Sunday, March 30, 2008

Save the Rockford Courthouse

The saga of the Rockford (63rd District) courthouse has so many facets it is becoming hard to keep them straight.

The core issue is that the Kent County Commission wants to consolidate three judges into a new, $6 million building located in Grand Rapids Township. The County plans to issue bonds to pay for the building on the grounds that it will be less costly to run than separate courthouses. As such, this is essentially a business decision: borrow money for a long term investment that will yield enough operating savings to pay back the loan.

The County plan only attracted attention because Steven Servaas (the judge sitting in Rockford) said he didn't want to move. This lead to what appears to have been a political hit job, where Chief Judge Sara Smolenski tried to engineer Sarvaas's "retirement" based on trumped up charges.

The Servaas story is a lot of fun because it is so obviously a second rate smear campaign on a well-liked and well-respected judge. Unfortunately this distracts from the real issue, which is whether government "efficiency" is more important than government service.

The overwhelmingly Republican County Commission thinks keeping costs down is more important than having a local courthouse in Rockford that is easily accessible and staffed by local people who know the town - and are known by the town. The District Court is the most basic of the various judicial branches. It handles small civil suits, traffic offenses, adult misdemeanors (e.g. DWI), landlord/tenant issues, - the small stuff that is quintessentially local in character.

The City of Rockford has sued the 63 District Court to keep the courthouse, and has strong local support. The County is digging in its heals, has joined the suit, and has approved the bond sale.

So why do I care? I guess it's because I used to work with guys who had lost their licenses on DWIs and rode bicycles to work. To people like this, and many other who can't afford a car and have to beg rides from friends and relatives, having a local courthouse means a lot more than saving some money on efficiency.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

The View From Abroad

Haven't had much to say for the past week about West Michigan politics because I've been traveling in the Middle East, as in Israel and Turkey.

When my agent in Israel told me he thought George Bush was the best friend his country ever had, I wanted to hit him. At the same time, you really can't understand how small Israel is until you go there. On one hand, there were crowds of teenagers on the beach in Tel Aviv playing music and throwing Frisbees. On the other were the teen aged girls in green uniforms carrying very large guns guarding the Jewish version of the Pentagon.

Every Israeli spends two years in the IDF after High School. Gaza is as far away from Tel Aviv as Lansing is from Grand Rapids. Gaza is not much bigger than Kent County but packed with more poverty and anger than 50 Detroits. Then you have Syria, Iran, Iraq - armed to the teeth and too close for comfort. So maybe I would feel good about W too if I thought he was keeping me safe. It's just a whole different situation than Republican fear mongering about terrorist strikes in the U.S.

It's spring in Ankara and the apple blossoms are out. It's a beautiful city and much more put-together than I was expecting. Turks are attractive, charming and friendly and are confirming what I have always heard about this being a great place to visit. And my agent says he is Democratic Muslim and is impressed with Barak Obama.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Answer the *@#$& Question

Maybe it's just the GR Press trying to make Jen look bad, but if she is going to hold Town Hall Meetings, she should be prepared to answer the damn questions.

Some guy from Wyoming asks if she backs more comprehensive transportation planning. Her answer: the state
"must have transportation solutions that meet our needs."
What the hell does that mean? She goes on to talk about a task force and says using the gas tax is not the answer.

We don't need no stinkin' Task Force; we need a governor who can answer a question, formulate a plan that she actually believes in - and bangs heads until it happens.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Mackinac Center in Deep Denial

In this week's MiBiz, Diane Katz from Michigan's own Mackinaw Center for Public Policy pens an opinion piece titled "The not so good life".

In this piece, she trashes the idea of public transportation based on the astute observation that streetcars in the early 20th century were hot in the summer and cold in the winter. As she says:
"some among us pine for the days when Americans depended more on mass transit than the sports utility vehicle."
Family farms are also a bad idea because:
"In place of a neat rose garden, an expanse of muck and manure surrounded the farmhouse"
It is truly amazing how deeply the Mackinaw Center will dive into absurdity to defend their "conservative" ideals. We really do still love our SUVs at $80 to fill the tank, and factory farms that dump tons of manure into toxic lagoons are such an improvement over the old days.

I really don't know why these hacks continue to get their work published. The only "public policy" supported by the Mackinaw Center is the destruction of government as we know it and the return to 19th century robber baron capitalism.

Oh, right. I forgot to mention that this piece was published in the Green Edition of MIBiz.

Obama, Race and Courage

When the primary campaign started, my standard answer when asked who I was supporting was "I like them all, and will work for whichever Democrat wins the nomination."

I wish I still felt that way, but I don't.

The problem is that I am so sick of politics as usual - of spin and cynicism and pandering and obfuscation and manipulation and lies and deceit. The political process has become so debased that I'm ready to say the hell with it and find something new to care about.

It makes me angry that Americans are so willing to put up with this shit - but if that's what they want, maybe it's what they deserve. I may be as cynical as the day is long, but I just can't take it any more.

Yesterday Barack Obama gave a speech about race that was really unprecedented. In the words of Glen Greenwald:
"I found the speech riveting, provocative, insightful, thoughtful and courageous -- courageous because it eschewed almost completely all cliches, pandering and condescension, the first time I can recall a political figure of any significance doing so when addressing a controversial matter."
Obama had the courage to address a complex issue like an intelligent grown-up. He didn't pander, he didn't lie and he didn't throw his friend of 30 years under the bus. Since this is what politicians are expected to do, the GOP announced that:
"Obama handed them a “major weapon” by refusing to disown Wright"
I want a candidate who is no longer willing to play the game as it has been laid out by the political establishment. The only one with the courage to do that is Barack Obama.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

And Where Are The Taxpayers Yachts?

If there is any lesson to be learned from the financial collapse that has taken place over the past nine months, it's that "conservative" economics is a failure. Worse than that, it is a blatant lie foisted upon the public to make a very small number of people fabulously rich while the rest of us struggle to get by.

The Republican brand of fundamentalist economics is at the root of the sub-prime mortgage disaster as well as the recent collapse on Wall Street. The GOP's blind worship of free markets is what got us into this - and now that the system has failed , the capitalists want the taxpayers to bail them out.

And guess what? We just did.

These are the same people paying lower tax rates than you are because fundamentalist economics says they won't continue to work their financial magic if they have to pay too much in taxes.

There is no way to spin this in favor of the Republicans or the Bush Administration. They have failed miserably, and it's time to throw them out of office before we (hopefully) throw them into jail for the biggest theft in history.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Music, Death and War

It seems appropriate on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war that the Grand Rapids Symphony gave a stunning presentation of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.

The piece juxtaposes the Latin requiem mass sung by the chorus, with two soloists singing words by Wilfred Owen, the British poet who died near the end of World War I. The men, a tenor and a baritone, represent two soldiers who were responsible for each other's deaths in battle.

Britten wrote the Requiem in 1960 as an elegy to the great wars of the 20th Century. It is a massive piece that required 400 singers and musicians on stage to do it justice. Quite remarkable for a regional orchestra and a testament to the quality of the GRS and David Lockington's leadership.

It is a very moving piece, combining the majesty of the Catholic mass with the poignancy of the two soldiers reaching back from the grave to speak about life and war.

As the piece progressed through the stages of the mass I couldn't help thinking about the awful war America has created and the death and sorrow that is the inevitable result. All wars make sense to the leaders who start them - but in the end they are all the same. Their justifications fade into history while the memories of the dead remain with us forever.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Save The Parks

Michigan's park system is one of the things that makes this state great. They also make us different from neighboring states that don't have so much beauty to show off. They are gems, and the state government just doesn't get it.

The parks are chronically underfunded and the truly retrograde faction of the Republican Party has even talked about selling some of them off to raise cash - as if this didn't violate their precious anti-tax pledges.

"Belt tightening" is Lansing's answer to everything when what is needed is some leadership that recognizes that the parks are economic drivers that bring in tourist dollars and help support rural communities. Instead of promoting the parks they run them down through lack of maintenance and really creative ideas like not providing trash cans anymore (Darwin award nominee).

A new funding idea has been proposed to add $9 to every car registration fee and then eliminate the daily admission fees. Anyone who does not want to pay the fee can easily opt out so no one pays that doesn't want to. This would give the parks a dependable source of revenue and take them out of the annual fiasco known as the state budget.

So then Jen makes her "no new taxes or fees" proclamation at her 2008 SOS and the idea is now DOA.

Michigan needs leadership and new ideas. "No new taxes" is a surrender flag that shows the Governor couldn't take the heat from last year's budget fight.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Eric Prince Capone

It's ironic that Blackwater may end up being taken down by the IRS instead of an Iraqi court.

The back story is that Blackwater is owned by Eric Prince, one of the scions of the Holland, Michigan Prince family that built (and recently sold) a multi-billion dollar auto components company. Prince's sister Betsy is married to Dick DeVos, the billionaire would-be governor of Michigan. Blackwater was a $2 million dollar company in 2002 when the Iraq war and the Prince family's connections with the Republican Party helped turn it into one of the most successful suppliers of outsourced fighters for Bush's outsourced war.

Backwater's IRS problem concerns its decision to define its mercenaries as independent contractors instead of employees. This designation helps shield Blackwater from lawsuits and damages. It also releases them from paying Social Security, Unemployment and Medicare taxes. The use of the independent contractor designation was being widely abused until 2002 when the IRS dropped the hammer and really tightened up the rules.

It gets complicated, but I can't conceive of how Blackwater could have used the independent contractor classification. If they got a ruling from the IRS, it's certainly suspect. Fortunately, Henry Waxman is on the case and asking the IRS just what went on here.

Forgetting the technical points, Backwater's behavior is sleazy. The use of the independent contractor designation screws the employees and screws the government. These people are making a fortune profiteering off the Iraq war and are too cheap to pay their taxes or take care of their workers.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Show Kilpatrick the Exit

Jack Lessenberry nails the developing scandal for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

We're not just talking about sex scandals and cover ups anymore. We're talking about an administration with little regard for the law and even less regard for the City of Detroit.

It's time for Mayor Kilpatrick to resign with what little dignity he has left.

John Conyers Stands Tall

Last fall, Rep. John Conyers spoke at the Kent County Democratic Party annual dinner. He gave one of the most elegant, uplifting presentations I have ever heard from a politician - and demonstrated why he has earned so much respect in the House.

Today Rep. Conyers filed suit against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for Contempt of Congress based on their refusal to testify about the firing of the federal prosecutors:
"It is extremely rare that Congress must litigate in order to enforce subpoenas and no compromise can be reached. Unfortunately, this Administration simply will not negotiate towards a compromise resolution so we must proceed."

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Utilities (again)

The legislative battle over Michigan's energy future is even more convoluted than I described previously.

Two things are going on: an attempt to add a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to promote renewable energy in Michigan, and an attempt by big energy (Consumers and DTE) to re-establish the old regulatory regime - effectively guaranteeing their profits and giving them the ability to control whatever happens on the renewable front. The two bills have been tie-barred, which means neither one can be enacted without the other.

Even the GR Press recognizes the folly of this. The state needs an RPS to catch up to the rest of the country on renewables and maybe even create some manufacturing jobs for turbine parts and such. This should have happened five years ago but until the magic "jobs" word got attached to it, the Granholm Administration didn't show much interest.

What we don't need is another gift to Big Energy in exchange for the RPS. Consumers and DTE have done everything they can to block renewable energy in Michigan and the last thing we want to do is put them in the driver's seat.

Beware of Dogma

It seemed obvious when I posted last month that Hudsonville's god issues were going to be around for a while.

The latest twist is the decision by CBS Outdoors in Grand Rapids to turn down the Freedom From Religion Foundation's attempt to place a billboard saying Beware of Dogma. CBS is primarily in the billboard rental business but they must also have a sideline in censorship faciltation. As paraphrased by the Press, a CBS spokesman said:
"it had been through controversy in the past and community reaction would force the billboard down within a day."

FFRF is working with other billboard companies so this isn't over yet. I suggest they talk to the outfit that ran the "God" series a few years ago - the ones that said things like:
We need to talk - God
Seems to me that if that is OK, Beware of Dogma seems perfectly reasonable.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Executive Larceny

I commented last week on 5/3 Bank CEO Kevin Kabat's pay because it seemed particularly germaine to West Michigan. 5/3 is one of the area's largest banks as well as a big employer. They even have their stupid name on our minor league ball park.

However, one could make the argument that Kabat's pay was really not much to talk about given the truly obscene payouts given to executives whose banks did far worse than 5/3.

The essential fact is that the governance system controling most public corporations is so broken that the word corrupt is not out of place - and the people who are being screwed are all the shareholders who have put their money into IRAs because that is what the government now requires us to do if we want any semblance of a secure retirement.

Here's how the game works: CEOs put as many friends as possible on the Corporate Boards that decide their pay, including other CEOs who want to see their own pay escalate. The rest of the Board is typically corporate officers who work for the CEO, so they also have an incentive to take care of him or her. And don't forget that Board member themselves are paid fat fees for going to a few meetings a year so they also have an incentive to make nice.

The Board than hires a consultant to tell them how much they should pay the CEO. These consultants are usually head-hunters who get paid a percentage of a CEO's pay when they place one at a new firm, so they also have an incentive to see pay go up. They also have an incentive to make CEOs happy, because they are the people who hire them.

If the stockholder (that's you) is represented by anyone, it is executives of mutual fund companies - who are also in the game of making their own pay go up! This leaves only the public pension and union retirement funds to look out for your interests. Unfortunately, they are outgunned and have their own issues to deal with.

So other than Henry Waxman (god bless him), there is no one deciding executive pay who is not seriously conflicted and biased towards paying more. After all - it's not their money. It's the shareholders', and the Board (which is supposed to be representing them) really doesn't give a damn.

Here's how Representative Waxman put it today:
“There seem to be two economic realities operating in our country today. Most Americans live in a world where economic security is precarious and there are real economic consequences for failure. But our nation’s top executives seem to live by a different set of rules.”

Thursday, March 6, 2008

8% Joe

Way to go Joe!

Joe Knollenberg, congressman from Michigan's 9th District has landed on the League of Conservation Voters 2008 Dirty Dozen.

It's not easy maintaining an 8% record on environmental votes but someone has to lead the way. He can't match Senator Jim Inhofe's blazing 4% - but what's life without something to strive for?

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Utilities to Michigan: Eat Me

Ken Sikkema's recent letter to the GR Press is starting to make a little more sense.

Turns out, the Utilities (Consumers and DTE) that wrote the legislation freeing them from regulation in 2000 (Public Act 141) have decided they really like being regulated monopolies after all. Especially after the earlier legislation transferred all of their stranded costs to the consumers.

What happened in '00 was that the legislature wanted to introduce more competition into the Michigan energy markets. Consumers and DTE said they can't do that given that they are saddled with all these sunk costs taken on with the assumption that they would be regulated forever and allowed to pass them along in perpetuity. They had their way (as they always do) and dumped billions of dollars onto businesses and consumers.

Take a look at your monthly bill; all those line items you don't understand - those are the sunk costs that you now own.

Now they want to eliminate all competition for alternative energy such as wind power and there's legislation in the House to do this. Could it be that former Senate head Sikkema is on the Utilities payroll? That would be a real shocker, wouldn't it.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Just Legalize It

From today's Grand Rapids Press:
"Drugs, robbery likely motive in shooting death...Police say marijuana buy 'just got out of hand'"
A 19 year old father is dead, who appears to have been an innocent bystander to a pot buy by a bunch of teenagers that "just got out of hand". So tell me again why this happened? Is it because pot is dangerous, or because it is illegal?

If you could just walk down to the store and buy it, Nathan Kenney would still be alive, and three unfortunate Grand Rapids teen agers wouldn't be looking at hard time.

Where Do I Get a Yard Sign?

With 70,000 signatures over the required minimum, it looks like there will be a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana in Michigan.

If a joint is going to make a cancer patient on chemo feel like enjoying an ice cream cone, who are we to say no? And isn't it time to recognize that the damage caused by the illegality of Pot is far worse than any conceivable damage caused by the drug itself?

Monday, March 3, 2008

Smoke

I'd like to know who decided that eliminating smoking from state prisons was a smart move. In the words of Corrections Spokesman Russ Marlan:
"we should see healthier inmates long-term - and that should translate into some health care savings"

Uh, so if we make inmates stop smoking, fewer of them will get cancer and that will help the corrections health care budget? What about the ones who get knifed during fights for contraband cigarettes? Or the guards who try to stop a violent inmate from having a smoke in the yard? And one can only imagine the black market that will develop and the temptation for low-paid guards to cash in.

If we are so concerned about inmates health, maybe we could invest in drug treatment facilities, or post-release training so they could get jobs? Or maybe we shouldn't lock so many people up for non-violent crimes?

More of The Same

Following on the heels of my post from yesterday, I was reading the National Review's gushing editorial about how wonderful McCain's health care plan is.

Like most Conservative solutions, it's based on tax spending rather than a government run program like Medicare or Social Security (which are wildly popular, highly efficient and anathema to the Right). But what caught my eye was the following line:

"He would allow people to purchase insurance out of state, thus bypassing their own states’ regulations. The same family that cannot afford insurance in New Jersey could buy it cheaper in Pennsylvania, thanks to overregulation in the former. By freeing interstate commerce, McCain would make insurance more affordable."

Don't these people ever learn? As soon as you eliminate inter-state restrictions there will be a stampede of insurance companies to states with the weakest regulations. Fly by night operators will start selling cheap policies to unsuspecting consumers who will then get screwed when the companies evaporate faster than the sub-prime mortgage lenders.

And then there was this choice bit:

"The second attack is that people with pre-existing medical conditions will have trouble getting affordable coverage on the individual market. That is true. But those people already have such trouble under today’s system."

Excuse me? The current system already sucks so why should we expect anything better?

Great plan, John. Good luck getting coverage with that skin cancer problem of yours.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Conservatism Fails

It has been said that Conservatism can never fail - it can only be failed.

This helpful little aphorism allows movement conservatives to explain away circumstances where their core beliefs fail to deliver. It's not the belief that failed; it was just poorly implemented.

So today Ken Sikkema (former leader of the Michigan State Senate) comes out with a letter stating that deregulation of the state's utilities failed to produce any of the benefits that were supposed to come from competition. How can this be? Isn't de-regulation always supposed to help the consumer? Do you mean to say that it only helped the utilities (who wrote the bill)? Oh my gosh, I just can't believe it.

De-regulation was also supposed to help banks offer cheaper mortgages, allowing more Americans to own homes! We've seen how well that is working. And how about competition helping the public schools? No improvement in test scores for seven years from Charter Schools? Oh, dear - must need a little more time for the miracle of competition to deliver.

Obviously my point here is that Conservatism does in fact fail - and not because of poor execution. Some essential services do need to be regulated despite the cannons of Conservative ideology. Although the wonders of Adam Smith's free hand of competition may work in theory, the real world, particularly in the short term, is not so cooperative.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

The Debt Crisis

One of the things saving us from a complete meltdown of the U.S. financial system may be the fact very few people understand what is happening.

I'm not trying to sound like a snob, it's just that the debt market can't be easily described - or distilled down to a simple number like the Dow Jones averages. In fact there is no debt market as such; there are dozens of different markets that are all interrelated.

Suffice to say the debt market is many times larger than the stock market and is the grease that keeps the economy moving from day to day. Problems in the stock market can be costly - but a company doesn't shut down because its stock is off 10%. On the other hand, problems in the debt market can make a company (or the Michigan student loan program, or even an entire nation) shut down virtually overnight.

The debt market has been exploited by Wall Street wizards to such a degree that no one really understands it any more. This has been done through the use of derivatives, futures, swaps and options that have nominal values in the trillions of dollars. The Federal Reserve bank has a group of PhD analysts trying to define all the potential failure modes and even they don't understand it.

The prevailing view is that the U.S. government can solve any financial crisis and is too big to fail.

Guess what: it's not true. If people lose confidence in the ability of a borrower (any borrower) to repay its debts, the whole game shuts down. overnight.

If you want to get into the depths of this. Spend some time at the Calculated Risk blog. They make even the most dense and arcane stuff at least somewhat understandable.