brainiac conspiracy

Democracy, Inc.

It really shows you how far our political ruling class has drifted into cutthroat corporatism Sensible Centrism over the past 35 years:

Eager to cut spending, the Republican-controlled House voted to end multimillion-dollar federal subsidies for presidential candidates and national political conventions on Wednesday, the first of what party leaders promised will be weekly, bite-sized bills to attack record deficits.

The 239-160 vote sent the measure---and the fate of the familiar $3 check-off box on income tax returns---to the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats.

"Eliminating this program would save taxpayers $617 million over ten years, and would require candidates and political parties to rely on private contributions rather than tax dollars," said Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., "In times when government has no choice but to do more with less, voting to end the Presidential Election Campaign Fund should be a no brainer."

In 1974, the law that created the income tax check-off passed the same House of Representatives by a vote of 365-24. And this was before the Democratic landslide that same year---which is to say, a majority of Republicans supported it too.

Considering that public financing of elections, and campaign spending limits in general, are still fairly popular with voters, Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration should pillory Republicans with this vote as often as they can in the coming days. They probably won't do that, of course, but it would still be a good idea if they made the GOP pay a political price for pushing an agenda that most people don't want in the service of a Supreme Court decision that most people despise.

And memo to David Espo: This vote has nothing to do with cutting federal spending. It is all about leveraging the effects of Citizens United to guarantee GOP fund-raising dominance in federal election campaigns for decades. This isn't a public service, it's a power play.

---Vitelius

Getting It Bassackwards

Granted, the awesome prison-industrial complex we have in California is a huge drain on our economy, but be that as it may, we have to accept the fact that if we send X-thousand people off to serve their sentences every year, some of them are going to get sick and require medical care. So, what to do when prison healthcare costs escalate?

One way to reduce costs quickly, Kelso told legislators, would be to allow him to release the sickest patients, who consume a disproportionate amount of medical care.

"You let me unload 1,500 inmates, and I'll give you a 30% drop in costs," Kelso said.

Brilliant. Send a bunch of guys who are too sick and/or elderly to work back into civil society, where a lot of them will end up draining the treasury by collecting disability and going to emergency rooms when they get sick because they can't afford to purchase health insurance, which in turn will translate into higher healthcare costs for the rest of us. As an alternative, how about releasing 1,500 able-bodied, non-violent drug offenders who might be able to work at a state-supervised day job where they could collect wages and pay taxes and, you know, buy health insurance through their employers? Then again, this would presuppose that our government is run by eminently sensible people with astute fiscal judgment:

After $82 million was spent between 2007 and 2010 on blueprints, environmental reviews and other plans for seven new medical facilities capable of treating 10,000 inmates, Schwarzenegger abandoned that ambitious plan, instead settling on one new medical facility in Stockton with about 1,700 beds. Three former juvenile prisons will also be retrofitted as medical facilities.

While gearing up for the proposed building boom, the state paid at least seven different construction consultants a monthly rate that amounts to more than $240,000 per year, according to an Assembly committee review of invoices. One of those contractors, Washington State-based architectural consultant Robert Glass, was paid as much as $50,600 per month last year.

"He was working extraordinary hours trying to put together all of the input we were getting from healthcare professionals into a plan," Kelso said of Glass' contribution. "An extraordinary fellow."

---Vitelius

Austerity for Thee But Not for Me

Because our overlords must be appeased:

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address failed to convince executives and economists at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting that he’s serious about taming the U.S. budget deficit.

Hours after Obama used his State of the Union address to propose a partial freeze on government spending, delegates at the conference in Davos, Switzerland, said the U.S. is lagging foreign counterparts in cutting a budget deficit of more than $1.2 trillion.

“There is an unwillingness to deal with the real gorilla in the room,” said Martin Sorrell, chief executive officer of advertiser WPP Plc. James Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young LLP, said, “we need a heck of a lot more action on it” and that Obama’s speech “lacked details.”

Now, before we lapse into knee-jerk cynicism here, a reality check: In the not-too-distant future, when we're all trudging off to work each day until we're 75 to become eligible to collect Social Security benefits, and our grandkids are paying daily admission fees to attend Monsanto Middle School, at least we can console ourselves in the knowledge that our sacrifices are being made for a greater good:

Just to have the opportunity to be invited to Davos, you must be invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit that was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who managed to build a global conference in the snow. There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The ticket itself is another 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,000), plus tax, bringing the total cost of membership and entrance fee to $71,000.

But that fee just gets you in the door with the masses at Davos, with entry to all the general sessions. If you want to be invited behind the velvet rope to participate in private sessions among your industry’s peers, you need to step up to the “Industry Associate” level. That costs $137,000, plus the price of the ticket, bringing the total to about $156,000.

Of course, most C.E.O.’s don’t like going anywhere alone, so they might ask a colleague along. Well, the World Economic Forum doesn’t just let you buy an additional ticket for $19,000. Instead, you need to upgrade your annual membership to the “Industry Partner” level. That will set you back about $263,000, plus the cost of two tickets, bringing the total to $301,000.

And if you want to take an entourage, say, five people? Now you’re talking about the “Strategic Partner” level. The price tag: $527,000. (That’s just the annual membership entitling you to as many as five invitations. Each invitation is still $19,000 each, so if five people come, that’s $95,000, making the total $622,000.)

---Vitelius

Break the Law, Go To Jail

Great concept. Too bad it only applies to real persons, not corporate persons.

In a country where elected officials actually served the interests of their constituents, perhaps this problem would be addressed and remedied. Then again, now that the recession is officially over, I guess there's no need to re-litigate the past, now, is there.

---Vitelius

I Need a Fix 'Cause I'm Going Down

Tell me this is only a joke. Please.

---Vitelius

High-Speed Rail is Awesome

But that doesn't mean our government should neglect existing regional and intracity rail lines, which serve dozens of closely connected communities such as those that exist along the Silicon Valley-South Bay corridor, and which on a workaday level will have a much greater social utility than a dedicated high-speed maglev line, which tends to advantage big-city commuters traveling long distances between urban centers at the expense of suburbanites who only need a locale line to hop from one lower-density 'burb to another. Think of them as complimentary spokes in the same wheel of transit. Our wise leaders may not see things that way since they tend to favor big shiny toys over more mundane civic-improvement projects, but that doesn't mean these examples of "lesser" infrastructure aren't vitally important to a great many people. And yes, I know, giving people what they actually want is not a concept that's firmly embedded in our leaders' DNA in our New Gilded Age, but it's still worth mentioning anyway.

---Vitelius

Breaking: We Don't Trust Our Corporate Overlords

Which I guess is why we need to lower their taxes. Can't think of any other reason why we shouldn't, except perhaps to stay competitive with the Russians, or to stay ahead of the Gallic freedom-haters.

---Vitelius

Probably Restating the Obvious

But Red State America is still hazardous to your health.

---Vitelius

Brewercare

First, they gave us government death panels. Now they want to start rationing treatment to the poor and disabled. It's everything we were warned would happen if the Best Healthcare System in the World™ was placed under the jackboot of a gang of Keynesian socialists right-wing crazy people.

---Vitelius

Things I Didn't Know Before

Abortion rights are just like the War of Northern Aggression.

The fact that this crackpot draws a paycheck from CNN tells you everything you need to know about our modern-day media culture.

---Vitelius

Collective Amnesia

Didn't hear anyone mention this subject last night among the millions of words expended on speeches, rebuttals, and post-game coverage on CNN, Fox, et al, but when our Sputnik Watcher-in-Chief proclaimed:

We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.

He forgot about something. Yes, the recession is over for investors and speculators in the capital markets, but it's not over at all for the rest of us. And until this nagging little problem gets fixed, it's not going to be over, not by a long shot. Our leaders devised a program to address this a couple of years ago. It might be time to admit that it hasn't worked, and cobble up a different approach.

---Vitelius

It's a Puzzlement

Not sure how we're going to be able to invest in education, underwrite scientific R&D, and build high-speed rail from sea to shining sea while imposing a five-year spending freeze, but it'll be a neat trick if our wise leaders in Washington manage to pull it off. Me, I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

Oh, and if we can't afford to keep extending tax cuts for the rich, why did we agree to extend them for two more years last month? Just askin'.

---Vitelius

Hump-Day Insomniac Thread

Did someone give a big speech last night?

---Vitelius

Not Exactly Earth-Shattering News

But good to see our leaders in Washington agree that the financiers and watchdogs of American capitalism aren't nearly as bright as they like to think they are. Next time it would be nice if we didn't have to wait 10 years to find this out.

---Vitelius

One Big Happy Family

Lap dogs welcome. Watchdogs, less so:

Two years ago, after the 2008 financial crisis, the CEOs of Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley stayed away from the annual forum. This year the only major Wall Street banks that aren’t sending CEOs are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, instead represented by President Gary D. Cohn, 50, and Chairman John J. Mack, 66, respectively.

That means banks will be spending on parties. JPMorgan upgraded its cocktail reception to the Kirchner Museum from last year’s event at the Tonic Piano Bar at Hotel Europe Davos. Bank of America’s Moynihan and the firm’s other top executives will meet clients for drinks on Jan. 27 at the Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvedere -- the same night Morgan Stanley’s Mack is hosting a private dinner at restaurant Gasthaus in den Islen. Standard Chartered Plc and Deutsche Bank AG are both hosting events at the Belvedere the following night [...]

Timothy F. Geithner is scheduled to be in Davos, the first time in more than a decade that a sitting U.S. Treasury secretary has flown to Switzerland for the conference. The leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. will also appear, as will seven members of the U.S. Congress, including Republican Majority Leader Eric I. Cantor and Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank.

None of the U.S.’s main financial regulators, such as Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro or U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler are on the list of participants.

“Last year there were a lot of conversations about who to blame, how to blame them, and how to re-jigger the industry,” said Yury Spektorov, a Moscow-based partner in Bain & Co.’s mergers and acquisitions practice. “It’s not a hot topic anymore. Some people probably learned their lessons, some probably didn’t, but they will discuss how to move forward.”

---Vitelius

There Never Was a Compelling Reason

To nationalize and break up the big banks after the capital markets crashed since their fundamentals were sound and their business practices solid.

---Vitelius

Breaking News: Bush Administration Was Corrupt

Nice to have confirmation of this. How about some prosecutions?

---Vitelius

Guess it Was a Wise Decision

That we extended those Bush-era tax cuts last month. It costs a lot of money to be a Galtian overlord:

Just to have the opportunity to be invited to Davos, you must be invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit that was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who managed to build a global conference in the snow.

There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The ticket itself is another 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,000), plus tax, bringing the total cost of membership and entrance fee to $71,000.

But that fee just gets you in the door with the masses at Davos, with entry to all the general sessions. If you want to be invited behind the velvet rope to participate in private sessions among your industry’s peers, you need to step up to the “Industry Associate” level. That costs $137,000, plus the price of the ticket, bringing the total to about $156,000.

Of course, most C.E.O.’s don’t like going anywhere alone, so they might ask a colleague along. Well, the World Economic Forum doesn’t just let you buy an additional ticket for $19,000. Instead, you need to upgrade your annual membership to the “Industry Partner” level. That will set you back about $263,000, plus the cost of two tickets, bringing the total to $301,000.

And if you want to take an entourage, say, five people? Now you’re talking about the “Strategic Partner” level. The price tag: $527,000. (That’s just the annual membership entitling you to as many as five invitations. Each invitation is still $19,000 each, so if five people come, that’s $95,000, making the total $622,000.) This year, all “Strategic Partners” are required to invite at least one woman along as part of an effort to diversify the attendee list.

---Vitelius

Out of Curiosity

Has a Nobel Prize ever been rescinded?

---Vitelius

American Exceptionalism

When you're the big kid in class, it's always a lot of fun to throw your weight around and bully your smaller classmates. Just don't expect to make many friends that way.

---Vitelius