2010 Books of the Year

The New York Times Book Review recently came out with its 2010 Books of the Year, and it is not surprising that my list didn't quite match up with theirs. It's not altogether easy for me to come up with a definitive list as I only get to read 25-30 books a year, but during 2010 there were some good ones. My reading is disproportiately nonfiction. Generally, to absorb and appreciate long, complex novels you have to devote large chunks of uninterrupted time to them, and that is hard to do with full time work, a spouse, children and all the other accoutrements of adult lilfe. Nonetheless, I did try my hand at some contemporary fiction this year and came up with a couple beauties. Here are my recommendations for the best books of the year in 2010.

NONFICTION

We are living in the aftermath of the worst financial catastrophe in a couple of generations, and I have gobbled up books on the topic. I read 13 Bankers, Too Big To Fail, In Fed We Trust, and a number of others (although I managed to miss The Big Short by Michael Lewis which received great reviews). It is not surprising that my nonfiction book of the year and runner up focused on this topic. My nonfiction book of the year was This Time Is Different by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. This is a copiously researched book that studied financial panics across time. This is not an easy read. It overlays quantitative analysis and historical analysis, and its approach is very thorough. Of course, you need to be a bit of a data junkie to fully appreciate this book-- a degree from MIT or The University of Chicago is helpful. But if you can wade through it, you will have a much better understanding of how the U.S. financial system and economy ran into a wall. The punchline is that the kind of crisis we experienced is infrequent in U.S. history, but not uncommon worldwide. They follow certain patterns and take a long time to recover from. They show that, "banking crises almost invariably lead to sharp declines in tax revenues...on average, during the modern era, real government debt rises by 86 percent during the three years following a banking crisis." Sound familiar? And they eerily predict the next leg of this crisis, "In some cases domestic debt is eliminated through high inflation; in other cases, governments default on external debt." Any wonder why many economists are nervous about the current round of quantitative easing? Although laden with charts and graphs and data, This Time Is Different illuminated and put into context our current malaise, and it is deserving of my vote for nonfiction book of the year.

The runner up and a close second was Fault Lines by University of Chicago professor Raghuram Rajan. Fault Lines connects the dots between the widening gap between rich and poor in the U.S. and the financial meltdown. Rajan sees the radical loosening of credit and real estate boom as a deliberate attempt on the part of government to provide the appearance of an improving lifestyle in the face of stagnant and falling wages in lower income brackets. As the world bid up the wages of highly educated, highly skilled wages, it depressed those at the lower end. By liberalizing credit (and creating the housing bubble) through Fannie, Freddie, CRA and FHA, people at the lower end of the spectrum were able to improve their lot in life. Until the bubble burst. Rajan is true to is free market Chicago roots, "A forced equalization of wages that disregards the marginal contributions of different workers will deaden incentives and lead to a misallocation of resources and effort." However, Rajan does not marginalize government and is not blind to the strain on society and policymakers that the growing gulf between rich an poor is causing. He offers no magic bullets, but places a large emphasis on fixing our horrendous K-12 education system. Overall, Rajan presents an interesting synopsis of the roots of our current financial crisis and deserves to be one of the best books of 2010.

FICTION

My vote for fiction book of the year goes to David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. The book takes us to 1799 to a trading post of the Dutch East India company in Japan, and the tightly controlled and monitored intersection between East and West. While Japan permitted a limited amount of trade, it restricted the import of religion, culture and mores. The protagonist is a young clerk that seeks to build his fortune there, but gets tangled with a Japanese woman and the issues that cause friction between cultures. The book is richly textured, meticulously researched, and a joy to read. It also points out why the Kindle has not yet taken over my entire life. This book has a beautiful cover and binding and textured pages and reminds us that reading remains a sensual experience, even in the electronic 21st century. I highly recommend that for this one at least, you skip the Kindle version and buy the book.

My runner up in fiction is Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer. While it received mixed reviews generally, I liked it. I'm a sucker for stories that involve a life changing random event that you could easily see yourself responding in the way the protagonist does. In this case, the main character Paul Phillips stumbles upon another man with his dog while on a walk in the woods, and the man begins to brutally abuse his dog. Phillips intervenes and a fight ensues and in the scuffle, Phillips kills the dog abuser. Because Phillips knows that he cannot use self defense as a defense- he was defending the dog, he does not report the incident to the authorities. Man in the Woods reminded me of Deliverance-- the killer was morally justified in his actions, but the authorities probably wouldn't see it that way, and that sets up the tension that permeates the book. I liked Spencer's book very much, especially the nature writing and was one of the best books I read this year.

Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and happy reading.

First Love

This is the first weekend that I have not attended a football game in person since late August. The withdrawal symptoms are starting to set in. Christmas is but a couple of weeks away and it is four months until I can attend my son's spring game at Columbia University in New York.

This year, I was able to attend most of my son's j.v. games as well as the Columbia varsity games (although they finished a quite unspectacular 4-6). In addition, I attended several high school games, a Division III playoff game in which the son of a friend of mine was playing, and a game at The University of Chicago on a weekend on which the university honored Jay Berwanger on the 75th anniversary of his being awarded the Heisman Trophy. This doesn't count the games I caught on T.V. or streaming video.

Some families are police families. Some are military families. Ours is a football family. My son is playing in the Ivy League and his two cousins are playing in DII and DII respectively. I played DIII football as did my brother. Both of us were captains and all conference in college. Our other brother played high school ball with me and blocked for me when I was a senior and he was a sophomore. I have told my son on several occassions that I have loved the game of football longer than I have loved his mother (carefully noting that I didn't say MORE than his mother, just longer). My uncle played football, so this is our third generation in the game. When we first got married, my wife made me vow not to push my son into playing. Despite my best attempts at being as neutral as Switzerland, the game found him. He was 6'2" and 245 lbs by the time he was in 8th grade, so it didn't take much for a mutual attraction to develop.


What is it about the game that is so consuming? Why do we love it so?


There are, I think, several reasons. First, is the unique nature of the contact. The hitting is intense and violent. It takes a certain amount of physical courage to tackle a 230 lb fullback running at you full tilt or block a blitzing linebacker. Not anyone can do it. I remember a really fast kid from the track team that came out for wide receiver one year in college. He did great for the first three days when there was no contact. He ran by defensive backs and caught several touchdown passes. But after the first day of hitting, when someone cleaned his clock after he caught a pass, he turned his gear in. It wasn't for him.

Second, the game is usually outdoors in the elements. You play in the heat. You play in the cold. You play in the rain. You play in the snow. There is something primordially gratifying about that. Now that only a small percentage of our society works outdoors, there is something about being in the elements, and having the weather be part of the game that takes us back to our boyhoods.

Third, it is a tribal experience. I believe there is something basically tribal about men. It is part of our genetic coding. And even if there are people on your team that you don't particularly care for, you need to put those differences aside and figure out how to cooperate to get a job done. And along with tribalism, it is egalitarian. Race, religion, wealth, what your daddy did and your family's standing are irrelevant on a football field. All that matters is your ability and willingness to commit and work hard for the team. Once you are in the huddle, there is a unique bond of brotherhood that forms, and I suppose it is not unlike a unit in the army. These bonds often last a lifetime. Last summer, we organized a reunion of my college football team and guys came in from all over the country to attend (one travelled from East Timor). Many of us had not seen each other in 30 years, and it was amazing to see us pick right up where we left off.


Fourth, it is of finite duration. Unlike many other sports--golf, tennis, even basketball or baseball, football ends at the age of 21 or 22 for most guys. There are no pickup games and flag football bears no relation to real football. Most players are aware that your playing days are short, and that awareness concentrates the mind. It is a microcosm of life itself. We know that it will end someday, and the game teaches us that we have to enjoy the moment, for there will come a time when we can't play anymore.

Finally, it is a uniquely American game. While the NFL has attempted to expose Europe and Japan to football, it has not really caught on. The object of the game is to go the full length of the field and score-- symbolic of Manifest Destiny, so I don't think the Europeans really get it at a gut level. It is a complex game. Underneath the violent surface is a game as elegantly strategic as chess. It is strength, power and violence. But it is also move and countermove. Jab, feign and attack.


But what I like most about football at the high school and college level is that it captures our youth at its very best. The papers are full of stories about kids getting involved in drugs and gangs. But football catches them at their very best, striving to be the best at something.

Recently, football has been at the center of some controversy, and many are wondering aloud if the game's survival may be at stake. Concussions and head injuries are making it harder to justify the sport. Cris Collinsworth, former NFL player and analyst wondered out loud if he wants his kids to play. Last year a Penn player that committed suicide was found to have a brain injury resulting from the repetitive hits. More reports are surfacing about ex-NFL players developing dementia at higher rates than the general population. Those are serious issues, and more research needs to be done. Hopefully, this risk can be dealt with through rule changes and better equipment.

Despite the risks, it's a great game and I can't wait for spring ball.

Hope

"Steady, but not spectacular growth," was the prognosis of Raghuram Rajan at the U of C Booth School of Business Forecast Luncheon this week. This forecast was remarkably consistent among the forecast offered by three economists-- Erik Hurst, Randy Kroszner, along with Rajan. As we struggle to pull ourselves off the mat from the worst downturn in a couple of generations, we are finally beginning to see some sunlight.

Kroszner, former member of the Federal Reserve, credited Ben Bernanke for keeping us out of a 1930's like depression and is perplexed by the criticism that has been leveled at Bernanke as of late. "No good deed goes unpunished in Washington," noted Kroszner. He further expanded on Truman's aphorism that "if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog," to "if you want a friend in Washington, buy 2 dogs because one will turn on you." While we will have steady growth next year due largely to business investment and productivity growth, Kroszner believes it will be subdued because of tax uncertainty and government spending that is 2% higher than the 50 year range.

Rajan was the most guarded of the three. He believes that political risks are increasing, and that gridlock is not good with a deficit at 10% of GDP. Europe, he said, is an example of what happens when politics breaks down. He agreed with Kroszner that the Fed did a great job of averting a catastrophe in '08, but is worried about QE2 and its potential for igniting inflation.

Perhaps the most interesting comments were given by Erik Hurst, who presented data to suggest why the recovery will be slow. We are building back assets after a deflation in real estate and equity assets. This recession is fundamentally different than the big recessions of '74 and '81-82. Unemployment has huge variations. Not surprisingly, states that participated in the real estate boom and subsequent rollback (FL, NV, AZ) have the highest unemployment rates. All of these construction workers and other workers related to real estate will need to be realloccaed. He asserts that it took 6-10 years to draw these workers into real estate related industries and will take time to work through.

Most sobering, Hurst noted that each country that has experienced a real estate boom and bust throughout financial history has experienced no real recovery in housing for a long time. Hurst projects that housing will experience no greater than a 0-1% growth for a decade.

The good news is that we appear to be poised to crawl out from under The Great Recession. The bad news is that we appear to have learned little from the crisis. Tim Geithner envisioned a continued large role for the government in housing. Fannie, Freddie and CRA still survive. Financial reform did not effectively deal with the "Too Big to Fail" and we are a month away from year end and we don't know what taxes will be like in 2011.

Someone asked the panel who the chief spokeperson was for the free enterprise system. There is no one of the stature of Stigler, Hayek or Friedman. But Hurst noted that those giants had largely won the argument and today's position is more nuanced. There is much broader consensus today that there is some role for government but it needs largly to ensure that incentives for the proper allocation of capital need to be reinforced.

It's too bad that, with respect to residential real estate, government permitted those incentives to go horribly awry.

Dumbest Quote by a Nobel Prize Winner Ever

I read Paul Krugman's (that chronic curmudgeonly malcontent), evaluation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform today. You know, the bi-partisan (wink-wink) commission that has illlustrious thinkers on it like Jan "collectivize America" Schakowsky and Alan Simpson, who I thought had passed away some years ago. Of course, while the rest of us are worried that what this commission has in mind is to reduce our military to the size of Guatemala's and to cut out the home interest mortgage deduction (I'd love to see the econometric models they used to demonstrate the effect on the economy and tax revenues on that one), Krugman's main complaint, as usual is that this commission benefits the rich and erodes the social safety net. Really? By reducing corporate tax rates and making our economy more competitive? By raising eligibility for social socurity to 69 and make people more self-reliant until then? The horror of it all.

But my favorite line in his op-ed is his complaint that, "why is a commission charged with finding every possible route to a balanced budget setting an upper (but not lower) limit on revenue?" This reveals his fundamental misunderstanding of government and its nature. Why would you set a lower limit on revenue? Since when did government shrink voluntarily? Unless vigilantly pushed back, government wants to grow and grow. That's what it does, and it has done so in spades since team Obama took over. It never shrinks without yeoman effort. As I mentioned in my previous blog, for example, home ownership is now more affordable than it has been in decades. Have we seen one governmental department that is devoted to "affordable housing" at any national, state, or local level disbanded? Not a chance. Those happy little bureaucrats in their little departments continue to trot merrily along, funding intact, as if the housing bubble never happened.

The notion of setting a lower limit on revenues is superfluous. We're not on the brink of becoming like Greece because we have spent too little as a percentage of GDP, nor has that ever been a problem. Only a hard cap will prevent us from a welfare state that threatens to swallow enough of GDP to destroy any incentive to work hard, save, and take risks. A lower threshold is a bit of a sick joke.

I'll start taking this commission a little more seriously when it is chaired by Chris Christie.

Sand in the Gears

Last night's election can only be read as an utter rejection of Obamunism. Despite the claims from folks like Obama and John Kerry that the electorate is scared and isn't thinking straight, or that the issues are too complex for voters to understand, voters were thinking clearly enough to sweep the tax, spend, and regulate crowd out of the House and nearly out of the Senate. Obama's drive to transform us from an independent, entrepreneurial, resourceful, pull-yourself up-by-your-own-bootstraps people to a docile, dependent, risk-averse society was entirely rejected last night. There were two messages that were sent by voters last night--one for Obama and his neo-Euro-socialists, but an equally strong message for Republicans.

The obvious first message was directed toward the Obama administration. Voters attempted in every way possible to tell him that the '08 election was NOT a mandate to put bearded Marxists in charge of every aspect of government mechanisms, and it was NOT a mandate for a foreign policy designed by George Soros. But that is what Obama reached for. He put academic leftists at the controls of all of the departments charged with carrying out policy: Kathleen Sebelius, Carol Browner, Cass Sunstein, Ken "we're up against 200 years of laissez faire capitalism" Feinberg, and Donald Berwick. In foreign affairs, Obama turned a cold shoulder to loyal democratic allies like Great Britain and Israel, while his staff sent birthday greetings to Ahmadinejad and hugged Hugo Chavez, all the while apologizing for America's arrogance. The message from the bullhorn of the American voters last night was: "We're Americans. We're proud of our heritage and our special place in the world. We're not Europeans. We're don't want this much government shoved down our throats." It was that simple. The most common comment I hear from voters that occupy the middle of the road to conservative voters space is, "He scares me." Last night was all about throwing sand in his gears. Most Americans are very uncomfortable with a future constructed by Obama because it is completely foreign and unmoored from our past.

But just as there was a message for Obama, there was an equally strong message for Republicans. There is no mandate. The reason Republicans were rejected in '08 are still around. Republicans are as guilty as Democrats at propagating crony capitalism. They have not developed well-thought out positions to attack the problems of health care, financial reform, entitlement and budget reform. I had an uneasy feeling when John Boehner spoke last night-- it sounded a little like back to the future to me.

Fortunately, Republicans are developing a bright young bench that is poised to replace the old guard. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner need to begin to cede power and influence to the new crew-- Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Eric Cantor, and Michelle Bachmann. This is were the future of the Republican party lies.

The second lesson for Republicans is that even in a wave year, you have to run good candidates. It is a shame that we lost Delaware and Nevada. Next to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid's departure would have been most gratifying. But Republicans failed to capture those seats because they ran poor, flawed candidates. In other states where the tea party supported candidates were strong (Rubio and Toomey), voters embraced them.

Overall, I was pleased with the results last night. It's no accident that seats held by Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama have fallen into Republican hands. But Boehner and crew are mistaken if they commit the same error as Obama by misreading the mandate.

Eating Your Own Children

Juan Williams was fired by NPR (letters stand for No Personal Responsibility) last week for admitting that he felt "nervous" when he boarded airplanes with Muslims in traditional Muslim garb. NPR summarily fired him for that "bigoted" comment.

Mr. Williams is one of my favorite liberal commentators. While I often disagree with him, he takes a reasonable approach to the discussion and has a good sense of humor. He's someone I'd love to have dinner with and have an engaging discussion with. I am outraged by NPR's abrupt termination of him.

First, Mr. Williams was merely vocalizing an emotion, a visceral reaction, not something entirely under one's control. He in no way indicated that his raw emotion would precipitate any change in behavior, and indeed expressed regret that he sometimes harbored this feeling. Truly mature and adult people often have emotions that are not acted upon; in fact, most of us adults spend a great deal of energy in work and at home mastering our basest instincts. It's called being human.

Second, this emotion is not without some rational basis in fact. It is the sympathetic nervous system reacting to a perceived elevated risk or threat. Now, one can argue that this is an overreaction to the probability of harm. The probability of dying or being harmed in a terrorist attack in your lifetime is very small--less than your chances of dying from a lightning strike. But we do know some inconvenient facts. While not all Muslims are terrorists, virtually all terrorist attacks on Westerners over the past quarter century have been Muslim. We also know that airplanes are a weapon of choice for Muslim terrorists. Third, we know (despite Eric Holder's feigned ignorance), that some proportion of Muslims are motivated to engage in such acts by a radical and fundamentalist interpretation of the Qu'ran. Given those facts, it is not bigoted for someone to have a visceral reaction to someone in Muslim garb at the airport. But it is important to note that Mr. Williams DID NOT say that he would refuse to fly on the same plane as someone in Muslim garb nor did he say that because of this nervous feeling, we should subject such individuals to heightened scrutiny (although many commentators believe that this might be warranted). All he did was communicate an emotion. And he was fired for it.

Did he and do we engage in religious bigotry? I think nothing could be farther from the truth. Do you realize that we tolerate a fundamentalist religious sect that demands of its followers that they live as they did a century and a half ago? They dress in strict garb. They observe strict mores and customs and rarely marry outside their own group. They are very devoted to their faith, and they reject modern technology and society. That sect would be the Amish. Yet, if an Amish man showed up at the airport (assuming his religion permitted flight), neither Mr. Williams or even the biggest bigot south of Archie Bunker would be nervous. Why is that? Despite their rigid religious beliefs and their desire to live and dress in ways that are not mainstream, no members of this sect seek to impose themselves on others or seek to impose their religion on others through violent means. As a consequence, despite being out of the mainstream, the Amish are left alone to live their lives quietly and peacefully. Unfortunately some proportion of Muslims has chosen a different path.

The left denies the association. They deny the existence of political Islam. We have an attorney general that cannot even utter the phrase "radical Islam." We have people that walk out of discussions as guests on "The View" did when Bill O'Reilly asserted the fact that Muslims attacked us on 9/11. The unfortunate fact is that there wasn't a Catholic, Hindu, Jew, or Buddhist among the 19 hijackers. The Fort Hood shooter was a Muslim. The Times Square Bomber was a Muslim. The "underpants bomber" was a Muslim. Did Williams comment really reflect irrational bigotry. No. The worst that can be said of him is that he miscalibrated the relative increase in the probability of a threat. But to deny the increase in the threat is to deny reality.

Further, let's take another hypothetical. Let's assume that Juan Williams said, "I'm a devout Catholic and my twelve year old son was asked to go on a religious retreat with about 20 other young boys and 5 or 6 young priests in the White Mountains for a week, and I am feeling uneasy about that." Would NPR similarly have fired him for his bigoted comment? After all, only a small percentage of priests have been found to engage in unseemly conduct. Not a chance. They would have all been nodding their heads in sympathy. There would be no outrage over religious bigotry there. You can bet on it.

NPR should be ashamed of itself for silencing a reasonable, rational and articulate commentator. The threat of radical Islam is real and presents very difficult problems for an open, democratic and tolerant society. It is absolutely essential that we fully and fairly and openly address all aspects of the issues that radical Islam presents, not pretend that it doesn't exist. The P.C. crowd at NPR swung an authoritarian club at free and open discourse.

One could imagine the NPR bunch around about 140 years ago. Imagine a pioneer family seeing a group of 20 or so Native American braves on horseback on the horizon, thundering toward their ranch. Under NPR standards, the pioneers would have been harshly taken to task for their bigotry when they unlocked the gun cabinet.

I doubt I'll be real receptive at pledge time this year.

Peter

I heard Peter Orszag, President Obama's ex-budget director speak at the Association for Corporate Growth's Capital Connection (ACG) in Chicago last week. The ACG is a trade organization largely catering to private equity firms and companies that seek to grow through acquisition--- that is, wealth creators and job generators.

He presented a rather grim view of the budget, stating his belief that there is actually little room on the spending side for real reductions. The military consists of 2/3 personnel and 1/3 systems and hardware costs, and since defense experts do not believe it is advisable to shrink our forces at this time and because systems have long lead times, little can be taken out of the military. Entitlement program changes, he believes, may be phased in over time, but little can be done about current retirees. He does believe that tax increases are necessary but advocates leaving the Bush tax cuts in place for two years and then allow them to automatically expire. Orszag failed to differentiate between extending the tax cuts for "the rich" from the middle class, and ducked the question about raising taxes when the economy is so weak (so the liberal argument goes, "well, we raised taxes under Clinton and got a boom."). Yes, but they did so at the front end of a once in a lifetime tech boom, not while the economy was straining to crawl out of a once in a lifetime financial catastrophe.

In addressing health care, he asserted that "the bill addresses costs more than is popularly believed," but expressed disappointment that the bill did not address tort reform (although he claimed that research shows that malpractice claims to not significantly affect costs).

While optimistic about the long term vibrancy of the U.S. economy, he said that 2012 would be "bumpy" and was bearish about prospects for the U.S. budget, given the partisanship that will undoubtedly be present in Washington after the elections.

Overall, Mr. Orszag left me a little flat. He was better after he got the obligatory bland jokes out of the way at the beginning. He attempted to steer a neutral political course in his remarks, but as a result, left unanswered the important questions about the overall efficacy of the stimulus, the effect on growth, employment, productivity, and innovaation that all these tax increases and regulatory burdens being foisted on business will have, and said nothing about financial reform.

Afterwards, I asked one professional what he thought the punchline of Orszag's remarks was, and he replied dryly, "I can't get rich. I can't retire. And I sure as hell can't get sick."

Euro-Socialism in America- Think Again

“We’re all Socialists Now” proclaimed the cover of Newsweek in February of ’09. Stuart Varney begs to differ. Last week, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Varney, senior business journalist at Fox Networks. As a fellow defender of capitalism and ardent opponent of big government, I have been a fan of Varney’s for a long time. Cheery and affable both on screen and in person, Varney is not bashful about being an advocate for the free market, and, conversely, shining a light on the demoralizing, suffocating aspects of our blossoming Nanny State. On his show that day, he spoke with the head of the Miami patrolman’s union defending the union’s position not to give an inch on its bloated pension system (where an ordinary retired police officer receives north of $90,000 per year and a lump sum payment in excess of $850,000). He also had a guest that demonstrated that the extension of unemployment benefits are helping keep the unemployment rate artificially high----when all benefits are considered, it turns out that unemployment pays better in many instances.

My chat with Varney was relatively brief, but two thoughts occurred to me afterword. The first is that Mr. Varney walks the walk—a true capitalist actor in a competitive marketplace. After shaking my hand, the first words out of his mouth were, “How can we improve the show?” I am not a media expert or consultant, but only a single consumer of his product (admittedly, one that is in his target demographic). But Mr. Varney was eager to learn if he could make his product better for his customers, ever seeking to get better. When does ANYONE in government ever ask that question? Imagine someone from the EPA or Department of Energy or Health and Human Services asking how their department might improve. The thought is preposterous. They don’t need to ask. They already know how to achieve their mission. Their mission is to develop a bunch of rules for YOU to follow, and to think of ways to make life painful and unpleasant if you do not. You really don’t have much choice about consuming the “government services” they produce. Mr. Varney does not have that luxury. He knows that if he doesn’t constantly find ways to make his show interesting, people like me will turn our attention elsewhere. He wants me to pay attention to the information that he is working hard to provide. That is the mark of a true capitalist.

Second, I understand that Mr. Varney overcome very modest beginnings to achieve the status he has achieve, and came to America to “escape European Socialism.” That is the second mark of a true capitalist. Unlike the picture that the Left likes to paint of the “idle rich,” a common thread among most genuine capitalists and advocates of capitalism is the notion of overcoming and persevering. They know how hard it is to be successful, how many obstacles and indignities must be borne, how many family dinners must be missed and how many late nights must be endured to have a chance at success.

It is not just a coincidence that there are two other conservative media personalities that have overcome--- Glenn Beck (whether you think he’s over the top or not) and Lawrence Kudlow. Beck overcame alcoholism to regain control over his life and Kudlow overcame substance abuse. Whether you agree with their views or not, both have gone on to become enormously successful conservative commentators.

That is a common conservative narrative—the notion of overcoming. Certainly, a handful of people are wealthy and successful by birth. But in America, most become successful by overcoming—overcoming poverty or modest roots, overcoming setbacks and sometimes your own demons, of being dismissed or excluded. But they persevere. By attempting to erect a Nanny State that will look after us and catch us if we fall no matter what, liberals rob us of two vital aspects of what it means to be human--- the need to constantly improve and the motivation to overcome and to persevere. Most of the great achievements involve those things. And if we stop rewarding people that seek to improve and to overcome and persevere, and we turn the “safety net” into a chaise lounge, we are dooming ourselves to a mediocre society, where nothing great is ever achieved. Worse, we are depriving ourselves of some of the most wonderful and inspirational stories that are part of what it means to be truly human.

I heard a successful Montana rancher recently say, “Most people divide the world into the Haves and the Have Nots; I divide the world into the Will Work and the Will Not Work.” My guess is that Mr. Varney would agree with this assertion.

The Boogeyman

“Bigoted,” “Intolerant,” “Small Minded,” “Fearmongering,” “Assisting Al Qaeda in its Recruiting,” and even “Hateful.” These were some of the charges leveled at me directly by some of my left wing friends and indirectly by the op-ed writers at the New York Times for my stance against the building of the Ground Zero Mosque.

When my liberal friends don’t have much to counter with, they dredge up the old bigotry charge. Immediately prior to the ’08 election, they had the “Bradley Effect” arguments at the ready. Obama was leading in the polls and it was inconceivable that someone as wise, wonderful and articulate (and, according to Joe Biden, clean) could lose. It would have had to have been latent racism. Only he got elected and that ended that. They have tried to pin the racist moniker on the Tea Party movement, too, but so far, it has not gained much traction. The Tea Party movement is simply made up of patriotic, limited government voters, and no hard evidence of racism has been unearthed. With the heated debates over health care reform, the liberals again attempted to trot out racism charges, but, again, there was no evidence to support that at all, even though Nancy Pelosi made a valiant attempt to provoke an incident by walking arm in arm with black congressmen after its passage.

Once again, the left is attempting to tar us with those ugly labels, and they are dead wrong. While I do not dispute the legal right of this group to build, I oppose the Ground Zero Mosque on the grounds that this site is sacred and because of the nature and reach of Militant Islam.
It is true that we enjoy religious freedom of expression here in the United States to an extent found in almost no other place on earth. Here, you can worship in any place and in any way you like, and there is almost no religious bigotry of any kind. Except for a few lunatics in the hills of Tennessee or the woods of Oregon, not only are different religions tolerated, they are accorded a great deal of respect. Heck, I don’t care much if you practice Santeria, as long as your chickens don’t bleed on my side of the fence. And we get a little queasy when folks like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell got too close to the mechanisms of government.

But Militant Islam is different. In many ways, it is an enemy uniquely adapted to our weaknesses. We do well against large armies on a battlefield. Our forces are designed to defeat people like Saddam Hussein or Soviet tanks rushing through the Fulda Gap, not bands of suicidal jihadists. Second, and more importantly, Militant Islam is uniquely designed to exploit our religious tolerance. Unlike our society’s relationship between religion and government, which, for the most part occupy separate spheres, Militant Islam’s view is that they are necessarily intertwined, and that makes it difficult. You simply cannot tell the difference between a “moderate” or a “radical” or discern who will morph from moderate to radical. While it runs counter to our society and culture to limit the rights of Muslims to worship in any reasonable way, it is also offensive to common sense to have a mosque built so proximal to Ground Zero when the perpetrators of that atrocity did it invoking the name of Islam. We’re not saying you can’t build a mosque. We’re not curtailing your ability to worship in any way. We’re just asking that you don’t build this center on this particular piece of real estate.

Several left leaning writers have said that opposition to the mosque gives Al Qaeda a propaganda tool. I assert that just the opposite is true. It is more likely that Al Qaeda will interpret our willingness to accept a mosque at Ground Zero as a huge propaganda victory. It will be seen as a monument to their martyrs and will be celebrated throughout their ranks. They will see the U.S. as a weak willed “weak horse” and that will be a recruiting tool. What other country would permit this to happen? Even pusillanimous France won’t permit women to wear hijabs. If headscarves were similarly banned here, the ACLU would go into convulsions.

Second, the location and political controversy gives rise to legitimate security concerns. Militant Islam has been very adept at mixing terrorism with mosques and charities. Imagine the propaganda victory if the next big terrorist attack on the U.S. was planned out of the basement of the Ground Zero Mosque. Further, at least one of the donors has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent holding company of Al Qaeda.

Third, Imam Rauf, the leader of the Cordoba Project and self-proclaimed “bridge-builder” has been anything but in this process. “Bridge builders” acknowledge the concerns of their opposition. Rauf has done nothing of the sort. He has stubbornly pushed ahead with his wife on national media circuit denouncing the bigotry of the opposition. His earlier statements on terrorism have been equivocal. He has not condemned Hamas and his statements indicate his belief the U.S. is just as culpable for discord around the world as the terrorists. His renouncement of terrorism and Hamas has been equivocal but his support of Sharia has not.
Fourth is its symbolism, which I touched on earlier. Ironically, liberals are in a frenzy over the symbolism of Glenn Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of his “I have a dream” speech, even though MLK was referred to in the most respectful terms and slavery was singled out as a terrible blight on our history. Yet they insist that nothing of the sort is going on with respect to the Ground Zero Mosque. Hmmm.

I reject this charge of bigotry in most stark terms. Like most Americans, I do not care who, where or even if people worship. My opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque is rooted in the propaganda victory it will hand Al Qaeda, the equivocal approach to terrorism and Sharia law that Imam Rauf has taken, and a legitimate concern of a “mixed use” property. We are not at war with Islam, but we are at war with Militant Islam. In war, symbolism is important. Our marines raised an American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima and that image is part of our national lore. It would be a travesty if the Ground Zero Mosque became a similar symbol for Radical Islam.

More on Cordoba House

So today, House Speaker Pelosi calls for an investigation into those providing financial support for opposition to Cordoba House. Madame Speaker, given the events of 9/11, the Fort Hood shooting, the underwear bomber, Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, does it even occur to you that you might consider investigating the source of funding for the Ground Zero Mosque instead?

Just a few more months........

Cordoba - NO!

Once again I suspect Political Islam is using our Constitution as a shield to make a statement. In a highly inappropriate and controversial move, an Islamic group is attempting to build a mosque in the shadows of Ground Zero in New York.
Clearly, they have the legal right to do so. We do not distinguish between religions when granting private property rights. Imam Rauf, the leader of this project, describes himself as a “bridge builder.” However, Muslims all over the world howl when their “sensitivities” are offended. They rioted across Europe when a cartoonist portrayed Muhammed with a bomb in his turban. A bounty was put on the head of Salman Rushdie’s head for the unconscionable act of writing a book. Film director Theo Van Gogh was murdered for offending Islam after being condemned by a local imam. Offend the sensibilities of Islam and you will get a reaction.
But now, it seems the shoe is on the other foot. Many of us are now having our sensibilities offended by the audacity of this group to put a mosque in the shadow of the place where 3,000 of our fellow citizens were murdered by fundamentalism Muslims that did so while invoking Allah.
If Imam Rauf and his group are truly dedicated to interfaith harmony, I dare them to prove it. I would take their claims to be “bridge builders” more seriously if they said, “We understand the pain that was brought by this errant group of young men that murdered in the name of Islam. They were wrong and they did not in any way represent Islam. We understand the painful association of that day with Islam and we will do everything in our power to distance Islam from it. We will build our mosque in another place.”
But that is not their approach at all. The governor of New York has offered to find another, more suitable, location. But this group wants none of it. One can only conclude that they mean to put salt in the wound.
Symbolism is important. Flying a confederate flag on one’s car antenna on Martin Luther King Day would say something very bad about you even if you have every right to do it and even if you are claiming solely to be proud of your Southern Heritage. The symbolism of the name “Cordoba House” (commemorating Muslim conquest of Cordoba in a bloody battle) is not lost.
As a legal and Constitutional matter, there is not much that can be done if this group doesn’t voluntarily come to its senses. But I am in New York frequently and if they do built it (I still have my doubts), I plan to stop by. I will park in front of it, pop open a beer and flip through a Playboy magazine. Maybe I’ll even find a girl in a bikini to sit on my lap. It would also be great if I can find a couple of friends that are gay, so that I might have them join me while they hold hands in plain eyesight. I’m all for celebrating tolerance.

A Piece of Work

It sometimes pays to be open minded. You would have had a difficult time convincing me that one of the most inspirational life stories I’ve heard lately came from a whacky, 77 year old Jewish lady that has had way too much plastic surgery. But it’s true.

I grouped ­­­­­­­­Joan Rivers with entertainers like Dean Martin, Rowan & Martin, Don Rickles, and the Smothers Brothers. I remember watching them all as a child, mostly with my grandmother on our little black and white TV. They were irreverent and edgy for their time, and often used race, gender, sexual innuendo and other heretofore off-limits topics. They paved the way for folks like George Carlin and Richard Pryor in the following generation, but now I view them as at least two generations out of date.

But, intrigued by her interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, I went to see “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.” I was fascinated by mixture of the emotional reaction that the film evoked—admiration and sadness. The film gives us an inside and candid look at Joan Rivers’s life and history by following her around behind the scenes as she continues to rebuild and reinvent herself at age 77. You can’t help but be inspired by this woman’s tenacity, resilience, and drive and this late stage in her life. At an age when most people are long retired (or even gone), old Joan is still hustling for gigs, doing tours, producing a musical, writing a book---anything to keep her career going forward. And one is never sure if she is doing this because she needs to (she apparently was not a very good financial planner), or whether she continues to hustle because she is an irrepressible workaholic and cannot stop. She is horrified by the notion that she is a has- been, and there are times in her act when you see that time has passed her by. Yet there are times when she still truly is funny. Despite the constant rejection, the humiliation of having to perform in out of backwater places rather than New York or Vegas, she persists and you get a real feel for the tremendous and genuine internal strength of this woman.

There is also a thread of sadness that runs through the film. You know that time has, in fact, passed her by. Her best years are behind her and you also see that, as in most careers, one bad slip can have lasting and permanent consequences. After rising to stardom on the coattails of her mentor, Johnny Carson, she accepted an offer for her own show to compete with him. He never forgave her and never spoke to her after that. Her show was ultimately a flop and she ended up being blackballed by NBC as and as a result nearly went bankrupt. The career and financial reversals were too much for her husband, who took his own life. Her life was permanently changed in every way by the decision to leave Carson.

Later, she was let down by another man—her manager, who she was forced to fire because of his chronic undependability after years and years of service. So, here Joan continues to fight the fight on, largely alone in the world, except for her daughter. One senses the deep sadness and loneliness of it all as she nears the twilight of her life with few people to share it with. Yet, she soldiers on.

I truly enjoyed the film and enjoyed what it said about her and about life. It did drag in a few parts—the editing was quite poor. But it captured the essence of a driven woman, who, despite her flaws, was marvelously talented, energetic, and extremely hard working. Above all, I found her ability to deal with what life threw at her, and her ability to use humor to deflect some of life’s toughest stuff quite inspiring.

The final message in the film for all of us is that as a society, we will be required to work longer. Sixty five (an arbitrary age) can no longer be sustained as the “normal” retirement age by our entitlement programs, pension programs and, since the financial panic decimated our savings and the equity in our homes, our own savings. The reality is that most of us will need to work longer. And, while some may see the pathos in Joan Rivers still out hawking her schtick at her age, I also see someone who is very much alive, still productive, still taking on challenges, still doing the things she loves doing. And that is the upside for the bulk of us boomers that will be working into our late 60’s and 70’s.

We're No. 1 .....or 2 or 3?

Happy Birthday, America! For over 200 years, you have been a leader in progress, liberty, knowledge, and growth. You have provided millions and millions with a place to pursue their dreams, and crawl out of poverty and build fortunes. In America, people of all religions, all cultures are tolerated like nowhere else in the world. In times of crisis, when terrible tyrannical regimes threatened it, you pushed back, America, and shoved these dictators back into the dustbin of history.

You see, there is a peculiarly “American” character. It is self-reliant, resilient, entrepreneurial, competitive and willing to take risks. This character, I believe, arises out of being populated by people that were not satisfied with the status quo—people that escaped suffocating systems and instead bet on their own resourcefulness. Our people, and all our organizations strive to be number one. We want to be on top. It is in our DNA. And we admire people that get there. Witness the 2 million people that turned out to say congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks last month for winning the Stanley Cup. This inner drive, this competitive nature is one of the things that sets us apart as a people. Our history is littered with examples of individuals overcoming odds, seizing the initiative and doing great things from Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to the soldiers at Point Du Hoc and Valley Forge. We like winners. Even when we don’t end up on top, we aspire to, always.

But listen carefully to Obama and his spokespeople. That’s not what they are saying, and the message from this administration has been consistent—we no longer seek leadership. To Team Obama, we are absolutely ok with being number 2 or 3 or 4. There is something wrong with being numero uno.

Obama himself said in his infamous quote, “"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." So, we’re exceptional, just like everyone else.

That’s thinking like a winner.

John Holdren, Obama’s science czar said a few weeks ago, “The U.S. can’t be expected to be number one in everything indefinitely.”

Gee, that’s inspiring.

Or how about Tim Geithner’s statement just last week, “America can no longer drive global growth."?

That's visionary.

This is all just appalling and at variance with what America is all about. In my way of thinking, if you aspire to be an also-ran, that’s where you end up. I can’t imagine any CEO of any company announcing in its annual report, “We’re in an environment with lots of able competitors. We can’t be expected to be number one in our market all the time. It’s just not realistic.” The board of directors would summarily show him the door. There wouldn’t be second thought about it. And a heave-ho would be well-deserved.

But this is the mindset of the current Democratic leadership in Washington, and is troubles me greatly. The message is consistent across all agencies—America can no longer be number one, not in business and the economy, not in science, not in promoting liberty.

We should not tolerate leaders that say such things. Sure, we have obstacles to overcome. But we have great strengths as a nation. We have an economic system that, at core, is vibrant and strong. We have by far the greatest university system in the world. We have the strongest and most professional military in the world. We have paved the way for millions to throw off the yoke of tyranny and lead a better life.

And the faster we throw these guys out of office and replace them with leaders that expect great things from us and from themselves, the faster we will get back on track as a nation. That's leadership. We're the greatest nation on the planet. Don't let these guys tell you otherwise.

Healed

The years between the ages of 8 and about 13 or 14 are a magical time for a boy. Those are the years that are sandwiched between giving up your toys but before you have discovered girls and beer. For most of us, professional sports filled the gap. We followed our local teams in the standings, memorized statistics, read books about legends and lore, and debated who should be MVP. Almost all of our waking hours outside school and outside actually playing sports revolved around our local teams.

In Chicago during the late 60’s and early 70’s, the Blackhawks were the top ticket in town. The Bears were terrible. The Bulls had not yet gotten off the ground. The White Sox were generally mediocre. And the Cubs broke our hearts with their spectacular and legendary collapse in 1969. But in 1969, the Blackhawks had acquired a future hall of fame goaltender, Tony Esposito, and a fiery redheaded defenseman, Keith Magnuson, along with his college teammate Cliff Koroll, to complement the power of Bobby Hull and finesse of Stan Mikita. Although they were swept by Bobby Orr and the Bruins in the 1970 playoffs, by the 1970-71 season, the Hawks had arrived, winning 49 games and swept the first round of the playoffs. In the second round, it took them a full 7 games to defeat the New York Rangers, and they faced the Montreal Canadiens in the finals, who finished in 3rd place and did not make the playoffs the previous season. The Habs were also starting an untested rookie goalie, Ken Dryden. The Hawks looked poised to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961.

The Hawks had home ice advantage and took a 2-0 lead in the series, only to squander it in Montreal to bring it back to Chicago tied 2-2. Chicago went up again with a 2-0 victory in Chicago, and had the opportunity to win the cup in Montreal, but they faltered, losing narrowly 4-3. This set the stage for game 7 in Chicago. The city was all abuzz with the possibility of a Stanley Cup win at the Stadium. The Wirtz family steadfastly refused to televise home games, believing that if the game was on TV, people would not buy tickets. Nonetheless, rumors swirled that the Wirtz’s would relent and let us watch our beloved Blackhawks on TV in the crucial game 7. He did not, and we were consigned to listening to the game on a.m. radio. But the voice and timbre of play-by-play announcer Lloyd Pettit made the game come alive.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. We were pretty confident that the Blackhawks would prevail in the end. They had a tough defense buttressed by Tony Esposito, who had set the record for shutouts the year before, Tony Esposito and a dominating offensive player in Bobby Hull. My best buddy and I had already plotted to defy the nuns at our school, play hooky and attend the planned parade and rally downtown. It was a very warm night and I remember running back to my room after getting a soft serve ice cream from the ice cream truck to listen to Lloyd Pettit on my old wooden cased radio.

The Hawks went up 1-0 on a goal by Danny O’Shea, followed a bit later with a goal by Dennis Hull. While the Canadiens had successfully contained Bobby Hull, we were ecstatic as it would be difficult to crawl out from under a 2-0 hole. The Hawks had a chance to seal it when Bobby Hull had an open shot with Dryden going down. A 3-0 lead would have been almost impossible to overcome but Hull’s powerful shot clinked off the crossbar. A few inches lower, and the result would have been a fait accompli.

Then a freakish thing happened. Jacques Lemaire took a shot from center ice. The usually reliable Esposito seemed to lose the puck and it went in, giving the Canadiens life. Later the Canadiens tied it 2-2 and the persistent Rejean Houle, whose sole job was to shadow Hull, was able to frustrate him.

Eventually, the Canadiens’ speed prevailed. The image Henri Richard speeding past a sprawling Keith Magnuson is forever burned in my memory and he tucked it behind Esposito taking the lead 3-2. The Hawks had several opportunities to tie it, but Dryden came up with save after save. As the clock ran out, I was in utter disbelief, and I remember lying face down on my bed for a long time, sobbing. It’s probably hard to understand the depth of the disappointment but the closest thing would probably have been a Christmas where Santa just didn’t show up. My opportunity to play hooky would take decades to come again. I would have to find another way to defy Sister Lawrence.

The Hawks had one more chance at the finals in 1973 but the Canadiens again snuffed them out in six games. Another trip to the finals in the early 1990’s was dispatched quickly in 4 games. The franchise continued to sputter and a few years ago was voted the worst sports franchise by ESPN. I remember feeling very sad when I attended the game after Keith Magnuson was killed and the Blackhawks had a pregame tribute to him. His wife and children were there and it was shameful to see an attempt to honor a player that exemplified the franchise with pride, spirit and hustle with a United Center that was only about 1/3 full.

So it was more than just another Chicago championship when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup this week. Following the resurgence of the franchise over the past couple of years with these young stars has been a great deal of fun, and Rocky Wirtz has done a masterful job of reconnecting his fan base. Still, watching Philly tie the game Wednesday night to send it into overtime sent chills down my spine and nearly provoked flashbacks rivaling PTSD. But eventually, star Patrick Kane sealed it with his overtime goal (although it took us a few moments to figure out whether it was a good goal or not). For me, the victory was a reprise of real emotional significance, like the healing of a childhood trauma.

Despite a deskful of work and projects and deadlines, I decided to take the morning off and join my wife and my daughter at the parade. The weather was hot and sticky the Hawks were 30 minutes late. I almost gave up waiting. Finally, the buses rolled past and fittingly, atop one of the first buses were my old heroes that never got a chance to lift the Cup—Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull and Tony Esposito, and behind them the new generation of true champions. 39 years after that missed parade in 1971, I finally got to play a little hooky, and to see the Stanley Cup glinting in the sunlight in person. It was worth the wait.

Who's the Luddite?

Earlier this month at a commencement address at Hampton University earlier this month, President Obama astonished me by slamming new technology, “You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter," he told the students. "And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."

This is quite a statement from our post-racial, post-political, new age, tech savvy president. When he first came to office, there were stories about how difficult it might be to maintain cyber-security since Obama was hooked on his Blackberry. Another myth died before my very eyes.

President Obama’s quote is troubling for several reasons. First, Barack Obama sold us on a president that was more in tune with science, technology and progress than his predecessor was. People of science, rather than the proponents of creationism of the prior administration would hold sway in this administration. Between the killing of manned space flight at NASA and this whack at technology, I’m beginning to have some doubts about his commitment to American leadership in science and technology. These devices and advances are the result of cutting edge American creativity and technological progress. The hardware and software are largely products of American ingenuity (although Japan and India also have been major contributors). In addition, these are GREEN COMPANIES. They are not big smokestack entities belching out CO2 and dumping waste into our waterways. These products are the result of very smart, very nerdy people in clean little cubicles. These products represent the best of America’s transition from brawn to brains.

Most disturbing is Obama’s assertion that we need to be wary of unfiltered information, as if the 3 big networks and the New York Times should be our only fact-checked reliable source of news. Right. One only has to think back of the events of last summer in Iran to know that the uncontrolled Twitter was the only reliable source of information coming out of that country during the protests. The new technology IS a means of emancipation… from established media. Mr. President, we are perfectly capable of sorting out and distilling information. You are only partially correct that they are putting new pressures on our democracy. They are putting more pressure on our leaders to be more responsive. Even guys like me can have a blog with his own modest readership. We are no longer condemned to receiving information and viewpoints from a small cluster of media elite.

It is surprising that a conservative like me would actually embrace new communication and technology ahead of our new age president, but I have done so with some gusto. I wouldn’t exactly call myself an early adopter, but I have at least been in the second wave. I have not yet purchased an iPad, but I have had an iPod for several years and I bought a Kindle last year.

Here are my recommendations for information that is sometimes a distraction, but informative and entertaining nonetheless.

Best $100 I’ve spent this year.
Hands down it is my subscription to the Bloomberg podcasts. Tom Keene has wonderful guests. He has had Nuriel Roubini, Paul Volker, Gary Becker, Gary Schiller, and other top economists and analysts. Keene is extraordinarily well-prepared (I don’t know when he sleeps), analytical, and always very good humored. He is particularly skilled at getting technical analysts to frame up propositions so that less technical listeners can understand. Clearly, Keene makes his living discussing global markets but he stays far away from partisan politics. We can all agree that we are in a major era of economic disruption, and I feel I have a much keener (no pun intended) view of the economy as a result of regular listening.

Favorite Lefty.
Terry Gross. I can’t help myself. I’ve been listening to Fresh Air for 25 years and I still like the guests she is able to attract, and she attracts a pretty wide swath of people. A high percentage of them are in the arts and music and many are on the leg of a book tour, but she is respectful and is able to get guests to open up to her on a very human level. Her interview with Tony Judt (a NYU professor and writer stricken with ALS) was so compelling that I wrote an email to Mr. Judt (from which I received a warm reply. Ms. Gross restrained herself magnificently when she interviewed Carl Rove, although I got the sense that she was squirming in her seat.

When I Need a Good Rant.
Mark Levin (www.marklevinshow.com). I have to be in the mood to listen to Levin. But when I’ve really had it with the Obama/Reid/Pelosi troika, a half an hour with Levin is cathartic. He keeps you focused on the frontal assault on individual liberty that Team Obama is attempting to implement. While I don’t much care for the call-in “man in the street” interchanges, his blunt commentary on individual liberty and American exceptionalism is refreshing.

Kindle.
I like my Kindle but don’t love it. Reading with a Kindle does not replicate reading a book. Reading a book is a sensual experience as well as an intellectual one. I love the feel and smell of a new book, and I like to flip back between pages of a text. I find the percentage of completion indicator (rather than page numbering) annoying. And the little square peg that you use to navigate is clunky.

Still, there are features of the Kindle that I like. It is easy to cart around, especially while travelling. It is perfect for purchasing books which are more contemporary and will likely not be read again. In that respect, it is much more economical than purchasing hard cover books. I like the fact that I can order and receive a book instantaneously. The economy has figured out how to extract money from me in smaller increments.


Social Media.
I don’t Twitter….yet. But I do have a rudimentary Facebook and LinkedIn profiles (which I need to upgrade). I’m still groping around for the proper amount of information to put out there in what is a public forum. Both are useful to connect with people, especially interesting long lost classmates that you were curious about. In some ways, it has made class reunions somewhat obsolete. You get to find out what happened to people and only need to correspond with those that you would like to correspond with. I’m still not sure of the value of LinkedIn. A large percentage of people that want to connect to my network are not people I particularly want to be connected to.

So there you have it. President Obama, you are dead wrong. These new devices and the new technology is tremendously empowering and liberating. See? I just posted it. Anyone around the world with access to the internet can read it. So there.

Suffer the Children

Our ultimate responsibility as a nation is to preserve the Constitution and the freedoms guaranteed by it to future generations. An important corollary is the responsibility to preserve the American Way of Life and economic opportunity for the generations that follow. Our children and their children are our most important priority.

Unfortunately, the Left doesn’t quite see it that way.

In February, President Obama dumped a $3.8 trillion budget on Congress with huge deficits that go on ad infinitum. Congress, in turn, won’t even pass a budget. It intends to tax, spend, and borrow without one. Under the cover of “stimulus,” these people are stealing from our children and grandchildren. My liberal friends blithely say, “Well, we’ll just have to raise taxes at some point.” On who? My children and grandchildren, stealing opportunity from them—money they could be using to save and invest, to feed the Left’s constituents today. No wonder the Tea Party is becoming a recognizable political force. We are clearly back to taxation without representation. But this is the most insidious kind. They are pillaging a generation that hasn’t been born yet and and therefore cannot resist or rebel.

Now it seems that the Left has stooped to a new low. A couple of educational bureaucrats in Highland Park are cynically using the Highland Park girls’ basketball team to advance their own wrongheaded political agenda. They have announced that the team will be cancelling their planned trip to Arizona citing “safety concerns” but really in protest of Arizona’s recently passed immigration law.

Now you’ve hit home, guys. Playing high school and college sports is one of the most gratifying, fun and important growing experiences a kid can have. Sportsteaches discipline, hard work, the importance of working together and getting along (even when there are teammates you don’t particularly like). It is important in building self-confidence and self-esteem. In a world of immediate gratification, sports teaches the importance to deferred reward. Further, it is only in the last 10-15 years that girls’ sports has really taken off. I have been impressed with the level of play and the skill level that girls programs have achieved. The memories of those experiences and the bonds that are created last a lifetime. I know. I’ve been there.

And these despicable creatures in Highland Park want to ruin this experience for these girls to make a political statement. It’s fine if you want to protest. Write a letter. Call you Congressman. Boycott watching “los Suns” games on TV. But don’t ruin the trip of a lifetime for these kids. I find it particularly revolting that these girls have achieved near equality with boys in facilities, resources, play and coaching level—all the things that Title IX was all about. And now you want to take away a fun experience to satisfy your petty little grievance with a state that is not even yours (not to mention whether or not your position has any merit). This is outrageous.

The Left, through its propaganda arm, the New York Times, has been all over Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church for the child abuse scandals. Fair enough, and I joined in that criticism. But the Left is engaging in its own form of child abuse. By stealing from them to feed their own constituents (which happens to include the teachers’ unions, I might add) and by using them as political pawns and denying these girls in Highland Park the opportunity to compete, they are engaging in their own form of child abuse.

The Disconnected

The president’s approval ratings continue to drift downward. The approval ratings of Congress are scandalously low—I think Lawrence Taylor’s are actually better than Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s. A recent Pew poll indicated that 80% of Americans distrust government. These are serious numbers. Two years after the worst financial crisis in three generations, and we still do not have a financial reform bill. Drugs and gangs are pouring into Mexico and we cannot protect our border. Oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, ruining Southern economies and the ecosystem for a generation and our administration flips us off, saying “It’s not our job. It’s BP’s.” Terrorists have attacked us from inside our military (Administration immediate response: “Let’s not jump to conclusions”), a have attempted to blow up an airliner (Administration immediate response: “The system worked”) and slaughter people in Times Square (Administration immediate response: “This is a one-off”). Almost on cue, Robert Gates yesterday announced that we need to drastically reduce our military spending. No wonder Democrats like Bart Stupak and David Obey have bailed. The administration’s slavish devotion to liberal dogma – abundant social spending and reflexive softness on matters of security- is disconnected him from the polity.

But the Obama administration is not alone. The Catholic Church is also embroiled in the most serious crisis of confidence since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenburg. The child abuse scandals have roiled the church both in America and in Europe, and have implicated the Pontiff himself. In response, the Pope launched his own “apology tour” of sorts. But the magnitude and insidiousness of the crisis screams for fundamental reform. However, the elevation of Benedict to the papacy in 2005 signaled that the Church is headed in the other direction. Known as “God’s Rotweiller”, Ratzinger is a hard line Catholic fundamentalist; his position is and has been to dig a moat around the Vatican and not open the big issues of celibacy, birth control, and Catholic supremacy up for discussion. That the Vatican would even consider putting up Pius XII for sainthood tells me that there is something dreadfully wrong with the church hierarchy. Sainthood to me equals beyond reproach in any respect. It is the Catholic moral hall of fame. Given the time that Pius XII was at the helm of the church and Germany’s Catholic tradition, it is simply not possible for Pius XII to be considered for beatification.

As I thought about it more, Obama and Pope Benedict face parallel problems. In both cases, the governing hierarchy is utterly disconnected from the governed. They simply are not listening. Their views are rooted in their immutable fundamentalist beliefs that cannot be varied no matter what evidence is presented to them and what the people are saying.

In his recent book, “Practicing Catholic,” James Carroll (a former priest and self-described dissident Catholic) says:

“It seems harsh to say so, but cruelty underlies the shy pope’s evident goodwill. That is because the ideology he advances for Roman Catholicism cares less for actual people (men and women in the hopeless dead end of a failed marriage, say) than for esoteric abstractions (the absolute indissolubility of matrimony). It is this aspect of Pope Benedict’s mindset that qualifies him as the chief sponsor of the new Catholic fundamentalism, enforced with no regard for the real cost to human beings.”

The Catholic Church and the U.S. are each now governed by the most ideological leaders in a generation. Pope Benedict has been largely deaf to his constituents. But Obama cannot remain deaf forever. We have mid-term elections in six months.

The Head Fake

President Obama plays a lot of basketball. And that has translated into his rhetoric. His favorite move is the rhetorical head fake, and he did it again today when discussing potential Supreme Court nominees. It’s his way of sounding like he is taking a middle of the road path, get you going one way and then take you another. I first noticed this device when I read his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” I did actually read it from cover to cover to get an idea about how he thinks.

In it, Obama uses the phrase, “I’m a believer in capitalism” over and over, but that phrase is always followed by a “but” qualifier that undercuts the main proposition. In “The Audacity of Hope,” when you add up all the qualifiers to his assertion that he believes in capitalism, you doubt very much whether he believes in it at all.

He did it again today, denying that there will be a pro-choice litmus test for his Supreme Court nominee, but then followed immediately by saying, “I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights.”

Catch the head fake? In liberal jargon, “women’s rights” is code for “the right to abortion on demand.” So, what Obama really said is that he doesn’t believe in a litmus test, but make no mistake, there will be a litmus test.

Listen for the head fake. It generally comes when he feels compelled to show that he has a conservative cell or two in his body. It will be a phrase that begins, “I believe in the free market, but…”, “I believe in a strong defense, but…,” “America has a long friendship with Israel, but…,” and so on. Then he will proceed to undercut his assertion.

I’d actually rather have a president that will be blunt with me. I would respect him more if he said, “I believe in the holding of Roe v. Wade and I will undoubtedly nominate someone that is not very likely to deviate from that.” I could deal with that. But don’t think I’ll fall for a simple move. You see, President Obama, like you, I have South Side roots. I played my share of street basketball. You can’t get me with a simple head fake. I know where you’re going.

It's the numbers, stupid

Have you ever been in a bad car accident? I have. About 12 years ago, my son and I were in Winona, Minnesota at a father-son hockey camp and one day as we drove from the rink, we went through an intersection with no stop lights or stop signs. I failed to see a car with two teenagers barreling toward us. The car broadsided our Jeep and spun us around. The impact was so hard, it lifted two wheels off the ground. Fortunately, we were both strapped in as were the drivers of the other car. No one was badly hurt.

But the trauma of the accident stayed with us. I was sore for a week afterword and I felt emotionally raw from the experience. My eight year old son experienced a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a jarring experience even though neither of us was permanently injured.

That’s about how I feel about the passage of Obamacare. It shook me up to witness the federal government hijack one sixth of our economy, especially coming on the heels of the government’s intrusion into the banking system, the automakers, and appointing a “pay czar” to determine executive compensation. But I’ve let the intellectual violence to my psyche subside so that I can give a fair assessment of Obamacare in a coolly analytical way by looking at the numbers.

Obamacare fails both on a macro and a micro level and the micro and macro effects will interact with each other over the long haul.

On the macro level, the Democrats trotted out the CBO estimates at the last minute to try to demonstrate that the bill reduces the deficit. Upon closer scrutiny, though, the bill will ADD $562 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the CBO office in his NY Times Op-Ed piece of March 21, 2010, The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform. I won’t go into the detail here, but suffice it to say that the Democrats used accounting gimmickry that would make the guys at Enron blush. Every major poll shows that the American people aren’t fooled either. By large majorities, they believe that this program will add to our already unmanageable deficit. They know reflexively that you can’t add a huge entitlement program and not have budgetary ill effects. My liberal friends are quick to attempt to use a moral argument about why this bill should have been passed. But what about the morality of stealing from our nation’s children and grandchildren and saddling them with $20 trillion in debt and its consequences? How moral is it to saddle them with paying for our current consumption, condemning them to a lower standard of living, fewer opportunities and virtual enslavement to the foreigners that buy our public debt securities?

The bill is even worse on micro level. The Obama crowd appears to be willing to ignore the effects of this program on individual doctors (or, more cynically, as I believe is creating just the effects that it desires.

Dr. Nathan Schatzman in a recent interview on Bloomberg pointed out that a family practitioner at normal overhead rates that has 60% Medicare patient load will see average pay cut from $160,000 a year to $95,000 a year. To maintain current income levels, this doctor will need to work 35% more hours. So under Obamacare, the family practitioner that worked like a dog to get into medical school, pay off his or her student loans, and who works 90 hours a week will now make about the same as a UAW worker at government-run GM. And, unlike the UAW worker, a doctor always runs the risk of being sued and having his or her assets and livelihood exposed.

This is EXACTLY the results that the Obama White House has been attempting to engineer. He wants professionals and the working class to have the same lifestyle. That is the operative ideology of this administration.

What will the longer term results of this plan be? We don’t know for sure how incentives will be distorted until this is implemented. Fundamental economics tells us that there are only limited ways to allocate scarce resources: pricing, queuing, lottery--- and under the Chicago Way, the use of clout. Fundamental economics also tells us that the cost curve doesn’t bend down when demand goes up (more people have access to health care) and supply goes down (doctors leave the system). It’s the reverse.

We don’t know exactly how this will play out, but we can see a sneak preview in two places—Massachusetts and Illinois. In Massachusetts, which has a system similar to Obamacare, costs have gone up, wait times have significantly increased, and emergency room visits have increased.

Most perniciously, we can look to Illinois for a hint as to how health care will likely be administered over the long run. Both the University of Illinois and the Chicago Public School system have been plagued by scandals in the admissions process. In both places, getting a letter or a phone call from Michael Madigan, Rod Blagojevich or other Democratic political heavies puts you in a different place in the queue. The average kid has to get in line like everyone else, but if you have clout, you have a special place in line. That’s the Chicago Way. Pay attention, it’s coming to Washington to infect our health care system.

Oops They Did It Again

This is my 5th or 6th serious attempt at reconciling with the Catholic Church. I was raised Catholic and attended a strict Lithuanian Catholic grade school in one of the ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. Back then, if you wanted to get ahead in life, there were really two people that you had to curry favor with: the parish Monsignor and the local Democratic ward committeeman. One could get you a good city job someday; the other could help save your soul. That power and authority led them to act with a fair amount of imperiousness that has colored my view to this day. My natural skepticism about imperious authority led me to drift from the Church immediately upon entering high school, and drove me out of the Democratic Party.

While I have given up on rejoining the Democratic Party, I have made a number of good faith attempts to rejoin the Church over the years. Each time, however, the Church would do something to drive me back out. Once, it was the Pope imploring people in Latin America not to use birth control (like it was fine for a Mexican family to have a 10th child it cannot feed). Another time, it was when the Vatican met with that lying little minion of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz. Yet another was when Cardinal Law bunkered himself in the basement in the face of the sex abuse scandals in the Boston Archdiocese, only to get “promoted” to a new job in Rome. My libertarian views are generally at odds with Church doctrine. I do not believe in the primacy of the Pope (all men are fallible; all knowledge is subject to scrutiny and revision). I do not believe that only Catholics or Christians can get into heaven. Women should be equal participants in the Church and should become priests and even Pope if she were to be so qualified. Priests should be able to marry- CEO’s and heads of state are able to devote their full time energies to their jobs while sustaining marriages, and I don’t see why priests can’t. I am also at odds with many of the Church’s views on sexual and reproductive morality. I am pro-choice. The ban on birth control puzzles me, and, indeed is in direct conflict with other important social goals—eliminating poverty and maintaining public health. Finally, the Church’s position on homosexuality is inconsistent with my beliefs. I do not believe that God cares very much who one chooses to share a life with as long as it is loving and respectful.

Recently, the Catholic Church has attempted to lure fallen members like me back into the fold with its “Catholics Come Home” campaign. It was timely as I have begun to think more seriously about it and I answered the call despite my stark differences with important Church positions. I started attending Mass regularly and even decided to observe Lent this year (so far I’ve made it through with no lattes and no alcohol).

In my mind, Catholicism has five major components to it. The first is the theology and doctrinal beliefs—that God exists, that Jesus was the son of God and all that. The second is a value system of behavior, providing guidance on how we ought to behave with one another. The third is community—being around people with similar values. Fourth, there is ritual and all the little rules and regulations like fasting, not eating meat on Fridays, etc. that we are supposed to comply with. And finally, there is acceptance of the primacy of the Pope.

It is the value system and community that most interests me. The theological aspects are also things I wrestle with. And there is something about ritual that I also believe is primal in us, and there is something comforting about the rhythm of the Church calendar and the ritual of Mass. The primacy of the Pope is something I utterly reject, however, and I will likely never be able to become a full participant in the Catholic Church. I am a believer in democracy and equality and that necessarily implies a belief that all men and women are fallible. I will never give deference or accept as final authority any human being that has arrived at his position through nondemocratic means and is unchecked by other authorities. Sorry. No can do.

I also struggle with a God that would permit the Holocaust to have occurred. My batting average with prayers being answered is also rather low. I reject the New Testament’s emphasis on poverty and have a hard time reconciling my admiration for human achievement and goodness in the creation of prosperity and human progress that comes with it. Jesus appeared to have more concern with the poor and underclass than with the people of talent and leadership that can actually relieve human suffering.

Despite my struggles and misgivings, I began to wrestle with it in a more serious way and resolved to try to overcome them. As if on cue, the sex abuse scandals in Europe re-ignited and even threaten to connect to the Pontiff himself. And today, the Pope released his pastoral letter on the subject. I read the full text and was filled with anger. The Church still doesn’t get it. In a communication like this, to read the words, “mistakes were made” makes my blood boil. He does not acknowledge that this is a worldwide problem and has cropped up in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. He talks about concrete initiatives to address the situation, but the most dramatic is to ask the Church faithful to pray for a year. Huh? Particularly disturbing is the sentence that reads, “Through intense prayer before the real presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful.” YOU should make reparation? Wow. He really doesn't get it.

Will I stay in the Church? I want to keep trying but I honestly don’t know. The leaders in the Catholic Church and the leaders of the Democratic Party have a great deal in common. They are utterly disconnected from ordinary people and they have very twisted and perverse notions of victimhood. Somehow William F. Buckley had an easier time reconciling his belief system with the Catholic Church than I do.