We’re friends with a few of the country’s name-brand bloggers. There’s no magic to it. We just keep seeing them at conventions. We know lots of local and state-level politicians too. There’s really no magic to it, either. It isn’t just about donations or family connections. It’s about showing up.
The first time you show up to volunteer nobody knows you. Maybe they catch your name. The second time you show up maybe they remember seeing you before. (What was your name again?) The third or fourth time, now you’re somebody they think they might need to take seriously.
I got into this business working on Patsy Keever’s 2004 congressional race. I didn’t know Patsy from Adam, but I was angry and frustrated and that was where the fight was. I walked in off the street to stuff envelopes or something — I didn’t know anything about electioneering. (I was out of work.) A couple of weeks later I had my own computer and a desk. I entered data, cut call lists. By the time it was over, I had done about everything except fundraising, including location scouting for commercials and playing craft services for the film crew.
It amazed me to watch activists walk in off the street, offer to write “white papers” and expect to be dubbed the campaign’s chief advisor on [your pet issue here]. Can you make some phone calls? No?
Chris Dixon, candidate for State Senate District 48, highlights this good economicnews:
“The Asheville Tribune” Touts Benefits of Federal, State, and Local Economic Stimulus
As the Democratic candidate for State Senate District 48 (Buncombe, Henderson, and Polk counties), I have made local job creation my #1 campaign issue. It was the loss of the Volvo plant in Arden in December of 2009 that spurred me to run. So, I was heartened to see the following headline in The Asheville Tribune (Aug. 26-Sept. 1, 2010): “Fletcher company to offer 100 new jobs in expansion plan.”
This is surely good news for a town in the heart of my district, and the page 3 article gives plenty of encouraging details. All told, brake manufacturer Continental Teves will add 388 jobs in “three to four years,” doubling the plant’s workforce to 625 workers. This will more than replace the 250 jobs shed by Volvo—mostly to unionized plants in Pennsylvania.
However, the most interesting commentary in the article follows:
(Kathryn) Blackwell (corporate spokesperson in Auburn Hills, MI) said brake-making has perked up since deciding a year ago to expand the Fletcher facility. “Then we had two major customers (G.M., Chrysler) coming out of bankruptcy, with no sign of light at the end of the tunnel. But at this point, we’re seeing volumes picking up considerably—beyond most experts’ analysis.”
North American auto production is 25 percent above industry projections this year, Blackwell said, with Detroit’s Big Three needing brakes and other parts. “This is the first good news we’ve had in over two years.”
The article goes on to mention that the Fletcher expansion beat out plants in Europe and Mexico thanks to what Blackwell describes as “Fletcher and Henderson County tax incentives and a state grant of up to $2.2 million.”
Hmmm. Let’s see. GM and Chrysler are still in business thanks to a federal intervention. The Wall Street Journal’s Detroit bureau chief declared, “…President Obama’s auto industry initiatives are working and the president is entitled to take a bow, no matter how much that might pain conservatives.” Henderson County’s all-Republican board of county commissioners conspired with the Fletcher town council and the Democratic administration of Gov. Bev Perdue to bestow various economic incentives upon Continental Teves.
How long before we see a Tea Party protest at the plant gate? Surely, they won’t sit idley by as socialism and economic bipartisanship (the horror!) gain a foothold in Fletcher.
Had fun yesterday. We had over a dozen canvassers show up on Saturday to knock on a bunch of doors — even after a couple of complaints about a certain congressman’s health care vote. Those who showed up know that holding the U.S. House and Senate and the fate of the next state redistricting all comes down to turnout.
Neal Gabler of the Woodrow Wilson Center laments that Wall Street reforms will never outfox human nature — specifically, greed:
If we’ve learned nothing else about investment banking over the last two years, we’ve learned that it operates like a virus. You can devise all sorts of economic antibiotics — from stricter regulation and more oversight to limiting certain institutional arrangements, as Glass-Steagall did — but sooner or later they are all bound to fail because financial instruments keep mutating to escape destruction. Investment bankers reconstitute highly risky, highly profitable schemes such as credit default swaps or unit contingent options or other exotic inventions. That’s why reform never works. It will always be outsmarted.
At least, as long as there is financial reward in outsmarting the system. Gabler notes (anecdotally, at least),
that During the long postwar economic boom, the top marginal rates hovered at 91%, removing a lot of the incentive to game the financial system. There was no point in scheming if you couldn’t profit from it. Still, the country prospered. So did Wall Street.
What changed starting in 1981, according to Gabler, is that the government started rewarding greed. “The Reagan tax cuts were hailed by conservatives as a way to unleash American initiative,” Gabler writes (by dropping the punishing, punishing, punishing, punishing, punishing top marginal tax rates — these people are really sensitive about being punished). We succeeded in unleashing “American avarice” along with it. Gordon Gekko made his Wall Street debut in 1987.
Reward a behavior and you’ll get more of it is an article of faith in certain circles. It reminds me that one of the core beliefs behind our criminal justice system — and a style of parenting popular in certain circle — is that punishment is supposed to deter misbehavior. Crimes of passion excluded, of course, and it would be hard to argue that the creation of derivatives and credit default swaps were crimes of passion, merely of greed.
Incentives, as we have seen, don’t always work the way common sense says they should. But if Gabler’s analysis has any merit (you don’t treat viruses with antibiotics, for example), disincentivizing one of the seven deadly sins again might have a more salutary effect than trying to inoculate against it.
That would be terribly unfair, of course. The full list of deadly sins applies only to people in the lowest tax brackets.
After last year’s summer of discontent, I looked back on America’s response to September 11:
A flood of post-September 11 articles asked how the attacks happened, what we would do next, and why terrorists hate us. One savvy pundit asked, Would America keep its head?
We invaded Iraq on trumped-up intelligence. We conducted illegal surveillance on our own citizens. We imprisoned people without charge, here and abroad. We rendered prisoners for torture and tortured others ourselves in violation of international law. All the while, millions of staunch, law-and-order conservatives supported and defended it, and still do. Vigorously.
Did America keep its head? Uh, no.
After an earlier national tragedy, the 1986 Challenger disaster, the broadcast networks filled air time by bringing on psychologists. How absurd it seemed to have TV psychologists telling us how we should feel about it and explain it to the kids. Today, of course, absurd is the new normal. Today we have the conservative Mighty Wurlitzer going all E. Power Biggs on America, telling us 24/7 not how we should feel but whom we should fear. And week by week it is becoming increasingly hard to keep up with whom the home of the brave is supposed to fear.
I have something coming up on the mosque madness, but Olbermann did a pretty good job of nailing it in this commentary:
“Silly season” seems too mild for this tilt towards mass insanity. I don’t know what’s the more appropriate response to this kind of bald-faced stupidity: condemnation or ridicule. Thankfully, there’s The Daily Show for the latter.
Business Insider calls this video “weirdly awesome.” The EconomicPolicyJournal dot com reports the WSJ calling it “too bizarre to believe.” (Who could have seen that coming?) EPJ wrings its hands over what “heavy duty players” must be behind it — unions. (Who could have seen that coming?)
Suppose the U.S. government had posted a budget surplus in 12 of the past 13 years. Suppose not a single major American financial institution had failed or needed a government bailout. Suppose the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, rather than at 2.7 percent.
Canada did, Harrop instructs, explaining that “What Canada had was a civic culture that wanted government to regulate financial activity.”
It’s not exactly apples and apples. Harrop runs down a few of the differences. Canada’s vast mineral wealth. America thinks it’s our job to provide military security for the rest of the world, “a job that other countries are all-too-pleased to give us,” she notes. Kinda runs up our costs (and tax burden). But Canada’s regulatory structures help keep the foxes out of the hen house.
How much are Canada’s businesses suffering? Harrop reports that Toronto’s large cap index has outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year by 27 percent. Anytime new regulations are proposed here, American foxes yelp in Pavlovian fashion about how regulation will make them an endangered species.
No, that’s the American Middle Class.
Harrop observes:
What we have is an elite willing to risk everyone else’s economic security to enable a few hotshots to win big at the casino of recklessness and fraud — while maintaining a variety of taxpayer backstops to reduce their risks. The joint never gets closed, also thanks to the large numbers of ordinary citizens trained to holler “socialism” every time the government tries to set a ground rule.
Yet even the conservative Washington Times will report that Canada’s banking system is “the healthiest banking system in the world.” The World Economic Forum agrees.
The AP reported in June that Canada had already reclaimed three-quarters of the jobs lost during the recession, although some recent gains have been in part-time work not expected to last.
Forty dental chairs will fill A-B Tech’s gym in the Coman Student Center next week, waiting for patients in need of a cleaning, fillings and other services. The North Carolina Dental Society will bring its Missions of Mercy, a free dental clinic for the community, to A-B Tech’s Asheville campus from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug 13 and 14.
If you or someone you know has a dental condition they have been putting off having treated (for lack of funds), get down to the A-B Tech gymnasium early tomorrow. We’ve covered clinics like these for awhile now, here, here, here and here. And as you don’t need reminding, the need for them isn’t going away any time soon.
Congressman Heath Shuler’s office sent out this press release today. He’ll be visiting the clinic tomorrow:
For Immediate Release
August 13, 2010
Contact: Julie Fishman
office: (202) 225-6401 / cell: (202) 731-5114
***MEDIA ADVISORY***
For Saturday, August 14, 2010
Rep. Shuler, Honorary Chair of North Carolina Dental Society’s Mission of Mercy free dental clinic, to Attend the Clinic
Washington, D.C. – On Saturday, August 14th, U.S. Representative Heath Shuler (D-Waynesville) will attend and show his support for the North Carolina Dental Society’s Mission of Mercy (NCMOM) free dental clinic. NCMOM will set up a mobile dental clinic, including sterilization, digital x-rays, and supplies. Over the course of two days, as many as 1000 people are expected to be treated, and more than $500,000 worth of dental treatment will be donated.
What: Mission of Mercy Free Dental Clinic
Who: U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, NC Dental Society, Asheville-Buncombe Community Christian Ministries, Eblen Charities, A-B Tech
When: The event takes place from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both Aug. 13 and 14
(Rep. Shuler be present at 9 a.m. on Saturday, August 14th)
Where: A-B Tech’s Asheville Campus, in the gym at the Coman Student Center
Background (From the NC Dental Society):
The North Carolina Missions of Mercy (NCMOM) portable free dental program is an outreach program of the North Carolina Dental Society. The program is sponsored by the North Carolina Dental Health Fund. Since its beginning seven years ago, the program has received national and statewide recognition. The North Carolina Dental Health Fund is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization whose mission is “To provide free dental services to those in financial need with few or no other options”. The goals of the program are to:
Provide free dental care to as many under served persons within North Carolina as is possible.
Involve as much of the dental community of the state in the treatment of the under served as is possible.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journalpondered why “Some Firms Struggle to Hire Despite High Unemployment”:
With a 9.5% jobless rate and some 15 million Americans looking for work, many employers are inundated with applicants. But a surprising number say they are getting an underwhelming response, and many are having trouble filling open positions.
[...]
Employers and economists point to several explanations. Extending jobless benefits to 99 weeks gives the unemployed less incentive to search out new work. Millions of homeowners are unable to move for a job because the real-estate collapse leaves them owing more on their homes than they are worth.
Finding applicants with the right skills in the right area can also be a problem. But elsewhere in the Journal, Michael Fleischer complains that more employers aren’t hiring because government and company employee benefits add a “punishing price” to the already punishing uncertainty of rising health insurance costs and the potential of additional punishing tax burdens.
The poor things. (This perhaps explains the yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” banner hanging from the large, well-appointed house on Asheville’s upscale Kimberly Avenue where life is so … punishing.)
Neal Gabler of the Woodrow Wilson Center 
