No Red States, No Blue States, Just Football

President-elect Obama told us there are no Red States, and there are no Blue States. There are only the United States. He was 100% right, but it had nothing to do with politics. As a nation we are still divided on any number of political issues: abortion, bailouts, tax policy, the Clintons, immigration, war, gay rights, women's rights, etc, etc, etc. We do have common ground, however. It's football.

Go to Massachusetts on a crisp fall Sunday when the leaves are in full color. There, in the land of John Kerry, gay marriage, and legalized marijuana, there is only one thing that matters come Sunday afternoon - the Pats game.

Compare that to an autumn Sunday in Texas, when the weather is still as warm as a pit barbecue. There, in the land of George W. Bush, evangelicism, and oil companies, there is only one thing that matters come Sunday afternoon - the Cowboys game (or, if one was unlucky enough to be from Houston, the Texans game. Go Sage Rosenfels!)

To paraphrase Lee Greenwood [FN 1], from the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee, across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea, we're proud to be American football fans.

I have a story that proves this fact.


My good friend Pipes and I went to Texas to visit our Army buddy, Bakes. Bakes was born and raised just outside Dallas, and was every inch the Great American Hero: strapping young lad, blond hair, blue eyes, high school football player, West Point graduate, Army officer, married to his high school sweetheart, and life-long Texas A&M fan. Pipes and I flew to Dallas, hopped into Bakes's ginormous pick-up truck, and drove to the heart of A&M football - Aggieland, aka College Station, Texas.

Now, I grew up in NJ, where football is certainly popular - what kind of a week people are having often depends on how well the Giants or Jets are doing. But football in Texas is something else entirely. Once you get within 60 miles of College Station, you are in Aggieland. The water towers and billboards proclaim the greatness of the Aggies. Everything from gas stations to restaurants to doctors offices is dedicated to Aggie fanaticism. Every radio and television station covers some aspect of Aggie football.

We drove into College Station, and Bakes nosed his monster truck through the throngs of maroon-clad fans that mobbed the streets. We had arrived hours before the game - in which the Aggies would face the Cornhuskers of Nebraska - and the pre-game celebrations were already in full swing. "Where to?" I asked Bakes. "We're goin' to the Dixie Chicken," Bakes said, spitting a stream of Copenhagen juice into a Coke can.

Ah, the Dixie Chicken: a cowboy football bar to beat all others. A single-story pine-board building housing hundreds of feet of bar, serving cold beer and hot wings to the hundreds of Aggie faithful that mob it each weekend.

Bakes found a nearby parking spot and our intrepid trio walked into the bar. Inside was a sea of Aggie fans in maroon and gray, interspersed with a few brave Nebraska fans. Raucous groups of fans circled around their pitchers of Bud and Shiner Bock, scarfing down nachos and wings. Solid Red-Staters all. Bakes, Pipes and I grabbed a few pitchers and found an unoccupied corner between some Aggie college kids and Nebraska alums.

We drank up, and Pipes pulled out his camera for some group shots. We passed the camera around, each of us taking pictures of the other two. We looked around to ask someone to take a picture of all three of us. Who to ask? Aggie kids? Cornhusker alums? "How about that guy?" asked Bakes.

He pointed at a tall feller standing 20th in line for the men's room. "Who, the guy in the blue rugby shirt?" I asked. "Yeah," he said.

Pipes put his beer down and said, "Hey, you know who that is?" I gave him a blank look and shrugged. "That's Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks."

For those who don't know, Mark Cuban is a multi-billionaire. He lives in a 24,000 square foot mansion just outside Dallas. Recently, he was doing the Watusi with Wayne Brady on "Don't Forget the Lyrics." But there he was, elbow to elbow with the hoi polloi, waiting his turn for the pisser, enjoying some authentic football Americana.

"Let's get a picture with him," I said. "Nah," said Pipes, "People've probably been bothering him for that all day."

"Ok," said Bakes. "Let's just ask him to take a picture of us." He grabbed the camera and tapped Cuban on the shoulder.

"Yeah," Mark Cuban asked, looking at Bakes and eying the camera. "Excuse me, sir, but would you take a picture of me and my friends?" asked Bakes, smiling widely. Mark Cuban looked at him quizzically, clearly taken aback. I think he had a "Don't you know who I am?" moment. But Bakes didn't blink (good Republican that he is, he's incapable of blinking in the face of adversity). Mark Cuban recovered his composure, smiled and said, "Sure!"

He took the camera, and Bakes stepped back and put his arms around me and Pipes. Cuban held up the camera and focused it. "A little closer, guys." We got closer. "No, cheek to cheek," he said. We got cheek to cheek. "Good. On 3. 1, 2, 3." Flash, click. "One more, just in case," Cuban said. Flash, click. "Ok guys, that's great," he said.

Bakes stepped forward and took the camera back. "Thanks a lot, sir, I really appreciate it," Bakes said. "Oh, no problem guys," said Cuban, and he turned to resume his place in line. Bakes came back over to our corner, and we noticed the dropped jaws of the Aggie kids and Husker alums around us.

"Y'all know who that was?" asked one of the Nebraska guys. "Yeah," said Pipes, "that was Mark Cuban." "Well that's about the most awesome thing I've seen," said the Nebraska guy, laughing, and he high-fived us all around.

Indeed, it was pretty awesome. It's not every day you can get the billionaire owner of a championship-caliber sports franchise to take your picture in a bar.

And even more awesome was the disparate group brought together by this little scene: Bakes, the red-blooded Texan; Pipes, the hockey kid from Minnesota, don'cha know; me, from Joisey; the Husker and Aggie fans that would be clamoring for each other's heads in the upcoming game; and one of the richest men in America who really just had to pee. But backgrounds didn't matter, because we were all united in our desire for cold beer and good football.

See, there are no Red States, and there are no Blue States. Just the United States of Football. The end.

[FN 1] Lee Greenwood pretty much has one hit, "Proud to be an American." Because this song only gets air time when America goes to war, I wonder if it bothers Lee that the amount of his royalties directly corresponds to the severity of our armed conflicts.
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Too Big To Fail: Auto Industry Edition

Hi again. Since all I do everyday is apply to jobs, watch news, and read the NY Times, I have a lot of time on my hands. I also spend a lot of time thinking about the news. Recent news has focused on the Democrats' plan to bailout the auto industry. No doubt this comes at the urging of the auto workers' unions, who are probably looking for payback for their support of Obama.

I am of two minds about the auto bailout, but leaning toward permitting car manufacturers to fall on their faces and let the market sort things out. The other side of me says that there's no need for such draconian measures, and a thoughtful, well-crafted government intervention could stave off many problems. Thanks to our two-party system of republican government, we'll get neither a pure market solution nor a well-crafted government solution.

Instead, we'll get a bill that spews money at a dying industry, and this bill will temporarily breathe some life back into U.S. auto manufacturers, but that will only delay the inevitable. I think it's is a bad idea. Here's why:


Throwing money at car manufacturers is akin to administering flu shots to dinosaurs at the same time as the asteroid enters the upper atmosphere. Sure, the dinosaurs won't get the flu, but, really, there are bigger concerns on the horizon. Same for the car companies: lack of money isn't the problem, and giving them a revenue injection won't fix the real problem. The real problem is they are going extinct.

Now, I'm not raising the global warming flag, and talking about banning cars for the good of mankind. We're too tied to cars to give them up entirely. But the modern auto industry itself is doomed. Let's look at some facts: cars operate via an internal combustion engine, which is 19th century technology. They are assembled and sold based on Ford's business model, which is an early 20th century invention. Both the product and the methods by which it is manufactured and sold are outdated.

The product - the car - is outdated because it's efficiency is rapidly becoming less than its cost. When measuring the total cost of cars' existence - product price, insurance, maintenance, accident-related litigation, environmental impact, loss of life, etc. - it becomes clear that the benefit of the automobile will soon be outweighed by the cost, if that is not already the case.

The business model is outdated too. There's nothing wrong with assembly-line production - that's not the issue. The problem is that the business model for building cars was originally predicated on abundant supplies of steel and energy, each of which is shrinking and/or disappearing and driving up the cost of production. Similarly, cars were originally designed to be almost disposable, and American cars are still nearly disposable. It's an inherent part of the system - if you build cars that never break down, eventually no one will buy new cars. You need people to need new cars to keep up your business. But again, as resources shrink, that model becomes less viable.

So, what we have is an industry that is croaking its last breaths, because the world is moving on without it. But in the name of protecting jobs and American industry, the government is seriously considering propping up this industry, thereby perpetuating rather than solving the underlying problems driving auto manufacturers into the ground.

But if there's no bailout, what will we do? What will happen to all those jobs, not just in auto manufacture, but in parts manufacture, mechanics shops, tire places, auto accessories, and all the thousands of other jobs that these jobs support? And don't forget the oil industry, what will happen to them? Surely the auto industry is too big to fail? We can't let this big a chunk of the economy collapse, can we?

Well, that's why I'm of two minds. One part says yes, let it fail. It might not be so bad. Let's say GM collapses, totally and completely. What will happen? Well, a lot of people will be out of work. But GM owns lots of assets: factories, r&d labs, offices, raw materials, a trained labor force, etc. If GM breathed its last, it's almost certain that another company would swoop in and buy up these assets, open another car company, and put those employees back to work. I nominate Porsche. They just raked in a billion dollars by cornering the market on Volkswagen stock and then short-selling it. Clearly, Porsche knows how to run a business, and they make a good car too.

And if it isn't Porsche, it would be someone else that buys up GM (or Dodge, or Ford, or whoever) and takes it over. This wouldn't solve the long term problem of the automobile's looming demise, but it would at least mitigate some of the short-term harm. It would also have the added benefit of putting people that know how to build good cars and run a profitable company in charge, and a rising tide raises all ships. Domestic competition would increase, automobiles would evolve into the next step in transportation technology, and we'd all live happily ever after.

However, the collapse of an American auto giant is likely to be painful, even if only in the short-term. So that's where the other side of my indecision comes in: if we can see this collapse coming, and we know that our goal is to move to the next step of transportation technology, why endure such pain? Let's skip the middle man and put our own companies on that path now.

I guess the short answer is that it's really, really hard to do that. First of all, there's no ready-made technology to shift to. We stopped using horses because the car was invented. There's no parallel here - we still need someone to come up with the next big idea to replace the car. Second, it costs a lot of money to shift paths from one way of doing business to another. New designs must be made, new materials procured, factories must be refitted or new ones must be built, and the new cars have to actually be better than the old ones. That is all costly and hard to achieve. Plus, because a bailout will have to come from the government, it will necessarily be full of compromises, attached strings, and pork, all of which may throw off the whole program.

So, which is it? Both options are jagged little pills. I can't decide. Thankfully, I don't have to. That's why we hire smart people like politicians to do the thinking for us. They'll make sure it's all ok. The end.



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The Tax Man Cometh

Um, if you're not interested in tax policy, you just may want to move on to a different post. Go ahead, I won't mind. If you are interested in hearing my questions about Obama's tax plan, click "read more."



Ok, so for those of you still with me, here's the basic issue. Obama wants to increase taxes on the upper levels of the tax bracket. Fine.

However, I suspect that when Obama's tax plan goes into place, companies will merely increase the salary of management and executives so that their after-tax dollars are the same as before the tax revision took effect. In turn, this increase in salary would be paid for by increasing prices for consumers and/or cutting jobs. This would, in effect, set the tax burden firmly back on the shoulders of the middle and working classes. This is because the lower income earners would have to pay more or lose their jobs, thereby undermining the purpose of the tax plan - namely to shift a greater share of the burden to the upper levels of the tax bracket and alleviate financial strain on the lower brackets.

So here's my question: what safeguards are available to prevent that from happening? Surely there must be some combination of carrots and sticks available to prevent my hypothetical from happening. Otherwise, we're basically asking wealthy people to make a charitable donation - please pay more taxes out of your own pocket, and don't shift the cost to the lower classes. Please. Pretty please.

The only solution I can think of is indirectly tying the corporate tax system to the personal income tax system. Here's the idea: increase personal taxes on the upper tax bracket as planned. Simultaneously, increase corporate taxes, but offer a tax break for those companies that maintain upper bracket salaries at previous levels, adjusted for inflation. This tax break has to be big enough to make it fiscally viable enough to keep salaries as-is. By that I mean that the corporate tax break must be sufficiently large that foregoing the tax break and increasing upper bracket salaries would equate to an irresponsible waste of profits, which would hurt shareholder value.

Thus, by offering greater profits, we incentivize companies to freeze upper bracket salaries. In turn, this hopefully minimizes the transfer of the cost of increased taxes from upper brackets to lower brackets.

Doing the mathematic modeling on this is beyond my skill level. I don't know at what rate to set the upper bracket tax hike and the corresponding corporate tax increase/tax break. At the bottom line, the new rates must be sufficient to actually raise revenue. That is, the corporate tax breaks can't offset the revenue increase from upper level tax hikes. Similarly, some percentage of companies will probably raise salaries anyway, and that must be factored in. There also has to be a tightening of loopholes that would permit corporations and upper bracket earners to hide income in tax shelters.

There's also the problem of selling this idea. It is redistributionist, no two ways about that. I'm hoping that the idea of letting corporations increase profit margins would make it easier to swallow. However, letting corporations make more money is seldom popular with voters.

Finally, there's another consideration: state and local taxes. State and local governments are also suffering under budget strains, and need to increase revenue as well. If state and local governments hike sales tax, property tax, excise tax, and state income tax, then all the work done to keep money in the hands of middle class earners will be undone because they'd be paying more in state and local tax.

This is starting to make my head hurt, and I'm sure I've committed an egregious error somewhere in my modest proposal. If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment.

In closing, I don't know how Obama sleeps at night. In fact, I think he doesn't sleep. This morning CNN ran footage of him from 2006, and he looked great. Now, he's already grayer, his face more lined, and he hasn't even raised his right hand and taken office yet. I suppose it must be hard work when one takes seriously the job of carrying the weight of the world. The end.
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Hi, Mom? I'm in federal custody.

I just finished a conversation with my housemate, RB. In the parlance of our times, she's totally in the tank for Obama. Yesterday, she spent 12 hours en route to and from Obama's final campaign stop in Manassas, VA. Tonight she has a slate of 3 election parties to attend. Our conversation covered a lot of electiony topics, one of which was whether the Republicans would attempt to rig the outcome by challenging provisional ballots. She was generally opposed to provisional ballots, while I said they helped both sides. For example, I argued, wouldn't the Democrats want to challenge provisional ballots if a judge kept polls open to support a Republican candidate?

Maybe, she conceded. Nevertheless, she didn't trust the Republicans, and wouldn't lower her guard until McCain conceded. Then she went to bed, so as to be peppy during her full evening of Obamamania.

After she left, the question of federal judges and their politics sent my mind to wondering. However, the question of federal judicial politics is boring, so I ended up recalling my own experience working for a federal judge. Which brings me to the story I really want to tell you:

Politics play a very small role in a federal judge's job. Mostly, they handle apolitical cases, or are handcuffed into imposing statutorily required sentences that prevent "liberal" judges from "letting criminals off easy." However, nestled in a judge's humdrum day of initial appearances, warrant-granting, discovery hearings, and pre-trial conferences, there sometimes appears a real gem of a case. For example:



I once worked for Judge B, a federal district court judge. Every day after lunch, we'd go down to the courtroom for an afternoon of work - some civil, some criminal. The criminal cases were almost always drug-related and featured a young man wearing the latest in gangland haute couture or federal-issue orange. Except once.

One afternoon, as the other clerks and I entered the courtroom with the Judge, I looked at the defendant's table. There sat a young white male in his late teens or early 20's. He was decked out in preppie fall classics: wire-rim glasses, green sweater over white button down, jeans, and birkenstocks. Oh, and handcuffs and leg irons.

'Hm,' I thought to myself, 'this is out of the ordinary.' I looked questioningly at my fellow clerk, but he just shrugged. We took our usual seats next to the bench, and the courtroom clerk announced Judge B and opened the proceedings.

"Your Honor, first we have the initial appearance of Topher McWhitey," the courtroom clerk, Mark, announced.

"Very well," Judge B. said. She looked at the U.S. Attorney at the prosecutor's table. "Mr. U.S. Attorney?" she prompted.

The U.S. Attorney stood and cleared his throat. "Your Honor, Topher McWhitey is here on his initial appearance," he began. "Federal agents apprehended him in class at Boston University this morning, and he is being charged with 28 counts of international drug trafficking." My eyes widened, my co-clerk and I looked at each other, and we both sat up in our seats.

"Go on," said Judge B.

'Yes, do go on,' I thought, pen poised above my yellow legal pad.

"Your Honor, Topher McWhitey was arrested this morning after his co-conspirators were arrested while attempting to bring 2000 pounds of marijuana from Canada into Idaho. Upon their arrest, they identified Mr. McWhitey as the central figure in the drug trafficking scheme. I have prepared for the court a list of the 28 charges Mr. McWhitey faces, and have also provided the list to Mr. McWhitey's counsel."

Mark handed the list of charges to Judge B. She pursed her lips as she looked over it. "Mr. U.S. Attorney, what punishment does Mr. McWhitey face?" "Well," said U.S. Attorney, "he faces a mandatory minimum of 25 years, and statutory maximum of 40 years."

Geez! They yanked him out of class?! 25 years minimum?! A freaking ton of marijuana! And his buddies already rolled on him, so no plea bargain! This dude was way, way up Shit's Creek, and nary a paddle was in sight.

"Mr. McWhitey, please stand," said Judge B. He stood, as did his attorney. "I need some information for your packet, Mr. McWhitey. What is your address?"

He gave an address off Commonwealth Avenue. "You go to Boston University," said Judge B. "Is that your permanent address or your school address."

Topher looked green around the gills, althought it might have been his sweater. "That's my school address, ma'am," he said, looking at the table in front of him.

"Please address the court as 'Your Honor', not ma'am," said Judge B. "Sorry," mumbled Topher. "Now," said Judge B., "do you have roommates in Boston?"

"I live in a house with 5 other guys." said Topher. His lawyer nudged him. "Oh, uh, Your Honor," he said.

Hm, a house with 5 other dudes? I could only imagine things in that house that evening:
First Dude: "Hey guys, anyone seen Topher?"
Second Dude, playing XBox: "No, haven't seen him all day."
Third Dude, watching Second Dude play XBox: "You didn't hear? The fuzz dragged him out of Econ this morning. Heard it was the Feds."
First and Second Dudes: "Shit, man, no way."
Third Dude: "I know, right. Think Topher's a terrorist?"
First Dude: "Nah, it's probably drugs."
Uncomfortable pause in conversation while XBox bleeps and blorps.
Second dude drops XBox controller, exeunt rapidly.
Moments later follows the sound of marijuana being flushed down toilets.

"Ok, Mr. McWhitey," said Judge B. "And what is your home address?" Topher gave an address in Idaho. "Is that your parents' house?" asked Judge B. "It is," said Topher. "Have you been in contact with them?" asked Judge B. "I called my Mom this morning, after, well, this whole thing," said Topher. "She wasn't home, though, so I had to leave a message."

Awesome! Beep. "Hi Mom, this is Topher. I just wanted to let you know I got those socks you sent me. They're really great, thanks. Have I said I love you recently? Because it's really important you know how much I love you. And Dad too. And also Uncle Chuck. He's a lawyer, right? Could you call him for me? I kind of got a little bit arrested this morning. It's not like a big deal or anything, but I think you should really call Uncle Chuck. And, if you could, see if he knows anything about international drug trafficking charges. Ok? That'd be really great. Thanks. I love you guys."

"That's ok, Mr. McWhitey," said the Judge. "You'll be able to call home later. Now, you recognize you're facing some very serious charges, don't you?" "Yes, Your Honor" said Topher, looking up at the Judge, and then sighing as he looked up at the ceiling. Maybe he was hoping for a bolt of lightning to strike him dead before his first night in federal lockup. I know I would have been.

Judge B. looked at the sheet of charges. "Mr. McWhitey, I have no idea how you got your hands on so much marijuana. Nor do I have any idea what you planned to do with it once you got it into this country. However, I counsel you to cooperate with the U.S. Government and give them as much information as you can. If you do not cooperate, you could be in prison for the next quarter century, or longer."

By this point, I was riveted and bursting with questions: How'd you get into this, Topher? Paying gambling debts? Adventure? Medical bills? What? And who's your connection? Are you just a dopey kid that grew a bunch of weed in the woods and tried to sneak it over the border? Or does this go higher? Unfortunately, no answers were forthcoming.

Also unfortunate, for Topher anyway, was his list of options. Either he was the mastermind of this operation, which meant he was going to jail for 25-40. Or, he could flip on his boss to get a reduced sentence, but spend the rest of his life in witness protection. Either way, it wasn't likely the outcome he planned with his buddies back in Idaho.

Judge B. wrapped up some formalities, and the U.S. Marshalls collected up Topher. He did the leg-iron shuffle as he followed them out the door and back to the holding cell where he'd wait for a prisoner transport van. From there, if he was lucky, he'd get a con-air flight to Idaho that night. If he was unlucky, Judge B. said, he'd trade his J. Crew threads for a jumpsuit, spend the night in holding, and get a prison bus to Idaho.

Gah, a prison bus to Idaho? I suppose if there's anything worse than a regular bus to Idaho, it would have to be a prison bus to Idaho, but still. Poor Topher was F-U-K fucked.

And that's why I voted to decriminalize possession of 1 oz. or less of marijuana in Massachusetts. The end.

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