democratic views

The Failure of Too Big to Fail

As the government moves forward with plans to put more stringent controls on financial institutions and Wall Street, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman don't think the proposals go far enough. Not so, says Edward L. Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association. Speaking of the reform proposals he says "you don't want to create a system that raises great uncertainty and changes what institutions, risk management executives and lawyers are used to." Really.

The Energy to Go the Distance

Even as President Obama presses for renewable energy, he reminds us that not only will the entrenched oil and coal lobbies, and backward-looking business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce resist the change, but that we will need carbon-based fuels for decades. Energy reform is a strategic challenge and a matter of national security and economic security for the United States. In a speech he gave on Oct. 23 at MIT, Obama said "nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing [sic] and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy." It's a race we have to win.

Fox News Pokes Obama in the Eye: Chris Wallace Crosses the Line

Fox News has a stellar lineup of commentators who say outrageous things, and their opinions got the entire Fox News organization in trouble with the White House. No matter what punches commentators like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity throw, getting the President involved in blacklisting Fox News was a bad idea. The Becks, Hannitys, and Coulters just aren't that important. If Obama stepped into the fracas on his own, perhaps he should have taken advice. If that's the advice he was given, well, someone should be taken to the woodshed. Sometimes smart people are too smart by half. The president's advisors didn't clean up the lawn after the dogs were out, and now he's stepped in it.

Fabulous Insurance

In the country of Havahart, citizens got tired of privatized medicine and health insurance companies doing outrageous things. In one case, the insurance plan doubled its premiums, raised deductibles, and changed co-payments from a nominal flat fee to a percentage of the bill. Outraged citizens knew that the companies were playing hardball, sending a signal to leave them alone to do business as usual, to forget about health care reform. The people also grew tired of elected politicians who lacked courage to do what was right. So a bold new movement took hold among the public: they stopped paying their insurance premiums. The Great Insurance War began.

Pseudo-Science: The Anti-Vaccine Epidemic

In 2000, measles was eradicated in the United States. No more measles, due to successful vaccination programs. In 2008 measles returned with the largest number of cases since 2000. This trend in the U.S. – rising numbers of measles cases – is the opposite of a worldwide reduction in cases of measles, which still kills 540 children every day. The reason: a growing number of parents who won't allow their children to be vaccinated; and backward-looking public school districts that do not require proof of vaccinations before a child can attend school. Pseudo-scientific claims questioning vaccine safety continue to drive parents into making bad decisions for their children.

From Sea to Shining Sea

The United States has a geography that until recently worked greatly in our favor. Although the U.S. isn't an island nation it might as well be. Two vast oceans, a friendly country with great tracts of wilderness to the north, and southern neighbors that have been largely under our sphere of influence with the isthmus of Panama serving as a natural choke point. It's been hard to attack us unless you drive a truck bomb into buildings or commandeer airplanes.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam: It’s an Energy War

Politicians and a complicit mainstream media are doing a good job of framing the war in Afghanistan and its long shadow in Pakistan as a fight against Islamic fundamentalists who want to attack the United States. Let the Taliban win in Afghanistan and they and Al-Qaida will destabilize Pakistan, which even now is on the verge of a civil war. Let terrorists fracture the government in Islamabad and they will have nuclear weapons to use against us, and tensions with India may boil over into a regional nuclear conflict. This may be true, but it is not the complete story. Our transparent government is wrapping the entire show in the cloak of fear and waving the flag of patriotism.

Sheriff Joe: An Ugly American

The "Ugly American" is a storied phrase in American history, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona is doing his best to keep it alive. Sheriff Joe brought his armed deputies to county offices and took over a $25 million computer system that links police agencies and the court system. He's now in a court fight with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Sheriff Joe is defying the Federal government as it seeks to take away his authorization to enforce federal immigration laws. Sheriff Joe is battling the Mayor of Phoenix and accuses him of driving the calls for federal investigation of the Sheriff's practices. The Mayor's spokesman says that the investigations are both civil and criminal and began under the Bush administration. On all fronts the Sheriff runs an aggressive and well-oiled media operation that presents him as a defender of American liberty when the reality of his law enforcement practices may well be one of the greatest threats to our liberty.

Failing Education

Much is made of reforming education in America. In Washington, D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee is struggling to fix a dismal education system. A bit down the street in the U.S. Department of Education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is figuring out how to use nearly $5 billion to create incentives and mandates that will improve education practices throughout the land; he calls it a "moon shot."

One-Term Obama: A Profile in Courage

We've spent trillions trying to make the country safe. But without fundamental reforms to health care and education there won't be anyone left to be kept safe. Reforms, not just tinkering around the edges of the current systems, trying to please every interest group and lobby. Someone dies every 12 minutes in America because they didn't have health care. Education is being ravaged by budget deficits at the state and local level. So our future looks like this: a country of undereducated citizens unable to find work in a knowledge economy, with a lifetime of depressed earnings because of their lack of learning, unable to pursue lifelong learning and dying early because they don't have or can't afford health care.

A Lilliput in Googleland

Years ago the stock broker I was dealing with couldn't (I think wouldn't) get his hands on any shares from Netscape's IPO, and I lost a fortune before I made it. He suggested I put the funds I'd given him into Micron Technologies, which promptly tanked and ate up a good portion of the capital I'd invested. After that debacle I started trading on my own and gave up believing in the integrity of Wall Street.

Infernal Fires

Today is the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Many remember it by the now-discredited story of Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. Fewer remember that today is also the day of the Great Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, and several other fires that same day which destroyed towns and tracts of land across Wisconsin, Michigan, and into Canada. According to local lore, many in Peshtigo did not flee the disaster because they believed the end of the world was at hand.

The Week in Entertainment

Nancy Franklin writing in The New Yorker skewered Jay Leno and NBC, and rightfully so. Jay's talent is being wasted because NBC never had a hit they couldn't kill, and despite Leno's reported $30 million salary, the network is saving money.

Fred Armisen on Saturday Night Live roasted Barack Obama in a hilarious skit about change we haven't seen. Maybe someone at the White House was watching the show. Maybe some of Obama's majorities in Congress were still awake and got the message, too.

I’m Depressed and You Should Be Too

The only problem with what they're calling the "Great Recession" is that it isn't the "Great Depression." Really, we'd be far better off if the unemployment rate was 28% and more than half the country didn't have health care. Then the politicians would be motivated to fix something. If they didn't angry voters would make some serious changes, and losing that cushy Congressional job would put them out of work along with everyone else.

The New You: Biobricks by Lego

Synthetic. Completely programmed. Got cancer? Just kill the cells that are running amok by reprogramming their DNA, and program new, healthy cells to take their place. Want a green-eyed baby with curly brown hair? It's a DNA program your doctor can provide. Need a new drug or chemical? Grab a cell culture, dump in the DNA programming and make it. Want a new pet, a creature unique and never before seen? Make it yourself. Finally, if you really, really support the end of coal mining, oil drilling, and fossil fuel production, watch the U.S. Joint BioEnergy Institute at work making synfuels with nothing more than large vats of cell cultures and DNA strands. That's where synthetic biology is going. Quickly.