Certain Doubt

Occupy The Rich

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

Today something happened I never would have expected. I found myself agreeing with Steve Forbes.

In an interview today the billionaire and one time presidential candidate intimated that the Occupy Wall street protestors were protesting in the wrong place.

I couldn’t agree more.

Of course Steve - “Mr. Flat Tax” – Forbes ruined it by going on to say the place protestors should be is the Halls of Congress… ostensibly to convince law makers to remove the few rules and regulations that allow him and his cronies to amass huge fortunes on the backs of hard working middle class workers.

Though I empathize and support the “Occupy Movement,” I’m also in agreement with those who think most of the protests are symbolic, undirected, and largely ineffectual, in part because they are “occupying” the wrong place. If the 99% really wants to affect change, they should take their protest to those truly responsible for their misery.

In other words, they should camp out on Steve Forbes’ lawn.

Plopping yourself down in the middle of Wall Street and chaining yourself to a lamp post might make you feel revolutionarily righteous. But it’s not going to do squat about changing the fundamental reasons you are homeless, jobless, and without healthcare. Why?

The 1% don’t care about you.

Why should they? They don’t even see you. At best you are an annoyance, like a wad of gum stuck to their shoe. You can keep marching in the streets all you want. You can join hands and wail about injustice till you’re blue in the face. It’s not going to do a thing to get assholes like Steve Forbes out of their plush country club comfort zones.

But if we start showing up on their lawns, if we can paint a color picture for the media of the disparity of wealth between young unemployed black men and white, entitled, Trust fund babies like Forbes, then and only then will we start to make them take notice and possibly change their behavior.

84 year old Dorli Rainey of Seattle got her 15 minutes of fame – in the form of an apology from the mayor and an interview with Keith Olbermann – when she was pepper-sprayed at a Seattle street protest. But imagine how much more effective that incident would have been if she had been sprayed on the grounds of the Koch brother’s Estate?

The sad picture of Ms. Rainey dripping with peppery goo that went viral was an effective symbol of police brutality and excess. But I can’t help but think the protest against Karl Rove – who was heckled recently at a speech he tried to give at the University of Virginia – was much more efficacious.

In my opinion, this is the direction the occupy movement should take. If you are suffering because of inequality and injustice, rather than meaningless confrontations with urban police in riot gear, why not take the protest to those who are responsible for your misery. Instead of protesting Bank of America at one of their branch offices, why not take the fight directly to the fat cats who own Bank of America?

The Koch Brothers made news with their secretive database of millionaires whom they can tap for campaign cash in 2012.

Why don’t we make our own database. A list of billionaires whom we can hound by showing up on their doorsteps till they stop acting like Oligarchic Emperors, till they quit hoarding all the money, and till they quit using their piles of cash to subvert the electoral will of the people?

The 1% need computers to compile their database. Ours can be more low tech. All we need to do is look for the mansions and country clubs.

By the Way, Make sure to check out Firedoglake’s effort to get warm clothes to occupiers: go to: https://donate.firedoglake.com/weatherize/contribute

Tags: 1%, 99%, 9gag, billionaires, economics, Forbes, inequality, occupy, protest, reddit, Thomas Vincent, Vincent, wall street
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Problems

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

If there are two themes that have been central to my adult life, the first has to be that in order to come to any meaningful solution to a problem, one must first correctly identify the problem.

The second is that once correctly identified, most problems are really not all that difficult.

Regardless of how intractable and tough a quandary may seem, when you strip off all the non-essentials, when you lose the emotional baggage you bring to a problem, peel away the layers of “woulda, shoulda, coulda,” the essential nature of most of life’s dilemmas is usually pretty simple. Often, I have found, the difficulty of correctly identifying a problem far exceeds the difficulty of coming up with a fix. Moreover, when identified, it is uncanny how often the “problem” turns out to be not a problem after all.

Need an example?

Take the problem of getting to the moon. On the surface this problem might seem to be daunting in its complexity, requiring among other things, a prodigious amount of mathematics, physics, and engineering. (To say nothing of a mountain of cash.) In short, getting to the moon, really is rocket science.

But take a step back for a minute and ask yourself: is the question of how to get to the moon really a problem that needs solving? In retrospect, I am not at all certain. To be sure, our few trips to the moon took a herculean effort and were a monumental scientific achievement. However, if we really face the facts, our moon shots, indeed our entire space program, was motivated principally by a desire to win the cold war “space race,” by reaching the moon ahead of the Soviet Union. Thus we spent millions of dollars of tax payer money and years of research in what amounted to a politico/galactic pissing match that netted us little more than some cool photos and a handful of exotic rocks. When one considers the other uses that money could have been used for, other problems that could have been solved – oh, say, developing solar energy, or building up our infrastructure, or even educating our population in math and science such that we didn’t have large numbers of ignorant nut jobs wandering around who are so gullible to believe that a project as big as a moon shot could be faked – it’s enough to make one weep.

Thus, while the problem of how to get to the moon is undeniably complex, if one truly asks oneself why the problem needs to be solved, one might decide it simply wasn’t worth the effort. The issue would be moot.

Need a domestic example? Most of the few problems my wife and I had with our son when he was a teenager had more to do with our preconceptions of what was right and proper than they did with anything he did. His actions were rarely unsafe, or harmful to others. If he decided to dye his hair green like he did one Halloween was that really the end of the world? Nope. The obscenity laden graffiti drawn on his wall with a sharpie? Annoying, but not really life and death. Ultimately, the problems I had with most of my son’s acting out had more to do with me than to do with him. Thus, they were not really problems at all. Or they were not battles that needed to be fought.

And speaking of unnecessary battles, our current militaristic foreign policy is a classic example of a whole slew of problems that seem insurmountable, yet when you step back, they are not really problems that need solving. We didn’t have to invade Afghanistan or Iraq. We don’t need to be occupying those countries. Like most wars of aggression, the argument can be made that our entire foreign policy is nothing short of one big global pissing match. It’s tragic to think of what we could be accomplishing with the trillions of dollars and needless blood we are spilling in an effort to convince the world we are still a super power.

The debt ceiling? Another issue that seems to get more insurmountable every day. But is it really a problem? The congress rubber stamped increases in the debt ceiling as a matter of course for presidents from Regan on to Bush. Yet, somehow, the “debate” over the debt ceiling has taken on an ominous tone as the “tea party” branch of the republican party is stonewalling to get what they want on budget cuts and no taxes for the wealthy. As many have noted, they are holding the country hostage over an issue that is so obviously a political ploy that even rank and file republicans are starting to become disgusted. In short, they are making a problem where none exists.

“It’s embarrassing,” said a stock broker acquaintance of mine today. “The countries around the world are looking at the debt ceiling argument and shaking their heads in disbelief.” President Obama is fond of the phrase: “America’s vital interests.” If the threat of defaulting on our debts is not harmful to the nation’s vital interests I don’t know what is.

The Tea Party, anti-tax crowd is so bad at identifying what the problems in this country are it’s difficult not to come to the conclusion that they are actively trying to create problems instead of trying to solve them. I know that Eric Cantor and the other right wingers in the House of Representatives want to see Obama gone in 2012, but I think they really need to take a step back and ask themselves if they aren’t creating more problems for the country – and even for their rich constituents – than anything that could possibly occur if they just left well enough alone.

If anyone doubts that the debt ceiling is a bogus issue just consider the following: Suppose Obama holds a news conference tomorrow and says, “I’ve decided to replace Joe Biden with Eric Cantor. And I’m seriously considering packing it in in 2012 and turning the reins over to the Tea baggers.” If you think the debt ceiling would stay an issue for more than 2 seconds after that, then I have a conspiracy you’ll be sure to find interesting.

It involves the cover-up of a faked moon landing.

Tags: Cantor, certaindoubt, debt ceiling, election, government, moon landing, Obama, Politics, problems, republican, tea party, Thomas Vincent, Vincent
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It Always Comes Down to Money.

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

In the end it always comes down to money.

The recent article in the New York Times by David Sanger and Elisabeth Bumiller entitled “Pentagon to Consider Cyberattacks Acts of War,” presents a chilling scenario:

“The Pentagon, trying to create a formal strategy to deter cyberattacks on the United States, plans to issue a new strategy soon declaring that a computer attack from a foreign nation can be considered an act of war that may result in a military response.

The new military strategy… makes explicit that a cyberattack could be considered equivalent to a more traditional act of war.” NYT

Just what constitutes a “cyberattack” is not made clear except to say that “any computer attack that threatens widespread civilian casualties — for example, by cutting off power supplies or bringing down hospitals and emergency-responder networks — could be treated as an act of aggression.”

That the Pentagon should employ such a broad reaching definition for cyberattack should give us pause. But it is the proposed response to such an attack that is really mind blowing. In a Wall Street Journal article Pentagon officials outlined the rationale behind the policy:

One idea gaining momentum at the Pentagon is the notion of “equivalence.” If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a “use of force” consideration, which could merit retaliation.
WSJ

Given the increasing alacrity with which the United States has been exercising its military muscle around the world, the conclusions about the effects of this policy are inescapable. As one military official is quoted as saying:

“If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”

The putative logic presented by the Pentagon is that by laying out a clear and forceful policy for dealing with threats such as malicious cyber attacks, the Pentagon will – at least in theory – provide a deterrent. The model quoted in the article is that of the deterrent posed by an American policy of absolute retaliation in the event of a nuclear attack.

“A parallel, outside experts say, is the George W. Bush administration’s policy of holding foreign governments accountable for harboring terrorist organizations, a policy that led to the U.S. military campaign to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.” WSJ

The main problem with the Pentagon proposal is that it is a stunning display of overkill. Not only is it hard to imagine which foreign country would be lurking out there with the capability or desire to inflict lethal cyber-damage on the United States, but it defies belief that any bit of cyber chicanery that such a country could come up with could possibly produce the kind of devastation that a single nuclear warhead could wreak. Thus, the kind of “mutually assured cyber-destruction that the Pentagon is implying is not only unnecessary, it is incredibly assymetrical and in no way “equivalent.” It’s sort of like responding to a bee sting by hitting the hive with a 2,000 lb. bunker buster.

Another problem with the Pentagon’s policy is that most of the cyberattacks that the United States has acknowledged have come not from foreign nations at all but from independent hackers and loose-nit organizations such as “Annonymous.” Given the broad definition the Pentagon puts forth it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to label any malicious cyber activity as an attack that would merit a military response. One can even envision a group of strategists in the Pentagon basement thinking up strategies for dropping a smart bomb down Julian Assange’s chimney.

Even when cyber attacks represent legitimate threats, it is often difficult to pin down where the attack originates from. As the NYT article notes:

“During the cold war, deterrence worked because there was little doubt the Pentagon could quickly determine where an attack was coming from — and could counterattack a specific missile site or city. In the case of a cyberattack, the origin of the attack is almost always unclear, as it was in 2010 when a sophisticated attack was made on Google and its computer servers. Eventually Google concluded that the attack came from China. But American officials never publicly identified the country where it originated, much less whether it was state sanctioned or the action of a group of hackers.”

“One of the questions we have to ask is, How do we know we’re at war?” one former Pentagon official said.

Another variable not explored in either the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times is the sometimes tenuous dividing line between the U.S. government and the defense contractors it employs. For example, Lockheed Martin recently claimed it’s information systems were the target of a “cyber attack”

Given the fact that Lockheed Martin’s products include the Trident missile, P-3 Orion spy plane, F-16 and F-22 Raptor fighter jets and C-130 Hercules military cargo planes among many other major weapons systems, could this attack on a private corporation be considered an attack on the United States and thus one that would merit a military response by the U.S. military? With all the various contractors and sub-contractors now employed by the Pentagon would a cyber attack on any of them be considered an act of war?

If the danger is not clear and present, if the culprits are hard, if not impossible to identify, and if the list of targets is endless, why on earth would the Pentagon be proposing military action, i.e. war, as a response?

Not surprisingly, like so much that comes out of the Pentagon , the answer comes down to money.

“The Pentagon strategy is coming out at a moment when billions of dollars are up for grabs among federal agencies working on cyber-related issues, including the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. Each has been told by the White House to come up with approaches that fit the international cyberstrategy that the White House published in May. “

Thus, once again, the Pentagon’s strategy for dealing with a perceived attack has little or nothing to do with protecting the homeland.

Surprise, surprise. Once again, it’s all about the Benjamins baby!

Tags: Benjamins, Certain Doubt, cyber attacks, cyberattacks, defense, ethical, government, money, Pentagon, reddit, retaliation, spectacle, Thomas Vincent, Vincent, war
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Legacy of the Rich.

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Over the past several years I have read and listened to pundits who decrying the demise of the daily newspaper, the weekly magazine, even hard backed novels. Most of the conversation has focused on economics. Declining ad revenues and rising costs have put the squeeze on the fourth estate forcing them to cut back staff and even shutter their doors for good. Moreover, many have claimed that the advent of instantaneous electronic news sources have rendered the traditional daily paper obsolete.

There is some element of truth to all these explanations. However, as tempting as it may be to blame the demise of print media on obsolescence and economic viability, I think there is a deeper systemic problem that is not being addressed.

I’m talking about content.

While newspapers may be under stress from cheaper and faster ways of people getting their news, I feel the daily paper is putting itself out of business, at least in part, for the simple reason that less and less of what finds its way into print these days is worth reading. Not only is much of the reporting two dimensional, the commentary vapid and trite, but increasingly I find it harder and harder to identify just who the newspapers think is their target audience.

Take the following article from the New York Times:

“Wealthy Hesitate to take a Break on Estate Taxes.”
Paul Sullivan
May 13, 2011.
“President Obama and the Republican Congress gave the wealthiest Americans an enormous gift at the end of 2010. They increased the exemption on a series of estate-related taxes and lowered the tax rate on any amount over those limits…. But five months into the tax break, the people able to fully exploit it are more tentative than wealth advisers had expected.”

Who is this article written for? The super rich? If so, the target audience is an awful small slice of the Times readership. To his credit Sullivan tries to make his revelation relevant:

“So why are the richest Americans hesitating to take advantage of this tax break? It comes down to two fears that bedevil everyone: They don’t want to put too much aside now in case they need it later, and they don’t want to take away their children’s incentive to work.”

The first part of this statement is actually grotesque. There are plenty of people in this country with nothing: no home, no savings, no IRA. The thought that there are people out there who actually have 10 million dollars to leave to their progeny is positively repulsive.

Actually, in a way, the first part of this statement is something of a test of a person’s wealth. That is to say, if you worry about how much money you’ll have left after gifting $10 million to your kids, I hate to tell you, but you simply aren’t that rich. The estate tax break for “the wealthiest Americans” is not written for those with ten million or twenty million. It really only applies to people whose net worth vastly exceeds the ten million dollar limit. Ironically, the “savings” realized by eliminating the estate tax on the first ten million is really chump change for the super, super wealthy. For the rest of us, it doesn’t apply at all.

The second part of the rationale presented for why people haven’t made use of the estate tax exemption makes even less sense. Most of my friends have zero savings. Many are living paycheck to paycheck with mortgages, car payments and student loans to pay off. Some are recently unemployed. None of them are worried one whit about how giving ten million to their kids will ruin their work ethic. Most are simply worried about being a burden to their kids in their old age.

Even if you have some assets, the idea of holding out on your kids so they’ll work harder, it is a questionable strategy. While it may appeal to Calvinist “bootstrap” Republicans, the reality is the economic times in which we live markedly different than when baby boomers and their parents came of age, with fewer job prospects and fewer opportunities to “make something of themselves.” In another stunning display of irony, of the few people I know who actually do have ten million dollars in the bank most got their boodle, not by working for it but by… wait for it… receiving an inheritance! The idea that anyone who has received an inheritance should hold out on their children in order to – as one person quoted in Sullivan’s article – “incentivize them” to do well is grotesque in the extreme.

The real issue I have with this article is not Sullivan’s assertion that people are not taking advantage of the estate tax loophole is because they’re worried about what giving too much money will do to their offspring. The real bone I have to pick is that Sullivan completely ignores the possibility why not many people are taking advantage of the loophole is that there simply aren’t that many people who truly fall into the category of the “wealthiest Americans.” According to a paper by by G. William Domhoff of the University of California,:

According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9% receive nothing (Kotlikoff & Gokhale, 2000).

Thus it is conceivably possible that the reason not many wealthy people are taking advantage of the loophole is that there simply aren’t that many super wealthy people in America these days.

For many reasons, lousy scholarship and research, lazy quoting and pathetically bad writing the Sullivan article is bad reporting. But what makes it worse is that the number of people who benefit at all from the tax loophole the author is writing about is so vanishingly small that the article’s usefulness to the readers whom the New York Times is marketing the paper is questionable at best.

If papers like the New York Times truly wanted to stay relevant and economically viable, perhaps they should stop writing articles aimed at phantom “wealthy Americans” who no longer exist. If Paul Sullivan is truly concerned with what his legacy will do to his kids, perhaps he should concentrate on writing articles about carbon emissions, climate change, and pollution.

That’s the real legacy of the rich.

Tags: cetraindoubt, content, economics, estate tax, legacy, loopholes, media, news, newspapers, print, rich, taxes, Thomas Vincent, Vincent, wealthy
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