Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Budget and the Republicans
A little wanton money, which burned out the bottom of his purse.
— Sir Thomas More, Works [c. 1535]
Five hundred million dollars seems like a lot until one realizes that it’s only a small part of an approximately $3.6 trillion dollar budget and viewed in that light it’s hardly worth mentioning except in a column such as this. It is also a testimonial to the endurance of earmarks.
One of the many things Republicans decided should wait until the new Congress took charge in 2011 was the adoption of a budget to run the country. The old budget died officially on September 30, 2010, but unlike run of the mill dead things, a continuing resolution gave it life until it would be replaced by a new budget no later than March 4, 2011 or Republicans in Congress decide that the federal government doesn’t need to be funded and permit it to shut down. That happened when Bill Clinton was president and the result was a Democratic take over of the House of Representatives the next time the voters were given the opportunity to express their opinions about the government shut down.
Republicans may be dumb but some of them, at least, are not stupid. (They demonstrated that by reading the U.S. Constitution aloud on the floor of the House the day after being sworn in, thus showing a skeptical public that at least they know how to read. Whether they can govern is placed in doubt given the folly of this undertaking.)
The passage of the short-term budget resolution funds the federal government at fiscal year 2010 levels. As the New York Times reported, there are lots of consequences of simply coming up with a short term fix.” Two examples make the point. John Nester, a spokesman for the Securities and Exchange Commission said the commission is forced to cut back enforcement and market oversight. The IRS’s efforts to update its computer system will be further delayed. (For more than 13 years the IRS has been trying to update its computer system. In January 2010 it announced that instead of completing the task by 2012 as had previously been promised, the update would not be completed until somewhere between 2018 and 2028. It now says its efforts will be once again delayed.)
Not all the consequences of the failure to agree on a new budget are bad. For one thing, the Republicans are now firmly in control of the House and by March 4 the brighter of the new members will have figured out how to be Congress people and will be able to make better budget decisions that they think people want than the former Congress would have made. In addition to giving the new Congress the right to set priorities, another beneficiary of the delay is Alliant Techsystems (ATK). It will receive $165 million that it would not have received had a new budget been adopted.
In 2009 President Obama cancelled the Constellation moon program. Part of the program included funds for the development of a first stage solid fuel rocket for the Ares I rocket. Since the Constellation has been cancelled that rocket will not be built. The Orlando Sentinel says the technology on which work is now continuing will probably never be utilized. The $165 million that ATK is receiving is part of the $500 million that the failure to adopt the new budget is costing NASA. The reason for the continuing expenditure is found in 70 words in the 2010 budget that was adopted by Congress. According to the Los Angeles Times those words were inserted into that budget by a champion ear-marker, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R. Ala.) to protect work on the rocket being done at Marshall Space flight Center in Alabama. They say that NASA cannot shut down the Ares project until a budget for 2011 is adopted. According to the Times, NASA says that it has “been spending an average of $95 million a month on Ares I.” (Senator Shelby who has been responsible for the continued funding of the moribund program, has been a prodigious ear-marker throughout his Senate career. In 2008 he secured $427 million in earmarks for Alabama and in 20009 he obtained $322 million. At the end of November 2010 when the Senate held a vote to impose an earmark ban on the entire senate for two years, Senator Shelby was among those who successfully blocked the imposition of such a ban, thus insuring that earmarking would continue, at least until the new Congress convened.)
As noted at the outset, $500 million wasted is a drop in the bucket in the overall scheme of things and will be more than made up for by the $100 billion Republicans promise to cut from the budget as soon as they get around to figuring out where the cuts will come from.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Congressman King-Reincarnated as Senator Joe McCarthy
This kind of inquisition violates the spirit of the Constitution.
— Albert Einstein, Letter to Wm. Frauenglass (1953)
Peter King is the envy of (a) former Senator Joseph McCarthy and (b) the folks in Salem MA who were looking for, respectively, communists and witches. It was a hard task that they each attacked with persistence and fortitude. It was hard because to the untutored eye, witches and communists look just like the rest of us, making it difficult to distinguish them from the general population. Nonetheless, the folks in Salem and Joe were diligent in their efforts. There was, of course, always a possibility that the person identified as a witch or a communist was not in fact a witch or a communist but there was also the possibility that he or she was, and that made it all worthwhile from the inquisitors’ points of view.
The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692 and 1693. More than 150 people were arrested and accused of witchcraft and a number were convicted. Witchcraft was, as one would expect, a capital offense, and several of those convicted were hanged. With the benefit of hindsight one can safely assume that most, if not all of those hanged, were not witches but as in all matters involving capital punishment, learning that the executed were innocent after they have been hanged makes very little difference to the executed and has never been considered by Americans to be a reason to eliminate the death penalty.
One of the next hunts for witches occurred in the 1950s and the man who served as the official huntsman was Senator Joe McCarthy. The senator’s goal was to identify Communists in the United States. The fact that the object of the hunt could not readily be identified did nothing to deter McCarthy, who made accusations against all manner of people, many of whom were not communists but might as well have been since their careers were irreparably harmed by the accusations. A ruined career was better than being hanged but was nonetheless not a very good outcome. The newest hunter of citizens he believes unworthy of their citizenship is Peter King, a congressman from New York. He has targeted a group that is going to be easy for him to identify-Muslims. Some, though not all, can be identified by their attire or by physical characteristics.
Mr. King is one of the beneficiaries of the Republican take over of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress and has been named chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. That committee deals with such things as border security and transportation security and, in addition, has the power to conduct investigations. Its investigative authority has excited Chairman King. He intends to seek out Muslims and find out why they are being such a problem.
Mr. King did not pull the idea of having hearings out of the same air that produced fictional witches and communists. According to Mr. King “When I meet with law enforcement, they are constantly telling me how little cooperation they get from Muslim leaders [when conducting terror investigations.]” By conducting these investigations Mr. King presumably will figure out how to force Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities. In an article in Newsday he said he would “drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization. These hearings will be a step in that direction. It’s what democracy is all about.” He may look to some of the techniques used in Salem such as placing heavy rocks on the person being investigated until the person says what the rock placer wants him to say or dies, whichever comes first. Alternatively he can adopt the methods used by Senator McCarthy who would simply state that he was holding lists of communists employed in various parts of the government without sharing the lists with others.
Responding to criticism of his planned hearings Mr. King said it was OK with him if people called him a bigot for undertaking the hearings. Those criticizing him, he said, were simply uttering, “politically correct nonsense.” I am sure Mr. King treasures civil liberties even if preserving them means riding roughshod over them. That is the price that must be paid.
Muslims are, of course, not pleased at the prospect of the King inquisition. Rep. Keith Elison (D-Minn) the only Muslim member of Congress “explains”:: “We need to make sure that we stand for civil liberties, so we can deprive people like Osama bin Laden of the claim that Muslims are poorly treated in America. The United States is not at war with Islam.”
America is not at war with Islam but if Mr. King’s hearings go as planned, it is a safe bet that lots of Muslims will believe that Mr. King and probably the Republican party are at war with Islam. After all, the hearings were his idea and the Republican party gave him the forum.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Christmas Cheer the Corporate Way
Happy Christmas to all.
— Clement Clark Moore, The Night Before Christmas
During the holiday season it is always good to be reminded of one’s many blessings. In the case of UBS employees they can be thankful that they work for UBS and not Sanofi-Aventis. The news they received shortly before Christmas is far less upsetting than the news many employees at Sanofi-Aventis received. UBS employees were told how to dress for work. Sanofi employees were told they were no longer working. First Sanofi.
Sanofi has a tradition of firing people at a time when spirits are high and news of the fact that one no longer has a job is not as traumatic as it would be at a time when there is no other reason to be happy. The most recent occurrence came right after Thanksgiving. According to Laura Bassett of Huffington Post, on November 30 of this year, employees received “happy thanksgiving” messages from the company that included a request that the employees check their e-mails at 5 AM on December 2. The 5 AM e-mail told the recipients to call a toll free number at either 8AM or 8:30AM. Those calling at 8AM were told they were still employees of the company and the 1700 employees who called at 8:30 were told they were no longer employees and should leave their desks immediately. A spokesman for the company, skilled in the art of understatement, said “We acknowledged in the call that delivering this news on a teleconference wasn’t ideal but given the scope and scale of the reductions, there was no other way to share this news quickly and consistently.” That seems a bit odd since it has had plenty of experience with laying people off and it would seem it might have discovered a better way to do it. In April 2010, following the Easter weekend, it sent an e-mail to 400 of its employees notifying them that they were being fired. In doing that it was following the tradition it had started at Thanksgiving time in 2008 when it fired a number of its employees. It also took advantage of the July 4, 2009 weekend to rid itself of chaff, and again at Thanksgiving that same year when it fired 750 employees. It took advantage of the 2009-holiday season to fire many of its contract pharmaceutical sales reps. Those who work at Sanofi are probably grateful that there are not more holidays. UBS employees are probably grateful that all they got in anticipation of the holiday season was a 43-page book telling them how to dress.
In a tract, whose guidelines bring to mind the blue suit-white shirt days at IBM, UBS has established appearance guidelines for its Swiss retail banking staff. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the intent is to “-re-establish confidence in the Swiss bank’s brand and mending relations with clients.” Re-established confidence was needed following recent news about the bank’s finances. In the fourth quarter the outflow from the bank of the “Wealth Management and Swiss Bank” division was Sfr. 33 billion. The “Wealth Management Americas” division lost Sfr.12 billion and the “Global Asset Management division had an outflow of Sfr. 11 billion. UBS also paid a $780 million fine imposed by the IRS under a deferred-prosecution agreement entered into in 2009. Any bank confronted with such problems was smart to try to regain public support by having its employees dress nicely and look good. The 43-page book is clearly the solution. Here are some of its suggestions and just reading them makes me want to go and open an account there.
Employees are told to wear suits in dark grey, black or navy blue since these colors “symbolize competence, formalism and sobriety.” (Women often wear bright reds, pinks, blues, and other colors that inspire in the on-looker feelings of frivolity not usually associated with banking.) Women are advised that “light makeup consisting of foundation, mascara and discreet lipstick . . . will enhance your personality.” The book says both men and women can increase their popularity with well cared for hair and a stylish haircut. Men are told that underwear should be of good quality and easily washable but be undetectable. It is not clear in what circumstances the bank’s customers would be privy to male employees’ skivvies although it is possible that in the super secret vaults access to things other than bank boxes may take place.
In recognition of the importance to the Swiss of wristwatches, employees are encouraged to wear wristwatches. Wrist watches, says the booklet, suggest “reliability and great care for punctuality.” Older employees are told coloring hair to retain a youthful appearance is a mistake since youthful hair and aged skin are a poor match and don’t fool anyone.
A spokesman for the bank said the guidelines might appear very detailed, and “in line with Swiss precision” an observation with which most readers would agree . Some might even call them anal. Whatever you call them, they are a lot better than the e-mails received by Sanofi workers telling them they were no longer employed by anyone.