Monthly Archives: August 2022

Plea Deal Time

Media, Politics

One Trump syncophant after another has started to accept the fact their false idol is likely headed for indictment and possibly prison. Most recent among them Alan Dershowitz, who told Axios the Department of Justice has enough evidence to indict his former client, but doubts they will. You have to give Dershowitz credit. He is a master of mixed messages.

The first half of his missive seems directed at the target of DOJ’s investigation into illegally obtained and mishandled documents. “Buddy, you really stepped in it this time. No amount of money can convince any doctor to help you get out of this by claiming you deserve a pass due to brain spurs.” The second phrase is less clear. Is he taunting Merrick Garland, insinuating he does not have the fortitude to do what the law commands? Or is he trying to stiffen the attorney general’s desire to take down the white whale, planting seeds for another massive payday as a member of Trump’s legal nightmare team (even though Trump payday is an oxymoron)?

However, the only person that matters is TFG, himself. Mopey Dick seems as determined as ever to use this occasion as one more grift opportunity, begging small donors to send him their lunch money. We know the Republican National Committee is not happy. Those same nickels and dimes used to fill their campaign chest until Trump came on the scene. Televangelists must feel the same way. There is only so much change to go around. They may think Trump is a partner in the culture wars, but he is really the competition.

All this assumes Garland is facing a binary decision. You either prosecute Trump or you do not. There is a third choice. Forget the investigation. Forget locking him up which might only make him a martyr to MAGA-world. Trump knows better than anyone what the National Archives and the FBI found. He must also have a pretty good idea what is under all that black ink in the just released affidavit. Switch chairs at the table. Let Garland sit in The Godfather’s place. Then make Trump an offer he cannot refuse.

There is probably some room to negotiate, but not much. At a minimum, the agreement must include the following.

  • A public admission of guilt. (Imagine his salivating at those TV ratings.)
  • Prohibition from seeking or holding any future public office.
  • Forfeiture of all the post-presidential perks including pension and allowances as well as secret service protection and public support for a presidential library.

This would relieve Trump of further liability for past criminal charges (not civil cases such as the one before the NY attorney general or E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit). Enforcement would be based on a conditional commutation of an agreed term of incarceration, perhaps 20 years. Should he violate any of the above terms, he would have to surrender to authorities for immediate imprisonment.

Would he take this deal? I doubt it, but he should be given the opportunity. Since release of the affidavit last Friday, only Trump and a couple of his most delusional supporters now think the court approved Mar-a-Lago search warrant was (pun intended) unwarranted. The timeline indicates Trump was given more than ample opportunity to do the right thing before the search was requested or executed. That seems to have made a difference with some of Trump’s defenders and in the court of public opinion.

Giving him a chance to come clean before throwing the book at him in court, if and when that time comes, could make a difference whether the majority of Americans view DOJ actions as appropriate prosecution or political persecution.

Why CNN Still Needs Brian Stelter

Welcome to Sunday morning without CNN’s “Reliable Sources” and host Brian Stelter. Within days of the announcement of his termination, CNN demonstrated why this was a mistake. Stelter would not only focus on the big issues, but point out the smaller ones which signal the systemic failure by most media, particularly the dependence on euphemisms, e.g. inaccuracy versus lie.

Consider the following example. After release of the DOJ affidavit on Friday, a CNN anchor reported they had just received the first response from a Trump supporter who continued calling the search a political witchhunt. The statement came from Taylor Budowich, director of communications for Trump’s Save America PAC. Calling one of Trump’s paid employees a supporter is like calling a bank robber a customer. And the real story should have been this initial defense was coming, not from the usual suspects Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz, but from a hired gun.

Brian, we miss you already.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

The Case for Inflation

Economics

If you’re wondering whether I am going to argue the current rate of inflation is not an issue, do not worry. Temperatures here in the Great White North have run 10 to 15 degrees above normal, so brain freeze is not at fault. Inflation, especially excessive inflation, affects the economy and the general population. Unless you’re Barre Seid, the Chicago businessman who just gave $1.6 billion to a GOP PAC to prop up the flailing campaigns of Dr. Oz, J.D. Vance, Hershel Walker and Ron Johnson. Inflation needs to be alot higher than seven or eight percent before Mr. Seid misses a meal or has to sell one of his many multi-million dollar homes.

This post is about the parable of a frog in a pot of boiling water. As long as the water temperature rises incrementally, the frog does not notice until it is too late. But turn up the heat all at once and you’re looking at a reptile revolt. Such is the case with inflation over the past quarter century.

For the 12 years (1997-2008) the average annual rate of inflation was 2.67 percent. Eight of those twelve years, the GOP controlled the White House and the Senate. I do not recall any Republican complaining about inflation when they were in power. Because that was normal. An inflation rate between two and three percent is considered acceptable.

In contrast, the average annual inflation rate for the next 12 years (2009-2020) was 1.42 percent. Which means, for a dozen years, inflation was on average 1.25 percent less than accepted or normal. Much of that decline resulted from two global phenomena, first the Great Recession followed by a worldwide pandemic. Think of it as a volcano where the magma is heating up below the surface with no place to go. Eventually there is a crack in the magma dome and the volcano erupts.

If prices had increased at a typical inflation rate for the past 12 years, prices would be where they are today, maybe even higher. Like the frog in hot water we would not have panicked. But when that burner is turned up to high all at once, it shocks us.

When I worked at the National Governors Association we were in the middle of what was called the “new economy,” based on technology and information. Then Colorado Governor Roy Romer was the chair and invited his son Paul, a future Nobel Prize winning economist, to address his colleagues at the NGA annual meeting. Paul’s message. “The new economy still operates under old economy rules.” There will still be business cycles with alternating periods of economic growth and recessions. Despite gains in productivity there will still be inflation.

In 2018 Paul Romer and William Nordhaus won the Nobel Prize in economics for their work on long term growth and its relationship to climate change. That day back in 1993, he earned one for speaking the simple truth. We should have listened better.

And While I’m At It…

A similar principle applies to the cost of a college education and why the Biden student debt forgiveness program not only makes sense, it is a necessary realignment in public education resulting from state abdication of its past commitment. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, 25 years ago aggregate state funding for public colleges and universities was 140 percent above federal spending for the same purpose. Little by little that commitment fell to 12 percent today. Not because federal spending rose which it has not, but due to state budget reductions during the great recesssion followed by attacks on higher education by the leader of the political party who openly admitted, “I love the uneducated.”

In other words, public colleges and universities have gone from state-funded to state-supported to barely state subsidized. To stay in business, there was only one choice. RAISE TUITION. And that is where the frog in boiling water comes in. Incremental increases in tuition over 25 years spread out the pain until students got the bill in the form of their student loan principal when they graduated.

Public support of higher education is “pay it forward” at its best. General tax revenue appropriated for this purpose was the price we all used to pay to keep tuition affordable for future generations. As states cut higher education budgets, we shifted that burden onto the backs of individual students.

I’ll use my own experience to demonstrate the impact. In 1971, my in-state annual tuiton at the University of Virgina was $1,600. Today, it is $18,900. “Isn’t that the cost of inflation?” you ask. My $1,600 annual tuition would cost $11,705 today. In other words, each new in-state student pays $7,195 above inflation. That’s almost $30,000 over four years. And the numbers increase exponentially if you include graduate or professional school.

Is it totally fair to those who already paid off their student loans or to those with a taxable annual income exceeding $125,000? Probably not, but nothing is ever totally fair when it comes to funding formulas. But it is significantly more equitable than asking matriculating students to make up the entire shortfall for the decline in public support for higher education.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Donnie & Clyde

Media, Politics

Driving from Springfield, Massachusetts to Orono, Maine on our way to Nova Scotia, my wife and I were listening to the Coffeehouse station on Sirius XM Radio. Among the selections was a number titled “Bonnie and Clyde” by Australian singer and songwriter Vance Joy. The first verse chronicles the demise of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow just as they were going to give up their life of crime. They felt safe at last. But as we know, the only thing they actually felt were 130 rounds of Texas Ranger ammunition.

Last week, as I listened to the Donald try to weasel his way out of his latest predicament, I thought, what would it sound like if TFG had tried to help Clyde defend himself against charges of bank robbing.

Excerpts from Clyde Barrow interviews on SlyFox News:

MONDAY: I never took any of the bank’s money.

TUESDAY: I found some of the bank’s money in my home, but when asked, I gave it all back. One of my accomplices even signed a sworn statement saying I’d given it all back.

WEDNESDAY: If there is any of their money, it was planted by the Texas Rangers who raided my home. They said they had an authorized search warrant. Damn that corrupt Judge Roy Bean; he has always been anti-Barrow.

THURSDAY: I’m a bank robber. That’s my job. And like anybody else, I sometimes need to bring my work home. It’s hard to find time during the day to count it.

FRIDAY: It wasn’t really money. Just because someone stamps “legal tender” on a piece of paper, that does not make it so.

SATURDAY: It’s not like I’m the only one who takes money out of banks. Everyone does it. It’s called withdrawals. Are they raiding Willie Sutton’s home?

SUNDAY: The only reason they targeted me is they know I may apply to be the next bank CEO. It’s all financial politics.

FOLLOWING MONDAY: Before I entered the bank, I made it clear. Once the money goes out the front door, it’s automatically not money anymore. Is it my fault nobody heard me say that?

FOLLOWING TUESDAY: Under Article II of the FDIC charter, a bank robber can do anything he wants. Finance professors who have researched the issue call it the “unitary theory of bank robbing.” It’s just like Richard Nixon told David Frost, “If a president does it, it’s legal.” Shouldn’t that apply to everyone?

On Wednesday, before he could make any more excuses, Barrow was asked. “Weren’t you the one who thought bank robbers were getting off too easy with a misdemeanor charge? And didn’t you recommend that be changed to a felony with stiffer penalties, five years in prison for each offense?” To which Barrow replied, “I guess for the first time in my life, I may have been wrong.”

We can only hope!

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP