Letting Them Eat Cake

I saw a poll today that reported that around a quarter of the population disapproves of Michelle Obama. That seems high to me for a first lady, since these women are not usually (except for Hillary Clinton whose participation in making policy put her in a different light) figures of controversy. I can think of a few possible reasons for this level of disapproval starting with some people’s  objection to  Mrs. Obama’s extravagant, taxpayer funded  lifestyle during bad economic times. Also  it seems likely that some people might be annoyed by her hectoring the country over what she feels people should be eating and not eating, particularly if they  believe that there are some aspects of one’s life that are simply not the government’s business.  

There is, however, something more important, something best displayed by her infamous remark that she became proud of her country for the first time when her husband became a serious presidential candidate. One could understand, though still not approve of, such a remark from a black person of a different background who had experienced hindering racial prejudice in his life or career. However this woman has spent her life in the special, affirmative action and “diversity” worlds of academia and Democratic Party politics where her mediocre would be treated as excellent and she would encounter direct, overt racial discrimination in her favor. For such a literally privileged character as she has been to say something like that is difficult to excuse and seems to reveal both a sense of resentment and a sense of entitlement of enormous proportion. One gets the feeling that she does not feel any gratitude to the American people for putting her where she is or any responsibility to the nation to represent it well because she thinks she had it all coming  anyway, and she’s going to do just as she likes, and no one had better question it. It is that, more than the vulgar opulence or the grating carping,  that is the most bothersome. She seems to demean her position by seeming not to appreciate it. There are reasons for all those caricatures with her head photo shopped onto Marie Antoinette’s body.

A Programming Suggestion

I really enjoy Turner Classic Movies. Indeed it is the main reason we are still on cable. However I have to wonder about their thinking if not their sincerity with their Memorial Day tribute. Once again they are showing films such as  The Dirty Dozen and Kelly’s Heroes. One would think that TCM’s programmers would notice  that  portraying them as psychopaths, halfwits,  and criminals is perhaps not the best way of honoring those who served in the armed forces. (Of course TCM is not alone. One of the other networks is showing Apocalypse Now as one of its Memorial Day offerings.)  The most charitable explanation is that those in charge see all war movies as an undifferentiated collection of shoot ‘em ups with any one doing about as well as another. There are of course less charitable and perhaps  more likely interpretations, particularly since the folks at TCM are supposed to be movie buffs.

It is especially unfortunate since there are so many other choices available. Wings, Sergeant York, What Price Glory, and The Big Parade from World War I, Flying Tigers, From Here to Eternity, In Harm’s Way,  Wake Island, They Were Expendable,  Bataan, Cry Havoc, So Proudly We Hail, Gung Ho, Destination Tokyo, The Enemy Below, Run Silent, Run Deep, The Gallant Hours, PT-109, Patton, The Longest Day, The Story of G.I. Joe, Darby’s Rangers, Command Decision, Twelve O’clock High,  Air Force,  Flying Leathernecks, Sands of Iwo Jima, Battle Cry, Battleground, Stalag 17, and The Big Red One from World War II, and The Bridges at Toko-ri, Pork Chop Hill, The Hanoi Hilton, Flight of the Intruder, The Deer Hunter, and The Green Berets from later conflicts are examples that come to mind easily.  (That does not mean they are all better movies. Some are fairly or even very poor movies, but they would be more appropriate for a tribute because they do not demean the service people who are their subject. That is the point. Movies that do demean service people would be better shown at other times if one’s intent were to produce a tribute.) Of course TCM does include many of these and other appropriate films in their tribute each year. It  just would be nice if they were a bit more consistent.

Good Fun and a Timely Lesson

It has recently come out that years ago when Barack Obama was an aspiring author, his literary agent produced a promotional thumbnail biography listing him as having been born in Kenya. This  is interesting and amusing in several ways. In the first place there is the delightful irony that the first birther was apparently Barack Obama himself. It’s hard to improve on that. That’s just good stuff. Beyond that it provides more evidence that this man, who was recently caught lying (or composite-ing) in his autobiography, is willing to play free and loose with the facts of his background, altering them at will as opportunities and exigencies dictate. It should reinforce skepticism among the public about his general trustworthiness and character. After all, before long we may find him claiming to have been  found as an infant among the bulrushes by a king’s daughter or perhaps to have killed him a bear when he was only three and composed his first symphony at about the same age.  

So Slimy the Other Politicians Noticed

Sportswriters used to call Joe  DiMaggio a ballpayer’s ballplayer, meaning that they thought the way he played the game was so purely the way it was supposed to be played as to command attention and recognition even among the experts who had made it to the big leagues. In the same sense that DiMaggio could be called a ballplayer’s ballplayer, John Edwards is a slimy politician’s slimy politician. He began his career as  a particularly disreputable ambulance chaser who acquired a large fortune by such things as convincing gullible and scientifically illiterate juries that genetic or unexplained birth defects were caused by physicians’ errors and then persuading them with maudlin histrionics to deliver large settlements. In politics he presented himself at various times as everything from a moderate blue dog Democrat to a committed leftist, depending on the exigencies of the moment. He served one term in the United States Senate and was selected by the Democrats as their nominee for vice president in 2004.  He ran for president in 2008, attempting to leverage his wife’s cancer for sympathy and political support. Much of his campaign consisted of standing  in front of the cameras saying “look what I’ve got. Look what I’ve got. I’ve got a sick wife. Sick wife.  I’ve got a sick wife, right here, a sick wife.”  He performed  this shtick while his wife was not only sick but in fact fatally ill, and he was carrying on an affair with a young woman by whom he fathered a child. He is now on trial for charges related to  illegal payoffs to that woman.

He has become an unperson even among his natural supporters.  It is a measure of how much of a pariah the man has become  that the traditional media are careful to refer to him only as a former senator and presidential candidate and to omit that the Democrats once selected him as the one man in the country they wanted to be, as the cliché goes, a heartbeat away from the presidency.

We cannot know how the trial will turn out, but it interesting to speculate on what should be his  punishment. Many will no doubt suggest he should suffer  the stereotypical fate of weak pretty boys who find themselves in prison. I disagree with that.  I don’t think we should  want anyone to be sexually assaulted.   However it would be okay with me if they could find a federal prison for him somewhere that still had a rock pile. The notion of this repugnant character  spending a couple of years breaking rocks in the hot sun seems quite appropriate.

Another Bubble in the Markets

I’ve been reading the sections on bubbles and financial manias in the book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. It’s a worthwhile thing for investors to study. It has been written that Bernard Baruch decided to get of the stock market in 1929 after reading the book. I don’t know if that is true or not, but he did write the introduction to the edition I have. The book is timely because I think we may be in a bubble now, not anything so manic as the Mississippi bubble or the tulip mania, but still a bubble and a danger for investors.  

To illustrate, suppose I have three hot IPO stock tips for you. The first one which we’ll call A has the lowest earnings of the three. In fact its P/E is around 400, but it does pay out all of its paltry earnings to the investors. The annual earnings are not growing and are certain not to grow in even nominal terms.  The payout to stockholders is fully taxable as ordinary income.  The stock price can fluctuate somewhat with market conditions but in two years will be exactly equal to the  initial offering  price.

The second one, called B, pays a little better. Its P/E is a bit over 50, and all earnings are paid to investors in payouts that are fully taxable as ordinary income and certain never to grow. Even ignoring taxes, this payout produces a negative real return at the present official rate of price inflation. The stock price will fluctuate but in ten years is guaranteed to be exactly the present offering price in nominal terms, resulting in a real capital loss at the present rate of price inflation of about twenty percent, assuming the payouts were not reinvested.

The third deal, C, has the best payout of all with a P/E of around 30 with all earnings paid  to investors. Its returns, too, are fully taxable as ordinary income and guaranteed not to increase. Its real annual return at the present official rate of inflation is about 1%, but income taxes reduce that something between about 0.5% (at a 15% marginal tax rate) and a slightly negative return (at a 35% marginal tax rate). Its price will fluctuate with conditions but in thirty years is guaranteed to be exactly the present offering price in nominal terms, resulting in a real capital loss at the present rate of price inflation of a little less than fifty percent, assuming the payouts were not reinvested.

I doubt if very many people would want stocks A, B, or C as investments to hold, as opposed to speculations to trade. Of course they are not really stocks at all but rather bonds. A, B, and C are the two, ten, and thirty year treasuries, respectively.  

This looks like a bubble to me. Bonds have been in a secular bull market for over thirty years since the end of the inflation of the 1970’s which is  a long time for any bull market. The United States is in a period of serious monetary inflation. If that leads to higher rates of price inflation, it is likely that interest rates will rise and the value of bonds will drop.  The huge amount of debt the federal government owes gives it an incentive to use inflation as a means of repudiating part of its obligations. Then of course there is the simple fact that the potential price appreciation of bonds is capped. Rates normally will not go below zero, and when interest rates near zero there is very little room left for them to decline. Interest rates have rarely been this low in American history and have never before been this low in the time since World War II. It is also  telling  that these days among so-called experts  treasury bonds often are being touted not so much as conservative investments but rather as speculative instruments that could jump in value if interest rates move the right way.

I think we should be careful.

Obama and bin Laden

There has been a great deal of vulgar and absurd political theatre on the first anniversary of the Navy’s elimination of Osama bin Laden.  Breathless coverage of Obama’s (not those of the men who actually performed and directed the mission) actions leading up to the raid by his sycophants in the traditional media has treated  those actions  as something comparable to Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb, Kennedy’s blockading Cuba, or Reagan’s calling the Soviets’ bluff in Iceland. Obama’s own shameless showboating and drive to make himself and not the servicemen the center of attention displayed  a character both puerile and small.

This has all been commented upon at length by various people, but one particularly silly  claim has not gotten the notice it deserves – the assertion that Obama ordered the mission at great political risk. Some of his acolytes even spoke of  his having risked a political disaster comparable to what happened to Carter after the failed rescue attempt in Iran. That is of course nonsense. He ran no political risk at all. If a mission to get Osama bin Laden had failed, the American public would have been saddened by the casualties and regretful of the lack of success, but not against having tried or critical of  those who made the effort.  American forces have been fighting Islamic terrorists for over a decade. Some missions succeed, and some don’t. People accept that, and they would not have blamed Obama for an unsuccessful mission (which might have never become publicly known anyway).

Even with Carter, the failure of the mission was not as crucial an event as some have claimed. His problem  was not that one mission failed, but that that failure became a symbol for the failure and  futility of his administration  in most areas of foreign and security policy. It highlighted a general weakness and ineptitude and reinforced an already present general fear that things were going terribly wrong with our armed forces, our position in the world, and our leadership.

All in all attempts to write some sort of profile in courage about Obama’s actions in this are just silly, silly and demeaning. There was plenty of praiseworthy courage displayed, just not by him.