The Economic Mess

The current meltdown, as far as I understand, has several causes. One of those causes, with which I have personal knowledge, is the way that financial institutions securitized debts. This basically means that they combined a whole bunch of different loans into one package and turn it into a bond. People, like me, can buy the bond and earn interest on it as the debt is paid back. My financial advisor got me into some of these mortgage backed securities earlier this decade. (I ended up selling them before the housing market bubble burst, so I didn't lose anything)

The problem is that there is no way to tell how much of the debt that has been securitized is "good debt" and how much is "bad debt." If 75% of the mortgages that were in the mortgage backed security that I owned were "good," (meaning the mortgages were taken out my people who were qualified and able to pay it off) but 25% were "bad" (subprime mortgages or mortgages taken out by people who would be unable to pay if their adjustable rate spiked), then it's likely that I would have lost a big chunk of my investment if I had not sold when I did. (BTW, I did not sell because I realized that I was in an unwise investment. The timing of that decision had more to do with dumb luck.)

Bob Kuttner has the best overview that I found of our current situation, and several proposed regulations that would prevent a repeat of this meltdown in the future. Check it out.

Obama's Accomplishments, US Senate Edition

Now I'll move to Obama's time in US Senate. His most significant accomplishment is without a doubt his work with Dick Lugar (R) on securing nuclear weapons in the former USSR.

During the 2004 campaign, although neither candidate emphasized their plans related to the issue, both Bush and Kerry agreed that nuclear proliferation was the most pressing national security risk the US faced. I don't think anything has changed regarding its importance.

Obama caught Lugar's eye because he was talking about loose nukes during his Senate campaign, even though it is hardly a traditional campaign issue. Obama didn't care that Lugar was a Republican, he understood that Lugar was the foremost expert in the Senate on this issue, so he decided to learn as much as possible from Lugar. He ended up taking former Senator Sam Nunn's role in cosponsoring legislation with Lugar. It was just this past June, despite being in the middle of the presidential campaign, that the Lugar-Obama nonproliferation initiative secured funding from the Appropriations Committee.

Obama also worked with Lugar on a different kind of national security issue, avian flu.

He also taken the lead in ethics legislation, which when it was passed in early 2007, was described as "the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet." When it comes to dealing with the abuse of earmarks, Obama was instrumental in the passage of The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, allowing citizens to easily find out what their legislators are doing. (Maybe now that he has selected Palin, McCain will come to understand that earmarks are not all bad. Most of our aid to Israel comes in the form of earmarks, and surely McCain does not want to cut those) It is worth noting that Obama teamed up with Sen Coburn (R) on the transparency bill, and just a few months ago they introducing a new bill strengthening the 2006 law.

This new bill gives a great example of the kind of bipartisanship Obama practices. Obama and Coburn has been working on this bill for a while. McCain had nothing to do with the crafting of this bill, and Coburn admits that it was his fault for not inviting McCain's participation. When they were ready to introduce the bill, McCain's people started scrambling to get his name added as a sponsor of the bill. They thought it would be a political liability if McCain's name was nowhere to be found on the bill since ethics reform is central to his campaign. Rather than take partisan advantage of the situation in the middle of the Presidential election, Obama welcomed McCain's co-sponsorship. It was a good bill, so Obama did not let electoral concerns get in the way of passing the bill.

You can find Obama's response to Katrina here. He has authored a number of bills to support veterans.

It is important to note that during Obama's first two years in the Senate, the D's were the minority party. The last two years, the R's have set records when it comes to the use of the filibuster. (The previous record was 61 filibusters in a two year Senate term. The Republicans only needed one year to break that) Under any circumstances, Obama has taken the lead on passage of a lot of legislation for a first term Senator, but it is an even more impressive record when you consider the obstructions he faced.

Looking over the legislation he is responsible for, it is striking how much of it is not the kind that gets lots of press. They are important bills, sometimes they are quite wonkish, but not at all the kind of legislation that a politician seeking "celebrity" would pursue. This is especially true of the bills Obama has proposed, but have not passed yet. His technology proposals, further ethics reform, regulating genetic testing, reducing medical malpractice the right way, etc. all fit the wonky, non-sexy pattern.

Hilzoy, who blogs both at The Washington Monthly and at Obsidian Wings, has been compiling a list of legislation sponsored by either Obama or McCain during the 109th and 110the Congress (the two when both of them have been in the Senate) Here is the list of legislation that they sponsored. Here is the list of bills and amendments they each cosponsored in the 109th Congress. Here is the list of bills and amendments they each cosponsored in the 110th Congress. I have not looked through all of these lists in detail yet, but they would be helpful to anyone wanting to compare their legislative accomplishments from the past 4 years. They would probably work great as a sleep aid, as well.

I am impressed with Obama's accomplishments but more excited by his forward looking policy proposals. His record of bipartisanship, and the manner in which he is conducting his campaign, makes me optimistic that he would have success in implementing those ideas.

Obama's Accomplishments, Pre-US Senate edition

Continuing with posts adapted from the politics forum at artsandfaith.com, here is my response to those who wonder what Obama has ever accomplished.

First, I would point to his presidency of the Harvard Law Review and teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. While those two accomplishment are not directly related to governing, they do demonstrate both intellectual curiosity and a deep, sophisticated understanding of the constitution. Many of the problems with the Bush presidency stem directly from a lack of intellectual curiosity and a dismissal of the constitution.

While he has a number of legislative accomplishments during his time in Illinois, the one that I think is the most significant is the bill requiring the police to videotape interrogations and confessions. It was not only the passage of the bill that was important, but the way he got it passed.

First, he believed that too many confessions were being coerced out of suspects and sometimes the coercion ventured into violence. His solution was rather simple; videotape both the interrogations and the confessions. Then there would be no question about what happens to suspects.

The biggest problem he faced was that the bill was initially opposed by the police. Normally that would make such a bill dead in the water. Democrats are scared to death of being tarred as soft on crime, so they have no motivation to support something that the police oppose. Republicans often are automatically "tough on crime" and also have no desire to cross the police.

So he did what I think Obama does best. He listened. He spent a lot of time with police officers and worked to understand their concerns. He supported some other bills that they wanted to pass. He helped them understand that videotaping both interrogations and confessions would protect suspects AND the police officers involved in questioning (good cops would not get lumped in with crooked cops, the video would protect them from false accusations of brutality, etc.)

He won over the police, won over the Republicans, and got the measure passed overwhelmingly (the vote in the Senate was 35-0) While being a state issue, carefully thinking through issues dealing with confessions and false confessions and abusing suspects certainly pertains to the national stage these days, doesn't it?

Here is a fuller description of how Obama's leadership led to the passage of the videotaping bill.

Another accomplishment while in the Illinois legislature was the passage of what the Washington Post called "the most ambitious campaign reform in nearly 25 years, making Illinois one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure." Each party selected one member to represent their party. He was new in the state Senate, and the Democrats were in the minority then, but he was the D's point person.

There are more things he did in Illinois (and the criticism of Obama for voting "present" demonstrates a lack of understanding how the state legislature works in Illinois) but this is long enough and there is a lot more to talk about from the past four years in the US Senate.

Why I Like Obama

I am very active in an online politics discussion forum at artsandfaith.com Some of the time that I use to spend blogging, I've been spending there talking about the upcoming election. I decided to ought to adapt some of what I've posted there for my blog. I wrote the following in February of 2007, well before he began running for President. I pretty much still agree with everything that I wrote back then.

Like most of the country, I first became aware of Obama when he gave the speech at the Democratic convention. The things that everybody talks about impressed me; his comfort talking about his faith, his eloquence, that he comes across as "authentic." After he was elected, I watched a handful of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on CSPAN. Almost without exception, he asked the best, most intelligent, most relevant questions. (Maybe his questions seemed that way to me because they were the questions I was wondering about) What made them stand out was that they came across as genuine questions that were asked to help him and the committee better understand the issue - not to score a political point.

At that point I subscribed to his weekly podcast, in which he spends about 8-10 minutes talking about a particular issue the Senate is dealing with that week or a piece of legislation that he will be sponsoring. It will occasionally include recordings of speeches he gives. One that I remember was given at the Council on Foreign Relations about Iraq, probably in the middle of 2005. Although he made it clear that he had been against the invasion in the first place, he talked about American responsibility to the Iraqis now that we were there. He talked about the need for a counter insurgency strategy (like the one that Gen. Petraeus is now trying to implement) back before the civil war became entrenched and when such a strategy had a chance of success. He's been right on the most important issue facing the US over the past several years and the reasons he's been right are just as important to me.


He has surrounded himself with experts like Samantha Powers and he learns from them. I've read interviews with his staff who say that when someone like Powers comes in to give him a briefing on Darfur, within 10 minutes he's digested all that they've said and has asked a half dozen questions that get right to the heart of the matter. Often one or two of the questions will cause the expert to have to consider an issue in a new light and necessitate them going back to do further research. They feel inspired and invigorated by the questions, instead of belittled like Rumsfeld's briefers.


I also respect the story he tells about a letter he received from pro-life doctor during his Senate campaign. The doctor told him that some of the language his campaign was using to describe people who are pro-life was dismissive and offensive. Obama looked at the language and agreed with the letter. He apologized to the writer and changed the language. He did not change his position on abortion, but when he recognized that he was doing something disrespectful towards those he disagreed with, he changed.

He attended Rick Warren's conference on AIDS despite opposition from those on the far right and the far left. Despite disagreeing with most of those attending the conference on the issue of abortion, he did not let that stop him from working together on an issue they did agree upon. He worked with John McCain on ethics reform and Tom Coburn (!) on legislation to bring more transparency to the Federal budget. Even though Obama is most definitely a political liberal, he does not let partisan power games be an obstacle to good policy.

I like his positions on the economy, health care, Iraq, al Qaeda, homeland security, energy, guns, network neutrality, and immigration. It is easy enough to find more info about those things.

I think that restoring America's soft power in the world will be one of the most important tasks of our next president, and Obama would be uniquely suited for that. I agree with President Palmer in 24, Muslim citizens of the US and moderate Muslims throughout the world are our most important allies in the GWOT. Restoring the idea that America stands for freedom, democracy, fairness, and opportunity, and against things like torture, privilege, and bullying might not win over any of the radicals, but it will help to keep Muslims from becoming radicalized and support the moderates in the struggle within Islam. A president with a funny name, brown skin, who has lived in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, is treated like a rock star in Africa, and opposes torture should have more soft power than most. Of course, none of the those things about his background are in and of themselves qualifications to be President, but are more like the icing on the cake.

Notes From An Escalator

Not only is my sister an accomplished chef, she's also a great writer. So subscribe to the RSS feed of her new blog about life in Hong Kong!

John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd

For anyone who is less of a nerd than I am, and needs an explanation of the concept of "Rickrolling," read this.

Slacktivist

Fred Clark is the author of a great blog called Slacktivist. It is best known for Fred's weekly analysis of the Left Behind books, sometimes only covering a couple of pages. He describes both the poor theology and the terrible writing of LaHaye and Jenkins.

Today, he looked into the future to share with us a news story that is sure to be written next week featuring McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

... Davis, visibly shaken and with tears in his eyes, reiterated the McCain campaign's demand for an apology.

"Thousands of older Americans suffer from this same condition," Davis said. "So when Mr. Obama says, 'Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining' this is a vicious slur not only on Sen. McCain, but also on tens of millions of older Americans."

Obama, for his part, insisted his comment had not been intended as a personal attack on his Republican rival.

"I don't see how that can be taken as ageist," Obama said. "It's a colloquialism, something my grandmother used to say back in Kansas. And anyway I didn't even know until today that Sen. McCain suffered from this condition."

"John McCain was a POW," Davis reminded reporters. "Leave John McCain aloooooooooone!"

Asked if he would have chosen his words more carefully had he known about his opponent's condition, Obama shrugged. "Depends," he said.

This prompted further demands for an apology ...

Lipstick

It is a shame that Obama needs to take time to say this, but he says what needs to be said.

Obama on the Constitution

I like how Obama has the appropriate attitude towards today's Republican party. It is a mix of amusement and dismissal. That's different than being dismissive of every Republican. But the party, which cheered Bush casually throwing out what Obama correctly describes as "the foundation of Anglo-American law," deserves scorn. And Palin's jeering at Obama's support for habeas corpus (to applause, I might add) during the Republican Convention, also deserves scorn.

"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting. Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."

Spelling

Some of you know about my spelling "ability," or lack thereof. One of the reasons I use Firefox is the built-in spell checker. So I loved this video.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesis.

RNC

Here is some more good commentary on the RNC.

The Conventions & The Election

My sister asked me to write about my thoughts on the Republican National Convention last week. Tom Toles did a better job summarizing the message from the RNC than I could. Take a look at his editorial cartoon from this week.

It sounds to me like McCain's campaign has decided to forget about their attempt to draw in undecided, independent, and conservative Democratic voters. It's all about the base of the Republican party now. The choice of Sarah Palin for VP has excited religious conservatives and NRA members, but you cannot call yourself a Maverick while kowtowing to the conservative base of your party. A convention that mocked community organizers and featured repeated chanting of "Drill, Baby, Drill!" seems happy to write off voters younger than 40.

With the two convention completed, in some ways the real election has started. Casual voters will start to pay attention now. The first debate is on September 30. Polls still don't mean very much and are not worth paying attention to until October. The fundamentals, like the state of the economy and the fact of Republican incumbency, still point to an Obama victory.

I think the biggest wildcard is Iraq. If there continues to be relative stability (and by relative, I mean something less than total civil war) then it might not be too much of a factor. But if things change, either towards more open civil war or towards actual political reconciliation, then who knows? If it gets obviously worse, will undecided and weakly committed voters blame the Republicans or will they decide that McCain's "experience" makes him the best person to deal with the problem? If it gets obviously better, will those same voters give McCain credit for advocating the surge, or will they decide Iraq does not matter and focus just on the economy?

Obama has been saying, most recently in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, that he welcomes a debate with McCain on foreign policy. This is great news for lots of reasons, but from an electoral standpoint, it will show the public that he is better on Iraq whether things there take a turn for the better or the worse.

The Decembrists

The years that I lived in Washington were a dark period for me as it relates to music. With one notable exception, I did not discover any new artists (I knew of Alejandro when I moved to WA but only became a fan when a friend gave me tickets to see him live in Seattle) and I rarely listened to the music that I already owned. One of the Northwest's bands that I missed out on is The Decembrists.

Last weekend, when I was watching Mad Men (the best show on TV right now - if you haven't seen it, go rent season 1. There are some uneven moments and times when the novelties of life in the late 1950's pulls you out of the story, but they have really hit their stride in season 2) the opening sequence was set to The Decembrist's song "The Infanta." The song is captivating.

Since then, I've been trying to familiarize myself with this interesting band. Like one of my favorite musicians from college, Bill Mallonee, the songwriter is a bit of a history buff. "The Infanta" is about the birth of a Spanish princess in 1824. Another new favorite of mine is "When the War Came." Here is what frontman Colin Meloy said about the song.

The last great book I read was Hunger by Elise Blackwell. It’s about the siege of Leningrad in World War II, and there was a botanical institute. During the siege, which lasted a long time, the entire population were starving, but all of the botanists in the institute swore themselves to protect the catalog of seeds and plants and things, from not only a starving population, but also from themselves. It’s pretty amazing.

The Infanta





When The War Came

Restaurants

I wish I had the time (and money!) to do restaurant reviews. What a great job, although if a newspaper or magazine is paying you to review places, you have to make multiples trips to restaurants you don't like. I think I could live with that, though. Since I don't write restaurant reviews, I'll just write a note about a couple of places I went in the past week.

Over Labor Day weekend I was at Blue Grotto, a new pizza place in Brookside. It was the best pizza I've had since moving back to KC, although that's not saying much. These are artisan, wood fired pizzas with a light, slightly crackly crust. My favorite was a prosciutto with red onions and asiago cheese. The salsiccia was great, too. The only problem was slow service, but I was with a group that gave off we're-going-to-hang-out-here-all-night vibes.

On Tuesday, I met a friend at a little Italian restaurant also in Brookside, La Cucina Di Mamma. This place is a part of Bella Napoli, the Italian market and deli. I had a special, pasta alla puttanesca. It was not as spicy as puttansecas that I've made or had elsewhere. The anchovy was the dominate flavor, but it was not too much. I'd order it again. I don't know very much about Italian wines, so I can't really judge the wine list. We got one of the least expensive bottles, and it was a good weeknight-type red that worked just fine with our meals. The price was great, too. Our two entrees, the wine, and the tip came to about $50.

Both places are worth checking out. I'm sure I'll be back at both of them in the future.