SEN. RICK SANTORUM V. SEN. BOB CASEY JR. – NOT MUCH DIFFERENCE ON WOMEN’S ISSUES AT ALL

Rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks on Sen. Santorum’s religion or on the Catholic Church, it behooves all of us to instead analyze the politics and electorate of Pennsylvania.  Ad hominem attacks are an abusive form of argument; proper arguments should address the merits of an opponent’s position, and refute the merits thereof, rather than attacking either the person, or a straw man, e.g. a caricature of the person.  Abusive argumentation has long been recognized, since the time of Aristotle, as a form of FALLACY, not entitled to serious logical consideration by rational minds.  Consequently, let us engage in some rational discourse on the merits of the question at hand and cease from ABUSIVE and FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTATION techniques such as ad hominem attacks and attacking a straw man.

Sen. Arlen Specter of PA

Let us turn, then, to the Politics of Pennsylvania (“PA”), and why it produces such conservative politics and politicians, especially conservative male politicians, and particularly conservative male catholic politicians recently.  It was for many years a bastion of moderate Republicanism, and indeed, until the 1930s, Philadelphia and the Union League were synonymous with the post-Civil War consensus that the Republican Party was the proper party for all educated persons to vote for in the Northeast.  Indeed, the city was so identified with core national Republican values that the Athletics even adopted an elephant as their team logo in the early 1900s, a symbol retained to this day by the Oakland Athletics, though it is dubious they know what Connie Mack was thinking when he adopted the symbol 111 years ago.

This consensus began to break down after the Great Depression and FDR, though it lingered on for many years as the so-called “Rockefeller-Eisenhower-Nixon” wing of the party, which was Northeast and moderate, and bipartisan with the Democrats on foreign policy, social security, fiscal & monetary policy and many other fundamental issues.  This consensus of course began to break down with the emergence of the Goldwater faction in 1964, which was opposed by the Scranton faction in 1964 (again led from PA), leading to Nixon re-assuming the reigns in 1968 and 1972.  With Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Ford took over and Rockefeller became VP, leading to a bitter fight between the Reagan and Ford wings of the party in 1976, and another bitter fight between the Bush and Reagan wings in 1980, finally emerging in victory both in nomination and election for the conservative wing of the Republican Party in 1980 for Reagan and the conservatives.  A new day had dawned in America.  But to some degree, the bipartisan consensus which had existed since FDR between the Democrats and the moderate Republicans was now endangered.

Nowhere was this tension more dramatically played out the past forty years than in PA.  PA was represented until 1991 by two stalwart moderate Republicans–Sen. Arlen Specter, a bipartisan member of the Warren Commission, and Sen. John Heinz, a moderate Republican loyal to the elderly and to Social Security.  These two Senators were cornerstones of what was, up to that point, a still very strong Northeastern moderate wing of the Republican party.  Both were solidly dedicated to bipartisanship, courtesy, gentlemanly behavior and getting things done on the Senate floor notwithstanding partisan differences.

This began to unravel slowly with the sudden airplane death in 1991 of Sen. John Heinz.

The Late Sen. John Heinz of PA

A sudden election was called in 1991 and an unknown political consultant was brought in from the South named James Carville to manage the campaign of an enormous

PA Sen. Harris Wofford with President John F. Kennedy in early 1960s

underdog, former University President and JFK kitchen cabinet member Harris Wofford, who was to stand election against former Governor Richard “Dick” Thornburgh.  At

Gov. Dick Thornburgh visits Centralia PA to inspect its ongoing Mine Fires in the 1980s

the time, Thornburgh had something like a fifty point lead in the polls, and tons of money.

James Carville - Wofford's 1991 PA Political Consultant

Sen. Heinz’ widow Teresa Heinz, now heiress in part to the Heinz catsup fortune, would then go on to marry Mass. Sen. John Kerry, in effect making him an instant near-billionaire and projecting him to the front rank of presidential contenders for 2004.  This nearly changed U.S. history, but Kerry’s bid failed.  Looking back, it is all too likely that a John Heinz bid for President would ultimately have succeeded in the long run just where Kerry failed–he had the looks, the charm and the moderate views to win.

Sen & Mrs. John & Teresa Heinz prior to his untimely death in 1991

This might have changed the entire course of the Republican Party and US History.

Sen & Mrs. John Kerry & Teresa Heinz Kerry; Her Money Inherited from John Heinz's Death in 1991 Nearly Made Kerry President in 2004

Returning to the 1991 election, Carville made universal health care an issue, and Wofford shocked the nation by defeating Thornburgh, becoming the first Democratic Senator from PA in decades.  At the same time, Carville’s work came to the attention of a bright young Governor from Arkansas with Presidential aspirations–one William Jefferson Clinton.  Carville’s conjunction with Clinton, and with George Stephanopoulos, on the 1992 campaign, documented in THE WAR ROOM documentary film, is now legendary, but all of this began in PA with Carville and Wofford.

It was during the Wofford campaign in 1991 that Carville legendarily quipped that “between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was Alabama in between,” referring to the fact that Pennsylvanians in all portions of the state except for Philadelphia & Allegheny county regions were pro-gun, pro-life, pro-death penalty, exceptionally elderly (the oldest voting population in the USA outside of Florida) and very church-going, as well as being one of the most demographically Catholic and ethnic voting populations.  In addition, PA has the lowest % of college educated persons of any state in the Northeast corridor–it is the prototypical location of high school educated union card carrying labor, and many of those voters were either Nixon Republicans or Reagan Democrats, but definitely not liberal Democrats.  Except of course for the two large cities, and even there, most of the male voters care more about football than about politics.

In 2008 Hilary Clinton carried nearly every county of PA v. Obama and won the PA Primary by running to the right of Obama

Fast forward to 1994.  The Clinton Administration has badly failed on its health care initiative, and Sen. Wofford has to stand re-election in his own right.  This time, he is the heavy favorite to win, but Carville is not working on the campaign.  Wofford is facing an unknown challenger–Congressman Rick Santorum.  No one, absolutely no one, is giving Santorum a chance of winning.  In fact, Santorum is given less chance of winning than Wofford was given in 1991.

What happens next shocks not only the nation, but PA as a whole.  Not only does the Republican Party and the Contract with America sweep the midterm elections in 1994, but Santorum runs unexpectedly strongly and defeats Wofford narrowly to win election to the United States Senate.

Part of the problem with Sen. Wofford is that he is intellectual, aloof and takes re-election for granted, whereas Santorum is hard-working, engaged, personable and likeable.  The rest of the problem is that Santorum is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, and a church-going fellow, whereas Sen. Wofford is a Northeast liberal who is none of these things–consequently it is Santorum who fits the mold of what PA voters want in their candidate (except for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia).  However, since Santorum is FROM PITTSBURGH, the Western Part of the State votes for Santorum, especially as Wofford is from the Eastern Part of the State, thus negating any liberal sentiment emanating from Allegheny County.

Sen. Santorum wins re-election in 2000, and actually runs better in PA than does Pres. Bush, who loses the national popular vote as well as the popular vote and electoral vote in PA, while Santorum wins his election in PA, in effect demonstrating that Santorum as of 2000 is more popular than President Bush.

Now we fast forward to 2006, and to the election Santorum lost for Senate by a considerable margin, to Sen. Bob Casey, Jr.

Let’s examine why he lost this election.

First, Bob Casey, Jr. was and is the son of a popular, two term Governor of PA who was known throughout the state.  Second, Bob Casey, Jr. was from a prominent Irish-Catholic political family as well-known in PA as the Kennedys’ are known in Massachusetts and nationally.  According to wikipedia:

“Casey was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of eight children of Ellen (née Harding) and Bob Casey, the 42nd governor of Pennsylvania. He is of Irish descent on both his mother’s^{[citation needed]}and father’s side.  Casey played basketball and graduated from Scranton Preparatory School in 1978. Following in his father’s footsteps, he graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1982, and received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America in 1988. Between both college and law school, Casey served as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and spent a year teaching 5th grade and coaching basketball at the Gesu School in inner city Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Casey practiced law in Scranton from 1991 until 1996.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Casey,_Jr.

This is the most perfect Jesuit, Irish-Catholic resume you could possibly have for running for office in PA–Scranton Prep, Holy Cross, Catholic University, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and a year teaching at an inner city catholic mission school in Philadelphia.  Sen. Casey is just the most perfect catholic prepster ever.

Next, Casey is pro-gun, pro-life, pro-death penalty, and as we see above, a church-going catholic just like Santorum–in fact, he’s Irish-Catholic, as opposed to Italian-Catholic, which in PA, is a real advantage politically, just as it is in Massachusetts and nationally.

Consequently, the same wedge issues that HELPED Santorum win in 1994 and 2000–the issues that appealed to the “Alabama” parts of PA that are pro-gun, pro-life, pro-death penalty, and church-going and conservative on social issues–were of no use running against Bob Casey, Jr. because Casey, if anything, ran to the right of Santorum on all those issues.  As noted by Casey’s wiki bio:

“In the Democratic primary, Casey faced two Democrats with more liberal viewpoints: college professor Chuck Pennacchio and pension lawyer Alan Sandals. Both argued that Casey’s views on abortion and other social issues were too conservative for most Pennsylvania Democrats. However, Casey easily defeated both challengers in the May 16 primary, receiving 85% of the vote….Abortion….Casey, like his father did, identifies as pro-life. He has publicly stated his support for overturning Roe v. Wade.^[29] From Casey’s election until Specter’s party switch in April 2009, Pennsylvania had the distinction of being represented in the Senate by a self-identified pro-life Democrat and a pro-choice Republican (Arlen Specter).  He supports the Pregnant Women Support Act,^[30] legislation that grew out of Democrats for Life of America‘s 95-10 Initiative. The Initiative and the Pregnant Women Support Act seek to reduce the abortion rate by providing support to women in unplanned pregnancies. He expressed support for the confirmation of both John Roberts^[31] and Samuel Alito^[32] for seats on the Supreme Court of the United States; these judges are believed to be in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. Casey also opposes the funding of embryonic stem-cell research.^[33]   However, Casey voted against barring HHS grants to organizations that provide abortion services, though such services may often not be central to the organization’s chief purpose.^[34] Casey also supports over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception,^[35] and has voted to overturn the Mexico City policy, which bars the issuance of federal funds to overseas organizations that perform or refer for abortions.^[36] The authenticity of Casey’s pro-life commitment has been questioned by some prolife sources.^[36][37]  In January 2010, a writer for CBN wrote, “I wouldn’t want to be Senator Bob Casey right about now. He is coming under enormous pressure from pro-life groups because they say the ‘Pro-life’ Democratic Senator has not stood strong on the abortion issue during the current healthcare debate.” Casey, according to the CBN writer, had recently gotten “an earful and then some from pro-lifers during a press conference held at the Pennsylvania Capitol.”^{[38]  ….”}  

Id.  Clearly, Casey ran to the RIGHT of both of his Democratic primary opponents, and then ran to the RIGHT of Santorum in the general election on the social issues, not to the LEFT as his past opponents had done.  Casey was like the Democratic Santorum–only smarter, more conservative, more polished, and a better version, and even more socially conservative and catholic than Santorum was.  Casey ran to the RIGHT of Santorum on the social issues, but to the LEFT of Santorum on the bread and butter, economic and labor issues.

This makes Casey’s election to the US Senate in 2006 very unique among all of the elections in 2006, even though it is clear that 2006 generally trended Democratic and it is pretty likely that Santorum faced an uphill battle in any event even if Casey had run as a traditional liberal.  But Casey was no traditional liberal.  No one on the editorial staff of the Huffington Post or the New York Times would endorse him for national office if they truly understood either his positions, or the positions of the PA electorate.  In truth, the PA electorate holds positions at variance with the Northeast liberal elite and the West Coast elite, excepting Philadelphia, State College and Pittsburgh.

The results of Casey’s strategies were very clear; he ran well to the right of Santorum on social issues, but ran as a Democrat on union and bread and butter economic issues, while still remaining pro-gun, pro-death penalty, pro-life, pro-church, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, and pro-adoption.

In short, there isn’t a bucket’s worth of warm spit’s difference between these two candidates on women’s issues at all.  In fact, PA has NEVER elected a women to the United States Senate.  Ever.  Not even close to ever.

Only two women have even been nominated to run for US Senate in PA History and both have lost, one back in 1964, and more recently Lynn Yeakel, who lost a relatively close race to incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter following the Anita Hill hearings in the 1990s, but still she lost and then rapidly faded from sight and power.

PA is clearly not a state conducive either to women’s issues or to women running for office.  PA has never had a female governor, a female senator and only rarely has it had female congresspersons.   According to the Huffington Post, as of 2009, there were only two women in its entire Congressional Delegation.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/senate-guru/pa-sen-the-potential-demo_b_187357.html.   It is astonishing how limited women are in political power in PA.

PA is well to the right of NJ, NY, DE and all the other northeastern states with regards to women’s issues and specifically women’s reproductive health issues.  The state legislature is overwhelmingly dominated by men, especially religious and catholic men, and the men who serve there are openly sexist and demeaning towards women who serve in the legislature and create what is in effect a hostile work environment for women who are elected and choose to serve their constituents there.  Recently, one of the houses of the PA Legislature voted 2012 “The Year of the Bible” by nearly unanimous resolution, while also simultaneously voting to cut student financial aid and aid to all state universities by more than one-third in the very same session that they also authorized tens of millions of dollars to hire replacement football coaches to take over for Joe Paterno at Penn State.  Apparently male legislators have their priorities in PA.  And first rate Division I football in Happy Valley is really far higher of a priority than education for the poor or the middle class, apparently.

Sad to say, often the same holds true in many of the rural county courtrooms as well as many of the appellate courts, although there at least in the past few years, some progress has been made.  However, in the major law firms of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, men hold by far the reins of power and women simply do not have any share of either the partner proceeds or the political shares of power that lead to business and partner revenues.

In short, it is a boy’s club, and often, a man’s only club in PA, notwithstanding the lip service paid to equality and opportunity.  Things in PA are NOTHING like NYC or Boston or DC.  They are backwards by at least twenty to forty years.  Many of the female partners who do make it in Philly prefer working over in New Jersey or up in NYC whenever possible–they find PA courts and clients to be very stifling and sexist in the extreme, and in any case most of the business is elsewhere.

Perhaps the reader imagines this is exaggeration, or opinion?  Let us introduce some evidence!

This is an actual example of tactices used against a female candidate for office in Allentown PA reported in the Huffington Post which occurred in 2006 and again in 2008:

“When she ran for mayor of Allentown, PA in 2001, Siobhan “Sam” Bennett was already well-known in her hometown. A former PTA president, she was a pillar of the community, having founded, led, or served on the boards of various civic organizations. So she was completely taken aback by what happened during her first stump speech as a mayoral candidate. Standing before a room full of men, she began to deliver her remarks when the chair of the meeting interrupted her with a totally bizarre and inappropriate request: “Sam, I want to ask a question all the men in this room have been dying to ask you: Just what are your measurements?”

As Bennett wrote in the Huffington Post:

I was in disbelief. And if this wasn’t bad enough, a reporter who witnessed this unabashed display of sexism wrote an article about that stump speech–and didn’t even mention the incident.Unfortunately, that experience was only a hint of what would come my way….

The Opposition’s Vehemence

What came her way when she ran for Congress in 2008 was far worse. Bennett was facing a possible challenger in Pennsylvania State Senator Lisa Boscola, and Boscola’s chief of staff, Bernie Kieklak, was well known in political circles for posting no-holds-barred commentary in local blogs. The remarks he let fly about Bennett at one online site are indicative of the level of sexism and misogyny many women candidates face.

To convey the intensity of Kieklak’s over-the-top sexism regarding Bennett and his extreme vulgarity, his comments are reproduced in their entirety below with minimal censorship: Sammy Bennett is a phony political w_____e who gives good h_____d and makes cheap, blatant political opportunists look like Mother F***ing Teresa. Even her p___y is made of plastic.” [sic] [offensive language edited].”

http://womensissues.about.com/od/thepoliticalarena/a/Women-In-Politics-Sexist-Media-Sexist-Attacks-Hurt-Women-In-Politics.htm

Truly shocking, abusive behavior towards a female politician.  But run of the mill for PA, sad to say.  Welcome to the training grounds of Sens. Santorum, Casey et al.

In short, to be successful in politics as a female in PA, you have to be not twice as good, not three times as good, but about ten times as good as a man, and have a hide made of armor plated kevlar.   Morever, many notable male politicians (including a prominent past governor) are well-known for their womanizing and aggrandizing tactics towards females, which can most generously be characterized as “Clintonesque”.  Even though these matters have been reported, still they go on.

This is the environment from which both Sens. Santorum and Casey have emerged and from which they ran for office.

Here was the result of Sen. Casey’s running to the right of Sen. Santorum on Social Issues according to Sen. Casey’s wiki bio:

“On election night, Casey won the race with 59% of the vote, compared to 41% for incumbent Senator Rick Santorum. Casey’s margin of victory was the highest ever for a Democrat running for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania.^[11]Casey’s 17.4-point victory margin was the largest victory margin for a challenger to an incumbent Senator since James Abdnor unseated George McGovern by 18.8 points in 1980.”

Id.  However, the bio goes on to note that as Casey’s re-election approaches this year, he is beginning to distance himself openly from President Obama again in order to appeal to the conservative PA electorate, particularly with his blue-collar base in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton (Luzerne & Lackawanna Counties) who are very upset with the President’s performance on economic issues:

“Casey is up for re-election in 2012, and has stated that he intends to seek a second term in the Senate.^[12][13] His re-election prospects are uncertain. Observers have noted that as the election approaches, Casey, an early supporter of Obama, has “started to oppose the president outright or developed more nuanced responses to events that differentiate him from Mr. Obama. Analysts say Mr. Casey wants to put some distance between himself and a president whose job approval ratings in Pennsylvania are poor.”^[14] In October 2011, the National Journal noted that “the Scranton area is hugely important for 2012” for both Obama and Casey, but “the city has among the worst unemployment in the state, and it’s filled with the blue-collar Dems who weren’t very enthusiastic about Obama when he first ran for president. How Casey navigates his relationship with the president will speak volumes about his re-election prospects.”^[15]“

One cannot get away from one’s positions–a candidate is what a candidate espouses.  Sen. Santorum, like Sen. Casey, is a warm, charming and personable fellow.  Both are married with a number of kids–Casey has four kids, and Santorum has even more, and both their wives are full time stay at home moms.  Because that’s what they believe in, for the most part.  That moms and wives should stay at home and take care of the kids, that is.  And both of them are pro-gun, pro-second amendment, pro-death penalty, pro-life, pro-catholic, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, pro-adoption, and so on.  Indeed, it is very difficult to measure their differences on women’s issues or women’s health issues at all.

This addresses the issues, as opposed to attacking ad hominem or creating a straw man.  These candidates have espoused their positions and come to be what they are in large part, it is theorized and shown here, because of the electorate they spent a good deal of time cultivating–the uniquely conservative PA electorate.  Whether appealing to that electorate will work nationally in either Republican primaries or a National Presidential Election remains to be seen.  There has not been a President elected from PA since James Buchanan in 1856 (though Eisenhower famously took up residence near Gettysburg after he retired, and was considered an honorary PA resident, and his family still live in PA).  Perhaps with good reason.

how to increase google page rank, increase google page rank, how to increase page rank, increase page rank, increase google ranking, how to improve page rank, increase pagerank, increasing page rank, increase google pagerank, how to increase pagerank

WHY THE DEMS DON’T GET IT

Unfortunately, in light of recent domestic policy directions, I think the Dems have it all wrong.

Health care reform is an idea left over from 1991. The only reason the Dems want to push it through now is because they have the votes to pass the bills they didn’t get passed in the first session of the first term of the Clinton Presidency.

But is this a good reason to pass a law, because you proposed it before and you’ve been trying to pass it for so long?

Universal Health Care is an idea born of POST-DEPRESSION affluence–it’s a fringe benefit to be offered to a population that’s already employed, that already has a guaranteed vacation, a guaranteed pension, and has guaranteed housing. In short, guaranteed health care is the LAST welfare benefit that should be federalized.

In addition, and this is a revision from my original post, according to a recent article posted in a respected publication, the health uninsured are not universally distributed throughout the United States.

In point of fact, less than 3% of Massachusetts residents lack health insurance, thanks to the state law health care coverage efforts of people like Gov. Mike Dukakis and his successors in office. The fact that Massachusetts has nearly universal health care coverage proves that this is a STATE problem and not a FEDERAL problem.

Looking more nationally, the Midwest and Northeast have fewer than ten per cent uninsured as to health care.

It is the South and the West that have 15-25% health uninsured rates; the highest being the state of Texas.

You don’t have to be a statistics major to know that Texas also is a non-union state, has a large number of illegal immigrant resident aliens, and that these conditions are pretty much true throughout the Sunbelt, where the problem of lack of health care coverage is an issue of non-union shops and illegal immigrants competing for jobs, which drives down the employers’ incentives to provide health care benefits.

Consequently, why is this a federal problem? This seems instead to be either an immigration problem, a union/labor law problem, or a combination of the two (as Janis Joplin and Big Brother used to sing). (She was from Texas, by the way, before she got out the San Francisco).

Moreover, if Texas wants to solve their own problems, why not let them experiment? They’ve already reformed tort law to make it much harder to sue MDs–welcome relief to the medical profession, which has flocked in droves to practice in Texas, now considered a medical mecca.

Obama wants to ruin all this. His health care proposal, according to reports, would result in a massive transfer of wealth from the largely democratic and already overtaxed midwest and northeast, and transfer it to the sunbelt states, the south and west, in order to mainly put on federal health coverage, non-union workers who are scabs (union busters) and illegal immigrants (also scabs and union busters).

Do we really want to spend our tax dollars paying for health benefits for strikebreaking scabs and unionbusting immigrant labor? And for illegal aliens to get health care?

Also, additionally, Obama’s health proposal will cause deep cuts in the current level of medicaid, medicare and drugs provided to the elderly under medicare.

In short, the proposal will triage the old and deprive them of expensive end of life care, and let them die more quickly, in order to provide basic health care to young, healthy labor that is non-union, largely hispanic, and living in the sunbelt.

The demographic implications of this over the long run will be a much younger, more hispanic united States, even more concentrated in the sunbelt than it already is, and will likely lead eventually to a bilingual nation that speaks Spanish and English, as well as to the ultimate downfall of unions, since one of the major arguments for unions is that they provide their members with health care and pension benefits during job and contract negotiations.

If unions are deprived of health care as a benefit to negotiate for, fewer workers will opt into unions. Obama and the democrats, paradoxically, are going to drive the death nail into the coffin of the union movement in this country. They haven’t thought through clearly the implications of what they are doing.

In short, this is a regional problem, and a union/immigration problem, and not a national problem. National mandates for the states would probably fix this, along with a public/private partnership with some insurance companies that could work with some of the southern and western states.

Part II

The REAL problem today is not health care at all.

The real problem today is that people don’t have jobs and they’re losing their houses. We have lawyers, bankers, traders who have blown up, car companies laying off, people all over America losing good jobs. Everywhere you go in this country, houses are for sale or being sold off by the sheriff.

I’ve never seen so many homes for sale in my own neighborhood. Twenty-Two years i’ve lived here, and three houses were a lot to be for sale here; now we have 25 and none are selling. There is a glut on the market where two years ago there was a boom in the market. The bottom has fallen out of the real estate market and no end of the downward spiral is in sight.

People’s equity in their homes, the main source of wealth for most Americans, has vanished, and the federal government has done NOTHING about it.

Except, of course, to bail out the rich fat cat bankers, and appoint a salary czar to oversee their million bazillion dollar bonuses.

Is this for real? Federally funded trickle down? If Reagan had done this, there would have been riots in the streets.

What we need precisely is a sort of FDIC, but instead of guaranteeing your banking deposits against banking failure, you would be guaranteed your home’s equity value, an FDIC for home equity, that will guarantee up to $1,000,000 of value in your home’s equity value against falling home prices, that is either automatic through fannie mae or freddie mac, or that you can purchase as insurance, for a small sum of money.

Now isn’t THAT a SENSIBLE idea?

Second, everyone with negative home equity should be forgiven their loans in excess of 80% of their debt loads immediately, and the banks commanded to write that debt off immediately.

Third, anyone who files for bankruptcy should be able to modify his or her mortgage under sections 1322 of the Code or anywhere else as pertinent, or under a Chapter 11 Plan, and cram it down the bank’s throat against their wishes if the bank’s loan exceed’s 80% of the value of the home and there is a negative equity spiral, the debtor should be able to eliminate all but 80% of the loan.

My point is, what good is free health care if you have no job and no house? It’s like serving gelato to a man who is homeless and has no money and hasn’t eaten in days–health care is like dessert.

Back in the 90s, when everyone had a job, it was ok to talk about health care–it was the LAST thing we needed. But now we’re back to square one–we need to talk about guaranteeing incomes, jobs and housing. We’re back to FDR and Truman and LBJ.

This administration just doesn’t get it.

Paradoxically, I think the right Republican approach might get it and win back the white house if it’s sufficiently populist in nature and goes after the big banks, which the democrats appear to be, pardon the expression, in bed with.

The Democrats need to examine an NRA-style national Jobs Program that will put everyone in the United States to work. Second, the Draft needs to be re-instituted. Kids that are in the army will be employed. Third, we need to nationalize the universities and make education free of charge. Fourth, we need to nationalize the cable companies and make the internet free of charge to the poor and to the rich equally, as well as making basic cable tv a free resource to everyone.

Fifth, for anyone that’s not employed, a Guranteed Annual Income or GAI must be mandated and paid by the Government, along with a negative income tax to avoid work related disincentives. The welfare reform measures of the Clinton era will have to be undone for the time being, because right now, middle class families are starving and in danger of homelessness, and THEY need welfare. The program needs to be federal, and the income level to be guaranteed needs to be large, around $15,000-20,000 annually, and adjusted for children and circumstances.

Sixth, the government has to embark on a massive program of propping up the housing market, investing in public housing, investing in Section 8, expanding the HUD budget, and so forth.

Seventh, we need to start investing in having one spouse stay home and take care of the kids. I know this is controversial, but two wage earners has destroyed many marriages and the american way of life.

Eighth, we need to reform the real estate brokerage business so that commissions from family homes are much less than for commission from commercial real estate. Instead of six points, let brokers earn only one point. This way, brokers won’t churn real estate and people won’t use their homes as profit tools.

Ninth, reform the tax code so that people have to pay MORE income tax on the sale of their primary homes, e.g. remove the exemption entirely, unless they stay in them a minimum of five years, unless they have to move for cause, such as a job-related transfer to another city, or medical reasons. This would stop people from buying and selling homes constantly and churning the market.

Tenth, more closely regulate lenders, brokers and sellers of real estate. Let people buy and sell and profiteer on second homes, commercial real estate and so forth, but those parcels will be taxed, etc.

I think this is the approach we need.

This is what the democrats are ignoring.

They’re going to raise taxes and bring down the house as it were on average joe while they raise up false idols like the bankers.

We badly need a new prophet in the land, and i’m not talking about Rush Limbaugh here.

–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
home of the world champion philliesght

In Memoriam: David Carradine, RIP 2009

The late David Carradine was an amazing actor. Not only for the influential TV Series “Kung Fu”, which was the #1 TV series for several years in the early 1970s, and probably spawned more interest in the martial arts than almost any other single influence or other factor; but also for many other roles he played, such as playing Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby’s minor classic “Bound for Glory”, which plays on TCM from time to time.

I had an acquaintance once here in Philly who was a lawyer, this was in the 90s, who had come here from LA, who had been Robert Altman’s personal attorney in LA during the 1970s. He told me some interesting stories about Bob Altman, David Carradine, Barbara Hershey and Altman’s son, who was the composer of the “MASH” theme, “Suicide is Painless.”

It seems that the Mash theme was so successful, that Altman’s son made far more money than his dad, and that he, Carradine and Hershey were inseparable during the 1970s, and they all lived more or less in Topanga Canyon in a commune like arrangement, living like hippies more or less, and getting into all kinds of trouble back in those days. My friends’ job back then was, from time to time, to bail out David Carradine, Barbara Hershey, and Bob Altman’s son, from jail, or get them out of whatever situation they were in, and then hush it up quietly and make it go away.

David Carradine lived a life of Riley. He slept with the lovely Barbara Hershey when she was young and beautiful, living as young and carefree LA hippies in the hills of LA in the free days of the 1970s, and they even had a love child out of wedlock.

In addition to Hershey, Carradine was married FIVE times and had children by most of those wives as well. He had a productive love life, to say the least.

Quentin Tarantino was brilliant to cast Carradine in the Kill Bill Vol I and Vol II series, and seeing Carradine playing the flute, barefoot, in black and white, as Kwai Chang Caine incarnate on the big screen in Kill Bill II was one of the most incredible screen moments I will ever remember. Sheer brilliance. And then to turn that character inside out into a monstrous killer from the peaceful shaolin monk that he was on TV in the 1970s–that was really something. A masterpiece of cinema homage to a wonderful TV show.

I don’t need to add that Carradine was fantastic in Kill Bill Vol 2.

Here again is a post I previously posted at http://pedrofeliz3b.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/the-sayings-of-kung-fu-the-first-season/

These are from the actual Kung Fu Show, carefully transcribed from episodes and scripts, and are the actual sayings of either Kwai Chang Caine or his Master.

Grasshopper, we will miss you…

The Sayings of Kung Fu, the First Season
By pedrofeliz3b

From the Crane, we learn grace and self-control.
The Snake teaches us suppleness and rhythmic endurance.
The Praying Mantis teaches us speed and patience.
And from the Tiger, we learn tenacity and power.
And from the Dragon, we learn to ride the wind.
All creatures, the low and the high, are one with nature.
If we have the wisdom to learn, all may teach us their virtues.
Is it good to seek the past? If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present; but if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past.
When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.
You must walk the rice paper without leaving any marks. This will signify that you can walk without making any sounds.
The outer strength, the strength of the body, withers with age. The inner strength, the Chi, remains and grows stronger with age.
The right of vengeance belongs to no man.
A Shaolin priest can walk through walls.
A man cannot live his whole life in fear. To hide such feelings is to increase them 1000 times.
If you tell a man he is less than a man often enough, he will come to believe it.
All life is sacred. I would not take pleasure in the death of any man.
Fear is the enemy. He who conquers himself is the greatest warrior.
To hate is like drinking salt water; it only makes the thirst worse.
I have seen the silkworm; it spins a thread that it may be seen. Hate is the thread and the tomb you weave; it will not save you from your suffering.
The mind and the body and the spirit are one. When the body expresses the desires of the mind and the spirit, the body is in tune with nature, the act is pure and there is no shame. Love is harmony.
Each journey begins and also ends. Life is such a journey, yet it is full of journeys within which begin and end.
Seek always peace. To endanger one, endangers all. In such times, the soul must be the warrior. The soul sees always. What the soul sees cannot be denied.
Discipline your body that you may find greater strength. Be one with all that is without one’s self.
Where the tiger and the man are one, there is no fear, there is no danger.

Part II

I have three treasures which I hold and keep: the first is mercy, for from mercy comes courage; the second is frugality, from which comes generosity to others; the third is humility, for from it comes leadership.
How shall I hold these treasures, Master? In memory?
Not in memory, but in your deeds.
Peace lies not in the world but in the man who walks the peaceful path.
To reach perfection a man must develop equally compassion and wisdom.
Shall I treat every man the same? Yet the flower beneath the water knows not the sun. Other men, not knowing me, will find me hard to understand.
As far as possible, be on good terms with all. Accept the ways of others; respect first your own.
Look beneath the surface of the pool to see its depths.
Rock crushes scissors. Paper covers rock. Scissors cuts the paper. Each in turn conquers the other; there is no stronger or weaker. This is the harmony of nature.

Part III

Ten million living things have as many different worlds. Do not see yourself as the center of the universe, wise and good and beautiful. Seek, rather, wisdom and goodness and beauty, that you may honor them everywhere.
A man may tell himself many things, but is a man’s universe made only of himself?
If a man hurts me and I punish him, perhaps he will not hurt another.
And if you do nothing?
He will believe he may do as he wishes.
Perhaps. Or perhaps he will learn that some men receive injury but return kindness.
If you sow rice, you will grow rice. If you sow fear, you will grow fear.

THE SAYINGS OF KUNG FU THE FIRST SEASON STARRING DAVID CARRADINE CLASSIC TV SERIES AVAILABLE ON DVD THIS OR ANY OTHER HOLIDAY SEASON

–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the world champion philadelphia phillies

Tags: Art Kyriazis, arthur j kyriazis, Arthur Kyriazis, Clasic TV Series, David Carradine, DVD, Kung Fu, Kyriazis, Sayings of Kung Fu, Sayings of Kung Fu the First Season

CAP AND TRADE – MARTIN FELDSTEIN WRITES OP-ED PIECE IN WSJ ATTACKING IT

Just in the event some of you think I’m just a cranky odd fellow, my former economics professor from Harvard University, and the former professor of Lawrence Summers, Jim Poterba, Steve Kaplan, Tim Geithner and just about any other famous economist of this generation who teaches economics or has worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Prof. Martin Feldstein, former economic adviser to Pres. Ronald Reagan (Larry Summers worked under Feldstein for Reagan as is well known)–

at any rate, Feldstein one day after I published my blog saying cap and trade would destroy the effect of the stimulus package, has written an elegant op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that CAP AND TRADE WILL DESTROY THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE STIMULUS PACKAGE and furthermore THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF CAP AND TRADE WILL FALL MOST HEAVILY ON THE POOR AND ON THE WORKING CLASS, BECAUSE THEY SPEND A MUCH LARGER PERCENTAGE OF THEIR INCOME ON CARBON-BASED EMISSIONS RELATED EXPENDITURES.

Prof. Feldstein makes an elegant argument–he points out that the rich spend less than five per cent of their income on energy-related costs, while poor, middle income and upper middle income folks, in order to run their cars, heat their houses and so forth, spend as much as 25-40% of their incomes on carbon-related expenses, depending on where they live, e.g. people living in the northeast and midwest pay even more since they have to heat their houses in winter and air condition in summer, etc.

He more fundamentally argues that cap and trade will destroy the stimulus effect of the stimulus package, just as surely as did Roosevelt’s tax raises in 1935 and 1937, and Japan’s tax hikes in 1997.

Here’s the link to the article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124217336075913063.html#

And here’s the actual editorial:

* OPINION
* MAY 14, 2009

Tax Increases Could Kill the Recovery
The cap-and trade levy would hit low-income earners especially hard.

By MARTIN FELDSTEIN

The barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.

[Commentary] Martin Kozlowski

Historians and economists who’ve studied the 1930s conclude that the tax increases passed during that decade derailed the recovery and slowed the decline in unemployment. That was true of the 1935 tax on corporate earnings and of the 1937 introduction of the payroll tax. Japan did the same destructive thing by raising its value-added tax rate in 1997.

The current outlook for an economic recovery remains precarious. Although the stimulus package will give a temporary boost to growth in the current quarter, it will not be enough to offset the combined effect of lower consumer spending, the decline in residential construction, the weakness of exports, the limited availability of bank credit and the downward spiral of house prices. A sustained economic upturn is far from a sure thing. This is no time for tax increases that will reduce spending by households and businesses.

Even if the proposed tax increases are not scheduled to take effect until 2011, households will recognize the permanent reduction in their future incomes and will reduce current spending accordingly. Higher future tax rates on capital gains and dividends will depress share prices immediately and the resulting fall in wealth will cut consumer spending further. Lower share prices will also raise the cost of equity capital, depressing business investment in plant and equipment.

The Obama budget calls for tax increases of more than $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Official budget calculations disguise the resulting fiscal drag by treating Mr. Obama’s proposal to cancel the 2011 income tax increases for taxpayers with incomes below $250,000 as if they are real tax cuts. The plan to modify the Alternative Minimum Tax to avoid increases for some taxpayers is also treated as a tax cut.

But those are false tax cuts in which no one’s tax bill actually declines. In contrast, the proposed tax increases are very real. And despite the proposed tax increases, the government’s new spending and transfer programs would cause the annual budget deficit in 2019 to exceed $1 trillion, or 5.7% of GDP.

Mr. Obama’s biggest proposed tax increase is the cap-and-trade system of requiring businesses to buy carbon dioxide emission permits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the proposed permit auctions would raise about $80 billion a year and that these extra taxes would be passed along in higher prices to consumers. Anyone who drives a car, uses public transportation, consumes electricity or buys any product that involves creating CO2 in its production would face higher prices.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Finance Committee on May 7 that the cap-and-trade price increases resulting from a 15% cut in CO2 emissions would cost the average household roughly $1,600 a year, ranging from $700 in the lowest-income quintile to $2,200 in the highest-income quintile. Since the amount of cap-and-trade tax rises with income, the cap-and-trade tax has the same kind of adverse work incentives as the income tax. And since the purpose of the cap-and-trade plan is to discourage the consumption of CO2-intensive products, energy or means of transportation by raising their cost to consumers, the consumer-price increases would be the same for a 15% reduction in C02 even if the government decides to give away some of the CO2 emissions permits.

But while the cap-and-trade tax rises with income, the relative burden is greatest for low-income households. According to the CBO, households in the lowest-income quintile spend more than 20% of their income on energy intensive items (primarily fuels and electricity), while those in the highest-income quintile spend less than 5% on those products.

The CBO warns that the estimate of an $80 billion-a-year tax increase could be significantly higher or lower, depending on how the program is designed. The Waxman-Markey bill currently before Congress calls for reducing greenhouse gasses 20% by 2020 and by an incredible 83% by 2050. As the government reduces the amount of CO2 that is allowed, the price of the CO2 permits would rise and the pass-through to consumer prices would also increase.

The next-largest tax increase — with a projected rise in revenue of more than $300 billion between 2011 and 2019 — comes from increasing the tax rates on the very small number of taxpayers with incomes over $250,000. Because this revenue estimate doesn’t take into account the extent to which the higher marginal tax rates would cause those taxpayers to reduce their taxable incomes — by changing the way they are compensated, increasing deductible expenditures, or simply earning less — it overstates the resulting increase in revenue.

Since the projected revenue from this source is already designated to be used for Mr. Obama’s health plan, some other tax increases will be needed. Moreover, Mr. Obama’s budget characterizes the projected $634 billion outlay for health-care reform as just a down payment on the program. The budget notes that there would be “additional resources and new benefits to be determined with Congress.” Those additional resources would no doubt be even higher taxes.

The third major tax increase is the plan to raise $220 billion over the next nine years by changing the taxation of foreign-source income. While some extra revenue could no doubt come from ending the tax avoidance gimmicks that use dummy corporations in the Caribbean, most of the projected revenue comes from disallowing corporations to pay lower tax rates on their earnings in countries like Germany, Britain and Ireland. The purpose of the tax change is not just to raise revenue but also to shift overseas production by American firms back to the U.S. by reducing the tax advantage of earning profits abroad.

The administration is likely to be disappointed about its ability to achieve both goals. Bringing production back to be taxed at the higher U.S. tax rate would raise the cost of capital and make the products less competitive in global markets. American corporations would therefore have an incentive to sell their overseas subsidiaries to foreign firms. That would leave future profits overseas, denying the Treasury Department any claim on the resulting tax revenue. And new foreign owners would be more likely to use overseas suppliers than to rely on inputs from the U.S. The net result would be less revenue to the Treasury and fewer jobs in America.

It’s not too late for Mr. Obama to put these tax increases on hold. If he doesn’t, Congress should protect the recovery and the longer-term health of the U.S. economy by voting down this enormous round of higher taxes.

Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal’s board of contributors.

(end of op-ed piece)

well, you have to admit, prof. Feldstein has stated the case far more elegantly than I did, but we both come to the precise same conclusion–

CAP AND TRADE IS A BAD IDEA THAT WILL KILL THE STIMULUS PACKAGE AND LEAD US BACK TO A RECESSION.

I think a logical corollary to what Prof. Feldstein is saying, is that my proposal, the one to make mass transit and AMTRAK rail travel, completely free to everyone, would substantially lessen the burden on the poor and the middle class of a carbon-based tax, in that everyone could stop spending money on their automobiles.

That would be half the problem. The other half would be heating and air-conditioning, and here again, I’ve proposed that the US organize a national TVA style superfederal project to complete go nuclear on electricity generation within the next ten years as an alternative to cap and trade taxes on electricity generation altogether.

I think a combination of these approaches would do away with the need for cap and trade–eliminate autos, put the grid on nukes, upgrade the grid, and spend a huge amount of federal money on upgrading the grid, building light rail and trolley everywhere, and stop spending money on roads and other wasteful spending.

After all, there used to be trolleys running from Santa Monica to Los Feliz through Hollywood; in Philly, the trolley used to run all the way from downtown philly to West Chester, PA until the 1950s, when they rolled up the track due to the automobile, in fact, you can’t count how many miles of trolley track idiotic city planners have rolled up or paved over in Philadelphia, while city planners in other cities are spending billions to lay down trolley and light rail track.

In cities like New York and Boston, you don’t need a car, and neither do you need a car in downtown Philadelphia or Washington DC.

We should be exploring making one or more cities car-free and making them into pilot projects for the future.

–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies

Sen. Arlen Specter Makes a Huge Mistake, Switches Parties, Joins the Democrats

Somewhere, Oliver Stone, the director of JFK, which mentions Sen. Specter by name as the originator of the “single bullet theory” as a junior member of the Warren Commission in 1964, is laughing over lunch in Hollywood.

And so is Prof. Anita Hill, a law professor at some estimable liberal law school these days.

I’ve had the privilege to be both a constituent and an acquaintance of Sen. Arlen Specter for many years, including being an acquaintance of his son (who is one of the finest trial lawyers in Pennsylvania) and his wife, who was for many years a member of the City Council in Philadelphia.

Sen. Specter is and was always a very nice fellow, approachable, charming, kind, gentle and very nice. He used to have lunch at mid-town Bookbinder’s when it was open back in the old days, and when it was campaign season, he’d make not one, not two, but usually three or four stops to our little local Greek-American fraternal organization meetings, which usually were held in out of the way motels in places like Shillington, PA, or Intercourse, PA, or Wilkes-Barre, PA, which Sen. Specter would find us at, come in, have some greek food, dance some Greek dances, and speak to us all about the Cyprus issue and anything else that was important to us. He literally would shake everyone’s hand in the place, and even speak some Greek, and he never was too busy to stop to pose for pictures with all of my aunts and uncles and anyone else who was there.

Sen. Specter really liked to campaign, and he genuinely liked people. He was and is a people person.

Needless to say, the other guy (or gal), the Democrat, never seemed to find us, though they were always chatty with the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board or with their very important liberal donors or with the various advocacy groups like people united to give animals the vote or people united to allow wild dogs to run free in the other fellow’s backyard but not in mine.

The reason I mention this is I’ve met a lot of Presidential candidates (and Presidents) and other wannabe powerful senators, and none of them are or were as nice and as personable as Arlen Specter. Gary Hart was kind of scary. I did like John Glenn, he looked like a real hero, and although he was pretty boring, he was sort of a people person. I will say, Sen. Glenn actually looked like a President. Knowing JFK liked him was a real plus.

Sen. Santorum, I will say, he was very personable and friendly, even if his views weren’t. But Harris Wofford, who is supposed to be very famous and all, I went to an event to help promote him, but in person, he’s very formal and academic—not at all personable and at ease like Sen. Specter. I understand why Wofford lost his second election race in 1994–he’s a bit ill at ease around people.

Bill Bradley is another guy, very formal and ill at ease around regular folks. I understand why Bradley didn’t win a single primary when he ran for President. He doesn’t connect with people. I know he didn’t connect with me, and I only asked him a hoops question on the elevator one time, and the guy looked at me like I was from Mars, as if I was wasting his time or something.

I mean, the guy played with Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Dave DeBusschere on two of the greatest Knicks teams in history, and HE DOESN’T WANT TO TALK HOOPS???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? What, senator fancy schmancy suddenly isn’t an ex-ballplayer anymore? You can see why he didn’t win in 20 straight presidential primaries. A real stiff, Bradley. You never saw Bradley shooting hoops at the gym; Obama, by contrast, you always saw shooting hoops at the gym, and Obama was PROUD of being an ex-jock. I don’t have to tell you how that played out; people love ex-jocks, because America is built on two things, love of country, and love of sports. Well, also french fries, but that’s a topic for another time.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, a very nice guy. Rides the Amtrak all the time. Paul Tsongas was terrific. Very nice, very personable. Still, to this day, the late Paul Tsongas is the only guy to beat Bill Clinton in a national Presidential election (the 1992 New Hampshire Primary). There’s a legacy for you.

This is NOT a name-dropping exercise (I’ll same the Anna Nicole Smith story for another blog) (not as pretty as you would have thought, and way too much perfume).

Rather, the point is, if you want to be in politics, as a good friend of mine once pointed out, you have to “dance the polka.” That means you have to campaign, and you have to get along with people. Sen. Specter has stayed on since his first election to Senator since 1980 because he is a dedicated, famously dedicated, campaigner, who visits every county, goes to every event, campaigns from dawn to dusk and then deep into the night, and makes sure to visit every ethnic group’s event, whether you’re polish, Lithuanian, italian, greek, german, Iberian, spanish, Puerto Rican, Mexican, south American, etc.

He loves us all, no matter where we’re from, no matter what our party or ethnic group, he’s for us if we’re for him. I don’t know how to explain it, but Arlen is about you, so long as you are personally loyal to him. He’s not about party labels or ideology; he’s a people person to the max. And if you need something from his office, he’ll take care of it for you.

Also, Sen. Specter is FUNNY. We once had Judge Katz to speak at our urban debate tournament here in Philly in the early 1990s, and Judge Katz told a funny story about being debate partners with Sen. Specter at Penn. Later on, we had Sen. Specter at a similar event, and he told a funny story about being debate partners with Judge Katz at Penn. It was FUNNY.

It all kind of made you think, hey, here’s these two guys, smart debaters from penn, and here they are forty years later, cracking jokes and they’ve kind of made it by working hard and showing up on time. Truth be told, the two of them were NDT champions in 1951—but they downplayed that.

Arlen’s son is brilliant. He won a Harry Truman scholarship and attended prestigious college and law school, and is the foremost wrongful death attorney in Pennsylvania, and probably (other than his partner Tom Kline) the foremost specialist in wrongful death litigation in PA and maybe in the United States. Clearly Sen. Specter found time to be a good father. I like that about him.

And Sen. Specter’s close with his wife—anytime I saw him having lunch, he was with his wife. Again, I like that about him.

Guys like Gary Hart or Sen. Edwards are always campaigning alone, or worse, pretending to be happily married. But I guess we knew that about Sen. Hart and Sen. Edwards, but those stupid Democrats went and voted for them anyway.

I won’t even bring up Bill and Hillary and Monicagate. That only wasted four years of the country’s time and sent Al Gore down the tubes (or shall I say chads?) in Floridagate from easy election to electoral college defeat in a disputed election in 2000. If Bill had just been happily married, the democrats would have stayed in power for sixteen years in a row, in all likelihood.

Sen. Specter is happily married, has at least one great kid, and is a good family man.

Oliver Stone and Anita Hill may not like him, but you’ll never find Sen. Specter on a boat named “monkey business” or with an office intern parked on his lap. He’s about family, and about doing his job, 24/7. It’s one of the things you love about him.

Sen. Specter loves Pennsylvania. He can rattle off encyclopaedically the name of every county in the state; the names of every elected official in every county; and has amazing photographic memory of nearly everyone he meets.

For example, I’m friends with Jeffrey _______, who used to work for Sen. Specter back in the stone ages and whose family continue to contribute, and every time I see Sen. Specter, he asks me to say hello to Jeffrey. Now how does he do that, remember every time he sees me that I’m Jeffrey’s good friend? I find that amazing.

Anyhow, so I’m a big fan of Sen. Specter. I’ve made full confession. So let’s analyze his switch to the Democratic Party, which I believe to be a colossal mistake.

1) The biggest issue will be that the Democrats are closing in on sixty votes in the Senate, obviously. I’m not sure what’s going on in Minnesota and the Al Franken-Norm Coleman mess, but if the Democrats get another Senator before the end of the term, they would get a sixtieth vote. Currently, the Democrats now have 57 votes; they had 56, Sen. Specter was the 57th, and they have two independents, Joe Lieberman and one other, who caucus with the Democrats. That makes 59.

2) One highly overlooked impact of Sen. Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party will be on Judicial Nominees. Sen. Specter has sat on the Judiciary Committee for a long time, and has seniority; now that he’s sitting with the majority, that seniority together with his being the senior senator from Pennsylvania will give him key input into judicial nominees to the Federal Bench from Pennsylvania, as well as potential input on who becomes the next Prosecutor for the Eastern District of PA to succeed Patrick Meehan, a post coveted by many.

Sen. Specter’s newfound alliance with Gov. Ed Rendell and Vice President Joe Biden is highly suggestive, because sitting on the Third Circuit is Appellate Judge Midge Rendell—long suggested to be a candidate for the United States Supreme Court, and there are currently potential vacancies brewing on the Supreme Court with Justice Ginsburg’s recent illness and the indications from certain more senior Justices such as Souter et al. that they might consider retirement at this stage. President Obama may get to pick as many as three Justices this term alone, and the circumstances of Sen. Specter’s switch are highly suggestive of his proposing Third Circuit Justice Midge Rendell for a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now this would be a perfect selection but for one fact—Justice Rendell was, originally, a catholic (she may have converted or is a practicing Jew now) but the fact remains that her elevation to Justice Ginsburg’s spot would create a supermajority of six catholics on the Supreme Court. Others may think this is a non-issue, but I happen to think this might be a deal-breaker. I think one of the existing Catholic Justices has to step down before Rendell can step up. Or, alternatively, she has to affirmatively testify that she has converted to another religion altogether (such as Judaism) and is no longer a practicing Roman Catholic. If she says she has converted to Judaism, I think it’s a deal maker.

On more than one level, it’s a deal maker. And then, everyone wins—Gov. Rendell goes to Washington, when he can spend the rest of his days going to DC parties and being an influential Democratic Party lobbyist, Sen. Specter wins because he exerts his powerful influence, and Philadelphia and PA wins because they get yet a second Supreme Court Justice (they already have Justice Alito).

And, I think, Sen. Specter wins in another way—Justice Rendell is pretty moderate in her views—she’s not a ridiculous flaming liberal like some of the names being tossed around. She’s tough on crime, she supports homeland security, she’s pro-corporate, her background is as a corporate/bankruptcy attorney representing corporations at a large law firm, and I think her sensibilities will steer her to a good middle of the road direction on the court. She’s very likely to be a person that can unify disparate wings of the court and build consensus. Also, she’s a big patron of the arts here in Philadelphia—her work with mega-rich Gerry Lenfest is legendary—and I see her making a big splash in DC. It’s not an accident that Justice Souter retired the very next day after Specter’s announcement.

3) In addition to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sen. Specter will make a lot of appointments to the 3d Circuit and Eastern District Court of PA. There he’ll be working a lot with Gov. Rendell, and again, left wing liberals need not apply—Sen. Specter was a District Attorney, as was Gov. Rendell, and therefore, they’ll be looking for folks who are tough on crime. Supreme Court Justice Jane Cutler Greenspan of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would be an excellent choice for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually possibly the Supreme Court. She’s very tough on crime and an excellent jurist. I think also here that outgoing DA Lynne Abraham will have some input as well; the Judges she’s liked over the years will have a leg up in the nomination process, while Judges who have favored defendants or who have been soft on criminals will not get any nods. This may have a perverse effect of creating a more liberal state judiciary for a while, but Sen. Specter probably wants moderate not liberal judges. In this he shares with Sen. Casey the same feelings—Sen. Casey is hardly a liberal democrat either. Again, once someone fills Souter’s spot, everyone moves up a notch, and more spaces get filled.

4) With Sen. Specter and Sen. Casey, Pennsylvania now easily has the two most conservative democratic senators in the entire us senate. Sen. Casey is anti-abortion, while Sen. Specter was a republican his whole life, is anti-crime, anti-labor and had a 55% ACU rating as recently as last term. They are very middle of road guys, hardly liberals in any sense of the word. They’re actually more conservative than a lot of southern senators. On the other hand, Pennsylvania had the oldest electorate this side of Florida, and Pennsylvanians like their Senators to be conservative, but not wacky conservative, so this is good.

5) The first reason I believe Sen. Specter has made a huge mistake is that right after he switched parties, the Republicans and Democrats made a mutual deal to strip him of his seniority. This is ridiculous and shows that the DEMOCRATS are not a real party with party loyalty, like the Republicans. The Republicans would never have stripped Sen. Specter of his seniority, no matter how many times he failed to vote with them, because they are all about loyalty and party. The Democrats, on the other hand, are more concerned with being liberal than with being party loyal, and a lot of them still are angry with Specter over Anita Hill. So they waited for him to change parties, and then punished him by stripping him of his rightful 29 years of seniority on the Judiciary Committee as a majority party member, which he now has a Democrat.

6) Reason #2 this is a mistake, is that the DEMOCRATS will not lay off of Sen. Specter in the primary or in the general election, no matter what President Obama says. Already, the DELAWARE COUNTY DAILY TIMES is rife with speculation that Congressman JOE SESTAK, 7th District PA (the same district represented by Ben Affleck in “STATE OF PLAY”) and coincidentally, my own congressional district, intends to run for U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, in 2010, as a Democrat. Obviously, he would have to run against Incumbent Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter, also a Democrat. This seems to mean nothing to Congressman Sestak, who is a noted friend of Bill & Hilary, and who raised more than a million dollars in 2006 to buy this particular congressional seat (he lives in Maryland), as I said at the time, in order to eventually run for Senator from Pennsylvania, and, eventually, for President of the United States.

Sestak’s ambitions are boundless. I guess this is a good time to note that Congressman Sestak has done nothing at all for the seventh district in his four years to date, and on the only issue that’s come up, which is the proposed expansion of the Philadelphia Airport, while he tells his constituents he’s doing something, he secretly is for the expansion, siding with Philadelphia Mayor Nutter and Governor Rendell, both fellow Democrats, that the expansion will assist the city and state, and bring jobs to the city and state. Sestak doesn’t care that the expansion and planes flying over Delaware County will tear the heart out of property values in the region for more than half of the residents of this densely populated area.

Why should he care? He’ll be Senator by then and long gone, in his game plan. His predecessor, Curt Weldon, a ten term congressman, was far more devoted to the interests of Delaware County. Sestak is a carpetbagger, a visitor, a temp by any political measure. He’s never lived in Delaware County except for a brief stay as a kid, and his ambitions to run for senate jive with the fact that he considers our little county nothing more than a way station on his path to bigger things.

7) Reason #3 this is a mistake. By leaving the Republican Party, Specter left a huge hole for someone else to run—namely Tom Ridge. Because Pat Toomey is unelectable in the general election, the mainstream Republican Party wants Ridge to run against Toomey in the Primary and beat him, and then run in the general election, because Ridge can beat either Specter or anyone else in the general election. Why not? Ridge is a Harvard grad, served in the military in Vietnam, is a son of Erie, PA, served ten years in Congress, and also served as Homeland Security Secretary. And he campaigns hard, and served two terms as a very popular Governor of Pennsylvania. Ridge is not the opponent Specter counted on by turning Democrat. This was a horrible miscalculation on Specter’s part.

The better move by Specter would have been to do what Lieberman did in Connecticut—if he couldn’t survive the Republican Primary—file and run as an independent in the fall against both the Democratic candidate and against Toomey, the looney right wing Republican. In this three way race, Specter would easily win, since the Democrat could only win left wing votes, Toomey would only win right wing votes, and Specter would capture the middle, which is where the general election is won. He would also be correctly identified by most Republicans and crossover democrats, correctly, as the incumbent in this scenario, and not as a traitor to his party. It worked for Lieberman and it would have worked for Specter.

8) The next reason Specter made a mistake, is because once Joe Sestak enters the Democratic Primary, there will be two Democrats from Philadelphia in the Democratic Primary. It will not take a genius like my old debate partner and classmate and political consultant Kenny Smukler to figure out that Sestak and Specter might split the Philadelphia vote, and thus a powerful figure from Allegheny County, or from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton/Luzerne County area, could run in the primary as well and hope to capture the remaining counties of the Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre areas and win in a three-way race.

In fact, once Sestak enters the primary, it may draw out two or more candidates into the primary for this very reason. Consequently, Specter will find himself in an imbroglio in the Democratic Primary in 2010 far worse than that he found himself facing in the Republican Primary—instead of facing just one opponent, to the right, Specter may be facing as many as three to four opponents, from different regions of the state with different ideologies, with a volatile and unpredictable and unstable Democratic primary electorate in midterm that he cannot predict readily as to voter turnout or as to loyalty to Arlen Specter, newly minted Democrat.

And then, if he survives that inferno, he will be facing Tom Ridge in the general election.

In my view, Sen. Specter has made an error and jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Democrats aren’t like Republicans—they lack any kind of party loyalty and they will not be loyal to Sen. Specter or respect his many years of service.

Indeed, many Democrats will mock his age and fail to vote for him, because many Democrats are inherently disrespectful of age, authority and experience—this is precisely why they register as Democrats—they are anti-authoritarian and hate their elders.

While PA has an elderly electorate, and these elderly voters will respect Sen. Specter, the newer Obama voters, the younger ones, will not respect or defer to his competence or experience or age.

9) The next reason this is a big mistake and why I feel that Sen. Specter has changed parties, is that I fear this is the end of the road for the moderate Republican Party.

In 1964, Gov. William Scranton of Pennsylvania took up the cudgel against Sen. Barry Goldwater for the nomination of the Republican Party, and Goldwater’s conservative faction captured the Republican Party, which was the first indication that the sunbelt/conservative wing of the party would soon eclipse the moderate Northeast Rockefeller/Eisenhower/Nixon wing of the party.

Scranton was bitter about that loss, and spoke openly about the wrong direction that the party was headed in. Then Gov. Reagan emerged as a conservative contender, only to be headed off by the “new Nixon” in 1968, who attempted to straddle both the conservative and Rockefeller wings of the party by adding Spiro Agnew to his ticket.

However, Nixon governed from the middle to the left of the political spectrum, a fact that hurt him when he needed conservative support after Watergate.

President Ford was more conservative, but failed to head off a Reagan challenge from the right in 1976, and only barely got by Reagan’s conservative minions in the 1976 primary, and badly hurt by that split, lost in the general election to an unknown from Georgia, Jimmy Carter.

The next four years of Carter’s incompetence almost destroyed the country, and very nearly, the world with it.

Reagan came back in 1980, and this time, the conservative triumph was complete. They ejected the ERA from the platform of the Republican Party, went hard anti-abortion, and started courting evangelicals. Taxes were slashed fifty per cent and a new day was announced for the free market in america.

However, they maintained that there was a “big tent” and room for the 20 or so moderate senators (and many more Congressmen) in the northeast who helped vote all of Reagan’s laws in. The Republican Party as late as ten years ago still had a lot of Republican Senators and Congressmen in the Northeast and Midwest.

However, the Bush II Presidency seemingly changed all that, along with demographic shifts. The GOP party seemed to grow more conservative as its President grew less popular, and Karl Rove’s strategy of clinging to the base seemed to shrink the party nationally while winning re-election narrowly once and winning a mere electoral plurality in 2000 while losing the popular vote decisively in a disputed election that was far from Ronald Reagan or even Bush I’s mandate.

This last round of elections, in 2006 and 2008, represented the fulfillment of the Bill Scranton/Nelson Rockefeller prophecy of what would happen if the GOP became a regional conservative party and ignored the historical basis of the party as the party of the moderate, Northeastern industrialists and Midwestern businessmen, conservative on economics but liberal on social issues.

Perhaps some of the learned Senators have forgotten that the Union League is not a dining club, but was a League formed to assist African Americans with their political rights during Reconstruction from 1865-1876, and that many Philadelphian Republicans were proud to serve in same? That Lincoln freed the slaves? That Roosevelt had Booker T. Washington over to lunch? That George Bush I signed the ADA and the Civil Rights Reform Act? That Nixon proclaimed Earth Day, and formed the EPA and signed into law the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act? These were the actions of MODERATE NORTHEASTERN REPUBLICANS (ok, Nixon was from Whittier CA, but he was born a Quaker).

The party of William Seward, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, has always been expansive and revolutionary—never static and doctrinaire. The big tent must be re-established. It’s a sad day, and a sad comment on the current state of affairs in the GOP, when a great man like Sen. Specter, has to leave the party, because the party, he says, redolent of Reagan’s comment on leaving the Democratic Party in the early sixties, left me.

My assessment is that the damage is permanent, and will require drastic treatment. Unless the GOP moves back to the center, a third party that is centrist and is based in the Northeast and Midwest, willing to oppose Democratic spending and yet support corporate interests but is socially liberal and responsible and supports the environment, will emerge as a factor in American politics. This is inevitable. Already two independents sit in the U.S. Senate, and Sen. Specter is practically a third. That’s 3% right there of the national power.

What I’m describing, Joe Lieberman and Ross Perot have already done, and with considerable success I might add. The GOP may go the way of the Liberal Party in England and be supplanted by the other two parties if they are not careful, and be reduced to a kind of extinction.

10) Finally, with regards to Oliver Stone sitting in Hollywood, there is no prospect of Sen. Specter revealing who was on the grassy knoll, or who was telling the truth in the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas imbroglio.

It is worth noting, for the record, that in 1964, when he sat on the Warren Commission, Specter was still a DEMOCRAT, and that he switched to being a REPUBLICAN to run for Mayor of Philadelphia during the late 1960s and again in the 1970s. Next time he mentioned Sen. Specter in a movie, Oliver Stone should fact-check. The Senator he mocked in his movie “JFK”, was a card-carrying, LBJ-JFK supporting Democrat in 1964 working as part of the Philadelphia Democratic City Machine.

Moreover, I once met the late Gov. John Connolly, and he stated to the audience I was in, that he testified to the Warren Commission that he heard shots from the grassy knoll and believed there were more than three shots fired; the entire commission, not merely Sen. Specter, disbelieved Gov. Connolly’s testimony and concurred on the single bullet theory. Stone just has it wrong here. On this point, JFK is still a rocking good movie, though it’s clearly a work of fiction as to many key details, including Gov. Connally and Sen. Specter. On these points many other authorities concur, incidentally.

–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the world champion Philadelphia phillies

Cap and Trade – A Horrible Idea – Let’s Abolish Cars and Build a Real Rail System Instead

Cap and Trade Is a very bad idea, right now.

First, a history lesson. President Clinton’s first term was a disaster, in large part, because he spent most of his first two years pursuing three very liberal ideas—gays in the military, universal health care, and a federal tax on BTU usage.

These three ideas were, at the time, in 1993-1995, so controversial, that they not only threatened to sink President Clinton after only one term, but resulted in 1994 in the largest shift in a mid-term election in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in United States History.

The House lost more than fifty Democratic seats and went Republican for the first time in a long time; and the Senate also suffered huge democratic losses; all due to Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, which was a direct and overwhelming refutation of Clinton’s liberal agenda.

Much the same thing happened in the first two years of Jimmy Carter’s term; Carter pardoned all of the draft-dodging Vietnam protesters hiding out in Canada, and virtually declared war on the CIA and all of the US military operations around the world, which led to terror operations and revolutions around the world intensifying, culminating in the Iranianian Revolution and the taking of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the holding of 52 U.S. hostages for over a year, a spectacle so embarassing to the United States, repeated night after night on national TV as it was, that virtually every Democrat in office lost his seat by 1980, and the Republicans and Ronald Reagan were swept into power, with a whole new agenda of re-arming America and restoring her lost prestige abroad.

Getting back to Clinton, the BTU Tax was an idea very similar to the current notion of Cap and Trade. Cap and Trade, like the BTU Tax, is essentially a tax on carbon usage. The idea is, if we tax carbon-based fossil fuels enough, and make them costly enough, it will force everyone, including consumers and energy companies, to seek non-carbon based alternatives.

There are three basic problems with cap and trade (actually, there are many more, but I will discuss three here) that make it a bad idea for now. First, we are in a recession that is actually more of a depression. Cap and Trade is a large TAX INCREASE that will suck spending power out of the hands of consumers. Consequently, it will kill the marginal propensity of consumer demand, and attack the very object of the Stimulus Bill.

I don’t have to be a doctor to know, that you don’t give a man a sleeping pill, just when you’ve given him a shot to wake him up, while he’s still groggy and coming around.

Right now, the American economy is like a man who can’t wake up. Cap and Trade would be like a sleeping pill to that man. The Stimulus Bill was like a cup of coffee or a shot of epinephrine—a stimulant to wake him.

Cap and Trade is like a sleeping pill that would suck away his vital energy.

Second, in order to invest in, and build, energy alternatives, there has to be a venture capital and investment banking, and regular banking systems, in place. Today, those systems are impaired, crippled or functioning at about half capacity. Consequently, Cap and Trade can’t work under today’s economic conditions. Consequently, no infrastructure would develop under Cap and Trade to produce renewable energy alternatives until the banking and lending systems come back on line.

All we’ll have is a tax that makes oil and gas and coal more expensive, but no alternatives will develop for many years yet, due to the impairments of the banking, VC and R & D systems.

Third, even if the banking, VC and R & D systems were perfect, there is no energy alternative that could come on line sooner than ten years from today to replace current oil, gas and coal based consumption.

Wind and solar currently provide less than 1% of current energy needs; energy needs keep GROWING at an exponential rate, if you include the third world, and none of the so-called renewable energy forms are anywhere close to being ready to assume more than a micro-share of the energy load, whether we’re talking about wind, solar, geothermal, capturing energy from ocean waves, and so forth.

It’s been fifty plus years since the hydrogen bomb, but no one has yet developed and sustained a fusion reaction that can last and power an energy generating plant. That technology seems as remote as the so-called “WARP” engines on the starship Enterprise on STAR TREK.

That leaves us with one, and only one realistic alternative, and that is nuclear power plants. They are tanned, rested and ready, and the newest generation of nukes have much higher capacity factors and higher safety factors than ever before.

The problem with nukes is, you still need about two billion dollars to build a single plant, about 3-4 years to get the necessary permits to build a plant in the U.S. and another 3-4 years to build the plant and get it on line.

That’s 6-8 years and two billion dollars to get each plant on line, and most of the two billion dollars will have to be absorbed by the consumer in electricity costs. Let’s figure that we build fifty of those plants—that’s a hundred billion dollars in construction costs alone that have to be absorbed back again by means of utility bills to the consumer over the next ten-twenty years. That’s on top of the cap and trade tax costs.

In short, it’s a very expensive proposition to jettison oil, gas and coal.

It’s too bad that the United States didn’t commit to a nukes policy back in 1955, when nuclear power was cheap and we could have covered the US with nuclear power plants for a fraction of the cost of today.

If we had committed to such a policy then, we could have been completely independent of Middle Eastern Oil as of 1970.

Even as late as 1975, we still could have committed to nukes for a fraction of today’s costs, and been independent of Middle Eastern Oil by the 1990s.

However, the wacky left and particularly eco-wacky californians, continuously opposed nuclear power in this country for decades. Nuclear power could have given us full independence from the Middle East a long, long time ago, and spared us these last two wars in Iraq and Kuwait.

The problems we face today are a consequence of our leaders living life as if we can’t shape the future. But we can and must shape the future.

The future is not shaped by dice rolling or by random events. The future is shaped by decisions we make and by policies we need to hew to in order to shape the probabilities and likelihoods of the future outcomes to be.

A responsible United States Government would have made us one hundred percent reliant on nuclear energy for our power production as soon as humanly possible, once we unlocked the secrets of the atom, back in the 1950s.

Our failures to do so may have been the result of many causes, and I won’t speculate here on the role of the oil and gas companies, the so-called, Seven Sisters, and their multinational interests linked to Middle Eastern oil producing states, but clearly nuclear energy would have a lot cheaper over the last sixty years than two wars fought directly by the US in the Middle East, and five wars fought by proxy between Israel and the oil-producing states.

Had we eliminated oil dependence early by committing to the atom, we would have changed history decisively and for the better.

Cap and Trade is not the answer.

A federally-sponsored program of accelerated conversion to Nuclear Powered electric generation, followed by a fifty to one hundred year phase in of solar, wind and fusion power, is the answer.

All electric companies should be abolished in favor of one company modeled and based on the Tennessee Valley Authority, that will erect Nukes until the United States is 100% nuclear based electric power, and zero percent coal or oil.

Combing this with a program of converting all cars to electric power would also solve another problem as well. This is clearly doable in the next five-ten years.

This is the kind of program that would involve spending money on a specific problem, creating jobs, and stimulating the economy. It’s better than cap and trade because it puts dollars into the economy instead of taking them out. Also, it federalizes the utilities, which do a horrible job.

Finally, the electric grid needs to be updated using superconductors and the latest electric technologies, including quantum conductors and new metals to conduct electricity. With superconductors, electricity can be sent from location to location without any loss of power or current. This would eliminate the need for transformers and high voltage lines, etc. Again, a vast federal program committed to upgrading the grid is needed.

These steps would be much better than cap and trade.

A final note about cars–Why do Obama and the Democrats want to prop up the car industry if they are truly worried about Global Warming? Cars contribute more than 50% of the hydrocarbon emissions in the US that contribute to global warming.

Instead of paying consumers a $4,000 tax credit to buy new cars with high gas mileage, wouldn’t it make more sense to get people to STOP DRIVING CARS AND TAKE MASS TRANSIT?

In short,

1) Let the U.S. Auto Industry DIE.

2) Put an enormous carbon tax on all car purchases. Make any new car cost around $50,000 to buy.

3) Apply that tax backwards to used cars as well.

4) Massively subsidize AMTRAK and all local mass transit across the nation, and let people ride the trains and Mass Transit free for the next five years. Yes, I said it, FREE OF CHARGE for the next five years. Why? To get them used to doing it. The massive federal stimulus bill to build rail, subway, light rail throughout the US would be in the TRILLIONS of dollars, as well as to subsidize AMTRAK everywhere so it’s FREE OF CHARGE. That would be a net STIMULUS to the economy and create the world’s finest light and heavy rail systems. We could also finally build HIGH SPEED RAIL SYSTEMS modeled on France, England and Japan to cover longer distances that could go 300-400 miles per hour, that could eliminate many shorter airplane routes, unclogging the skies of needless plane flight. This is a win, win, win plan. We get rid of filthy autos and planes and replace them with electric trains. And net net net create jobs.

5) Starting in 2014, you can slowly re-introduce fees again for Mass Transit and AMTRAK once we’ve started to eliminate all of the automobiles.

6) Start reclaiming the inner cities by closing roads and creating pedestrian zones and mass-transit zones, and creating more and more parks in which no cars can come into the city, until finally, all cities will have no cars or trucks at all.

7) The goal would be to eliminate cars and trucks by 2025, and convert everyone to mass transit and rail.

8) Electric cars only would be allowed eventually, powered by the nuclear grid. These would be cheap and affordable.

This is a far reaching and thoughtful plan. Abolish the internal combustion engine as we know it and force all americans out of their cars and onto trains, buses, subways and light rail.

This is the true path to ending global warming and reaching a green economy.

Art Kyriazis
Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies
up

The Stimulus Bill

Was and Is a good idea.

The economy is in a major recession.

The current rate of interest based on prices overall is negative two percent (-2%) and some sectors of the economy are falling far faster than that (car prices and car sales, home prices and home sales, etc.). Home prices in particular are in a death spiral of approximately minus twenty percent annually (-20%). That fact is causing a lot of overly leveraged homeowners (and second homeowners) to rationally walk away from their mortgages as their falling home prices eradicate their equity and cause their loan payoff figures to exceed whatever they could rationally expect to recover on the market in a real estate sale; in many cases, the summary sheet would show a net balance owed to the mortgage company.

This, in turn, is killing the banks.

I needn’t point out at this stage that this particular deflationary spiral of home prices was also a key component of bank failures and economic depression during the Great Depression of 1929-1939 in the United States; so much so, that it was constantly referred to by many of my professors in many of my classes, in both undergrad and grad school.

In short, that was the CLASSIC example of deflationary spiral, falling real estate prices during the 1930s. That was also the focus of specific New Deal programs at the time of the 1930s.

Consequently, it’s fair to characterize the current economy as in a demand-starved recessionary/deflationary spiral that would probably respond best to Keynesian style medicine, that is to say, 1) fiscal policy targeted to drive the demand function back up, e.g. deficit spending on a large scale and 2) monetary policy targeted to counteract the negative interest spiral. And, also, specific programs to help homeowners fix their mortgages, which the administration has also wisely proposed, again copying the 1930s New Deal.

I’m not going to work out the econometrics here. Most people live their lives based on the notion that you can’t predict the future. Economists and market analysts aren’t like that, and neither is the government. The entire history of economics, and particularly econometrics, is grounded on probability and statistics, and more generally, logic and the theory of sets, as well as computer-based calculations and iterative theories of what can and cannot be calculated by a machine, e.g. a Turing Machine or computer, given certain data and an appropriate algorithm.

The fact is, we can see into the future, and if we do the appropriate policies, we can change the future. For more than seventy years now, countercyclical financial manipulations using fiscal and monetary policies at the macro- and micro- economic levels has been discussed in detail in many different academic and scholarly journals, all flowing from the theoretical framework of Keynes and Friedman, as well as the careful study of business cycles by the National Bureau of Economic Research at Harvard (“NBER”), where many prominent economists have labored in the academic vineyards.

The fact remains that just as we can shape our own futures by educating ourselves, working hard, showing up on time and having the right friends, we can obviously shape the economic future of the land by taking appropriate economic actions.

This is not like the fall of the market, which is stochastic, governed by a random walk, and essentially would have to happen at some point. If you’re not sure about this, look up the Gambler’s Ruin problem on Google or in one of your old textbooks. If you gamble long enough for large enough sums, eventually there’s the chance that you will lose everything. The market is no exception to the problem of the Gambler’s Ruin and the random walk that crosses the point of no returns.

However, even in the case of the ruin of the market, countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies could have cushioned the fall much better and more wisely, had the last administration not been so committed to laissez faire policies reminiscent of the 1920s.

Instead of pumping up the boom, the government should have acted to mute it, so that when the crash came, it was not so violent or abrupt.

A tax increase during the boom would have been wise, especially a surtax to finance the war in Iraq, and to suck some wind out of the sails of the almost inflationary boom during 2005-2007.

That would have been wise, but the last administration chose not to do it for political reasons, and because they were married to a laissez-faire doctrine of not taxing under any circumstances.

This was an ill-considered doctrine, because countercyclical management of the economy requires taxation as part of reasonable fiscal and monetary management of the business cycle.

What is even more ill-considered is that the Republican Party continues to advocate this same laissez-faire approach now in opposition to the stimulus bill, when it is obvious that government action is required.

Turning to the current stimulus bill, the Republican right wing response of opposing the stimulus bill, and instead continuing to advocate smaller government and laissez-faire is not only wrong, but historically wrong, since it just repeats the criticisms of the New Deal made in the 1930s by the Republican party, which history shows us were wrong.

The New Deal was right, Glass-Steagall and securities regulation were right, and government interventionism as well as vast government spending to pull us out of the Depression were the correct government policies.

Moreover, the last administration bloated the government with cronyism and friendly contracts to private contractors, both in the Iraqi war sector and in Homeland Security, hardly shrinking the government, and laissez-faire only meant no new taxes—the government was activist on a range of issues important to corporations, especially environmental issues.

Moreover, the value of the stimulus bill has been shown to be historically valuable by the New Deal, and also not only in the 1930s in the U.S., but in 1930s Germany, where vast rearmaments spending and central government spending pulled Germany out of the depression, but also in 1930s Italy, where central government spending ended the depression, and also in 1930s England and 1930s France, the same, and so forth. 1930s Japan also revived itself with Government spending on armaments.

Probability, econometrics and policy at some point merge into the ability to shape the future. One can debate about policies, their merits and demerits, but at some point one has to commit to one policy direction or another, and what is refreshing about the current administration is that they have committed to a certain policy direction. Their economic advisers are experienced and knowledgeable, and probably have worked out the future impact of these policies on Cray Supercomputers several times over by now. I hesitate to say this, but in all likelihood, the Government probably knows better in this case what to do than we do.

The past administration distinguished itself by twisting slowly, slowly in the wind while the economy disintegrated, sticking not to laissez-faire, but to a lot of deficit spending on the Iraq War which mainly went to government contractors with connections to the government in power. The same could be said for the enormously bloated Homeland Security budget contracts, which were exposed in part as fraudulent by incidents such as Hurricane Katrina.

There are many specific problems with the stimulus bill, but overall it’s the right direction.

Art Kyriazis
Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies

DOES DEREK LOWE THROW THE SPITTER? OR IS HE JUICING?

In the Phil’s home opener, the boobirds waited all of half an hour to get on Brett Myer’s case just because he gave up a couple (ok, three) home runs early to Atlanta. In this case, those runs held up as Derek Lowe, formerly of the Boston Red Sox and the LA Dodgers, and acquired by the Braves as an off-season free agent, did his thing and limited the Phils to just one run.

However, I am extremely curious as to why it is that Derek Lowe is suddenly such an effective pitcher at 36 years of age, an age when most pitchers are usually either washed up or on the way down. He’s known for throwing a hard sinker, and right away, looking at him pitch and throwing that sinker, it really looks like a doctored pitch, either a spitter, a scuffball, an emery ball, or something put on the ball to make it dive.

The question then is, since there are two sides to every question, is there any evidence that Derek Lowe suddenly got better in the middle of his career when it looked like he wasn’t going anywhere fast? One hint is given in Rob Neyer’s Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2004), where it states about Derek Lowe that he is six foot six, weighs 214 pounds, and throws “1. Hard Sinker 2. Curve 3. Change 4. Cut Fastball Note: The Cut Fastball was added or refined in 2002, when Lowe went from relieving to starting.” Id. at p. 285. Well, so Lowe added a “cut fastball.” Really.

In 2001, out of the bullpen, Lowe allowed 103 hits in 91 and 2/3 innings, gave up 7 homers, 39 runs and 36 earned runs, and walked 29 batters, while striking out 82, with an ERA of 3.53 and a park adjusted ERC of 4.31, according to the Bill James Handbook for 2009, id. at p. 172. He won five games, and lost ten, and had 24 saves in 30 opportunities.

The next year, 2002, when he started and “learned the cut fastball,” his numbers were dramatically better. Lowe won 21 and lost just 8, with an ERA of 2.58, an adjusted ERC of 2.13, pitching 219 2/3 innings, giving up only 166 hits, only 65 runs and 63 earned runs, allowing 17 homers, walking only 72 and striking out 127 batters.

The question becomes, how did Lowe get so much better?

The answer should be pretty obvious from the fact that the year before, in 2001, striking out 82 batters in 103 innings, Lowe wasn’t effective, while in 2002, striking out 127 batters in 220 innings, Lowe was terrific. LOWE COMMITTED TO THE SINKER, OR ELSE LEARNED HOW TO THROW THE SPITTER. Since Lowe is 6’6” tall, coming with a good fastball, curve and change, a spitter/scuff ball/doctored pitch that drops off the table in necessary situations is a great out pitch for him, especially since he was pitching in Fenway Park.

Alternatively, Lowe may just have started juicing. After all, it worked for A-Rod.

After that dramatic success, Lowe had another good year in 2003, winning 17 and losing 7, but in 2004 although he won 14 and lost only 12, his ERA ballooned up to 5.42 with a park-adjusted ERC of 5.31. Lowe was now 31 years old. Lowe led the AL in runs allowed in 2004 with 138. It was reasonable for the Red Sox to think he was beginning to embark on an age-related decline. So off to the LA Dodgers went Derek Lowe.

From 2005 through 2007, Lowe had almost identical seasons statistically, with ERAs around 3.60 and park adjusted ERCs between 3.50 and 3.70; in 2006 he led the NL in wins with 16, going 16 and 8 on the year. Every year he pitched around 210 innings, allowed around 100 runs, 90 earned runs, 15 homers, and struck out around 125 to 140 batters while only giving up 55 walks. He was like a machine.

In 2008, Lowe broke out of this pattern, and actually had a BETTER year—211 innings pitched, 194 hits, 84 runs allowed, 76 earned runs, 14 homers, 45 walks, 147 strikeouts, 14 wins and 11 losses, an ERA of 3.24 and a park adjusted ERC of 2.72. 2008 was Lowe’s best season since 2002, and this at age 35.

And now Derek Lowe comes out of the gate in the first ballgame of 2009, and twirls a masterpiece against the Phillies, a team that scored the third highest number of runs in the National League in 2008, and a lineup that is packed with lefthanded power bats.

Which brings me round to the topic sentences—is Derek Lowe throwing the spitball? Or is he just juicing? Because a 36 year old pitcher just can’t be this good. He’s BETTER now than he was two years ago, and pitching BETTER now than he did at any time in his career, except for his breakout year in 2002, which was a year when almost everyone in baseball was juicing.

I’m sorry for accusing a ballplayer of cheating, but we live in awful times, and I just don’t believe Derek Lowe is that good. The next question is, does Derek Lowe’s pitching profile resemble that of other spitballers? The answer is clearly, yes.

Ed Walsh of the White Sox threw a spitball, a fastball, a change and a curve. Don Drysdale of the Dodgers, also a 6 foot five inch right hander, very similar to Derek Lowe in almost every way, and who relied on the Vaseline ball, threw a fastball, a curve, a change, a slider and a spitter. Senator Jim Bunning of the Phillies and Tigers, also a spitball/Vaseline ball artist, and also a tall righthander, threw a slider, a fastball, a curve, a change and a spitter, usually a doctored Vaseline ball. Bunning threw a no-hitter and a perfect game in his hall of fame career.

Hugh Casey is another famous tall righthander who supposedly threw the spitball, although it’s claimed his out pitch was the sinker, supplemented by a slider, fastball and a curve. According to Neyer, Hugh Casey was pitching on the mound and threw a spitter to Mickey Owen in the 1941 World Series; that was the famous passed ball that led to the Dodgers losing the Series. Id. at p. 57.

Then you have Gaylord Perry, who was also a tall righthander, six foot four, 205 pounds in his prime, heavier later, a great spitballer, who also threw the slider, the fastball, the curve, the forkball/splitter and the change. Perry also claimed his spitter was a sinker, although after he retired he admitted it really was a spitball after all.

So comparing Derek Lowe to many of the famous spitballers, and their pitching repetoires, it would seem that there is a pretty good match. Derek Lowe is the same build as Don Drysdale and Gaylord Perry, and uses approximately the same pitches as they did. In sum, the circumstantial evidence against him is pretty strong that Derek Lowe probably is using a spitball, and not really throwing a sinker at all. Finally, you have the fact that pitchers like Gaylord Perry lasted long past their points of decline–Perry was winning twenty games at ages like 35 and 40–further evidence Lowe is greasing the ball.

–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
home of the world champion Philadelphia Phillies

CURT SCHLLING RETIRES

On Monday of this week, Curt Schilling, he of the bloody sock, the hero of the 2004 World Series that finally cured the curse of the Red Sox forever, and the last active playing member of the great 1993 Phillies team that nearly beat a powerhouse Toronto Blue Jays team in an awesome world series matchup, finally retired, joining Lenny “Nails” Dykstra, Darren Arthur Daulton, John “Krukster” Kruk and other legends of the 1993 Phillies in retirement.

Of course, Schilling was an integral member of numerous world series teams, as was Daulton (1997 Marlins) and Dykstra (1986 Mets). Collectively, all of these guys were winners, with a capital W. They lived to win, and winning was all they knew how to do.

Here I have to point out that as I am a Phillies fan, I have always had a very soft spot in my heart for Curt Schilling. From 1992, when he first emerged as a terrific power pitcher, to 2000, when he was erroneously and mistakenly traded from the Phils to Arizona (instead of their locking him up for another multi year deal), he was 1) the ace of the staff 2) the voice of the Phillies, frequently appearing on local sports radio, sometimes daily and 3) the best starting pitcher I’ve ever seen here since Steve Carlton.

But the main thing I loved about Schilling is, he hated to lose, and he loved to win. He pitched complete ballgames, nine innings, and he pitched to strike out the side. He was old school, he had old fashioned ideas, he was in every way a throwback to pitchers and players from like fifty years ago. In that sense, he was completely and totally refreshing.

From 1997-2000 the Phillies organization had a core of Curt Schilling, Bobby Abreu and Steve Rolen. Had they simply and properly built around that core, the Phillies could have built a division winner, or at least a wild card team. Schilling was an ace of the staff, Abreu was in the prime of his career, a .400 OBA man with a .500 slugging percentage, and Rolen was earning 30 win shares a year routinely with his glove and his bat. In those years, Rolen was slugging .500 or more easily, hitting tons of doubles and homers.

Where the team was weak in those days was up the middle—they didn’t stock themselves at short, second, catcher and centerfield properly (except maybe for Mike Lieberthal, but he was no Darren Daulton). And everyone knows a championship club needs to be strong up the middle. Kevin Stocker, who had played well in 1993, began to fade. Mickey Morandini, who was terrific in 1993, also began to fade as the decade wore on. Milt Thompson wasn’t around anymore and Lenny Dykstra was gone by 1997. Darren Daulton was also gone by 1997. If they had Dykstra and Daulton, and a healthry Morandini and Stocker, the 1997 Phillies would have been contenders—but the story was different.

By 97-99, they were playing guys like Marlon Anderson and Alex Arias up the middle. It wasn’t the same. Doug Glanville could field and run, but he never drew a walk.

The Phillies didn’t make immediate efforts to replace Daulton or Dykstra with great talent, nor did they replace Stocker or Morandini with great talent. They did waste a lot of money on bad free agents (see below) but we’ll get to that.

Behind Schilling were non-entities pitching—they did not put together a staff anywhere close to what they had in 1993, with Tommy Greene, Schilling, Danny Jackson, Terry Mulholland et al. and Mitch Williams as the closer. In 1994 Williams’ arm was blown and he was traded, but he never pitched again. Mulholland was traded, a bad trade since he pitched ten more years or more in the bigs. Jackson was never the same again and Tommy Greene’s arm was blown, he never had another year like 1993.

Because the Phillies did not make the effort to replace the great 1993 players with new and great players, eventually both Schilling and Rolen wanted out of Philadelphia. This was not good news for the Phillies GM and Phillies management, because Schilling and Rolen were the kind of players you built a team around.

A starting ace, and a gold glove third baseman who hits 30 homers and 35 doubles a year with 30 win shares a year, those are the two players you want to start a team with. You don’t want to lose those two guys.

The fundamental mistake of the Phils as they turned the corner on the new century was to let Curt Schilling go, even more of a mistake than letting Scott Rolen go, though both were mistakes. Curt Schilling won three world series with Arizona and Boston after he left (2001, 2004, and 2006) while Scott Rolen won one with St. Louis and got to another. Instead of realizing what they had, they wasted money on bad players instead.

You can’t help but wonder, what if the Phils had held on to these guys, and they had been around while the Phils developed Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Chase Utley, signed Jim Thome, etc. You have to think some of those 86 win seasons would have been 92 or 95 win seasons.

After Schilling was gone, the Phillies went on an endless search for the next big ace. They traded Johnny Estrada, a great catching prospect, for Kevin Millwood. In fairness, Millwood had a great 2003 season, throwing a no-hitter, throwing a lot of innings and having a great adjusted ERA. But the next season he sort of blew up, and wasn’t the same again, and the Phils let him go in free agency.

The next big ace was Eric Milton. The phils traded Carlos Silva for him. Eric Milton arrived to much fanfare, and proceeded to lead the NL in homers allowed the next two seasons. To say he was awful understates the situation. He just never adjusted to the new park.

The next big ace was Freddy Garcia. We all know about him. He never even pitched. He was hurt and didn’t pitch at all.

There were so many other horrible pitchers the Phils brought in. I can’t name them all. Jon Lieber, Adam Eaton, etc.

Meanwhile, the Phillies actually got some players for Rolen and Schilling, which were basically, Placido Polanco and Vincente Padilla. Polanco played second until Utley came up, and then Polanco was out of a job. The Phils shipped him to Detroit for Ugueth Urbina, but should have kept him to play third but at the time they had David Bell playing third.

Padilla for a while had a couple of good seasons with the Phils, but eventually they shipped him to Texas. Padilla has been pretty awful for Texas, his innings pitched are still high, but so is his ERA. He’s not really been a great pitcher, just an innings eater.

Polanco has been a starter in Detroit and it seems to me the Phils should have held onto Polanco. He was a good righthanded hitter, could play the corner outfield positions, as well as 3d and 2d, and was a good RH pinch-hitters bat off the bench. I’d have kept him. While he doesn’t walk much, he has a high batting average, had above average speed, and hits a lot of doubles and triples, and occasional homers. And he’s great in the clubhouse.

The lack of an ace in the Phillies starting staff from 2001-2007 is what kept them from winning a world series. During six of those years, Curt Schilling could have been that ace and put them over the top in any given year.

Having an ace in Cole Hamels in 2008 is one of the keys to the Phillies having won a world series and a world championship in 2008. Cole Hamels was finally the guy the Phils had been searching for since 2000, when they let Curt Schilling go for a guy named Vincent Padilla.

Bill James, in the Bill James Gold Mine 2008, at p. 2007, has an illuminating article on this subject, called “If I Had a Hamel.” He basically examines each of the Phils seasons from 1986-2007, and notes who was the Phils most dominating pitcher in each of those years. In 1992, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000, Curt Schilling was the best pitcher on the Phils’ staff, and then he was gone. Then in 2007, Cole Hamels was the best. Writes James in his article: “I have a friend who is a Phillies fan. He is optimistic about the 2008 season because, he says, we finally have an ace. We haven’t had an ace of the staff since we traded Schilling. He is referring of course to Cole Hamels….Cole Hamels Season Score [in 2007] was 233, which was the highest by a Phillies pitcher since 1998. Schilling was at 327 in 1997, 271 in 1998.” Id. at p. 207.

James also points out how silly it was for the Phils to move Brett Myers from starter to closer in 2007, and that bringing him back to starter would be a good move for 2008. Id. at p. 2007.

So there you have it—the two key moves that put the phils over the top—Cole Hamels as a staff ace, and Brett Myers back as a starter. Add to that Brad Lidge as a top shelf closer, and you have two legs of the Phils formula for world champion success in 2008.

I think it would have been nice for Curt Schilling to retire as a Phillie, myself.

Curt Schilling by the numbers: Curt Schilling was an awesome pitcher. He led the National League in strikeouts in 1997 and 1998, striking out more than 300 batters each of those years, 319 Ks in 1997 (in 254.1 innings pitched) and 300 Ks in 1998 (in 268.2 innings pitched). Schilling was a horse—he finished more games and completed more games than any modern pitcher, by far. Of 436 games he started in his career, he completed 83—19% of his games started, he COMPLETED.

Think about that—Curt Schilling, CAREER STAT, completed about 20% of every game he started. No relievers, no help, just nine innings and finish the game.

That’s as old school as you can get. Schilling was a reversion to a pitcher of the first half of the 20th century. He was more like Robin Roberts or Bob Feller, guys who finished what they started. The bloody sock tells it all.

He led the NL in complete games FOUR times—in 1996, with 8 complete games, in 1998, with 15 complete games (of 35 started), in 2000 with 8 complete games, and in 2001 with 6 complete games. He led the NL twice in innings pitched, in 1998 with 268 and 2/3, and in 2001 with 256 2/3, and led the NL those same years in pitches thrown to batters with 1089 in 1998 and 1021 in 2001.

Schilling led the NL in wins with 22 in 2001, and led the AL in wins with 21 in 2004. His adjusted ERC of 1.86 (ERA 2.35) was the lowest in the NL in 1992.

Schilling’s post-season record is insane. In 133.1 innings pitched, he struck out 139, walked only 30, gave up no intentional walks, yielded only 12 homers, 3 hit batsmen, 115 hits, 41 runs and 36 earned runs for an ERA of 2.43 (ERC adjusted of 2.79). In 19 games he started in the post season, he had 4 complete games, a 21% completion ratio. His won loss record of 11-2 in those 19 games he started is legendary.

I attended Schilling’s 2-0 complete game shutout of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993, World Series game Five, at Veterans Stadium Philadelphia. The Phillies had lost a slugfest the night before, blowing a four or five game lead in extra innings when Mitch Williams couldn’t hold the lead, and were down 3-1 in games. The game was do or die. They had to win.

Schilling did nothing less than twirl a masterpiece. He may have given up a hit, or maybe two or four hits, but the whole thing took well under two hours, and it was a masterpiece of pitching efficiency, mastery, control and power. The Blue Jays, who had scored something like 15 runs the night before, could hardly get their bats on the ball against Schilling, the master of the baseball.

I have rarely, if ever, seen a pitching performance like that one, in my life, let alone in post-season play. I had a great seat, my wife’s company at the time had some corporate seats along the 3rd base line, and I had a terrific view of the action. The game was like watching Koufax, Gibson, Carlton, the greats.

At this point I suppose I can point out that Curt Schilling is an obvious Hall of Fame selection. I know that Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine are both 300 game winners, but their post-season stats are awful. Only John Smoltz has post-season stats like Schillings, and he gave up four seasons to be a closer, or he would be closer to 250 wins than the 215 he had now.

Let’s talk now about wins and losses. Except for the 1993 Phillies, the rest of the Phillies teams that Schilling played for—1992, and 1994-2000—had losing records. Nonetheless, Schilling racked up winning or .500 records for all of those teams;

1992 14-11 Team 70-92
1994 hurt 2-8 Team 54-61
1995 hurt 7-5 Team 69-75
1996 hurt 9-10 Team 67-95
1997 17-11 Team 68-94
1998 15-14 Team 75-87
1999 15-6 Team 77-85
2000 6-6 Team 65-97

Total Schilling 85-71 percentage 85/156 = .549
Total Team 545-676 percentage 545/1221 = .446

Schilling was more than 100 percentage points higher than his teams in all of the losing seasons from 1992-2000 on the Phils—he had a .549 winning percentage, while the Phils had a .446 winning percentage.

Schilling was 14 games OVER .500, whie the Phillies were 131 games BELOW .500—Schilling was 145 games better than his team. That’s a whopping lot better than his team.

So Schilling, even with three seasons where he was hurt, and for a ballteam that was hundreds of games below .500, managed a total record of 85-71, fourteen games ABOVE .500, during the eight years he was with Philly. 145 games better than his team, 100 percentage points better than his team.

As if he was dragging a dead body and a lot of 45 pound plates around, and still managing to win ballgames.

Now let’s add in 1993, when he was 16-7 for a team that went 97-65 total, a .599 percentage. For that team, Schilling went 16-7, which is a .693 percentage. FOR THE 1993 TEAM, A WINNER, A PENNANT WINNER THAT ALMOST WON THE WORLD SERIES, SCHILLING STILL DID A HUNDRED PERCENTAGE POINTS BETTER THAN THE PHILLIES WINNING PERCENTAGE. The team was 32 games over .500, Schilling was nine games over .500.

Now, the final totals:

Schilling: Career with Phils: 101-78. Percentage: 101/179 = .564 winning percentage

Phils: Career with Schilling: 642-741. Percentage: 646/1383 = .464 winning percentage

Schilling is 100 points above philly’s winning percentage, .564 to .464, for a nine year run. Philly was 100 games below .500; Schilling was 23 games above .500.

That’s Schilling’s total for Philly. He won a hundred games in 8 years, for mainly lousy clubs. And led the league in strikeouts twice, in complete games three times, in games started twice, in innings pitched once, etc.

Schilling did all this dragging around a lousy team that was, except for the magnificent 1993 team, mainly a bad team that finished in the second division. Several of these teams lost as many as 94, 95 and 97 games (1996, 1997, 2000). They were dreadful, horrible, awful teams, and yet Schilling went out and led the league in strikeouts in 1997.

Also, that Gregg Jeffries, a free agent bust, was paid $5.5 million in 1997, while Schilling, clearly the most valuable Phillie on any day of the week, earned only $3.5 million in 1997. Schilling was correct to gripe about his salary.

In 1998, Curt Schilling got a raise to $4.7 million, but Gregg Jefferies got $6 million after a horrible year in 1997, and some turkey named Mark Portugal got $2.4 million to pitch, putting up some dreadful numbers for the Phils.

Scott Rolen was paid $150,000 in 1997 and $750,000 in 1998 after posting two outstanding years. Ridiculous.

In 1999, they raised Schilling to $5 ¼ million per year, but handed Ron Gant, who was past his prime, $6 million, and Gant had an average year in left field, while Bobby Abreu had a terrific year as a newbie in right field. Rolen meantime finally got raised to a million dollars, while having another monster year; Rico Brogna, who was awful was getting more than three million dollars a year.

There is no sense to what the phillies were doing with their payroll at this time. They should have committed to their best players, period. They kept wasting money on washed up veterans and on players who were having bad seasons instead of committing their payroll to Schilling, Abreu and Rolen.

Lieberthal, it could be argued, was a decent player, at catcher, but he shouldn’t have been getting $2 ¼ million, more than twice as much as Rolen, because Rolen was more valuable than Lieberthal. It didn’t make sense.

Some guy named Jeff Brantley got paid $2.8 million in 1999. He appeared in 10 games in 1999 and some more games in 2000, but he was entirely ineffective and washed up. A total waste of money. Brantley was out of baseball after 2001.

The Phils paid Chad Ogea about $1.7 million to be a starter in 1999. Ogea posted less than league average numbers in 1999. He was 6-12 with a 5.63 ERA. It’s almost certain that the Phillies could have brought someone up from the farm to be that bad for a rookie salary.

I could keep going on like this, but I think you get the point. The Phillies of the late 1990s were blowing money out the wazoo on bad, awful, over the hill, gassed, done, horrible players.

And then when Schilling & Rolen wanted free-agent money commensurate with their skills in 2000, the Phillies front office became hard asses? After giving Greg Jefferies and Ron Gant $6 million each? $12 millin to Ron Gant and Greg Jefferies and you won’t give $10 million a year to Scott Rolen and Curt Schilling for life?????

Are you kidding me????

No wonder the Phillies have only two world titles in 120 plus years. On the bright side, the Phillies learned from these mistakes and have been doing somewhat better in recent years in terms of front office management, although I don’t agree with all of their moves.

Let’s get back to the legend that is Curt Schilling.

Who can forget Schilling putting a towel over his head when Mitch Williams was pitching during the NLCS and the World Series?

If the Phillies had been able to close Toronto out in games four and six of that world series when they had had leads, Philly would have won the world series in 1993. Schilling did everything he could to win that series.

Curt Schilling went to Arizona, and dragged an expansion team of nobodies to world series glory. He made Randy Johnson, who everyone thought was too wild to be a great pitcher, into a world champion.

Then Schilling went to Boston, and promptly reversed the Curse of the Bambino, and brought a world championship to the Red Sox, something no one, and I mean no one, thought possible.

It was a magical accomplishment.

And just to put a flourish on it, Boston repeated in 2006, Mr. Schilling again assisting.

Finally, we have to point out, Curt Schilling never juiced.

Curt Schilling was a colorful, articulate and intelligent baseball player, and one of the most masterful men of the mound I have ever had the privilege to watch.

I’ve always missed him since he left the Phils. It was always my fervent hope that someday he might return for a final farewell tour year or two with the Phils, but apparently it is not to be. I think Schilling, no matter how he was throwing, would have been a terrific starter for the Phils this season and would have drawn fans.

And again, I say, the Phils should honor him, retire his number, and do him homage. He was one of the greatest of great Phils pitchers.

We will not soon see his like again.

–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the world champion phillies

THE KINKED SUPPLY DEMAND CURVE

In an astonishing demonstration that the bad economy is driving people to do almost anything to keep their lifestyles afloat, the Philadelphia Daily News of Monday March 23, 2009 at pp. 8 & 28 reports an AP story by Karen Hawkins, “In Hard Times Sex Does the Trick: Porn, Adult Clubs doing well…and hiring”, in which it is stated that:

“The tough job market is prompting a growing number of women across the country to dance in strip clubs, appear in adult movies or pose for magazines like Hustler. Employers across the adult entertainment industry say they they’re seeing an influx of applications from women who…are attracted by the promise of flexible schedules and fast cash. Many have college degrees and held white-collar jobs until the economy soured. ‘You’re seeing a lot more beautiful women who are eligible to do so many other things,’ said Gus Poulos, general manager of New York City’s Sin City gentleman’s club.

According to the article, stripping dancers at a club like upscales Rick’s Cabaret in Miami or NYC can “make $100,000 to $300,000 a year in cash.” In Rhode Island, a club called “Foxy Lady” held a job fair to fill 35 positions, and was swamped with more than 150 job applicants, according to co-owner Tom Tsoumas.

To be fair, on the one hand, one supposes it’s great that women have the opportunity to earn this kind of money on the free market.

On the other hand, it seems kind of horrible that women would go from doing white collar jobs to stripping off their clothes for drunken strangers in a bar, or worse, to getting ravaged repeatedly by viagra-driven male pornstars in front of multiple cameras for megabucks just to maintain their cushy standard of living.

Is this what the dreadful recession of 2008-09 has wrought? Or are stripping and porn just respectable mainstream occupations nowadays, which is probably the more likely conclusion. For a long time, the left wing and the right wing used to be able to agree that porn was one thing they all hated, because the right wing fundamentalists were against it, and so were the left wing feminists and activists.

For all the brouhaha rained down upon them by the feminists, and I had friends who used to go on night raids to spray paint ads for penthouse in Manhattan back in the day, the adult entertainment sectors continue to be the fastest growing and most viable sectors of the internet economy and the real economy.

These industries have obliterated their moral and legal opposition in both the right and left wings, it would seem to me. Moreover, they are openly accepted in many other corners of the world, and I need not list the cities or countries in which this is true, notwithstanding AIDS and a host of other reasons to regulate such behaviors.

Nonetheless, I wouldn’t want my daughter to work in such an industry, and I’m certain you wouldn’t want yours to either. I think when you frame the question that way, you see what is essentially wrong with this industry. It’s come a long way from Hugh Hefner publishing elegant centerfolds of Marilyn Monroe back in the 1950s.

And of course, we have that infamous Supreme Court Justice, I can’t remember which one it was, who said of obscenity, “I know it when I see it.” That’s a classic line.

The Supreme Court used to watch every single minute of every single dirty movie that came before them before ruling. That was itself singular and odd. There was one justice who didn’t watch them because he thought they were all protected by the first amendment, but I can’t remember which one it was.

There’s an old rumour that a famous Philadelphia DA used to screen all the allegedly obscene movies down in the DA’s office back in the 60s and 70s for all the DAs, or maybe it was back in the 1950s. A lot of the people involved are now judges and bigshots, so no one wants the rumor repeated much anymore today, but it’s just an unsubstantiated rumor. But it’s a good one.

John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were each president of the “Smokers Club” at Harvard back in the 1930s. It’s listed on their freshman and senior yearbooks and facebooks. That could have been about smoking, but “smokers” also meant, back in the 1930s, illicit pornographic films. Given JFK’s and RFK’s collective predilections for women, it’s possible they were in charge of getting the “good films” for their classmates. Again, this is an unsubstantiated rumor, or subject to interpretation. You decide. JFK had a hot affair with the 40s filmstar Gene Tierney, around 1945-46 when he got out of the navy, so probably JFK didn’t need to study film to know what he was doing.

Anyway, to summarize, guess this is what they meant when they taught us about the kinked supply & demand curve back in freshman economics.

Art Kyriazis Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies