An Open Letter to Wealthy Businessmen

Dear Wealthy Businessmen of America,

  First of all,  congratulations on all your success.  I mean that sincerely.  I might be the epitome of an Ivy-educated, East Coast liberal weenie, but I do believe in capitalism.  I believe that you should be taxed a hell of a lot more because some luck plays a role in every great success story, and I believe that our laws should help level the playing field between poor kids and your kids to make sure income inequality isn't self-perpetuating, but even if some of you grew up with advantages that most people didn't have, you still out-performed most of your peers to reach you level of success.

Before going on, I want to make it clear that the intended audience of this letter is wealthy Republican businessmen.  I know not all of you are Republicans, so if you happen to George Soros, Tom Steyer, or a West Coast tech billionaire not named Peter Thiel, you can stop reading now.

Also, I'm going to keep referring to you all as businessmen, because let's face it, the glass ceiling is a real thing, and just about all of you are dudes.  After all, they don't call it "the old boys network" for nothing.

OK, so let's get down to brass tacks.  We need to so something about Donald Trump.  I know a lot of you gave money to Donald Trump in the last election, but I hope some of you are beginning to realize that Donald Trump is bad for your business.  Yeah, yeah, I know - that giant tax break Trump signed into law was great for you business, but do you really think Donald Trump deserves any credit for that?  After all, any Republican president would have signed that tax bill.

So, sure, Donald Trump signed a tax bill that any other Republican president would have signed, but he's also done a lot of things that have hurt you bottom lines.  Trump's tariffs have already hurt the stock market and soon will hurt most of your businesses.  I know you guys are not happy with these tariffs because every GOP candidate you supported before Trump was in favor of free trade.  I would also imagine that you are not fans of Trump's immigration policies, because less immigrants means less cheap labor for you to exploit.

So, what to do?  Well, I think you should do everything in your power to get Trump out of office ASAP.  No, I'm not suggesting that you support Democrats; I'm just pointing out that it would benefit you greatly to have any other Republican in the White House.  If Donald Trump gets impeached ( and convicted by the Senate ) or resigns, it is not as if Hillary Clinton will become president.  A more conventional Republican president like Mike Pence would reverse a lot of Trump's policies that are hurting your business.

Of course, getting rid of Trump is a lot easier said than done.  He's too much of an egomaniac to resign and even if the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, it will take a each least 67 votes to convict him in the Senate of the House impeaches him.  In the very best case scenario for the Dems, they'll only have 51 Senate seats ( most likely 50 or less ) , so Congress couldn't get rid of Trump unless at least 16 Republican senators are on board.  That seems like an impossibility, but if all you Republican billionaires put your heads and resources together, nothing is quite impossible.

It was clear from the early days of the 2016 primaries that most Republican Senators could not stand Trump and just wished he would go away.  None of them have the courage to stand up to Trump now, but big enough campaign contributions ( or the threat of pulling campaign contributions ) could buy a lot of courage.  Of course, even that won't be enough unless some scandal that is finally big enough to stick to Trump.  You guys should use your power and influence to dig up anything your can and forward it to Mueller's team.  Maybe there's some info about his tax returns out there.  Maybe the women who he sexually harassed could file some lawsuits with your financial support.  Maybe enough payoffs to people familiar with the Russian mob and oligarchy could unearth some evidence of Trump's collusion with Russia ( or maybe it could uncover a certain video tape? ).

Look, I know this is all a pipe dream and the chance that a Koch brother actually reads this are practically nil, but I am really surprised that the ridiculously wealthy arm of the Republican establishments is just willing to sit back and let Trump hurt their businesses with his tariffs just for  tax cut that any Republican president could have provided them with.  I also know that Pence is no prize and would probably be a little tougher to beat than Trump in the 2020 election, but when a president is calling himself a "nationalist", refers to Nazis as "fine people", inspires people to commit hate crimes, inspires people to try to kill his political opponents, and calls the free press "the enemy of the people", we need to do everything in our power to get him out of office before the 2020 election, even though those efforts will almost certainly fail and extract a huge political cost on those that oppose him.  There was a time I was happy he won the GOP nomination, because I thought he was the only GOP candidate Hillary had any chance of beating ( I still stand by that ) and I thought he wouldn't be significantly worse that any other horrible Republican president.

I was wrong. *

Rich

* Wrong about him not being significantly worse that any other GOP  president, but he'd still be my ideal GOP opponent for Hillary if Hillary got do the 2016 election again.  I really don't think she could have beaten any other GOP candidate in 2016, but she came within a whisker of beating Trump ( For what it is worth, I think she would have beat McCain in 2008 ).

Kavanaugh

At lot has been said/written about the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing over the last few days, so I'm not going to bother to say a lot of things that have already been said already.  However, I am going to ask you to watch this video ...



Regardless of whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is lying about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's allegations, it it clear to me from the video above that he is lying ( badly ) about many aspects of his social life in high school and college.  While "boofing" and "The Devil's Triangle" are not terms that I have ever heard of before, a quick Google search shows that they do have meanings, and they are nothing like the meanings Kavanaugh clearly just made up.  Also, I don't think any of us have ever heard anybody say the work "fuck" like FFFFUCK.  That just doesn't happen.

All that said, Dr. Ford has no witnesses who are willing to corroborate her account, and all the evidence against Judge Kavanaugh is circumstantial.  I'd be the first to admit that there is not enough evidence to convict Kavanaugh in a court of law.  However, whether or not Kavanaugh could be convicted in a court a law should not be relevant here.

This confirmation hearing isn't a trial.

It's a job interview.

Not only is it a job interview, it is an interview for a position that has about 20 other well-screened completely qualified candidates that could do the same job ( to cast conservative votes on the Supreme Court ) that Kavanaugh is being interviewed for.

If you thought there was a even a small chance that a candidate you were interviewing had committed sexual assault as a youth and and was lying about committing sexual assault as an adult, would you hire that candidate if you had over 20 other qualified candidates for the job?

If Kavanaugh is not confirmed, Republicans in the Senate still have plenty of time to confirm another candidate with all the same conservative credentials, but without all the sexual assault baggage.  Far be it from me to do the GOPs work for them, but the GOP would really be doing themselves a favor if they rejected Kavanaugh and confirmed a different conservative justice.  If Kavanaugh is appointed to the Supreme Court, the conservatives could lose his vote in the Supreme Court if more evidence was uncovered and he was convicted of sexual assault ( BTW, if Kavanaugh was sent to jail, a Democratic president would not be able to appoint a new justice to replace him.  Technically, the Supreme Court seat would still be his, even if he was unable to sit on the court due his incarceration.  He could only be replaced it if he was convicted by a 2/3 vote in the Senate ( after being impeached by a majority vote in the House of Representatives ).  If a Democrat was in the White House, there would certainly be at least 34 Republican senators who would vote "no" on the conviction of Kavanaugh to keep a Democratic president from appointing a new justice.  If a Republican was in office while Kavanaugh was in jail, there would certainly be at least 34 Democratic senators who would vote "no" on the conviction of Kavanaugh to keep the Republican president from appointing a new conservative justice who could actually vote on the court. ).  The safest and most prudent thing for Republicans to do would be to reject Kavanaugh and confirm another very conservative candidate.

I certainly will not be happy if any conservative is appointed to the Supreme Court, but I understand that this is inevitable and liberal blew their only real chance to keep more conservatives out of the Supreme Court on November 8, 2016.  However, having a 5th conservative justice on the Supreme Court is one thing; having a 2nd justice on the Supreme Court that has sexually abused women is quite another.

Rich

Attention to Trade Deficit Disorder

As most of you know by now, President Trump has been obsessed with trade for a long time.  I already wrote about Trump's terrible tariffs a few months ago, but today I'm going to take some time to challenge the notion that trade deficits are a bad thing.

Like many of you, I first learned about the concept of trade deficits during the 1980s.  It was during a time when Japan was ascendant and lots of folks in America had xenophobic fears about Japanese economic dominance.  Everyone seemed to have a Sony Walkman in those days, it was becoming clear the Honda and Toyota were making far superior cars than Ford and GM, and Japanese companies were buying American landmarks like RockeFeller Center.  On the nightly news we started to hear about the problem of our large Trade Deficit with Japan.  Americans were buying far more Japanese products than the Japanese were buying American products, and this was widely seen as a blow to American pride.

At the time, I largely bought this narrative.  I'd like to think that I did not have xenophobic feelings about Japan back then, but I was concerned that this trade deficit was bad for the American economy.  I'm almost a little bit embarrassed to admit it now, but my feelings about the trade deficit back then were similar to the way this guy feels about trade deficits right now.

*** I was trying to embed a 28-second clip of Donald Trump talking about trade deficits, but every time I look at the published blog post, it does not seem to be working.  Please click on the "this guy" link in the paragraph above to view the video clip. ***

However, unlike some people, my brain isn't permanently stuck in a 1980's mindset, and I know better now.  Unlike what Trump said in the video above, a trade deficit does not represent our nation losing wealth.  Sure, our country is sending a lot of money to other countries, but we are getting a lot of products back in return.  In fact, we are getting more products back in return that an other nation.  We are getting all these products from other countries, because our nation has enough money to buy all these products.  In other words, we have a trade deficit because our nation is rich.  We don't have a trade deficit, we have a wealth surplus.

OK, I guess by the technical definition of a trade deficit, we do have a trade deficit, but that should be a seen as a sign of our nation's wealth, rather than a cause for despair.  We are still by far the richest nation in the world, and in a global economy, the richest nation in the world is always going to have a trade deficit.

Consider a very wealthy family with lots of expensive possessions like jewels, cars, private planes, and yachts.  This wealth family sent lots of money to jewelers, car dealers,  and the people who sell yachts, and planes, buy nobody would every suggest that the wealthy family has a "trade deficit" with merchants that sold them the jewels, cars, planes, and yachts. 

Well, the United States is like the wealthy family of the world.  We are buy lots products that are produced at a low cost in sweatshops in other countries.  We certainly have a trade deficit with those countries, but would you rather be the country that buys stuff made in sweatshops, or the country that makes things in sweatshops.

Now, I'm not trying to say that sweatshops in other countries are a good thing, and that we shouldn't pressure other countries to improve their labor practices.  I'm also not trying to say that our country should not strive to make products and services that other countries will want to buy.  I'm just pointing out that it is inevitable that a country as wealthy as ours would have a trade deficit, and we shouldn't act like the sky is falling when our politicians rail about it.  We've got too many real problems to deal with in our country to waste time worrying about a trade deficit which is simply a by-product of our nations wealth.

Rich

An Important Tip

I'll keep this short.  I noticed that "tipping" was trending on Twitter today.  I shouldn't really have to write what I'm about to write, and I'm sure most people reading this will agree with I'm about to write and have expressed similar thoughts to their friend and colleagues.  However, based on what I'm seeing on Twitter today, it seems there is a non-zero chance that somebody reading this needs to see the following message.

If you don't tip your server at least 20% at a restaurant, you're an asshole.

Actually, that's not completely fair to say, because some of you reading this might not know the following fact.

The federal minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour.

So, let's start again.  Now that you know the information above ...

If you don't tip your servers at least 20% going forward, you're an asshole.

Those of us that go out to eat, are responsible for making sure that the people that serve us have enough to eat.  We are responsible for making sure they have a roof over their head and can take care of their children.  Nobody can live on $2.13 an hour, so those of us that go out to eat are responsible for bringing that $2.13 an hour up to a living wage.

I understand that the entire American system of tipping is stupid and it would be far better if restaurants across the country uniformly paid servers living wages and the practice of tipping was elminated.  I'd happily accept higher prices on the menu at restaurants if I knew servers were being paid a steady living wage that did not depend on the tipping habits of the people they happened to serve on a given night.  However, that's not the way things work in this country, and until the restaurant business does change, we need to keep tipping generously.  I'll admit that it sometime feels unfair that people who tip generously wind up paying more for the same food/service at a restaurant than people who don't tip much, but I'm going to continue to tip generously, because I'm not an asshole.

Rich

We Told You So

There were a lot a things I wanted to write about this month, but that will have to wait until later, because I've been pretty furious about the Anthony Kennedy news and I need to vent.  I know it's pointless to vent, and I should really be spending my time doing something more constructive, but I don't think I'm going to be able to write about anything else until I get all my feelings about the 2016 election off my chest.

I was planning to name this post "I Told You So", but then I realized this would vastly understate the stupidity and the culpability of everyone who allowed the Trump presidency to happen.  It would be understandable if so many liberals made the wrong decisions that allowed Trump to become president if I was the only person warning everybody.  However, I wasn't the only one sounding warning bells - there were millions of us making the same arguments, and too many people simply did not listen.

Before I start ripping in to those on the left who allowed the Trump presidency to happen, I'd to address a post of mine that some of you might come across if you look at my archives.  The title of that post was "Liberals for Trump".  The title may be a bit misleading, so I want to make is clear that the point of that post ( written in January 2016 ) was that liberals should have been rooting for Trump to win in the primaries because he'd be an easier candidate for Democrats to beat than some of his more moderate and less crazy competitors in the 2016 Republican primaries.  I still stand by this assertion, and the results from 2012 and 2016 back this up.

2012 Results

2016 Results

As you can see from the charts above Trump got a lower percentage of the vote ( 45.93 % ) than Romney ( 47.32 % ) got in 2012, despite the fact the Romney was running against charismatic politician with a net positive approval rating ( Obama ) while Trump was running against a politician with net negative approval ratings ( Clinton ).  I'm certain that Romney would have improved on that 47.32% if he had been running against Clinton and Trump would have done worse than 45.93% percent if he had been running against Obama.  I'll believe to my dying day that Donald Trump was the only major candidate in the 2016 Republican primaries that Hillary Clinton had any chance of beating.

This brings me to the first group of people I'd like to say "We told you so" to.   The DNC and anyone who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries should have realized that Hillary Clinton was a fatally flawed candidate.  I've recently seen a argument on Facebook that Clinton was not a weak candidate because it took the intervention of the RNC, Russia, Wikileaks, and the FBI to take her down.  Specifically, I saw this image ...

Well, I would counter that the RNC, Wikileaks, the FBI, and Russia would not have been able to take her down if Hillary has not given them so much ammunition.  Anyone who makes a "but her emails" joke needs to realize the Hillary's email issue should have been recognized as a fatal flaw long before the first 2016 Democratic primary.  This risk was as plain as day.  I pointed this out in this post from March 2015.  That's March 2015 folks,  more than 10 months before the 2016 Iowa Caucus.  There was plenty of time for Democratic establishment to point out Hillary's flaws and back another candidate that was actually - you know - electable.  Instead the DNC, the Democratic establishment, and pro-Hillary Democrats continued on this Hillary-led march of doom that led us to children being separated from their parents at the border and at least two ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices for the next 30-40 years.

However, as upset as I am about 2016 Hillary supporters, my disappointment is tempered by the fact that I know almost all of them would have done the right thing and voted for Bernie in November if he had won the nomination, just like almost all the them voted for Obama in 2008.


The same cannot be said for many of the "Bernie-or-Bust" people who stayed home on Election Day 2016 or voted for Stein/Johnson.  I tried my best to make it clear to anti-Hillary Democrats that they needed to support Clinton in the general election.  In the the anti-Hillary post I linked to above, I wrote "this isn't going to stop me from voting for Hillary if she runs against any Republican", and when it became clear that Hillary was going to beat Bernie in the primary race, I wrote a blog post called "Bernie Fans for Hillary" urging all Bernie Sanders supporters to get behind Hillary Clinton.  Unfortunately most anti-Hillary liberals had no intention of listening to me or any other sensible voices on the left.  Because I like to think the best of people, I hope the most of the people I argued with ultimately decided to fight against Trump's agenda by voting for Hillary on Election Day, but it seems like too many of then wound up staying home or voting for Johnson or Stein.

BTW, if you were a Stein voter, I hope you noticed the photo I posted at the top of this blog post.  That's Jill Stein sitting at a table with Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn in December 2015.  Congratulations, you've been duped! 

While I was having vicious arguments with Stein voters on the day after Election Day 2016 ( vicious on their side - they called me Hitler and suggested I wanted to put Stein voters in gas chamber when I suggested that Stein voters were responsible for the Trump presidency ), they claimed that Hillary lost by so much that Stein voters would not have made a difference.  Well, the statistics tell a different story.

In you are concerned that this guy just made up his numbers, you can see the full MI, PA, and WI results in the links below:
MI
PA
WI

All you Johnson voters don't get off easy either considering that Johnson got far more votes that Stein in those states.

Of course, if you voted for Stein/Johnson and didn't live in one of those 3 states, you can tell yourself that your vote didn't count anyway, but I believe if you contributed to the anti-Hillary climate in any way leading up the the 2016 general election, you are partly responsible for this Trump presidency.

I know I'm just probably wasting my time, because I can't change what happened, but I just can't shake this profound feeling of frustration with some of my fellow liberals.  If just a small number of idealistic liberal Nader/Stein voters had done the right thing and had voted for Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, President Hillary Clinton would in the process of nominating a Supreme Court Justice that would give liberals an 8-1 majority on the Supreme Court.  Roberts wouldn't be on the Supreme Court, Alito would not be there, Gorsuch would not be there, and whatever ultra-conservative judge Trump is thinking of nominating would not be on the Supreme Court.  If Nader/Stein voters had voted in the best interest of their fellow citizens instead of casting a vote to make themselves feels even more sefl-righteous than they already are, the Supreme Court would soon consists of Clarence Thomas and 8 liberals.  Just think of all the good an 8-1 liberal Supreme Court could do.  Instead, we are going to be stuck with an 5-4 conservative that could become a 6-3 conservative court soon if Breyer ( 79 years old ) or Ginsburg ( 85 ) have any health issues.  Heck, it could even conceivably be a 7-2 conservative court; I did not realize Breyer was already 79 until I looked it up a few minutes ago.

I'm almost too depressed to write anymore when I consider the damage the Supreme Court could do in the years to come and potentially over the rest of my life.  I guess all we can do now is make every effort to make sure we don't repeat the mistakes of 2000/2016 in 2020.  If you are reading this, and have far-left family/friends who tend not to vote for mainstream Democrats, please start talking to them now to try to convince them to vote for the Democratic nominee in 2020 if their preferred candidate does not win the Democratic nomination.  Those of us on the left may have our differences, but it is vital that we all get under one big tent over the next two years and show up in November 2020.

Rich

Mild-mannered

I had a revelation the other day while I was thinking about the 1950's Superman TV series.  The original run of the show was way before my time, but reruns of the show were in heavy rotation on one of the local New York TV stations when I was a small child in the early and mid 70's.  I loved that show as a child and still take pride in the fact that I can still recite the intro to the show word-for-word today.



I was repeating the lines of that intro to myself a few days ago ( something had reminded my of Superman ) when I started to thing about the term "mild-mannered" from the intro.  Clark Kent was described as a "mild-mannered reporter", not only in the TV intro from the 50's but also in Max Fleischer cartoons from the 40s, and in many other depictions of Clark Kent in that era and the years to come.

As I'm sure everyone reading this knows, Clark Kent is Superman's secret identify.  While it is an absolutely ridiculous idea that glasses could be an effective disguise, it has always been understood the the effectiveness of the Clark Kent secret identity relies more on Clark's personality than his glasses.  After all, Clark is "mild-mannered", and nobody would ever suspect that somebody as mild-mannered as Clark Kent could be the same person as the heroic Superman.  As I thought about this, it occurred to me that the Superman mythos that was cemented in the 40's and 50's is asserting that "mild-mannered" is the opposite of "hero".

I then started to think of how the idea of using "mild-mannered" as a slightly pejorative term was very much a product of the era of the 40's and 50's, and how the concept of masculinity was very different in that era than it is today.  I'd like to think that plenty of people today would no longer consider "mild-mannered" to be the opposite of "heroic".  To be sure, a lot of people still do, and it's unfortunate that a lot of people with 1950's conceptions of masculinity are still holding on to so much power and influence in society today.  We need to work to change those kinds of attitudes in the years to come, because if there is one thing the world needs more of, it is kind, patient, and mild-mannered people.  After all anybody who grew up with the mild-mannered guy below knows he was the real Superman.

Rich

We (not) jammin'

This weekend, I came to grips with something that I probably should have accepted at least 15 years ago.

My dunking days are over and they are never coming back.

To be honest, it's probably a bit of an overstatement to say I ever had "dunking days".  It's not as if I was going to the playground and throwing down monsters dunks on people in my youth.  To be honest, I never dunked on anybody, and I never dunked in a competitive game.  However, I did occasionally dunk on 10 foot regulation rims while practicing.  Sure I was successful in only about one of every 100 dunk attempts, but in my, mind each one of those dunks was glorious, and was perfectly willing to make 100 or more attempts in an afternoon until I threw one down ( but I would never try in a game, because I wanted to win every game I played, and I wasn't about to pass up a 99% percent shot ( layup ) for a 1% chance at a dunk ).

So, I wasn't a great dunker; I wasn't a good dunker or even a fair dunker, but the fact that I was 6' 1" and could occasionally dunk filled me with pride, and gave a naturally unassertive kid like me a little bit of irrational confidence that helped me with many aspects of my life.  I'm gonna be honest, - if I had never dunked in my life, and don't think I would have ever asked a girl out to this day.

In any case, because being a "dunker" was such an important part of my self image, that it was hard for me to accept the idea that dunking was no longer in the cards when I got older.   Back in 2008 when I was 38, I found myself in gym with Michael waiting for his youth basketball class to start.  I instinctively ran to the rim and tried to to grab it.  On my first attempt, my fingers barely grazed the bottom of the rim, so I tried again and again until I started to touch the rim with the part of my hand where the base of finger meet the top of the palm.  Michael's class started after that, so I didn't make anymore attempts, but I tried to convince myself that if I'd had the chance to warm up a little bit longer  I would have eventually gotten my hand up to dunking level ( with my wrist touching the rim ).

Anyway, I could barely walk the next day, and I was limping around with a pulled groin in both legs for about a week after that.

As you might imaging, despite my best efforts to stay fit, my leaping ability has deteriorated quite a bit in the last 10 years.  My leg strength really hasn't declined at all, but my flexibility ( which never good to begin with ) is terrible, and I feel absolutely no springiness in my legs.  What worse, I now seem to have a fear of putting 100% effort into each leap, because feel like one of my tight muscle/tendons/ligaments is ready to snap at any second.

This all hit home yesterday when I was playing in the driveway with my kids with the rim set at 9-feet.  I was able dunk a 9-foot rim will relative ease as recently as last year, but yesterday I found my dunk attempts being rejected by the front of the rim over an over again.  Eventually, after about 20 semi-tentative attempts, I foolishly risked snapping a ligament, focused all my jumping power with a loud martial arts kiai, and barely manage to get a successful dunk on the 9-foot rim.  So, I guess I had a small victory, but it was a pretty pathetic victory, considering it was now just as hard for me to dunk on a 9-foot rim as it had been for me to dunk on a 10-foot rim in my prime.  I came to the realization that I had lost entire foot on my vertical leap since my youth.

Of course, I really shouldn't be complaining.  I'm been blessed with better health than most people my age, and I still don't feel my age at all when I engage in activities like hiking, lifting weights, or running on my treadmill.  Still it's a little bit scary to consider the implications of our inevitable physical decline.  After all, no matter how hard we work to stay fit, we all slow down, we all start to lose our ability to do things, and eventually we all ...

You know what?   Fuck it - let's not ever discuss this again.  How about that Infinity War movie, guys!

Rich