When Misleading Becomes Dishonest

We're in the height of campaign season, so a certain amount of embellishment and exaggerating is to be expected.  But there is one particular oft-repeated refrain I've heard from Romney and the right which I find to be misleading to the point of genuine dishonesty.

The way that it is said comes in many different ways, but this pretty much sums it up:

Republicans will point out that this is completely accurate and, yes, those were indeed the gas prices on the day Obama took office.  But what makes this completely misleading are the implications from this, namely 1) that it was a good thing that gas was this low; 2) that gas prices were that low for an extended period and 3) that gas prices will go down again if Obama is voted out of office.

The truth is a bit more complicated.  First of all, the highest gas prices have ever been was $4.12/gallon, in July 2008, 6 months before Obama took office.  In fact, gas was over $3.00/gallon pretty much continuously from May 2007 onward.




Hmm, you know what?  This looks suspiciously like another chart I know of, specifically the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same time period:

Gas prices rocketed downward because we were in the midst of an epic financial collapse.  So, yes, we can easily achieve those gas prices again if you want to root for another financial crisis.  The Dow lost nearly half it's value from October 1st, 20007 (13,930) to February 2nd, 2009 (7,062.93).  There's the tradeoff for you: give up half your 401(k) and other investments in exchange for gas that's $2/gallon cheaper.  Seem fair to you?  Even if you don't have investments and don't care, does that strike you as a good trade-off for the country?

By the way, the day after Obama took office (it was closed for MLK Day on the day of his inauguration) the Dow closed at 7,949.09.  Yesterday it closed at 13,345.89.  Funny how you won't see that on a Photoshopped sign spreading around the internet.

I am not espousing that Obama is responsible for both the gas prices and the stock market recovery, and I am certainly not suggesting that he is responsible for one but not the other.  The truth is that, by and large, he has very little to do with either.  Both were hit hard by the financial crisis, and both are now returning to the levels they should be at - those dictated by supply and demand.  Obama's main role in the crisis was to provide temporary assistance where it was needed (something I believe he did a very good job with) and help with legislation designed to make sure this type of collapse does not recur (something I think he did a rather middling job at).  But, right or wrong, the President gets all the praise and all the blame for everything that occurs under his watch and such is the case here, no matter how undeserved or wrong it is.

But that's ok; if my friends on the right want to play this game I can do it too.  Here's a picture from this year's GOP convention that captures my feelings on their role in the deficit nicely.  Only difference is, I can actually support this one with actual facts.




Sources: Gas prices from here.  DJIA chart was my own creation in Excel, from the Yahoo Finance data.

Back to Politics Part 2 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Obama

If you're confused about the title, you obviously have not seen this movie.

So, if I believe everything I said before (and I do), why am I supporting Obama again?  Because this election is not a referendum on his first-term performance relative to my expectations, it’s about the next 4 years.  And, even with the knowledge that he will not be tackling the systemic problems I hoped he would, by a wide margin he is still the candidate that is more closely aligned with my personal positions.

As Christy and I were driving in the car on Friday, in what amounted to a 6-hour trip to IHOP (that’s a story for another day), she was expressing her own personal frustration at not being informed about the various candidates and how hard it was to actually get informed.  Nothing that comes out of a candidate’s mouth can ever be taken at face value, and their websites are just their mouths in a different format.  Newspapers, magazines, and news shows all have their own agendas too, so it actually is quite difficult to ever feel comfortable that you’ve gotten at any kind of “objective truth”.  In any case, down the line in this discussion she asked me “why should I vote for Obama?”

Now, it’s not that I didn’t have an answer for her.  It’s more that the Mark Twain saying “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have enough time” applied here.  I could easily have meandered through an hour-long diatribe about everything I agreed with Obama on and everything I disagreed with Romney on, but I knew that’s not what she wanted.   I think that she, like most Americans, doesn’t want to listen to hours and hours of back and forth between candidates and pundits and have to read between the lines and tease out the truths.  She wants to know, quite simply, what are the important points that each side believes, and what are going to be the actual consequences of choosing one side versus the other.

That set me to the task of trying to compile a succinct list of the main reasons I am supporting Obama over Romney.  And after about 10 minutes, I had a list of about 4 or 5 main points, and they are as follows:

1. Supreme Court Appointments – It is impossible to know when a Supreme Court vacancy will open up.  However, given that there are currently 4 justices in their 70s (Ginsburg – 79, Scalia – 75, Kennedy – 75, and Breyer – 74) and that the average retirement age of a justice is 78.7, it is likely that there will be 1 or 2 appointments in the next presidential term.  Right now the generally accepted interpretation regarding the makeup of the court is that there are 4 conservative justices, 4 liberals, and Kennedy is the swing vote (though it can probably be said that he leans conservative).  And since, of the four justices in their 70s, only Scalia is a conservative, the potential for the court to swing decidedly conservative under a Romney administration is clear.  And with Supreme Court appointments being for life, that is a swing which may last a long time.  Would a conservative Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade?  I honestly don’t know, but certainly many conservatives hope so.  Also, the issue of gay marriage will almost certainly come before the Supreme Court in the next few years.  If you want to ensure that Roe v Wade is not getting overturned anytime soon, and you want the issue of gay marriage to come before a court that is not any more conservative than it is right now, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

2. Obamacare – I really don’t like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but not for the reasons that conservatives don’t like it.  I don’t like it because, for all the ridiculous amount of effort and angst from the right, it’s remarkable how little it actually does.  Still, it did away with lifetime limits and will end pre-existing conditions, and also includes a mandate for everyone to carry health insurance (however toothless that mandate may be).  And I can tell you from firsthand experience that here at Blue Cross since its passage there has been effort like never before on reducing costs and keeping premium increases as low as possible.  And the bottom line is that this legislation took us one step closer to ensuring that every American has health insurance.  But the full impact of these changes don’t go into effect until 2014 or later, and Romney has outright stated that he intends to work towards repealing ACA in his first term.  If you believe that ACA is a step in the right direction and that we need to work towards the day when -  like a police force, firefighters, social security, and national defense - health insurance is something that every American is provided with, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

3. Climate Change – This one is pretty simple.  One side acknowledges that climate change is real and is largely the result of human activity, and the other side doesn’t.  In 2010 Obama signed an executive order which will increase the corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFÉ) standards from 27.5 to 35.5 by 2016.  As an executive order, Romney would have the power to undo this change at the stroke of a pen.  Obama also heavily supports investment in alternative and renewable energy; Romney supports more domestic drilling and is only concerned with getting us off foreign oil – not oil in general.  If you believe that climate change is happening, is manmade, and is a serious threat to us and our planet, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

4. Social Issues – The GOP is supposed to stand for hands-off government.  Turns out that this is only the case when it comes to gun control, taxes, and corporate regulation.  When it comes to being involved in your personal decisions they have no qualms whatsoever in getting actively involved to decide what is best for you and the country.  Part of being “hands-off” is acknowledging that things will occur that you don’t personally agree with, because above all you believe that it is not the government’s place to interfere.  That is the libertarian view, but the GOP abandoned it long ago.  There are literally a hundred issues I could point to here, but I’ll just pick a couple: gay marriage, any form of marijuana (growing hemp, recreational use, and medicinal use), internet gambling, separation of church and state, and abortion.  If you are a progressive when it comes to social issues and don’t believe that the Bible should be the basis for social legislation, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

5. Send a Message to the GOP – This one is closely tied to #s 2, 3, and 4 above.  For all the bashing I do of the GOP (and I am aware I do a lot of it) it does not come from a place of hatred.  It comes from a place of frustration, because deep down I still feel that the GOP is my party and that it is currently being held hostage by a bunch of lunatics.  I am a fiscal conservative – I believe in a flat tax, balancing the budget, reducing the deficit, and that a voucher system is a fantastic solution for both our education and health insurance problems.  Those are all ideas championed by conservatives before they got control of both Congress and the Presidency and decided that unlimited spending was OK as long as they were in power and that they would concentrate on social issues.  And if you think I'm exaggerating about the spending, I urge you to read this article written in 2003 by the conservative Christian Science Monitor.  I want to see a debate on how to best deliver universal health care to all Americans while not busting the budget and how to lower carbon emissions without killing the economy – not whether or not we should do either of those things.  I thought that the Democratic Congressional takeover in 2006, followed by Obama’s victory in 2008 would have forced them to reinvent themselves as centrists.  Instead they’ve opted to double down, summarized best by Mitch McConnell after the Republican landslide in 2010; “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”  Not “our top priority is to get Americans back to work” or “to get the economy going again” or “to work with Democrats to get legislation passed which helps all Americans.”  Nope, number one objective is “Screw You Obama.”  If you want to send a message to Republicans that they need to meet Democrats and the majority of the country in the center, you need to vote for Barack Obama.  

Back to Politics (Part 1)

I initially intended this as one entry but, as I so often do, once I got going I found that I had a lot more to say about it than I initially thought.  So I am dividing this into two entries instead – the first expressing my disappointment with Obama’s first term and politics in general, and the second discussing the reasons why I am still supporting Obama for a 2^nd term.

Contrary to what it may appear on this blog, I have by and large steered clear of politics for the past couple years.  I still try and stay current and keep myself informed, but I no longer read the Economist cover to cover every week or watch all the Sunday morning political shows like I did from 2006 to 2010.

A large part of this is, no doubt, purely a function of having a lot less free time than I used to.  With Anabelle and now Charlotte soaking up a lot of that time, I find that I really want to spend the free time that I do have doing something fun and relaxing like watching sports or a movie, reading a good book, playing video games, or, in the rare times that we can get out of the house, having a night out with Christy.  I don’t consider it an abdication of my duty as an American; it’s more that I see it as my role to make an informed decision as to who the best people are to govern and then expecting them to, you know, actually do the job they were elected to do.  Politics as a hobby has lost pretty much all appeal to me, especially since it is always so monumentally frustrating.

Four years ago, things were different.  For the first time in my adult life I actually gave money to a political campaign (to both Obama and McCain in the primary and to Obama in the general election).  And for the first time since I was 17 and interning for state Rep Vince Persico, I volunteered for a campaign.  I still clearly remember driving out to Indiana on a Saturday in October with Joe to knock on doors for 3 hours.  We only talked to about 2 dozen people, most of whom wanted nothing to do with us, but I at least felt like I did something.  Obama ended up carrying Indiana and, though I know it’s almost certainly not true, I like to think that I had just a little bit to do with that.

Today I feel quite differently.  I have been very frustrated with how the last 4 years have gone.  I haven’t given any money or time to any campaign, and don’t plan to in the next 3 weeks.  I, like a whole lot of Americans, am just frustrated by the inane squabbling and posturing of politicians.  Contrary to what the talking heads on the cable news shows will tell you, most Americans would much rather see the country unified and working together towards something (anything) rather than see every single point of either party’s agenda get accomplished – which will never happen anyway.  And that is what I am most disappointed in Obama about.  I did not elect him to solve all of our problems.  I did not think that he had a “silver bullet” solution for the economy – in 2008 most economists agreed that it would take about a decade for us to fully emerge from this crisis and contrary to how the GOP wants to spin it that was always the case and is still today.  But Obama ran on a platform of changing the way Washington works and that is what got me excited.  I don’t expect government to solve our problems; I expect the government to function at a level that allows us to solve our own problems.  And the epic disappointment with Obama is not that he failed at doing that, it’s that he didn’t even try. 

The analogy I use is a family trying to pull itself out of poverty.  Unless you come from money or have otherworldly athletic skills, the best way to succeed in this country today is with a solid education.  But for millions of Americans, that’s just not an option.  They can only afford to live in poor areas with terrible schools and even if they have all the best intentions and graduate high school, more likely than not they don’t have the education fundamentals or the money to succeed in college.  So they do the best they can, scraping by and floundering.  And of course then they have kids of their own, born into the same situation and almost pre-destined to struggle through as well and the cycle just continues.  What it takes to break the cycle is for two parents to decide that they’re going to move to where the education system is better or send their kids to private school, even if those decisions mean that they both need to work 2 jobs and 80-hour weeks, spend next to nothing on non-essential items, and pretty much never take a vacation.  That’s an unbelievably hard thing to actually do – you will miss a lot of your kids growing up and they will probably resent you for it for a long time until they’re old enough to understand why you are doing it – but that’s the kind of commitment it takes if you want to break the cycle.  There’s no glamour in it at all.  You have to be willing to say, “I am not going to be the one to be successful and have a comfortable life, but I will do everything in my power to make sure I am the last generation in my family that has to say that.”

That is what I wanted from Obama.  I didn’t want him to do the “glam” work of solving our health care system or climate change  because, quite simply, I believe these problems to be unsolvable given the current state of our government.  I wanted him to dig in and tackle the rot in the system that makes government so ineffective.  I wanted him to tackle our campaign finance system – which is arguably the one single problem from which most of our other problems (or at least lack of solutions) stem.  I wanted him to address the almost limitless access that lobbyists and big donors have to candidates.  I wanted him to get actively involved in reviewing each and every government program and office, fix or eliminate the ineffective ones, and develop metrics to judge them on and rules for accountability when they fail to live up to expectations.  I wanted him to make some Congressional recommendations mandatory, so that when a bipartisan commission is formed to address a problem (like Medicare, Social Security, or the debt) it isn’t just an exercise in futility when reports and recommendations are completely ignored and never even brought to a vote.

These are the things I wanted him to work on, even if it meant he got crucified in this election for “not working on the real issues.”  If he solved even one or two of the issues above history would remember him as a great President.  As of now, if his Presidency ends this January, the only thing historic about him will be that he shattered the race barrier.  Elsewise, he will be known as yet another in a long line of politicians whose oratory skill greatly exceeded his governing skill – a nice man with lofty ideas who over-promised and under-delivered.

I pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I get on my knees and pray

We don’t get fooled again

When you've got nothing new, rehash the old!

With the new labor numbers coming out 10 days ago, I wanted to revisit an earlier post of mine.  Specifically, this post where I discussed unemployment numbers in historical context.

According to the book I had just finished (This Time is Different), In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so.  Now that more time has passed and we at least appear to be in the midst of a recovery (albeit a long and brutal one) I thought it might be interesting to take another look.

Here's an updated graph of unemployment, going back to 2002 (again, taken directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics):



What does this tell us?  As before, the unemployment number technically started its inexorable climb in June 2007 (when it increased from 4.4 to 4.6 and never again dipped below 4.5).  We peaked in October 2009 at 10.1%.  This was all known when I wrote about this before, but at the time there was still the risk of a double-dip recession and a higher peak.  I think that we can now take that off of the table (by which I mean, should another recession hit it will almost certainly be due to a new economic calamity and not this same one revisited upon us).

Now, let's look at how Prognosticator John did.  This is what I wrote back in October 2010:

"we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems."

How does that analysis stack up to reality?  Well let's just say that it's a good thing I didn't place any bets on those predictions.  We got below 9% unemployment in October 2011, so that wasn't too far off, but we did not manage to finally get below 8% until last month, so I was a good 9 months off there.  However, as to my other prediction (that Obama would have big problems with unemployment above 7%) that appears to be fairly accurate.  He is definitely still the favorite to win (Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has perhaps the best forecasts to be found anywhere) but those odds looked a whole lot rosier one week ago.

Speaking of which, I did watch the debates last week and pretty much everything about it was brutal.  It was a thoroughly boring affair with neither side providing any real specifics as to what they want to do and mostly just regurgitating the same talking points that are showing up in my inbox 5 times per day (and since I gave money to McCain in the 2008 primary season I get the e-mails from both sides).  As bad as Obama was (and he was pretty bad) I am still fairly confident about his chances because of how the story has been framed.  The big story of the night wasn't "Romney blows away everyone with stellar performance" it was "Romney holds his own, and Obama was terrible."  I would be a lot more concerned if ti had been the former rather than the latter because, simply put, you always have the ability to make yourself better, but you are much more limited in your ability to make your opponent look worse.

On a personal note, I believe I recognized what was happening to Obama during that debate, because I have been there myself.  Certainly I have never experienced anything close to that level of stakes and pressure, and I am also certainly not even a fraction of the communicator that he is.  But throughout my career (and even in school to a degree) I have succeeded to a large extent because of my ability to speak extemporaneously and communicate my point in an intelligent, succinct, and thoughtful manner with minimal preparation (keep in mind I'm talking about in school and at work, not after a 12-pack or when arguing sports).  When you have that ability, eventually you get to the point where you just expect it to be there and you don't even think about it anymore.  And then one day (almost always at the worst possible time, I think it's a rule) you just reach down and  . . . nothing.  It's just not there for you and you sound like . . . well, like Obama sounded last Wednesday.

It will be very interesting now to see how he responds in the next debate, because it actually gets back to the panic vs. choke discussion I wrote about with the replacement refs.  Obama has a natural gift as a communicator, but now he must feel abandoned by his gift and there is the real danger that he will overthink and make things worse, like a .300 hitter mired in an 0 for 12 slump who thinks about every pitch instead of just reacting.  But then again, you don't become leader of the free world without some kind of staunch belief in your own awesomeness, so if he can just shrug it off as just one bad night, a certain amount of delusion may serve him well.

One Final Little Black Eye on the Cubs Season

The Florida Marlins just made the Cubs look bad, and they didn't even have to play them to do so.  To understand why, you need to know the story of Adam Greenberg.

Greenberg was a minor league player for the Cubs organization from 2002-2006.  He was never considered a top or even mid-level prospect but, thanks to the Cubs being terrible and not having a lot of other prospects, he nevertheless got a call-up to the big league club in 2005.  I can only imagine how excited he must have been to finally realize a lifelong dream.

How long did that excitement last?  Exactly one pitch.  On the evening of July 9th, 2005 he stepped to the plate in the ninth inning as a pinch-hitter to make his major league debut against Marlins' pitcher Valerio de los Santos.  The first pitch was a 92 MPH fastball that caught Greenberg right in the head.  He was awarded first base but had suffered a mild concussion and was immediately removed from the game.  While he expected to be back in a few weeks, he ended up missing the rest of the season as he continued to suffer from bouts of dizziness and excruciating headaches.

When he finally returned the next season (back in the minors) he was never the same player.  He was released by the Cubs in July 2006, bounced around a couple more MLB organizations (all in the minors), and then played for a few years in an independent league before hanging up his cleats after last year.  He never appeared in another major league game.  His final stat line shows a 1.000 OBP, but since being hit by the pitch is treated like a walk (and thus not an official at bat) he has no batting average and, having never taken the field, no fielding percentage.

Now, I don't mean to overstate things here.  Comparatively speaking, we're not talking about some epic tragedy here.  But if the idea of a kid finally achieving his lifelong dream and then having it instantly and mercilessly ripped away from him doesn't at least strike you as a bit sad, I'm not sure you have a pulse.  This is about the closest I've seen to a real life Monkey Paw moment.

Now cut to this year.  Cubs fan/amateur filmmaker Matt Liston started a "One At Bat" petition to try and get some team to sign Greenberg for a day in order to give him one more shot at his dream.  Now obviously this is not the kind of thing that is expected (or even has the slightest chance) to restart his major league career.  But that's not what this is about.  This is about a sad story which we have in our power to turn into a happy one (or at least one that's a lot less sad).  Sure, it's a publicity stunt but so what?  I am as much of a believer in the integrity of sporting events (see my last post) as anyone but that doesn't mean that we should lose sight of the fact that the ultimate purpose of sports is still to be entertainment.

After collecting over 14,000 signatures Liston approached the Cubs and early last month they gave their answer: pass.  Now if the Cubs were even remotely still alive for any kind of playoff contention or, indeed, if they were doing anything other than stumbling towards their worst finish in 50 years, I could understand the "integrity of the game" argument.  But right now there is no conceivable reason for fans to attend a game at Wrigley other than to have a few beers/hot dogs and enjoy the last couple of warm days before Chicago goes into deep freeze.  It literally cost the Cubs nothing to do this - ok, not quite nothing; 1/162nd of the MLB league minimum salary of $480,000  (i.e. $3000) - but still they passed.  Heck, even if you don't consider $3000 cheap for a PR stunt it would have been worth $3000 just to stop the story of them passing from getting written.  But I guess the Cubs brass didn't think so.  The "integrity" of the game was too important apparently (never mind the fire sale of all the team's tradeable parts at the the deadline).

So Liston next approached the Marlins (after all, it was their pitcher who beaned Mr. Greenberg in the first place) and last week they gave their answer: yes.  They signed him to a 1-day contract effective for tomorrow only, with the proceeds to be donated to a charity.  He will be in uniform tomorrow night when the Marlins face the Mets and, presumably, will be given one at bat.

I don't care that it's a PR stunt.  I don't care that Mr. Greenberg will likely strike out.  I am happy that Mr. Greenberg will get one more chance to stand in a major league batter's box and achieve a little bit of closure, and I'm proud of the Marlins organization for being willing to make the miniscule amount of effort necessary to give this story a happy ending.  And shame on the Cubs for not being willing to do the same.  Shame on them for missing the opportunity to have a positive PR story at the end of this disaster of a season and to send a message to their whole organization that "hey, we know you're not just assets; you're also people who have dreams and we will help you if we can."

Speaking of the Cubs, when Mr. Greenberg steps to the plate tomorrow night, 1000 miles away they will be facing the Houston Astros - literally the only other team in baseball with a worse record than them.  So glad we could "preserve the integrity of the game" by not allowing a PR stunt to distract us fans from this epic matchup.

Now, if Mr. Greenberg gets beaned tomorrow, then I can only conclude that God hates him.