It isn't easy to represent even a minimal estimate of the amount of money which has already been committed to melting banks, even leaving aside the latest addition of $1 trillion in "quantitative easing," and the graphic below is just another try.
A dollar bill is about 6" by 2.5". A stack of 100 dollar bills is about 1" high. So $100 is about 15 cubic inches. $1 trillion is accordingly about 10 billion times 15 cubic inches, or 150,000,000,000 cubic inches. One cubic foot is 12 x 12 x 12 inches, or 1728 cubic inches. 150,000,000,000 divided by 1728 is about 86,500,000 cubic feet. This is about the same volume as an 82 storey building, 440 feet wide, and 220 feet deep. Michelle Obama is about 6 feet tall.
On the left side of this frame, Michelle Obama is shown in the outfit she wore a few days ago at a photo-op in a soup kitchen. On the right side of the frame, Ms. Obama is shown in proportion to a cube that would hold $1 trillion in dollar bills. This cube would be 440 feet on a side, so Ms. Obama's size has been significantly reduced.
While Ms. Obama was dishing out soup to the homeless, her husband and his friends were planning $1 trillion in "quantitative easing" for banks and other financial institutions like AIG.
A fairly typical estimate of the number of homeless people in the United States is about 3 million, and we could house each and every one of them at $50,000 apiece, meaning $200,000 for a modest house for a family of four, for $150 billion, and make mortgage payments of about $2000 per month on 10,000,000 homes now threatened with foreclosure for about four years, for the same $1 trillion now destined for "quantitative easing."
Most of us have absolutely no idea what "quantitative easing" means, or why Mr. Obama and his friends want to spend $1 trillion of our money on "quantitative easing."
But most of us can understand what it means to buy every homeless person in America a home, and make the mortgage payments on 10,000,000 homes now threatened with foreclosure.
Exotic financial concepts like "quantitative easing" and "credit default swaps" have already extracted trillions of dollars from the American economy, and cost millions of people their jobs and houses, and most of the evidence suggests that Mr. Obama and his friends don't understand them any better than the rest of us.
So maybe it's time to start putting our money into something that somebody can understand, and the next time Michelle Obama feels like posing for a photo-op in a soup kitchen, maybe she should stay home instead and try to convince her husband to do something comprehensible for the rest of us, instead of further enriching financiers with incomprehensible give-aways.
Michelle Obama made headlines last week by using those famously toned arms of hers to sling some mushroom risotto, steamed broccoli and fruit salad at Miriam's Kitchen, a D.C.non-profit that serves homemade meals to 4,000 homeless people a year made with fresh local and organic foods instead of processed or canned foods, as the New York Times reported.
Obama told the press who gathered to watch the First Lady ladle:
I want to urge people who are listening that if you have an opportunity, to come by -- not just this soup kitchen but any soup kitchen in your community. And helping is an easy thing to do. Collect some fruits and vegetables. Bring by some good healthy food. You know, we want to make sure that our guests here and across this country are eating nutritious items. Today we had fresh risotto with mushrooms. We had broccoli. We had fresh baked muffins with carrots in it.
And my understanding is that this facility is able to provide that kind of meal for about $1.50. And that's an incredible thing to remember: that we can provide this kind of healthy food for communities across this country, and we can do it by each of us lending a hand. (hat tip: Obama Foodorama)
"Pathetic" has turned into a generic insult in the American version of English, but once upon a time it meant something on the far side of "pitiful," another essentially religious word that has lost most of its original force, and it isn't exactly surprising that pity would turn into a joke in a country where the left side of the political spectrum sponsored "Welfare Reform."
"You're pitiful."
"You're pathetic."
These characterizations are insults in America today, and vividly illustrate the absurdity of calling the United States a Christian country just because the parking lots of suburban mega-churches fill up on Sunday.
You might hope that the concept of pity could somehow survive the perversion of its name into something like contempt, but it's exactly this hope that was demolished in one of the most famous passages in the history of philosophy, Section 293 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! --Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
As remote as this paradox of "private language" may seem to be from everyday experience, it floated back into my consciousness last week when President Obama attacked suspected militants in Pakistan. About 18 people were killed, "including women and children," according to the Los Angeles Times.
A few days later, Barack and Michelle Obama visited the school where their daughters Malia and Sasha are enrolled, and there were big smiles all around. Michelle made a little joke about the unpaid postition of First Lady, and Barack read the children a story about Neil Armstrong, and then the President and his beautiful family went back to the White House.
My first reaction to that headline was to picture a crackdown on the little-guy vendors I see around DC proudly selling their Obama t-shirts, pins, and other wares. (Who could be against that guy on the right?)
But then I read this, and I got a little more open minded to a crackdown:
Obama’s calls for change and his “Yes We Can” campaign mantra are being evoked to sell assembly-required furniture in Ikea’s “Embrace Change” marketing campaign, bargain airfares during Southwest Airlines Inc.’s “Yes You Can” sale...
I've noticed this sort of advertising all around DC. I'd have to see the legal rationale for limiting such speech before truly being open to any sort of legal crackdown, but from a moral/political/consumer perspective, it just rubs me the wrong way.
Corporate America wasn't exactly embracing the message of change before the election, so for them to spend mass amounts of money trying to tap into it now -- as if millions of silly people will go out and buy a mattress because Obama slogans are repurposed on a billboard -- is rather insulting. (Then again, I stopped and took pictures of a billboard and blogged about it, so who's the dummy here?)
As I argue in my book coming out in January, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, the history of American politics from 1776 on has been a debate between progressives and conservatives as to what kind of country we want to live in. Progressives have always argued that America should be seen as one people, one family if you will, where our fates rise and fall as one; where we are all equal in the sight of each other and the law, where we should each have an equal opportunity at the good things in life; where the luckier and better off among us give their less lucky fellow citizens a hand up, should be their brothers' and sisters' keepers; where people, all the people not just the elites, are the sovereigns, that we the people have joined together to form a more perfect union where progress is possible, where hope for a better future can overcome the fear of change. Conservatives, of course, have always argued the opposite: that we should look out only for ourselves as rugged individualists; that the powerful are powerful for good reason, and trying to change anything is to be feared.
I am convinced that this coherence and unity in pushing this compelling idea of American progressivism is a big part of what made the Convention such a success. Short-term for our 2008 electoral purposes, it is of course also great that so many speakers, especially including Obama, went hard after McCain and made the case against him effectively. That was essential. But after watching so many Democratic Conventions over the years with no coherent big picture message, messages that were all personal and didn't have an ounce of ideological definition to them (think Dukakis' stirring "I'm a good manager" message, Kerry's "I'm a war hero" message, and a host of others), it was a joy to see a clear definition of who we are, what we value, and what we believe in.
The Convention was, as usual (this is my fifth), a sleep-deprived whirlwind. I meant to write more, but between helping the SeaChange Communications folks coordinate activities (panel discussions, political documentaries, a VIP "green room"), and an even more intense credential gathering operation than usual, I did not have a moment to sit and write. But since I like to take the longer view anyway, to give myself some time to digest things before putting up my thoughts for all the world to see, I am taking the time to put all we've seen the past 10 days into context. My plan is to do a series of retrospective pieces on the Democratic Convention as well as what is following this week.
Last week and this one are the two most dramatic political weeks that don't include Election Day in American history. With conventions usually a few weeks apart, and usually nominating fairly predictable folks for President and VP, these two weeks in 2008 are stunning. Think about it:
Both of today's tracking polls, Rasmussen (Obama 49%--45% McCain) and Gallup (Obama 49%--41% McCain) where identical to yesterday's three-day rolling average. This means that Friday polling was virtually identical to Tuesday polling, since today's tracking polls replaced Tuesday's numbers. At most, the difference between Tuesday and Friday was 1-2%, which could be erased via rounding to the nearest integer. And there does appear to be some difference, as Gallup implies that Friday was slightly worse for Obama than Tuesday:
On this day -- with strong partisan forces pushing the public in both directions -- Obama still polled better than he had been prior to the convention, but not as well as he was polling on the individual nights of the convention.
"I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States," Senator Ted Kennedy roared as he appeared before the Democratic National Convention.
During the conventions, National Journal is conducting a poll of political bloggers. I am one of the twenty-two left of center bloggers in their poll. The results of the first three questions are available now. I thought I would share them with you, along with my answers and rationale:
Question #1: Do you think Michelle Obama will help or hurt her husband's candidacy in the general election? I voted "help.": Rationale: Very few, if any, voters will make their decision based on their opinion of Michelle Obama. However, Michelle Obama will tirelessly campaign for her husband, and it is always good to have a hard working surrogate on hand.
Question #2: Pick the demographic group that Obama most needs to sway during the convention: women, whites over 45, or blue collar workers. I voted with a write-in on this one: "white Democrats." My rationale is explained in a post from three weeks ago. Obama is overperforming among many groups, but underperforming among white Democrats of all kinds. The DNCC seems like the perfect opportunity to target white Democrats.
Question #3: What portion -- if any -- of the Democratic convention program should be devoted to tearing down John McCain and the Republican brand? I voted "more than half." Rationale: Democrats are winning elections now because people hate Republicans. Also, Republicans have managed to control the media narrative in this campaign by relentless attacking Obama. As such, why not use the convention the convention to remind people why they are voting for Democrats now, and to put Republicans on the defensive? Attack Republicans the majority of the convention.
What do you think? Seems only fair that I share these questions with yo
(The latest post in our mutual guest-blogging series, from rikyrah from Jack and Jill Politics. Thanks once again to all our guest-bloggers! - promoted by JonPincus)
Michelle Obama - The Latest Racial Rorschach Test I have believed from the moment Barack Obama announced his candidacy that his very running would be a test for America. I stated over a year ago, when Michelle Obama was first put out there by the campaign:
The entire Obama candidacy is about what I call a Racial Rorschach Test. The first phase were those idiotic articles about whether Obama was ' Black enough' for Black folks, which was insane, and off the point. Once that dog didn't hunt, we finally got around to whom the 'Black enough' test was really about, and that was White folk. While they're still mulling around this question and deciding whether to deal with it or not, we've got a new angle to this test- Michelle Obama.
I'm back to report as to how I see the Racial Rorschach Test is going, specifically as it concerns Michelle Obama.
The attacks have been coming fast and furious against Michelle Obama, with a depth of viciousness that is unwarranted, but deserves study.
WHY?
What is it about this woman that evokes this vehemence against her?
( the latest post in our mutual guest-blogging series. Thanks Pam, and looking forward to what people have to say! - promoted by JonPincus)
In looking back at the MSM treatment of Hillary Clinton over the course of the primary season, there was an expected eruption of misogyny -- from Chris Matthews Greatest Hits and The Tweety Effect, to the infamous Hillary nutcracker -- yet what I found most interesting was the handwringing over the whole matter. Similarly, there was desperation by some on the left (and right) to declare 2008 a "post-racial" election; they saw their hopes dashed as the bloody chum was tossed out to the hungry media sharks by Clinton surrogates and the usual GOP shills, rife with allusions, counter-charges and just plain old race-baiting idiocy (see Geraldine Ferraro, Andrew Cuomo, Bob Johnson).
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