by periods of economic recovery during which business activity expanded. This meant that employment increased, too, since businesses had to hire more workers. But a curious thing has developed over the last twenty years: recessions have been followed by long periods of high unemployment. We’ve had three opportunities to witness this: first, in the early 1990’s (coinciding with the first Gulf War and high oil prices), in the late 1990’s (the bursting of the tech stock bubble), and the current mess we’re in right now. In all three situations, businesses have reported upticks in their economic activity or improvements in their balance sheets, but they’re not hiring people, and most are laying people off.

Some of that is related to “increased worker productivity,” a term that means bosses are laying off people and expecting the remaining staff to pick up the extra work. But there’s only so much slack in that rope before employers have to go looking for new employees. Unfortunately, many of them are looking overseas, where labor is cheaper. Outsourcing is a phenomenon that started in the 1980’s with US manufacturers relocating their production plants overseas. US government foreign aid programs (with the help of the World Bank and the IMF) provided money to developing countries to build “infrastructure” to attract business investment—in other words: factory buildings, roads, and port facilities for US companies that wanted to relocate abroad to take advantage of a cheap labor force. And cheap oil made it even easier to produce everything overseas and ship it all back to the US for consumption. In the 1990’s, even the US service industry got on the bandwagon by setting up call centers and customer service centers in India to save money.

Much of the “jobless” aspect of the last two recoveries can be accounted for by outsourcing. But there’s no indication that outsourcing is playing the dominant role in the current “recovery” (if you believe that we’re really in one, which I don’t). The most recent unemployment figures show that the US lost 263,000 jobs in September. More important are the revised figures for the first quarter of this year. The rule of thumb has been that we lost about half a million jobs each month at the beginning of this year. In fact, the figures are much, much worse, culminating in a revised total for March 2009 of 824,000 jobs lost in that month alone. Currently, the official number of people looking for work is 15 million, or about 35.6% of the unemployed. This doesn’t count the underemployed (those working part-time or as temps who are searching for full-time, permanent employment). Some economists put the real unemployment figure (which counts everyone who’s out of work, including the “discouraged” who no longer looking for work) at close to 20% of the US adult population—one in every five people.

So what is accounting for the profits on the balance sheets of US corporations? Well, for one thing, most of them are paring down by selling off pieces of their businesses. The business press has been full of headlines announcing mergers and sales, many of which are being financed by US taxpayers through the federal government’s bailout plan, one aspect of which is to provide low or no interest loans to businesses, ostensibly to help them fund operations. (The US government is doing this because banks won’t—that’s what they mean when they say “credit has dried up.”) But once the money goes into the bank accounts of American businesses, the Treasury and the Fed have no means to ensure that the money is being spent on day-to-day operations and not being used to buy up other distressed companies. In fact, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are satisfied that funding mergers is a legitimate use of taxpayer money, because that’s what the US government did with the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch bailout in 2008 (which was engineered by Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, but Geithner was on the board of the New York Federal Reserve at the time, and he pushed for these kinds of bailouts).

Your taxes and mine are paying for the “jobless” recovery and sparking a run-up in stock prices, which is keeping the rich happy, and naturally leading to lots of happy talk. But there’s another, more sinister reason why US businesses have healthy balance sheets.

There’s been a lot of talk about increasing financial regulation, but not much action. For example, it’s still legal, eight years after the Enron and Worldcom collapses, for businesses to hide their debts in off-balance-sheet entities. In other words, they set up special “holding companies” that only hold debts or worthless “assets,” like mortgage-backed securities. And in March, the Financial Accounting Standards Board extended another benefit to US businesses by repealing the mark-to-market rule that forced companies to value mortgage-backed securities and similar derivatives at current market rates (the prices they’d get if they tried to sell the securities today—for many of those securities that price would be $0.00).

These accounting tricks, which contributed to the last stock market bubble, are still be used by businesses today to hide the true state of their finances. So, no, I don’t believe that we’re in a recovery. In fact, I think we’re heading into yet another bubble…with another implosion headed our way.

Slashing Healthcare Costs, Tip #1: Stub Out Cigarettes

2009-10-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

How can we cut health care costs? You’d think it was a hard problem to address—with all this moaning and finger-pointing in Congress and the mainstream media. But, as it turns out, scientists and researchers are finding easy answers to this question.

Take, for example, two studies released last week on the effects of secondhand cigarette smoke. Both studies looked at the same data: a compilation of individual studies that followed more than 24 million people in the US, Canada, and Europe who were living in states, provinces, and municipalities that had passed laws banning cigarette smoking in public places like bars, restaurants, and workplaces.

Researchers at the University of Kansas School of Medicine found that, in the first year of a ban on smoking in public places, the incidence of heart attacks in the general population fell by 17%. By year three, heart attack rates fell by 26%. That’s not only statistically significant, it’s indicative of a major public health crisis caused by secondhand smoke. A nationwide ban on smoking in public places would not only prevent 150,000 heart attacks in the first year alone (think of all the pain and suffering we could prevent), it would save massive amounts of money.

And that didn’t even look at the myriad other illnesses caused by cigarette smoke: lung cancer, throat and stomach cancers, hypertension, asthma, migraines—the list goes on and on. If the data on heart attacks is so dramatic, we can expect equally steep reductions in these other expensive illnesses, too.

The second study, done by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, looked at the same data as the first study, but analyzed it slightly differently. The UC researchers found the same 17% decrease in heart attacks in the first year of public smoking bans, but found an astounding 36% drop in heart attacks by year three.

Right now there’s no bill in the House or Senate that calls for a nationwide ban on cigarette smoking in public places, but there should be. Currently, only 17 states and about 350 cities ban smoking in bars, restaurants, and workplaces, which means that only about 40% of the US population can dine out, listen to music, or go to work in a smoke-free place. A partial ban exists in about 14 other states, but the remaining 19 states—primarily in the South and Midwest--have no ban at all.

We should heed the information that scientists provide us. Remember, just because the Bush administration did its best to undermine the work of scientists and researchers doesn’t mean we need to continue operating in ignorance. We have one easy way to save millions, if not billions, of dollars currently being spent on health care, and we’re choosing to ignore it. That’s just stupid.

The People Vs. Monsanto

2009-09-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

We can thank our founding fathers for the “balance of powers” in our federal government, because that’s the only thing that is saving environmental regulation in this country, after the dark ages of the Clinton/Bush era.

Last week, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco ruled that the US Department of Agriculture had failed to assess the environmental impact of planting genetically modified sugar beets when it granted Monsanto the go-ahead to market and sell its GMO beets.

This is a very important ruling. About 95% of the sugar beets planted in the US are Monsanto GMO beets, and about 50% of the US supply of sugar is made from sugar beets. Chances are, if you’ve eaten anything sugary in the past year, you’ve eaten a genetically modified organism and not known it.

The judge accepted evidence provided by the plaintiffs (the Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club, the Organic Seed Alliance, and High Mowing Organic Seeds) that GMO sugar beets can cross-pollinate and contaminate table beets, kale, cabbage, and a number of other vegetables, and that organic farmers won’t be able to ensure that their crops are GMO-free if Monsanto is allowed to sell GMO beet seed.

Let’s be clear about what GMO crops are. Many people think that Monsanto and other companies are altering the genetic makeup of beets and other plants to make them more hardy and more resistant to pests and weeds. Not so. Monsanto genetically alters crops to make them more resistant to Monsanto’s highly profitable herbicide, Roundup, thereby increasing their profit and cornering the market: Monsanto provides the seeds, then provides the tons of herbicide the farmers need to make those beet plants grow big enough and produce enough beet to justify the high cost of the GMO seed they purchased from Monsanto in the first place.

The judge’s ruling is a major victory for environmental groups, consumers, and farmers (who’ve had no say in Monsanto’s efforts to squeeze more money out of them). The ruling could eventually lead to a ban on planting GMO sugar beets, since it requires that the USDA conduct an environmental impact statement, and there’s not a lot of extra money in the federal budget allocated for that purpose.

The judge will meet with both parties in the lawsuit and issue a remedy later this year, but so far it looks like Monsanto has lost this round.

The Afghan Sinkhole

2009-09-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

I went to a book reading by Dahr Jamail last night and was reminded that the US is still engaged in two major wars which are draining our country of resources we could better use in addressing both healthcare reform and our financial crisis. Some folks would argue (including me) that the wars are one of the causes of our current financial crisis. It’s hard to argue that a record budget deficit has no impact on the country’s current struggle to emerge from the recession. While the Bush tax cuts for the rich helped make that budget deficit, the wars have had an equal impact.

Jamail didn’t really talk about those issues; the event was being held as fundraiser for the GI coffeehouse Coffee Strong, located near the Fort Lewis military reservation. So Jamail mostly discussed the fact that US military personnel are suffering from explosive rates of post-traumatic stress syndrome, inadequate healthcare, and the looming menace of “stop-loss” (the Pentagon program that allows the US military to void contracts with troops—in other words, just when a soldier thinks he or she has reached the end of their four-year commitment, the US Army can say, “sorry, but we’re invoking Stop Loss, which means we’re extending your contract indefinitely and sending you back to Afghanistan for another tour.”). He stressed that the US military is on the verge of collapse. This is the subject of his latest book, which is a collection of interviews with US military personnel who are resisting the wars in various ways.

I was deeply shocked by the high rates of sexual assault and rape within the military units based in Iraq and Afghanistan. While most of the victims are assumed to be women, they’re not exclusively so, unsurprising, given that the US military is now actively recruiting felons and gang members to fill out its ranks. What’s deeply shocking is the refusal of the US military brass to find and prosecute the perpetrators, as if the upper leadership at the Pentagon want to punish women for having won the right to serve in the armed forces.

So I wasn’t surprised to read this morning that the US government has given Hamid Karzai an assurance that we'll support him as the winner of the recent Afghan elections. Never mind the fact that the New York Times recently reviewed the results released by Karzai’s government and determined that approximately one in four votes should be subject to a recount because of the high number of ballots turned in by “nonexistent” polling stations. Yes, that's right: Karzai was so desperate to win, and so certain that he wouldn't, that his backers not only printed up massive numbers of fake ballots to stuff in ballot boxes, they also invented hundreds of polling stations with nonexistent ballot boxes to hold those fake ballots.

A 25% fraud figure would almost certainly invalidate Karzai’s self-declared 54% majority of the vote; in fact, in a better world where the US government truly stood for democracy, such overt cheating would invalidate the entire election.

But the Obama foreign policy, as run by a Defense director and a cadre of generals held over from the Bush administration, finds more value in supporting a corrupt narco-state that only control one-third of the county than it does in ensuring a fair election. General Stanley McCrystal, the head of US forces in Afghanistan, is expected to ask Obama for an additional 45,000 troops this week, and it’s not clear where those troops will come from.

According to Jamail’s interviews, “search and avoid missions” (wherein US troops pretend to patrol but instead find various ways to park their humvees, hide out, and avoid danger) are becoming more common in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This partly explains why those wars—particularly Afghanistan—are unwinnable. Now, more than ever, the US population needs to ask the same question that large numbers of US troops ask themselves every day: “What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan anyway?” Because once we ask that question, the notion of “stay the course” becomes patently absurd.

Special note: GI coffeehouse Coffee Strong provides essential support services, from counseling to legal help, for troops based at Fort Lewis. Coffee Strong is one of only two GI coffeehouses currently operating in the US. Because of a convergence of the ailing economy and the overseas deployment of about 60% of the forces at Fort Lewis (depriving Coffee Strong of much of their customer base), Coffee Strong is in dire need of financial support. Also, they are always in need of volunteers. To get in touch with them, visit their website at http://www.givevoice.org/coffeestrong or call them at 253-581-1565 or visit them at 15109 Union Avenue SW, Lakewood, WA 98499.

How The Seattle Times Lost Me as a Subscriber

2009-09-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

[Phone rings.]

Me: Hello?

Woman on the other end of the line: I’m calling from The Seattle Times to offer you a subscription to the newspaper…

Me: No, no, no. This is the third time you’ve called me about this. I have a subscription on my Kindle. I already subscribe! Did you get that?

Seattle Times salesperson: Oh, we don’t have access to that information here.

Me: What? How can you not have access to subscriber information? Isn’t it all on a computerized system?

Seattle Times salesperson: Yes, but that’s the Circulation Department. I’m with Sales. I got your name because you owe us money—

Me: WHAT? I don’t owe you any money! Look up my account—

Seattle Times salesperson: Ma’am, I don’t have access to those records, but I can give you our Customer Service number and you can call and find out how much you owe.

Me: I already called Customer Service last month—the last time you called me with this bullshit story. They said I was paid in full. [A light goes on in my head.] Oh, you’re not really with The Seattle Times, are you?

Seattle Times salesperson [or maybe not]: Yes, I am—

Me: No you’re not! You’re really some third party caller who’s trying to scam me, aren’t you? I mean, look at it from my perspective. You call me up to offer me a subscription when I already have one, then you tell me you can’t access those records, then you say I owe you money when I don’t. Sounds like a scam to me.

Seattle Times salesperson [starting to get upset]: Ma’am, I can get my supervisor to talk to you, if you’d like…

Me: Yes, I’d like that.

Seattle Times salesperson: Okay, I’m putting you on hold now.

[Two minutes pass in silence while I’m on hold.]

Seattle Times salesperson [the same one]: Ma’am, I’m not able to transfer you to her line right now, but I can give you her phone number—

Me: Oh, no, no, no. I’m not spending one more dime to call you people again. Just take me off your call list or put a note by my name that says I have a Kindle subscription. Please.

Seattle Times salesperson [sounding a little snotty]: You know, you only get 30% of the paper’s articles on your Kindle, don’t you?

Me: Really?! [Shocked pause.] Oh, my god! You mean I’ve been paying to get less than a third of your content? Damn! I’m going to cancel my Kindle subscription like right now. I can get more articles from your website for free. Are you sure I can’t talk to your supervisor? I think she ought to know she just lost a subscriber—

Seattle Times salesperson: Ma’am, I have to hang up now. I can’t talk to you anymore.

Me: Okay, have a nice day.

And I really did go directly to my computer, log in, and cancel my Kindle subscription to The Seattle Times. Then I went to their website and left them a message telling them exactly why I cancelled.

Of course, I had other reasons to cancel, too--like an article in Thursday's edition that basically summed up all the crap Sean Hannity and Glen Beck spewed on their right-wing extremist opinion shows this week (and it wasn't on the Opinion Page, where it belonged).

If the Seattle Times goes out of business, I'll throw a party. Having no newspaper at all is better than reading a truly execrable one.

Mayor Nickels Proves He Can't Do Math

2009-09-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

After closing down the entire public library system for a week and asking city employees to take ten unpaid days off this year, Mayor Nickels has the gall to ask the City Council for more money to run the loathed South Lake Union street car line.

Apparantly, advertising has only brought in about half the revenue expected and, gosh, only about 1300 people ride it per day (less than one-quarter the number of people who ride the average in-city bus route). Combined with zero enforcement of fare-paying, it’s no wonder the street car is a financial bust.

For one thing, it was never built to be integrated into any existing transportation system, since there’s no equipment to scan Puget Passes (issued by the tri-county bus agencies) or the new ORCA cards, which are compatible with the new light rail line. Hence, the city can’t ask Metro or Sound Transit for money.

No, it’s a toy train for Paul Allen—one that’s cost $2.2 million in city money so far, and will cost another $1.45 million in loans from “other city accounts” that don’t have the money to spare. Nickels says the money will be structured as a loan and paid back over a five-year period starting in 2018. Say what? How does the city, which runs the street car, justify paying itself interest? And who says the street car will still be running in 2023?

It’s high time we shut down the street car and sell off the equipment…if we can find a buyer—and that’s not so certain. Who would want the damn thing?

More Private Contractors in Afghanistan?

2009-09-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

The War in Afghanistan is heating up and becoming more deadly for US troops, with a higher number of casualties in August than in any other month since the war started eight years ago.

The head of US command in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, wants more troops shipped to Afghanistan, but the US public would rather see troops come home.

President Obama, on the other hand, is more concerned about a record federal budget deficit. He has proposed saving money on the War in Afghanistan by bringing home noncombat troops and replacing them with private contractors, while shifting combat troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.

But there’s peril in that plan. For one thing, the use of private contractors has done a great deal of harm in Iraq, where the government has driven the largest private contracting company, Blackwater, out of Iraq in disgrace. And another, similar scandal is developing in Afghanistan.

According to a report by the Project On Government Oversight, private contractors working for ArmorGroup North America, have been accused by their own coworkers of engaging in lewd and deviant behavior, illegal hazing, and activities that imperil the security of the personnel they’re supposed to be guarding. ArmorGroup has a $180 million contract from the State Department to guard the US embassy in Kabul.

Where have we heard such charges before? Abu Ghraib comes to mind—in particular, the charges made by military guards that civilian contractors employed by the CIA to oversee interrogations encouraged their subordinates to engage in lewd behavior and outright torture.

In March, the Congressional Research Service reported that that, while there were 52,300 US military troops in Afghanistan, there were also 68,200 private contractors—the highest percentage of private contractor ever used in any war in US history.

President Obama needs to stand back and ask himself if that’s a good thing, or if he should extend his promise to "bring the troops home" to the US troops fighting right now to support a narco-state in Afghanistan.

Besides, shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is not “bringing them home,” as their families would be quick to point out.

Sources: “General Seeks Shift in Afghan Strategy,” The Wall Street Journal, 9/1/09; “U.S. to beef up combat force in Aghanistan,” Julian E. Barnes, The Seattle Times, 9/2/09; and “Security guards for U.S. accused of deviant acts,” Ann Scott Tyson, The Seattle Times, 9/2/09.

Kudos to Ed Murray

2009-09-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

State Sen. Ed Murray deserves a pat on the back for refusing to run a write-in campaign for mayor of Seattle.

Since the primary results knocked current Mayor Greg Nickels out of the running for another term, local Democrats and the business community have been in a panic. Neither of the two candidates on the ballot for November—Joe Mallahan, a Comcast executive, and Mike McGuinn, an environmentalist who wants to stop construction of the downtown traffic tunnel—have any prior experience in political office. Neither of them owes any favors to party bosses or major donors (McGuinn’s donations come primarily from individuals who support his environmental views and Mallahan has funded his campaign mostly out of his own deep pockets). Hence the pressure from the party for Democrat Ed Murray to run a write-in campaign.

But today Murray declined to run, saying he wanted to focus his efforts on a far more important goal: making sure the backers of Referendum 71 wouldn’t sink a new law that extends equal rights to gay couples in Washington State. He deserves a big “thank you” from all of Seattle’s citizens.

Today I listened to Murray say point-blank, on KUOW, that his energy would be better spent on the Ref. 71 struggle. Any self-serving politician might have argued the opposite: that he would be more effective in influencing the course of gay rights by becoming Seattle’s first openly gay mayor. But Murray showed a selfless restraint and respect for reality that is missing in so many politicians these days.

Thanks, Ed. And you’ll have my vote this November… to support gay rights in Washington State.

A Visit to the Grungy City

2009-08-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Vancouver BC is an authentically grungy city. It looks the way a city is supposed to look and feel.

Seattle, on the other hand, ceased being a grungy city sometime in the late-90’s, after Mayors Rice and Schell, and their cohorts on the City Council, succeeded in shoveling public money to developers. Add the tech stock boom, easy credit, and sky-rocketing housing prices, and we got a city that has swept all its poor people right out of the city limits. And that was the plan, as Mayor Schell would have told you back then. Poor people don’t belong in our city, so they were forced to leave.

Which explains the city’s attitude today, with Mayor Nickels endorsing sweeps of homeless encampments and his refusal to deal with the Nickelsville tent city. No wonder he didn’t make it through the primary.

Unfortunately, when the poor left Seattle, most of Seattle’s character left with them.

Vancouver has several neighborhoods that have cleaned out the drug dealers and prostitutes, but have nevertheless maintained their unique, hole-in-the-wall stores, cheap ethnic restaurants, tiny artsy boutiques with handmade clothing, and a proliferation of affordable family housing. Of course, politicians and big businessmen in Vancouver would like their city to look like Seattle, but the majority of Vancouverites are pushing back and trying to hold on to what makes Vancouver so great.

Not so, in Seattle. Even the Fremont neighborhood has been sanitized and turned into an outdoor shopping mall. It’s a sad day when Vancouver can boast more vegetarian restaurants per square mile than Seattle has in its entire city limits.

It all boils down to two things: first, the price of rent. In Seattle, local coffee shops, used bookstores, and even the little storefront martial arts studios have all closed down because they can’t make the rent. (I feel compelled to point out that Vancouver has a Starbucks on almost every corner, just like we have here, but Vancouver still has great, small coffee shops, too. Seattle has maybe three or four left in the whole city.)

The second problem is attitude. Everyone in America wants to get rich right now, and that’s reflected not only in our borrowing and spending habits (we want to live like the rich but don’t really have the means for it), but also in our inability to use patience and hard work to achieve a vision of something unique.

For example, in Vancouver, a young clothing designer might decide to open her own storefront in a tiny neighborhood shop with cheap rent and make clothing that students can afford to buy. She would find it important and empowering to see lots of hip, young people wearing her clothes, and be happy to build business that way. But in Seattle, that same designer would choose instead to make a few items, place them in an expensive consignment shop, and price them well out of the reach of almost everyone but the wealthy. Then she’d try to build her “brand” through an idiotic Internet campaign, and try to get on a reality TV show for fashion designers, eventually learning how to fit in with the fashion industry’s standards. This is a route that ensures sterility, stifles creativity, isolates artists from the people who’d appreciate their work the most (most of whom are not rich), and in the process destroys a city’s cultural life and its streetscapes.

Maybe the economic downturn, which is based on unsustainable rents and housing prices, will change all that. Americans are already voting on the quality of merchandise in chain stores by becoming more choosy. We are literally waking up, smelling the coffee, and deciding that Starbucks isn’t any better than the stuff we make at home.

Maybe most American artists and entrepreneurs will give up on their “get rich quick” fantasies and search instead for fulfillment in their work. Falling rents just might make it possible for them to realize this new dream.

I hope so, for Seattle’s sake.

What's This Dynasty Crap Anyway?

2009-08-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve just come back from a vacation to Vancouver, BC. The hotel where I stayed provided me with a free newspaper every morning, which I enjoyed fully. Not only was the local news interesting, but Canadians’ views of US news were highly entertaining.

For example, the news of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death. The Canadian press were respectful, but they couldn’t refrain from commenting on how the US press treated the Kennedys as if they were royalty, and how much the US media mourned the death of a political dynasty. The Vancouver Sun even printed a piece that speculated about which political family might replace the Kennedys: the Clintons? The Bushes? The Obamas?

Fighting back nausea, I turned to the opinion page, where I was happy to read commentary pointing out that, for a Democracy, the US sure has a strange love of aristocratic forms (i.e., “the political dynasty” bullshit). Oh, they are so right.

But there’s more to Kennedy worship than that. Most Americans believe we live in a meritocracy, where anyone can succeed with a lot of hard work, perseverance, brains, confidence, etc. The Kennedys were representative of that “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy in most people’s minds.

But what many Americans forget is that it also takes a great deal of luck and/or connections to make as much money as Joseph Kennedy Sr. did. The political success of his children is proof that money can open doors and create opportunities that aren’t available to, say, a homeless street kid who never graduated from middle school.

Amazingly, the Kennedys seemed to understand that. Old-style Democrats, they knew that folks often need a helping hand to climb the ladder out of poverty, and so they supported social service programs that other politicians (including most Democrats these days) sought to dismantle. They had a self-awareness that most politicians—and nearly all media personalities—lack.

So before we start talking about a dynasty to replace the Kennedys, let’s acknowledge that it’s not a particular political family that we’ll truly miss. It’s a strong and credible champion of the poor: someone who believes in equal access to education, universal access to healthcare, affordable housing, programs to address domestic violence, and services for people with disabilities.

We’re waiting.

Meanwhile, In Russia's Afghanistan...

2009-08-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

While the US government condemns the sham trial and sentencing of Burmese politician and activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the Obama administration is notably silent on the continuing human rights crisis in Chechnya. In the past two weeks, two more activists were killed when a gang of armed men, some dressed in police uniforms, kidnapped and murdered the head of a children’s charity and her husband.

So many social justice and human rights workers have been killed in Chechnya in the past few months that a local radio station in Grozny, the Chechen capital, couldn’t find anyone to interview about the recent killings. Scanning down a list of Chechen charities revealed that every single one of the station’s contacts had been murdered.

The Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is widely considered to be the man to blame for these killings. Kadyrov, a former Chechen separatist, gave up the cause to be Vladimir Putin’s man in Grozny. He was the compromise candidate who was supposed to bring stability to Chechnya; now Human Rights Watch blames him for running death squads that have murdered dozens of activists and journalists. Stability, apparently, comes at a steep price.

Yet Kadyrov is quick to point the finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that Moscow wants to discredit him and destabilize his government. It’s an absurd charge, given that Russia has fought multiple wars in Chechnya in the last decade, and is struggling to put down separatist, Islamic uprisings in Chechnya’s neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan. The last thing Putin wants is to topple Kadyrov’s government.

Kadyrov is obviously working with Putin’s blessing to suppress any and all forms of dissent in Chechnya, even when that dissent falls into the category of peaceful work on behalf of orphaned children. Kadyrov believes that Putin (so fond of his own bloodthirsty reputation) can stand a bit more slander, as long as it diverts the UN and the international media from the truth.

So far the US media has been happy to oblige, as long as US presidents are willing to shake Putin’s hand at international forums. A picture is worth more than a thousand words.

Banking: Where It Pays to Keep Secrets

2009-08-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

US banks posted record losses in the first quarter of this year, which was the worst quarter in history for Wall Street since The Great Depression. In one effort to stem the bleeding, big banks resorted to lobbying the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to repeal the mark-to-market accounting rule.

Simply defined, the mark-to-market rule requires companies to value their assets at the price they would receive for those assets if they tried to sell them on the market right now. Because of the collapse of the credit markets in 2008, the loans and mortgage-backed securities that banks held on their books were worth next to nothing on the market, so they had to value them accordingly. This made their balance sheets look terrible, and their stock prices plummeted. Naturally, banks wanted to declare that their loans were worth more.

So the banking industry lobbied FASB to repeal mark-to-market accounting. Big banks wanted to value their mortgage-backed securities and other loans as if the principle and interest on those loans would be paid back 100%, as if none of their customers would default on their loans.

Shockingly, FASB agreed, allowing banks to use an accounting trick to hide the terrible state of their balance sheets. Unsurprisingly, banks’ second quarter earnings vastly improved. Investors began buying bank stocks again, deeming them a good deal. Many economists declared that the tide had turned on the financial crisis.

But now, FASB is considering reinstituting mark-to-market accounting for all financial products, including loans, mortgage-backed securities, and other derivatives. This is terrible news for the banking industry.

After suffering from a double wave of defaults—first, from subprime mortgage loans given to people with bad credit, then from prime mortgages given to people with good credit who borrowed more money than they could afford—US banks are now getting hit with a third wave of defaults on commercial real estate loans. Commercial loans extended to hotels, malls, retail outlets, and office-building developers have hit a default rate of 7%, approximately double what it was last year.

Economists don’t expect the fall in the commercial loan market to hit bottom for another three years, due to lingering unemployment and lagging consumer spending. This is terrible news for mid-size regional banks, in particular, who invested heavily in loans to commercial real estate developers.

A recent example is this week’s collapse of Colonial Bancorp, the sixth largest bank default in US history. Joining 76 other banks that have defaulted so far this year, Colonial is a sign of things to come. No wonder bank lobbyists are gearing up to inundate FASB with protests against mark-to-market accounting.

Transparency is the enemy, and they make no secret of it.

Is Maliki the New Saddam?

2009-08-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

The only rational justification that the Bush administration ever publically gave for the War in Iraq was the desire to replace a tyrant (Saddam Hussein) with a democratic government. That assertion has always been the hardest one for opponents of the war to counter, and it was the last justification that stood up to any kind of scrutiny. Until this week.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has proposed a list of laws that will do away with most of the democratic reforms in Iraq’s new constitution. The draft laws include the following:

A proposal to legalize a new government body, the State Ministry for National Security, which will run a “political crimes directorate.” The new directorate will monitor political parties and nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) in much the same way Saddam’s Baath party monitored its opponents.

A proposed law to give the Iraqi government complete control over NGO’s, including requiring government review and approval of every single donation and project undertaken, and every office opened and run by all NGO’s. Simple registration of a new NGO (as now required under Iraqi law and the governments of most western nations) is not sufficient, apparently.

A law to put heavy restrictions on Iraqi media that would require all journalists to be licensed by the Iraqi government and would give the government say over who is hired and fired by media organizations. The law also allows the Iraqi government to censor specific stories that would “compromise the security and stability of the country,” and it forbids the use of anonymous sources.

Alaa Talibani, head of the NGO committee in the Iraqi Parliament, said: “So many articles in this law go against what it means to have a free civil society, against the fundamental principles of liberty, and even against our own constitution.”

That, as Saddam Hussein might say, is the point. The US people, however, should rigorously question the whole point of having engaged in a long, bloody conflict just to replace one dictator with another.

[Source: “Iraq’s Maliki Seeks Tighter Media Grip,” Charles Levinson, The Wall Street Journal, 8/8/09.]

Now We Bomb Hospitals?

2009-08-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Assassination is banned by a US federal executive order issued by President Gerald Ford in the 1970’s. The Bush administration, however, resurrected assassination in its the War on Terror. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has not only taken up the torch, but has vastly expanded a CIA program that uses unmanned aerial drones to summarily execute suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders…and anyone who happens to be in the vicinity.

These are not “surgical strikes.” Aerial drones fly at very high altitudes to avoid detection. Some carry cameras to locate suspicious clusters of people, while others carry high-powered bombs to target groups of people in the hope that someone of importance is killed.

Over the weekend, US officials boasted that Baitullah Mehsud, a suspected Taliban leader, had been assassinated by a missile fired from a CIA-controlled aerial done. At first, US officials told the New York Times (and the paper faithfully reported) that Mehsud, a diabetic suffering from kidney failure, was killed while receiving medical treatment on the roof of his father-in-law’s villa. No sooner had the strike been reported than conflicting information emerged.

An Associated Press article appearing in the Seattle Times on Saturday, August 8th, said that Mehsud was killed along with his wife and several bodyguards while hooked up to an intravenous drip and undergoing treatment for “stomach problems.” The Wall Street Journal quoted Pakistani officials saying that Mehsud was “undergoing treatment for a kidney ailment.” Almost certainly he was receiving kidney dialysis at the time—not something that can occur on the roof of his father-in-law’s villa. Also, the article stated that Mehsud was killed when a missile targeted the second-story balcony of a building where he was receiving treatment. No mention was made of any rooftop.

In fact, it appears that Mehsud was killed when the CIA bombed a medical clinic—probably the only facility that offers kidney dialysis in the Waziristan frontier. We can believe with some confidence that his wife and bodyguards were not the only ones killed in the bombing, but medical personnel and other patients were included in the death toll. In addition, anyone who lives in South Waziristan who needs kidney dialysis will now die without access to the complex, sterile equipment and medical personnel required to keep them alive.

Let’s remember what’s been forgotten by US officials and the US press: the bombing of medical facilities is a war crime, a direct violation of international law and the rules of warfare. It doesn’t matter if the enemy is receiving medical treatment at the time. It doesn’t matter if the clinic is treating Hitler or Osama bin Laden, or Baitullah Mehsud, or enemy foot soldiers. Hospitals and clinics are off limits.

Nevertheless, US officials were jubilant. They happily theorized that the death of Mehsud would cause a fatal fracture among the Waziristan tribes who’ve been helping Mehsud target the Pakistani government. Scholars of Pakistan and observers on the ground in Waziristan had a different view. In the Seattle Times report, Karim Mehsud, a lawyer in Peshawar who had met Baitullah Mehsud, was quoted as saying, “Another Baitullah will emerge. This is an ideological war, this is not a local problem.” Almost everyone agrees that Baitullah Mehsud was responsible for focusing his tribe’s attention away from Aghanistan and towards the Pakistani government; now that he’s gone, his 10,000-man guerilla army is free to reunite with the Taliban and once again attack US troops in Afghanistan.

More than 360 people have been killed in over 40 drone attacks in Pakistan this year. Pakistan has publicly condemned each and every one of these attacks as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. But both Pakistan’s foreign minister and the chief of its Interior Ministry have hailed the assassination of Mehsud as a major success. The Pakistani military has been preparing (with dread) for a offensive against tribal elements in the rugged, mountainous region of Waziristan, spurred on by heavy urging from the US government. The Pakistani government is now hopeful they can avoid the effort and expense altogether, much to the Pentagon’s dismay.

Not only is our government engaging in assassination prohibited by US law, but it’s also engaging in international war crimes, for the sake of expediency, and with the excuse that it will “save American lives” and “help end the war in Afghanistan.” Nothing could be further from the truth. When you assassinate an enemy’s leader, someone will inevitably take his place. In the case of Baitullah Mehsud, who’s been ill for some time now, the preparations for succession are probably already complete. A new leader of the Mehsud tribe will arise swiftly and without most of the infighting so ardently expected by CIA officials.

One more thing we can easily surmise: the man who replaces Baitullah Mehsud will be more radical and more bloodthirsty. And he’ll be looking for revenge.

Sources:

“Taliban leader in Pakistan reportedly dead,” Joby Warrick, Joshua Partlow, and Haq Nawaz Khan, Associated Press, reprinted in The Seattle Times, 8/8/09

“U.S. Drone Kills Chief of Taliban in Pakistan,” Matthew Rosenberg, Zahid Hussain, and Siobhan Gorman, The Wall Street Journal, 8/8/09.

The Program Only an Idiot Could Love

2009-08-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

All the hype about the cash for clunkers program, that it’s “the best economic stimulus we’ve undertaken yet” are based on the estimate that consumer spending drives 60-70% of all economic activity in the US, if not the world. So any tiny impetus for consumer spending, even a mere $3 billion worth, will have an enormous impact, far greater than the hundreds of billions of dollars approved in the Economic Stimulus Spending Act. Or so the reasoning goes.

The bulk of the money in the Economic Stimulus Spending Act was approved for “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects. Unfortunately, many of those projects are still waiting for the first shovel of dirt to be turned over. Time’s a-wasting. The construction season will be over soon, and it’s becoming clear that most of those projects wont’ get underway until next spring.

Hence the excitement over the cash for clunker program. A tiny blip of consumer spending! Let us rejoice!

But not so fast. The Federal Reserve and the Commerce Department reported last week that, in June, consumer borrowing fell for a fifth straight month. The US public is using its cash to pay down its debts, not to spend. Economists expected a decline of $4.1 billion in consumer credit in June; the actual total was $10.3 billion, almost double the May decline of $5.4 billion. Credit card use in June dropped by $5.3 billion, the tenth monthly decline in a row, a record for the US economy.

Americans are paying down their debts, which is making the US economy suffer. Nevertheless, we could argue that this is a good sign for individual US households, except for one sobering fact: total personal debt still lingers at $2.503 trillion (not counting mortgage debt and home improvement loans). We all have a long way to go to pay off our credit cards, student loans, and auto loans.

Which is why cash for clunkers may be a good deal for the US economy (at least in the short term), but it’s a very bad one for US households, which don’t need to take on new auto loans right now—no matter how nice it is to get a government rebate check. This is yet another way that the Republicans’ anti-tax mantra has damaged the American psyche; we will do anything to get something back from the IRS, even if it kills us.

And let’s not forget the cost to society and the environment to junk all those clunkers (a requirement of the program) instead of keeping the perfectly good ones running and recycling the real clunkers for parts. Meanwhile the auto industry is gearing up to use dwindling resources to make new cars to fulfill the demand created by the cash for clunkers program.

Replacing a 1999 17-mpg pickup truck with a new 2009 model that gets 18-mpg makes no sense whatsoever. That $3 billion in taxpayer money could have been spent much more efficiently if the government had randomly handed out $4,500 checks. Or given the money to state and local governments to plug their budget holes, to prevent layoffs in state and county governments, to provide homeless services, to fund more transit services (which would truly help the environment), to pay teacher salaries, or to prevent billions in government service cuts all over the country.

Cash for clunkers? What idiot came up with that one? Probably someone who was taking money from the auto industry, the only real beneficiary of the program.

By the way, both of Washington state’s senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, voted in favor of the program. They need to explain why.

[Source: “U.S. Consumers Reduce Debt for Fifth Month in a Row,” Jeff Bater, The Wall Street Journal, 8/8/09.]

What will hurt the poor: higher bus fares

2009-08-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

Forget the bag fee as a burden to the poor. What we should really be incensed about is the King County Council’s proposals to raise money for Metro bus service. Their brilliant ideas have included abolishing the ride free zone downtown—widely used by the poor to navigate from one downtown service provider to another—to raising bus fares by 25-cents per year for the next four years. Yes, by 2013, riders would be paying $3 for a one-zone, peak hour trip and $2.75 for a one-zone, off-peak trip. If you live in low-income housing in the cheaper parts of the county outside of Seattle, your fare will be $3.50 for a peak hour trip.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Poor people ride the bus because it’s cheaper than maintaining a clunker that breaks down all the time. It’s cheaper than gas. It’s cheaper than car insurance. It’s cheaper than parking and new tires and radiator fluid and oil changes and new brake pads.

But it’s not so cheap that people don’t feel the sting when fares go up, and they will if the county council passes this insane increase. Council members Julia Patterson, Reagan Dunn, Kathy Lambert, and Pete von Reichbauer need to hear from you:

Julia.patterson@kingcounty.gov or 206-296-1005
Reagan.dunn@kingcounty.gov or 206-296-1009
Kathy.Lambert@kingcounty.gov or 206-296-1003
Pete.vonreichbauer@kingcounty.gov or 206-296-1007

Of course, these are all representatives from conservative, rural and suburban districts on the south and east side of the county. You might also want to contact the other county council members and ask them to out-vote this coterie. Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine, in particular, are so busy running their campaigns for King County Executive that they’re probably not paying close attention to what their colleagues are doing. Visit the king county council website at www.kingcounty.gov/council/Councilmembers.aspx to get the complete contact information for all council members.

The Bag Fee and The Poor

2009-08-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

Edmonds has become the first city in our state to ban plastic grocery bags. The Edmonds City Council considered a 20-cent fee similar to Seattle’s Referendum 1 (which is up for a vote on August 18th), but opted instead for an outright ban. They’re joining the distinguished ranks of other cities who’ve chosen to ban nuisance plastic, like Washington DC, San Francisco (which banned the bags in 2007) and Los Angeles (whose ban will go into effect next year). A few nations around the world have banned or discouraged their use: France and Germany (“Old Europe”), India, and…you’re gonna cringe…China has also seen the light. So what are we waiting for?

Well, we might be waiting for progressive, social justice groups to support this measure. Most have been unwilling to weigh in, probably because they buy the argument that the 20-cent fee will impact the poor more heavily than the rich. Possibly true. Possibly not.

It didn’t help that Danny Westneat wrote in his Seattle Times column on July 29th that the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP) is against the bag fee. They did an informal survey of their clients, which entailed handing out reusable bags to food recipients and requiring that they bring them back on future trips to the food bank. CAMP found that the poor have a hard time remembering to bring back their reusable bags.

But there were problems with their informal survey. For one thing, CAMP didn’t say how many of their clients don’t speak or understand English well; this can effect whether or not their clients really understand that they should reuse the bags CAMP furnished to them. The same is true for folks who are mentally ill or cognitively impaired. It may take a few tries before these folks grasp the concept. So do we give up just because they don’t get it right the first time? Most people don’t remember to take their reusable bags with them the first couple of times they go to the grocery store—until they get in the habit of remembering to grab them before they head out the door. The poor are no different in that respect.

There were other problems with the survey. Food banks often see a high turnover in clientele. How many of the people who showed up without reusable bags ever received one from CAMP in the first place?

In addition, the survey doesn’t take into account the willingness of green progressives to regularly donate reusable bags for use in food banks, homeless shelters, and other programs that serve the poor. Nor did Westneat mention that part of the money raised through the bag fee will be used to purchase reusable bags for the poor. You might argue that those dollars could be better spent buying food or other services for low income people, but why does it have to be a zero sum game? Can’t we help the poor and the environment at the same time? I think Seattle residents are humane enough to do both, even in tough economic times.

Dark Pools and Other Financial Arcana

2009-08-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

“Dark pools” and “flash trading” sound like terms you’d find in a Harry Potter movie. But if you work for a large investment bank, these terms are as familiar as stocks and bonds and the NYSE. Too bad mom and pop investors don’t know what they are or how they can affect the value of your savings. The Wall Street Journal defines dark pools as “private markets where large orders are transacted.” [Source: “Traders Blamed for Oil Spike,” Ianthe Jeanne Dugan and Alistair MacDonald, WSJ, 7/28/09.]

Usually used by investment banks, hedge funds, and mutual fund brokers to disguise large purchases and sales of stocks and mutual fund shares (the trades are undertaken anonymously and don’t appear on any public exchange), dark pools are privately run and not subject to regulation by any governmental authority. Recently the SEC has recommended that dark pools register with the government and provide basic information on their activities. The companies that own and run dark pools are largely in favor of this mild increase in scrutiny, probably because they fear the SEC and Congress will close them down entirely if they don’t submit to some form of regulation.

The companies that utilize dark pools to avoid price run-ups or steep declines are resisting the government’s move to bring their activities to light. They argue that dark pools smooth price swings and thereby benefit small investors who would be afraid to invest in a more volatile market. But that’s the very best reason to regulate or shut down dark pools entirely. As with mortgage fraud, the federal regulators must go after any mechanism or scheme that makes the act of investing in the stock market and/or mutual funds seem safer than it really is. If people fully understand the risks of what they’re doing, they will make better choices for themselves. At the very least, we can hope that fewer people will unwittingly commit financial suicide by borrowing money on a line of credit or taking out a second mortgage in order to pour that cash into the stock market.

I can’t even pretend to understand how flash trading works. But I do know that it’s one of many strategies that takes advantage of the speed-of-light trading that’s evolved since the computerization of the markets. With the introduction of the Internet, broadband, fiber optics, and other technological marvels, high-volume traders can now make vast sums of money on the fraction-of-a-penny difference between the millisecond when an order to buy or sell a security is placed and when that order is actually fulfilled. Money can also be made on how trades are routed through our vast computer system, because vultures wait at every step of the way to skim fractional cents. Not so very long ago—about ten or twelve years in the past—skimming fractional cents was considered fraud. Not anymore. Now it’s considered the right of every financial behemoth; a right that must be ardently protected...if you believe the big financial firms that are lobbying Congress and the SEC to stop any proposal that would ban flash trading.

WMD: Made in Washington State

2009-07-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

The Sunday (July 26) issue of the Seattle Times carried an article entitle "Soaring success: Drones lift Gorge economy," an ode to the latest US-made weapon of mass destruction: unmanned, aerial drones. Remember when Colin Powell stood before the UN and condemned Saddam Hussein for building unmanned aerial drones? That's a weapon of mass destruction, boys! Let's bomb the shit out of him!

Meanwhile, US companies were busy building the first generation of aerial drones. Today, the Predator drone is routinely used to bomb villages where Taliban militants are thought to be hiding, or to assassinate suspected Al Qaeda leaders and their "sympathizers" (the latest terminology to connote innocent bystanders). As of mid-July of this year, the US military had launched 40 drone strikes in Western Pakistan alone, which caused the Pakistani government to issue a formal protest with the US State Department. The Predator is also used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A company called Insitu, based in Klickitat County here in Washington State, recently churned out its 1,000th aerial drone. Insitu was founded in 1994 and has 15 separate offices in the Columbia Gorge area where 630 workers make drones for Boeing, which purchased Insitu in 2008. In fact, Insitu is one of Boeing's most profitable divisions...and a non-unionized one, too.

Insitu also says that its main product is not a missile wielding weapon; no, they build the ScanEagle, an aerial surveillance drone that isn't big enough to carry missiles. Instead, the ScanEagle carries high-resolution and/or infrared cameras that help pinpoint where people live so the Predator drone can bomb them to kingdom come. Big difference.

A Million Bucks to Defeat the Bag Fee

2009-07-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

The American Chemistry Council (Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobil, etc.) just announced this week that they're pouring more than $1 million into a campaign to defeat the plastic shopping bag tax that will be on the ballot in Seattle on August 18th. That's the most money ever poured into a Seattle ballot measure in history, according to the Seattle Times. All to defeat a 20 cent fee that most retailers think is a good idea. C'mon, people, the cost of these bags is already figured into the price you pay for your food, clothing, and other stuff you buy; the tax will go to fund new environmental initiaves here in Seattle. Who loses from that? Get this: only big retailers will have to remit the tax to the city. Small businesses will be able to keep 100% of it.

The argument that the bag fee will be onerous to the poor is just wrong. I've done a little personal experiment. I committed six months ago to stop using any more plastic bags for my groceries. I paid $3 for three reusable bags. Note: one reusable bag holds the equivalent of what three to four flimsy disposable plastic bags can hold (and sometimes more). In six months, I've used only two disposable plastic bags (a 40-cent expenditure if the bag-fee becomes law), I've made fewer trips to the grocery store (because I can carry more stuff in my reusable bags), and I've yet to wear out or tear even one of my reusable bags. Is it hard to remember to bring reusable bags to the grocery store with me? Are you kidding me? If I can remember to take my wallet with me, I can certainly remember to grab a couple of bags on the way out the door.

As for people who want to use those flimsy plastic bags for garbage sacks, oh please. The whole point is to keep these things out of the waste stream because that's where they do the most damage! Own up to your responsibility as an adult and recognize the impact your choices have on our environment. Recycle and compost (if you can) to reduce your waste, and buy an environmentally-friendly alternative garbage bag.

The city can and should encourage environmentally responsible behavior. Kudos to the city council members who supported the bag fee. All of them did, except for Jan Drago, who wants to be our next mayor. Maybe we should call her Ms. Yuck and make a green sticker with her face on it.

Seattle Head-Tax Repeal

2009-07-20T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times, in all its kiss-The-Rich glory, led its editorial page today with an opinion piece entitled "Hey, City Hall: What's the holdup on head-tax repeal?" The "head-tax" is the Times' name for the Employee Tax that charges a tiny fee ($25) to each business for each employee that doesn't bike, walk, take the bus, or commute to work in an environmentally friendly way. In other words, if you drive and park to work in Seattle, your boss has to pay $25 per year.

As taxes go, it's progressive in both its effects and its collection: small businesses are given an exemption from the tax, and it encourages businesses to encourage their employees to carpool, bus, bike, and walk to work. Hell, in my workplace, we even have a guy who longboards to work. (Google it and watch a video of longboarders. Who wouldn't want to travel that way if they could?)

In the Times editorial, they bitch and moan about how it's taking the city council forever to repeal the damn tax. Oh, boo hoo that some of the city council members want to wait until the budget discussions start in the fall. That's called "common sense." You know, the kind that makes a reasonable person say, "gosh, maybe we should wait to see how much money is in the city coffers before we repeal a tax that's not particularly burdensome and helps pay for streets and sidewalks." That seems reasonable to me. But I don't work at the Seattle Times, obviously.

Welcome to my blog

2009-07-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

I've been writing about politics for a long time, in a very structured way, through my articles for various left-wing, progressive publications. I'm welcoming the chance to be more informal here, and to write more frequently.