Monthly Archives: August 2008

Throw Da Bums Out, III

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The rain that started last night continued this morning. I awoke at 1:15 to shut down the westerly windows.

Westerly is one of those odd words that means not only “facing the west” as I just used it but also “from the west” when writing of the wind and even “westbound” in the sense of moving toward the west as Daniel Defoe wrote. It is also is a train station in Rhode Island but not, to my knowledge, in Delaware.

The theme of this series is that we have been rained on enough; now we need a loose cannon in Western politics. The Democrats almost have one (actually two, if you count Vermont’s former governor, Howard Dean) in Joe Biden, the newly anointed Vice Presidential candidate.

Senator Biden is not a westerly candidate although he is considered a westerner everywhere else in the world. Except he is from the East so he is considered an Easterner here. Isn’t English wonderful? I like Senator Biden. He is a bright, thoughtful, articulate man who is absolutely unafraid of speaking his mind.

Unfortunately, Senator Biden’s assigned role is not that of loose cannon nor even “general smart guy.” Senator Biden’s assigned role is assistant principal. He gets to wield the paddle and chew on Senator McCain (his first major speech will portray Senator McCain’s chief financial advisor as Scrooge McDuck). Paris Hilton did it better. Worse yet, if Joe Biden spends all his time tearing down the other guy, he won’t have time to build better policy. Business as usual in the V.P. department.

The Obama/Biden theme is supposed to be “change.”

Candidates who want to “change the system” don’t want to change the system; candidates who want to change the system actually want their own policies implemented in the system.

A true loose cannon doesn’t care about the system. A true loose cannon doesn’t care about what the other guy does. A true loose cannon will subvert the system and find a way to get the real work done.

And we still need one running for President, darn it. After all, the President sets policy, not the Vice President. The President appoints the judges and signs the Executive Orders, not the Vice President. The President gets the public glory and the public pratfalls, not the Vice President.

The Republicans need one and there is still a (slim) chance they’ll pull it off. I’m not holding my breath.

In the upcoming (and we all hope final) episode of this series about the relative merits of balls for ordnance, I will explain why I really am joining the Librarian party.

What? Is He Nuts?

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Joe Lieberman, ID-Connecticut, became a Senator in 1988 and managed to get re-elected in 1994, again in 2000 (remember that date–it’s important), and to a fourth term in 2006. Barely.

In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Mr. Lieberman ran simultaneous campaigns for his third term in the Senate as well as for Vice President as the running mate of DEMOCRATIC presidential nominee Al Gore.

ID? “Independent Democrat.” He lost the ’06 Democratic primary election, so he flipped off the party and won re-election in the general election as a so-called Independent Democrat.

So, he’s a sort of a Democrat and perhaps the very best bet hedger in Washington, the capitol of hedging bets. Still, that has to make him perhaps the least trustworthy man in a city where losing trust is a political art form.

Now, eight years after his stunning electoral prestidigitation, he’s on the short list to be the running mate of REPUBLICAN presidential nominee John McCain.

I know the pundits think Mr. Lieberman brings something to the ticket. I know Mr. McCain really likes Mr. Lieberman. But I gotta ask, Is he nuts?

Oh well. At least Mr. Lieberman still has four more years on his Senate seat to go back to when this is all over.

Senators Obama’s and McCain’s terms end in ’10. Neither has given up his seat to run this race but at least neither is running campaigns for both simultaneously.

Dewey Wins!

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I’m not a jock. Not really. I have done some gymnastics. I had a WSI, taught swimming, and did a bit of diving. I raced cars until I retired in 1980. Despite that, I don’t watch many televised sports.

I watched the Olympics.

Michael Phelps blew me away.

One one-hundredth of a second. Eight gold medals in eight attempts.

Mr. Phelps burns more calories in an hour than I burn in a day. He swam the 4 x 200-meter relay less than an hour after winning the 200-meter fly. He won his definitive event at about 11:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, on Saturday.

It is the biggest sports story of the decade bar none.

I’m glad the Red Sox won the Series. I’m glad the Pats won the Super Bowl. This is bigger. This is batting 1.000 against a spitballer. This is hitting a home run in every at bat.

Oddly, The Burlington Free Press opted to cover a different event. The front page lead story on Sunday and the sports page lead story on Sunday was that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt “shattered the men’s 100-meter record Saturday.” Sorry, Mr. Phelps. I guess the Secretary really will “disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

The Freep did have a little box of weasel words down low on the sports page. We’re sorry, they said. We know Michael Phelps was swimming yesterday but we had to go to bed early and we missed it.

I understand that the reporters’ union requires the paper to allow us to sleep once a week and that Saturday night is it. But really. The only good news here is that the Freep avoided the “Dewey Defeats Truman!” kind of headline. The bad news is that this was the biggest sports story of the decade. Somebody should have stayed up for it.

Throw Da Bums Out, II

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We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever; it’s too bad today’s politicians shoot blanks.

In the first part of this series, we discovered that our current presidential candidates don’t have the answers.

For about 30 nanoseconds I thought I might vote for Ralph Nader. After all that’s a sure vote for Mickey Mouse or NOTA. Too bad the message sent with that vote is that Mr. Nader represents the change I want to see. That’s not my message so I retracted my Goofy vote last week.

Here’s the right message: officeholders have indeed changed. Officeholders have changed from peeps who want to do important stuff for us to peeps who want to do everything for us. Political party notwithstanding, politicians believe in their hearts of hearts that they know what you need waaaaaaay better than you know what you need. And they have fought each other to a standstill to give it to us. Read that again. It works on a lot of levels.

Sorry, folks. I know what I need and I know who can provide it.

I need less gummint. I need fewer laws. I need smaller taxes. And I need better roads.

Government has five basic responsibilities: establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty. That’s it. That means the next president needs to teach the kids, build the roads, share knowledge and encourage growth, and keep other people from robbing or nuking us.

Deciding whether a former ballplayer took steroids may keep Senators McCain and Obama (mostly) out of trouble but it ain’t what we elected them for and it ought not be what gets either into higher office.

The senators—that would be the ones who eat at the public trough, not the former ballplayers—spend entirely too much time taking potshots at each other instead of working together to hit a home run for their constituents.

That would be thee and me.

Within the Presidential responsibilities, this campaign has just two issues: the economy and the price of gas. Do you really believe Senator McCain will lead us out of the economic doldrums? Do you really believe Senator Obama will do anything but give away some of the oil we already have? I found a candidate who says she can fix it.

I love Paris in the springtime.
I love Paris in the fall.
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles,
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles.
I love Paris every moment,
Every moment of the year.

Sorry, Mr. Porter.

For those who live on another planet, Senator McCain took a cheap shot at Senator Obama and put Paris Hilton in play. Ms. Hilton responded with an energy policy video that makes more sense than anything either candidate has said.

The next president needs to teach the kids, build the roads, share knowledge and encourage growth, and keep other people from robbing or nuking us. Apparently, only a loose cannon can do that.

If Ms. Hilton gives us a 30-second lesson in economics, I’ll endorse her. She could be just the loose cannon we need.

In the upcoming episode of this series about the ballistic properties of ballplayers, I will explain the Democratic shortfall.

Spinning the Entire Planet

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This column looks at media spin.

First, the backstory: ExxonMobil, the most profitable company in the history of mankind, made an $11.68 billion profit this quarter on the back of General Motors which lost $15.5 billion.

“America’s oil and natural gas industry earns less than many others…” That’s the televised gospel according to “the people who bring you oil and natural gas” (that would be API, the American Petroleum Institute).

Hello? Are they on the same planet you and I inhabit?

Oh. Wait.

The API planet spins backwards!

Naturally they do have statistics to back up their claim, shown in their television ad in the form of a handy bar chart of earnings per dollar of sales in the First Quarter, 2008:

Pharmaceuticals 25.9
Beverage and Tobacco 17.8
Computer Products 13.7
All Manufacturing 7.6
Apparel and Leather 7.5
Oil and Natural Gas 7.4
Food 5.0
Furniture 3.0

[In the interest of full disclosure, I own some ExxonMobil stock.]

CEO Rex Tillerson announced that my company is, out of the largest profit in corporate history, paying one of the smaller dividends (~2%) in corporate history. On the other hand, Mr. Tillerson buys back shares like mine with all their extra cash and raised my dividend a whopping nickle while the investment he makes in production and exploration plummets.

That stock buyback at about $80 per share sucked up some $8 billion of the quarterly profit. They bought $30 billion in stock last year and have (so far) reduced the number of shares outstanding by about 400 million shares. I can see no reason that it helps me when Mr. Tillerson takes the stock out of play. It helps someone, though. At the current rate, ExxonMobil will buy back all of its shares and become a totally private company in just 14 more years.

Huh.

Just to show I am not playing favorites, Royal Dutch Shell’s second-quarter earnings were nearly as high as Exxon’s with a profit of $11.56 billion. That was 33% higher than Shell’s profit of $8.67 billion in the same period last year. Shell is half the size of Exxon.

Wow. $11.68 plus $11.56 billion in three months. Profit. Just two companies.

Profit that usually goes to the shareholders.

API states it is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. Their 400 corporate members are the producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies. They represent the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents. They spin the news for companies like ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, and more. By the way, Royal Dutch Shell has a stock buyback program. Chevron has a stock buyback program.

ExxonMobil did beat its own record for the highest profits ever by a U.S. company but the $2.22-per-share profit announced still led to a $3 decline in the share price.

I originally thought that Mr. Tillerson might have wished API had not spun the profit as such a small number.

That wasn’t right.

Mr. Tillerson, unlike every CEO in American history, wants his stock price to fall. The lower the price and higher the profits the more stock ExxonMobil can buy back.

See how well spinning backwards can work?