H. D. Thoreau would be 200 July 12th. There has been much finger pointing over recent changes in national policy regarding conservation. Let's assume that there is reasonable evidence that the earth is getting warmer, overall. Also assume that human activity makes some contribution to this warming, though the percentage is unknown. And for that matter, if the entire world population became totally involved in radically reducing greenhouse gases and other conservation measures, no one knows how much that would slow global warming if any, and how long it would take to have an impact. So climate change deniers and conservationists have in common the inability to translate observable data on global warming into the "correction of" global warming at a defined rate of improvement. Thoreau was a surveyor and scientific observer of Nature, and he would have been concerned about this lack of information.
The verbal battle between the "deniers" and the "conservationists" is intense and both sides call on scientific studies, some of which are useful but limited, and others are of dubious validity. This does not mean that there is no way to decide the issue. There is ample data to show that carbon emissions pollute the environment and cause public health problems. There is ample data to show that the exponentially increasing human population is making the earth less habitable. And there is ample data to show that the accumulation of human waste and discarded materials (trash!) are impacting people's lives. Why then did Al Gore choose to focus on climate change as his "Inconvenient Truth" rather than pollution? Why do environmentalists so often focus on "extinction of species"("extinction is forever") as the crucial issue, rather than quality of life of human habitability? The answer is political, not scientific. Climate change and extinction are dramatic extreme situations which are presumed to be irreversible. They are presented as relatively all or none: either we prevent the earth from "warming up" or the seas rise, cities are flooded, and crops dry out = major human crisis. This would have appealed to Thoreau. Living for two years in a cabin by a lake, and withdrawing into the simplest lifestyle was his way of saying "all or none": either you give up all the useless trappings of modern (19th century) life or you don't. Most people didn't and still don't and this stance is more symbolic and media driven than practical and life focused.
If we want to be "measured" conservationists we might start with a few simple assumptions:
1) set aside some land for wilderness and natural beauty and do not develop it, and utilize other lands effectively for economic purposes
2) regulate the discharge of toxic materials into the environment so that each person has a safe and practically healthy surrounding space
3) consume materials in such a manner that the earth and people in it are self sustaining and do not degrade its habitability.
Each of these proposals seems reasonable enough until one begins to ask "how much" and "which places" and "who must stop consuming what". For both individuals and countries these complex issues became controversial debates with frustrating outcomes.
The Grand Canyon is relatively preserved though parts are flooded by the Hoover dam which provides significant hydroelectric power for Nevada and California. But Glen Canyon was flooded and destroyed by the Glen Canyon dam in the 1960s despite a major political battle by the Sierra Club. This is considered a great natural loss of a beautiful environment. But without it, the silt debris in Lake Mead would likely have choked off the Hoover Dam by now and created new problems. Changing environmental patterns always have consequences not always foreseen.
New England was beset by acid rain in the 1950s, (and London terrible smog storms), and power plant emissions were presumed to be significant factors. After major political battles, emissions were reduced and coal firing greatly reduced, and now the coal industry is fighting back to try and regain jobs it will probably never use. Changes in regulation of the environment have human consequences which must be factored in.
The oceans are currently filled with unthinkable amounts of pollution, especially along coastlines, because it is easy to dump trash into them, and the assumption is made that they are so vast that the trash would somehow "disappear". It hasn't and it now forms island like accumulations in regions of current intersection. Do we really not care enough about the preservation of ocean space to find other ways (more expensive) to eliminate trash, or not create it in the first place? None of these are big headline issues for the nightly news. They are the basis for fund raising drives by organizations that advocate for conservation and the environment. Why do we need such organizations instead of a general societal goal for preserving the earth as habitable?
Thoreau's message was that it was each individual's task to balance his or her life to the needs of the natural world. But what if the person is too greedy? or doesnt have any knowledge of the natural world because he grew up in Queens(you know who you are)? or works for a company that saves money for profits by not attending to environmental issues?
Is it possible to create a sustained environmental focus based on individual initiative? The Sierra Club arranges outdoor activities and trips for its members, and the general public, including trips to National Parks and scenic areas. If everyone in the country visited natural regions every year would that help? Or would it just crowd the natural areas and make them "theme parks" with horrible traffic? Should everyone bear the additional costs of recycling trash and waste, or should the poor be required to pay less and the wealthy more? What is fair? For centuries rivers around great population centers have been polluted by waste human and industrial. The Ganges is a dramatic example, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire because of pollution, Love Canal in New York is credited with multiple cancer deaths as a result of pollution. Who should bear the cost of protecting the rivers and how to offset the disposal of chemicals and other materials if they cannot just be dumped? Environmentalists see this as clearly all-or-none: stop polluting, stop developing and honor the land. Commercial interests all agree except for the particular interest of theirs: stop polluting, but what I am doing doesn't have evidence that it is toxic "enough" to humans. (Why is it ok to dump any manufactured chemicals into rivers?) Political solutions are most effective when they balance the needs of both parties in the situation. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to find this balance, and no small part of this is the rhetoric of the conservation movement and its assurance that in a certain number of years the world will be irreversibly The current administration has withdrawn the US from the Paris Accords (has it really?). This backlash is the result of targeting key corporate "bogeymen" and they in turn fund political opponents. Companies do some bad things. And so do people. And getting people and companies to change is a political process best accomplished by real negotiation and not by the polarization of the current debate on both sides. And by the way, does anyone really think that the country will return to using coal as a major fuel source? How can the people impacted by this declining industry be realistically empowered to economic recovery?
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Thursday, June 15, 2017
How wealth inequality subverts the rule of law
The New York Times recently published an article that highlights a special issue in wealth inequality: how the very rich protect their money. (Permalink = http://nyti.ms/2gIYlf9 ). A wealthy couple who were both born in other countries but have lived and worked mostly in Florida, are getting divorced. Their work involved several businesses that offered services over the internet while delivering little and have been the subject of suits by several state attorneys general. In response to these suits, the husband took steps to move his wealth "offshore" and put it into accounts in locations impervious to legal attack in the United States. His wife claims not to have known about this, and to be surprised, when they filed for divorce, that she too has no access to this money in the divorce proceedings. She hired attorneys specially skilled in tracking "hidden" funds.
At one level, this is about the breakup of an unhappy marriage and how it leads to a fight over money to deal with the emotional distress. But it also tells something about the super-rich. The couple had several different homes in different countries and spent time living away in order to qualify for favorable tax rates based on where they were in residence. The husband spent little time in the US to avoid being vulnerable to legal proceedings. The suits against the various companies allege consumer fraud and even if this is not proven, it seems that the companies generated enrichment mostly for the owner(s?) and for the legal and accounting staff hired to sequester the wealth.
In the tension between the legal structure of local jurisdictions, and the protective desires of the super rich, individuals will make every effort to escape the regulation of the local system. And this is equally true for large multinational corporations. Apple, a tech darling, is known for sequestering much of its profits in a derivative company in Ireland where it pays much lower taxes. For some time, Switzerland was famous for a banking system which would allow wealthy from other countries to hold money in "secret" accounts, not readily accessible to foreign legal proceedings, though reportedly this has recently improved, and the Swiss have been replaced by several other banking havens. If we understand the "rule of law" as rules administered by a specific jurisdiction, then this story is about the super rich and major corporations do not believe they are subject to the jurisdiction or rule of law of the places where they earn their wealth!
And it would be a mistake to see this only as an offshore issue for the US. A "60 minutes" story repeated twice in the last year, shows how someone, pretending to represent a wealthy foreigner, is offered help in sequestering money by New York attorneys (not all of those approached agreed!) to protect their wealth from the local countries from whence they are escaping. There are super rich everywhere who, for one reason or another, wish to protect their money from local jurisdictions and legal suits and there are cadres of experts for hire to find ways to do so. Though the story in the New York Times features the wife's outrage at discovering that she is "locked out", in reality the entire country is "locked out". Such people believe their wealth can protect them from having to deal with their local society including litigation and tax laws. They believe that their wealth places them above the law.
This gives a different meaning to being super rich. It is not about how much you can buy or own, or how much you can enjoy your life. It is about how much you can "control" your life circumstances to avoid the consequences of your actions. Though you may have to live in special havens, avoid previous partners who have claims on your money, and subject yourself to other constraints to control your fortune. This is not a problem that can be solved by one country alone. Such transfers can only be managed by a system of international coordination of banking. And the rules protecting the rights of legal jurisdictions must be part of this process. The world is far from having that sort of cooperation. And it is not clear that the current US government sees this as a problem.
At one level, this is about the breakup of an unhappy marriage and how it leads to a fight over money to deal with the emotional distress. But it also tells something about the super-rich. The couple had several different homes in different countries and spent time living away in order to qualify for favorable tax rates based on where they were in residence. The husband spent little time in the US to avoid being vulnerable to legal proceedings. The suits against the various companies allege consumer fraud and even if this is not proven, it seems that the companies generated enrichment mostly for the owner(s?) and for the legal and accounting staff hired to sequester the wealth.
In the tension between the legal structure of local jurisdictions, and the protective desires of the super rich, individuals will make every effort to escape the regulation of the local system. And this is equally true for large multinational corporations. Apple, a tech darling, is known for sequestering much of its profits in a derivative company in Ireland where it pays much lower taxes. For some time, Switzerland was famous for a banking system which would allow wealthy from other countries to hold money in "secret" accounts, not readily accessible to foreign legal proceedings, though reportedly this has recently improved, and the Swiss have been replaced by several other banking havens. If we understand the "rule of law" as rules administered by a specific jurisdiction, then this story is about the super rich and major corporations do not believe they are subject to the jurisdiction or rule of law of the places where they earn their wealth!
And it would be a mistake to see this only as an offshore issue for the US. A "60 minutes" story repeated twice in the last year, shows how someone, pretending to represent a wealthy foreigner, is offered help in sequestering money by New York attorneys (not all of those approached agreed!) to protect their wealth from the local countries from whence they are escaping. There are super rich everywhere who, for one reason or another, wish to protect their money from local jurisdictions and legal suits and there are cadres of experts for hire to find ways to do so. Though the story in the New York Times features the wife's outrage at discovering that she is "locked out", in reality the entire country is "locked out". Such people believe their wealth can protect them from having to deal with their local society including litigation and tax laws. They believe that their wealth places them above the law.
This gives a different meaning to being super rich. It is not about how much you can buy or own, or how much you can enjoy your life. It is about how much you can "control" your life circumstances to avoid the consequences of your actions. Though you may have to live in special havens, avoid previous partners who have claims on your money, and subject yourself to other constraints to control your fortune. This is not a problem that can be solved by one country alone. Such transfers can only be managed by a system of international coordination of banking. And the rules protecting the rights of legal jurisdictions must be part of this process. The world is far from having that sort of cooperation. And it is not clear that the current US government sees this as a problem.
Economic development that destroys natural beauty
The September 19th, 2016 New Yorker magazine has a profile on Yvon Chouinard, the rock climber, adventurer, developer of new climbing hardware, and founder of the clothing company Patagonia. The profile captures the conflict between the adventurer and the businessman, and reveals a fundamental split in the agenda of the outdoor community. In keeping with Chouinard's personal values, the company has championed high risk outdoor wilderness adventures, primarily through the photographs in its catalog, while maintaining a strong support for environmental protection. The company has several initiatives to make its products more environmentally friendly and produces them with less environmental impact. (Less than other outdoor clothing manufacturers?) He is personally famous for his climbing exploits and other adventures. And the profile reveals his desire to be an environmentalist in the strongest terms. Along with a few other colleagues of his generation (now 77) his career embodies the dream of people who pursue their favorite activities and are financially rewarded at the same time --- like Hobie Alter developing his beach boats, and the Meistrell brothers who founded Body Glove wet suits.
Chouinard is not happy though. The natural world that he loved to explore and challenge is becoming crowded and overdeveloped. Ski areas to him are "golf courses" of social and real estate development. And climbing has become so popular that major climbs require scheduling by serious climbers. Surfing along the California coast is so crowded that on good days there is competition for waves that sometimes gets ugly. What happened? Success. The adventures of Chouinard and others were so appealing that more and more people were attracted to them, and bought outdoor clothing, and ropes, chock and expansion bolts, surf boards, etc. Outdoor adventure has become a major business. REI of Seattle, once a clubby supplier to hard core outdoorsy people is now a large marketer of the "outdoor lifestyle" with clothing, lessons, trips, and everything you might need to enjoy your adventure. Going outdoors is no longer for an odd group of folks who want to escape the more developed part of the world. Major climbs like Mt. Whitney and Mt. Everest must be scheduled to deal with the high demand. To be sure these are still daunting climbs requiring training and conditioning. But more and more reports indicate that some of the climbers are marginally prepared and in mortal danger if the situation turns against them. Deaths have occurred. There are still wilderness areas in several parts of the Americas, and the Himalayas. But the most desirable of these areas get very busy at the peak times of the year and it is hard to say that you are "alone in the wilderness" at those times.
Chouinard the businessman has succeeded in defining a lifestyle and a premium clothing brand that draws others to fantasize and sometimes populate the outdoors, so he is chipping away at the wilderness he is fond of, and wishes to protect. It makes no sense to focus on him personally: there is now an extensive industry of equipment, clothing, travel planning, and training all designed to make money off people wanting to be outdoors, in relatively wild and unspoiled places. A similar challenge faces the National Park Service every year when it must deal with the seasonal demand for access and utilization of its most popular parks, effectively degrading their "natural" and "wild" qualities into crowded tourist experiences. Even the Sierra Club sponsors guided wilderness trips on the justification that getting people to experience the wilderness will make them stronger advocates for it. There is a long history everywhere in the world of people discovering beautiful natural places and wanting to live around them. Housing developments are built by people wealthy enough to afford multiple homes, and the sites become real estate projects. Yvon's life story is just one poignant example of the incompatibility between the desire for natural experiences and the desire to have some economic benefit from the access.
The solution is elusive. It is possible to restrict the access to wilderness locations and require controlled reservations to enter them. This already occurs in some popular National Parks. And this effectively nullifies that sense of spontaneous wandering into wild places! There are still beautiful unrestricted natural areas in the US and other parts of the world, but the threats of development, including high end tourist development are current challenges along with natural resource development of logging, mining, and drilling. How many ski mountains, once wild places with a few lifts and some rambling shacks, have been transformed into condo cities which flood to overflowing in good snow seasons and otherwise languish. Avid skiers seem to rarely notice that the part of the mountain that is "wild and natural" has poles going up it to carry lift lines, and the base is covered with lodges and resorts that are anything but "wild and natural". Everyone is entitled to enjoy the gifts of nature in their own way, but some ways effectively nullify the benefit for others.
The only solution is changing the public's attitude toward using the natural world. Give up using it to prove what a great climber you are. Give up using it as a party space away from home with all the pleasures of home. Give up making it easy and accessible to large numbers of folks. Encourage visitors to concentrate only on seeing and understanding the natural features and beauty and not any way of exploiting or "using" it. And this includes emphasizing natural means of navigation around the sites and limited access by motorized vehicles. In short, give up trying to make money off of the natural beauty in any aggressive way, and fund access to preserve and protect the natural beauty that people initial claim to care about. One can compare the North and South rim of the Grand Canyon to see how two different ways of developing the same site result in dramatically different experiences. None of this is new. Edward Abbey had the same rants in Desert Solitaire half a century ago. And he did not slow the changes, and neither will this.
Chouinard is not happy though. The natural world that he loved to explore and challenge is becoming crowded and overdeveloped. Ski areas to him are "golf courses" of social and real estate development. And climbing has become so popular that major climbs require scheduling by serious climbers. Surfing along the California coast is so crowded that on good days there is competition for waves that sometimes gets ugly. What happened? Success. The adventures of Chouinard and others were so appealing that more and more people were attracted to them, and bought outdoor clothing, and ropes, chock and expansion bolts, surf boards, etc. Outdoor adventure has become a major business. REI of Seattle, once a clubby supplier to hard core outdoorsy people is now a large marketer of the "outdoor lifestyle" with clothing, lessons, trips, and everything you might need to enjoy your adventure. Going outdoors is no longer for an odd group of folks who want to escape the more developed part of the world. Major climbs like Mt. Whitney and Mt. Everest must be scheduled to deal with the high demand. To be sure these are still daunting climbs requiring training and conditioning. But more and more reports indicate that some of the climbers are marginally prepared and in mortal danger if the situation turns against them. Deaths have occurred. There are still wilderness areas in several parts of the Americas, and the Himalayas. But the most desirable of these areas get very busy at the peak times of the year and it is hard to say that you are "alone in the wilderness" at those times.
Chouinard the businessman has succeeded in defining a lifestyle and a premium clothing brand that draws others to fantasize and sometimes populate the outdoors, so he is chipping away at the wilderness he is fond of, and wishes to protect. It makes no sense to focus on him personally: there is now an extensive industry of equipment, clothing, travel planning, and training all designed to make money off people wanting to be outdoors, in relatively wild and unspoiled places. A similar challenge faces the National Park Service every year when it must deal with the seasonal demand for access and utilization of its most popular parks, effectively degrading their "natural" and "wild" qualities into crowded tourist experiences. Even the Sierra Club sponsors guided wilderness trips on the justification that getting people to experience the wilderness will make them stronger advocates for it. There is a long history everywhere in the world of people discovering beautiful natural places and wanting to live around them. Housing developments are built by people wealthy enough to afford multiple homes, and the sites become real estate projects. Yvon's life story is just one poignant example of the incompatibility between the desire for natural experiences and the desire to have some economic benefit from the access.
The solution is elusive. It is possible to restrict the access to wilderness locations and require controlled reservations to enter them. This already occurs in some popular National Parks. And this effectively nullifies that sense of spontaneous wandering into wild places! There are still beautiful unrestricted natural areas in the US and other parts of the world, but the threats of development, including high end tourist development are current challenges along with natural resource development of logging, mining, and drilling. How many ski mountains, once wild places with a few lifts and some rambling shacks, have been transformed into condo cities which flood to overflowing in good snow seasons and otherwise languish. Avid skiers seem to rarely notice that the part of the mountain that is "wild and natural" has poles going up it to carry lift lines, and the base is covered with lodges and resorts that are anything but "wild and natural". Everyone is entitled to enjoy the gifts of nature in their own way, but some ways effectively nullify the benefit for others.
The only solution is changing the public's attitude toward using the natural world. Give up using it to prove what a great climber you are. Give up using it as a party space away from home with all the pleasures of home. Give up making it easy and accessible to large numbers of folks. Encourage visitors to concentrate only on seeing and understanding the natural features and beauty and not any way of exploiting or "using" it. And this includes emphasizing natural means of navigation around the sites and limited access by motorized vehicles. In short, give up trying to make money off of the natural beauty in any aggressive way, and fund access to preserve and protect the natural beauty that people initial claim to care about. One can compare the North and South rim of the Grand Canyon to see how two different ways of developing the same site result in dramatically different experiences. None of this is new. Edward Abbey had the same rants in Desert Solitaire half a century ago. And he did not slow the changes, and neither will this.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
DISCOVERY OF CA 2: CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
The movie "Pretty Woman" ends with the message from HAPPY MAN: "Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream? Everybody comes here; this is
Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don't; but keep
on dreamin' - this is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on
dreamin'. "
The historian Ken Starr wrote a series of books on the history of California from its discovery to the 1960's. They provide an introduction to the major topics and events in the state in its short but dramatic history. The first is called "Americans and the California Dream", and the subsequent volumes all carry the dream theme along in their title. I think his intention was to capture the hopes and fantasies of people coming to the state and the continuous quality of dreams in later arrivals. There have been many migrations of dreamers into the state. The first was the Junipero Sera expedition of the Spanish Missionaries that created the chain of missions on the coast. The second was the gold rush of 1849 that created San Francisco and the State as a state of the union. The third major migration of the "pioneers" in covered wagons was an amazing heroic series of journeys, described from a personal perspective by Didion in "Where I was From". The fourth was the dust bowl "Okie" migration of desperate farmers from the mid-West described in "Grapes of Wrath" and numerous films. And there have been many other smaller ones, including Chinese and Japanese settlers coming to help develop the new state. Each group came with their dreams of wealth and happiness, and some were rewarded beyond even their wildest dreams, and others ended in disaster and death, like the "Donner party".
The disparity between dreams and reality is huge. The Okies came swarming to Southern California imagining it was the Eden of their dreams, only to find themselves blocked at the borders by the previous generations of immigrants who were all too aware of how limited the opportunities were, and did not welcome more competition for the limited resources. Didion's description of Sacramento echoes the same impatience with the economic invasion of post war immigrants, who were not "settlers" and did not understand what the previous generation of "pioneers" had been through. After living here for a few years, I realize that I am no different from the other migrants to this place. I came with dreams, like being close to family, which have been realized. And others, like being part of the film industry, that have not. It is not an easy place to retire since the housing costs are high, and the scattered development makes car travel a necessity in a place where this can be very frustrating. (Driving in LA is a whole other story!) The weather is often pleasant, though not quite as promoted by the C of C. Some very wealthy people retire to LA and enjoy its charms buoyed up by their affluence, but most come with less, and struggle to find their place in a city which has embodied the extremes of rich and poor much longer than the most of the US. As always, the poor struggle most, the middle class have less coherence as they try desperately to ascend to the 1% and have more influence, and even the 1% have little influence in a place where the 0.1% are in great supply.
The irony is not lost on me. For there is a mental transformation that immigrants to California must go through after they arrive. The "dreams of California" must be replaced by the realities of sustaining daily lives in a difficult environment. At one time, the challenges were a lack of water, and very limited development. Oil, movie, aviation, military and real estate booms brought prosperity, over development, and the challenges of modern California: an overpopulated, economically competitive state the size of most countries. The "old timers" who have managed to survive here all understand: if you have not struggled to survive here, you are not really a Californian, just a "California dreamer".
The historian Ken Starr wrote a series of books on the history of California from its discovery to the 1960's. They provide an introduction to the major topics and events in the state in its short but dramatic history. The first is called "Americans and the California Dream", and the subsequent volumes all carry the dream theme along in their title. I think his intention was to capture the hopes and fantasies of people coming to the state and the continuous quality of dreams in later arrivals. There have been many migrations of dreamers into the state. The first was the Junipero Sera expedition of the Spanish Missionaries that created the chain of missions on the coast. The second was the gold rush of 1849 that created San Francisco and the State as a state of the union. The third major migration of the "pioneers" in covered wagons was an amazing heroic series of journeys, described from a personal perspective by Didion in "Where I was From". The fourth was the dust bowl "Okie" migration of desperate farmers from the mid-West described in "Grapes of Wrath" and numerous films. And there have been many other smaller ones, including Chinese and Japanese settlers coming to help develop the new state. Each group came with their dreams of wealth and happiness, and some were rewarded beyond even their wildest dreams, and others ended in disaster and death, like the "Donner party".
The disparity between dreams and reality is huge. The Okies came swarming to Southern California imagining it was the Eden of their dreams, only to find themselves blocked at the borders by the previous generations of immigrants who were all too aware of how limited the opportunities were, and did not welcome more competition for the limited resources. Didion's description of Sacramento echoes the same impatience with the economic invasion of post war immigrants, who were not "settlers" and did not understand what the previous generation of "pioneers" had been through. After living here for a few years, I realize that I am no different from the other migrants to this place. I came with dreams, like being close to family, which have been realized. And others, like being part of the film industry, that have not. It is not an easy place to retire since the housing costs are high, and the scattered development makes car travel a necessity in a place where this can be very frustrating. (Driving in LA is a whole other story!) The weather is often pleasant, though not quite as promoted by the C of C. Some very wealthy people retire to LA and enjoy its charms buoyed up by their affluence, but most come with less, and struggle to find their place in a city which has embodied the extremes of rich and poor much longer than the most of the US. As always, the poor struggle most, the middle class have less coherence as they try desperately to ascend to the 1% and have more influence, and even the 1% have little influence in a place where the 0.1% are in great supply.
The irony is not lost on me. For there is a mental transformation that immigrants to California must go through after they arrive. The "dreams of California" must be replaced by the realities of sustaining daily lives in a difficult environment. At one time, the challenges were a lack of water, and very limited development. Oil, movie, aviation, military and real estate booms brought prosperity, over development, and the challenges of modern California: an overpopulated, economically competitive state the size of most countries. The "old timers" who have managed to survive here all understand: if you have not struggled to survive here, you are not really a Californian, just a "California dreamer".
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Mar A Lago and Climate Change
Whether Donald Trump will be an effective president is unknown but there is no doubt now that he is an audacious real estate promoter. Suppose you were to buy a run down property with historical interest in Florida in 1985 and invest a bundle of money in renovating it to become an “exclusive club”. The local high society has no interest in joining and you must open the club to whoever is attracted to it. A hurricane in 2005 causes minor damage and the rising sea level makes it clear that the property on a spit on the Florida Palm Beach coast is ultimately going under water. How would you promote the property for a favorable sale?
The president- real estate promoter has options unavailable to the average developer: Spend 25 of your first 100 days there (during the Winter season when it is habitable) identifying it as the “Southern White House” for historical value. Invite world leaders from China and Japan to confer there instead of the actual White House in DC. Since local Florida investors and northeastern US investors are unlikely to be interested, investors from China or Japan are the most likely buyers. But what about the rising sea level? Just declare that “climate change is a myth”, take it out of government websites and assure potential buyers that there is nothing to worry about! What an audacious marketing strategy for an ultimately doomed property. When did President Trump realize that the rising sea level would destroy the value of the property? He started denying climate change in 2012, when the Palm Beach community was increasing funding to protect itself from rising water. So he has been anticipating this for some time. And none of this is illegal! He is entitled to own property and to visit it as other presidents have. He is entitled to entertain foreign visitors there, as Nixon did at San Clemente. And ultimately he is entitled to sell it for whatever price he can accomplish! Brilliant!
The president- real estate promoter has options unavailable to the average developer: Spend 25 of your first 100 days there (during the Winter season when it is habitable) identifying it as the “Southern White House” for historical value. Invite world leaders from China and Japan to confer there instead of the actual White House in DC. Since local Florida investors and northeastern US investors are unlikely to be interested, investors from China or Japan are the most likely buyers. But what about the rising sea level? Just declare that “climate change is a myth”, take it out of government websites and assure potential buyers that there is nothing to worry about! What an audacious marketing strategy for an ultimately doomed property. When did President Trump realize that the rising sea level would destroy the value of the property? He started denying climate change in 2012, when the Palm Beach community was increasing funding to protect itself from rising water. So he has been anticipating this for some time. And none of this is illegal! He is entitled to own property and to visit it as other presidents have. He is entitled to entertain foreign visitors there, as Nixon did at San Clemente. And ultimately he is entitled to sell it for whatever price he can accomplish! Brilliant!
HOW THE DEMOCRATS LOST THE ELECTION AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT US
It has been almost 100 days into the Trump presidency, and another 60 or so since the election. The immediate pundit response to “how the Democrats lost” is over, and forgotten. This is unfortunate because the core lessons will have a future impact on the two party system in this country Understanding the Democratic party failure is an important part of re-establishing it in parity in this countervailing process. There are three levels of failure in the process: 1) structural party and system issues 2) specific problems of this election and 3) challenges of the specific candidate.
1) structural party and system issues
The DNC subverted the primary electoral process. From early in the primary, it was clear that the DNC was committed to supporting Hilary Clinton as the next candidate and that they did various things to interfere with the primary process. The relative success of the Sanders campaign should have been an indicator that Clinton was not popular with the electorate but was ignored. The “super delegate” process of lining up delegates not chosen by primary BEFORE the results were understood was especially destructive. In this process the DNC and Clinton herself revealed the fundamentally undemocratic attitude she has about the electoral process. That this information was leaked only made it more obvious to voters.
The geographic and political identity of the democratic party has been shifting. The Democratic party has an urban liberal identity which was intensified during the Obama administration. This includes the majority of the population as the population has shifted, but it does not successfully carry the country by congressional or electoral college tally. Some of this disparity is the result of a concerted effort by Republicans at the state level to gerrymander control of voting state by state in accessible states. This is a slow incremental process begun by Newt Gingrich (!) and Democrats do not seem to have the patience for this task. Also the shift in demographics of the country has been economic but not political. Urban areas are much more likely to be economically advantageous (with certain obvious exceptions in the Rust Belt) but the political distribution of votes and house seats has not adjusted as quickly. (This changes only from census to census.) The Clinton campaign is blamed for the failure to lure rural voters in key states Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. This is partly a demographic issue and partly a problem in strategy of how to engage these voters. The Obama recovery of the auto industry should have been enough, but the Clinton strategy did not know how.
Does the electoral college invalidate votes of the majority? Or even votes of the minority in some states? Though after the election Trump made the comment that it should be abolished, he would have lost without it! For Liberal Democrats it seems like an obstacle to getting the full public vote for President, but what if a demagogue ran uniting White Supremacist voters across many states? Would Liberals be in a hurry to abandon the Electoral College then? It stands as a method of insuring national participation against the dominant role of certain large states: New York, Florida, Texas, and California. Should those states have an outsized role in picking the President?
There is much recognition by pundits that the Democratic party abandoned the lower middle class white voter. This began with Bill Clinton and his recognition of the need for Wall St and Hollywood money. It was continued by Obama, and then Hilary Clinton. Her statement on the “deplorables” of the Trump campaign sealed the rejection of this group. And there are many women in that group who rejected her candidacy as not representing their values. H Clinton was the “women’s candidate” for only a part of the female electorate and barely a majority. In effect the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting for the same educated, economically stable, middle class and upper middle class voters for more than 8 years, with both parties offering false messages to this other lower social group for support that never comes. Neither party has a track record for this group of voters. Trump capitalized on this with a voice honed out of talk radio, Clinton was clueless. One one critic put it: framing debate about overtime etc was more important than transgender bathrooms and sexual abuse.
There are technically more poor and lower middle class people than middle class and rich people, so demographically Republicans should always be the minority party. This has led to several strategies to attempt to counter this problem including “voter ID laws” and limiting poll access by inconvenience to interfere with worker voting. Democrats have responded with motor-voter and other initiatives, and court fights against ID laws. The irony is that while this struggle has been going on, the Democrats have abandoned positions that would maintain the commitment of these voters, so the importance of all this is now unclear. “the election day should be a national holiday” as it is in some countries so voters could have off to vote, but if they won't vote for your party it doesnt matter!
2) specific problems of this election
The Democrats had a potentially successful candidate: Biden but his recent loss of his son and long career in politics made him decide not to run. He seemed the more suitable candidate and the fact that the DNC did not look for a similar person, but opted for Hilary because she had bowed out in 2004 and it was “her turn” was catastrophically stupid.
The Clinton campaign was run more as a media blitz campaign than by the ground game data of the Obama team. Clinton had a data driven ground game and “game plan” but it was not attuned to local concerns according to all feedback, and assumed that certain states were lost and unimportant, and others were sure. These were core strategic errors in the campaigns tactics and represent the kind of central management Hilary Clinton is famous for, and which has caused her to have problems at other times. Is she unable to delegate effectively?
Terrorism and domestic terrorism were issues facing the country as the result of overseas events. Each candidate was required to define a position regarding this. Trump took the extreme view: exclude the bad guys, I will protect you. Clinton took the conciliatory role: we are all in this together, don’t alienate the loyal members of our country. Both positions are valid and could have been effective but Clinton was not an effective presenter of her position and the exclusionary view is always easier to sell. By calling Trump supporters “deplorable people” she undermined her own position of inclusion and seemed to say “Moslems are ok but loud angry lower class Whites are not”.
Pollsters were consistently wrong, even Trump’s, who believed he was going to lose. This led to Clinton slowing down, and probably mis-allocating resources. But it also revealed the inability of pollsters to capture the energy in the society at rallies for Sanders and Trump and the lack of same for Clinton. She was accused of slowing down and being overconfident at the end of the campaign but seemed tired and lacking the energy to push through. (Or it may indicate that Republicans manipulated the vote in some states.)
Johnson (and Stein) seemed to be marginal 3rd party candidates but took more from Clinton than Trump, perhaps even enough to throw the balance in the few key rust belt states. Clinton et al did not take their impact seriously during the election and did not acquire Sanders followers effectively.
There was a strong racial backlash against Obama that was surfacing in the later years of his presidency in the form of murders by police and a “black lives matter” movement. This was potentially lethal to Democrats splitting these voters and they never came up with a workable strategy and lost turnout from both. This broke the Obama coalition which was essential to offsetting this racist backlash. The talk radio, Fox News, etc media blast against Clinton was fierce and constant and help swing voters in key states away from her or away from turning out for her. (But they did as much to Obama and he was able to reverse and use it. She was not.) Trump played this intensively and there is a surprisingly strong racist element in American society at this time. Who they are and why this has emerged is not entirely clear, but Clinton was unable to reverse the tide.
3) challenges of the specific candidate.
Clinton’s failure to define major issues was a problem. The greatest mystery of the campaign was Hilary’s decision to run against Trump’s sexual behavior not his failures in life and policy. This played to a very narrow PC world of sexually reactive women, and did not even have much traction in the “rainbow” community. (It even back fired in the end when Huma Abadin’s husband came into view.) In effect she was running against her husband’s behavior! And this was noted by many and undermined her position: why didn’t she leave Bill if this is so terrible?
Sexual misbehavior is seen by some as a sign of masculinity and harping on this did not help her with key demographics.
Trump harped on the lost jobs, but in fact the economy was growing. He made the issue the Clinton trade deals which HAD lost jobs. The two key issues were manufacturing jobs, and the failure to recover the middle class. Clinton had ideas about these but could never express them in good sound bite terms. Trump had used the very foreign labor that he railed about for his hotels and could have been skewered on this instead of his sexual attitudes. Clinton could not attack corporations like Sanders did because she was beholden to corporate money. She could never effectively frame the economic debate with Trump. Trump was a “blue collar billionaire” who ran a confused disorganized campaign and shoulds have lost. But he was able to verbalize the frustration of marginalized lower class whites in a way that Clinton could not.
She has been accused of arrogance which is more about entitlement. She thought being the “first female president” would speak for itself as the first black president had, and did not appreciate the complex campaigns that Obama ran. “its my turn” did not resonate with anyone. Her inability to accept responsibility is interesting. It was most obvious after the campaign when she began blaming Comey and the Russians in just the way Trump had threatened to do, if he lost. A loser who blames others is not taking responsibility. But in the broader sense she is just not an appealing candidate: her speeches, her style, her gestures have little charisma, and her record is far from stellar.
Both Clinton and her committee failed to understand the issues of internet security and hacking. Even after she had been discovered to allow classified emails on her insecure server, and was warned by the FBI that the committee servers were hacked, she did not recognize the significance. She is of the generation that cannot deal with the internet which was a striking (apparent) contrast to Trump who had advisors who helped him use social media effectively.
What does this tell us about this time in US history? The most important issue is the weakening of the two party system. This is partly the result of economic changes the democratic party has embraced while ignoring the impact on its traditional supporters. But it is also about the importance of building base and structure at the local level. The most Liberal Democrats have had the least patience for that task, while Conservative Republicans have had the most. Maybe this will change things. Regarding the electoral process, first the Democrats ignored all the processes put into place to ensure a more popular involvement in the primary selection. There was a candidate that might have been stronger. Second, a pure media campaign is no longer effective with voters. Social media, BUZZ, and direct charismatic skill have more impact, some would say too much. And a high tech computerized well managed ground game is important. The role of polling is suspect and was clearly almost worthless in this election. The candidate must be carefully focused toward the key voter issues, and polling does not consistently tell what will create "turnout".
The most difficult message of this campaign was why the United States was saddled with two unappealing candidates as the choice for the highest office of the country. Neither primary process adequately enabled more appealing candidates to come forward and be recognized. But who might they be? There is a worrisome sense that being a political candidate and especially a presidential candidate is a tiring thankless job, only taken on by family dynasties and arrogant billionaires.
If there is a serious message for the country in this election, it is that we have lost the fundamental motivation of individuals for public service.
1) structural party and system issues
The DNC subverted the primary electoral process. From early in the primary, it was clear that the DNC was committed to supporting Hilary Clinton as the next candidate and that they did various things to interfere with the primary process. The relative success of the Sanders campaign should have been an indicator that Clinton was not popular with the electorate but was ignored. The “super delegate” process of lining up delegates not chosen by primary BEFORE the results were understood was especially destructive. In this process the DNC and Clinton herself revealed the fundamentally undemocratic attitude she has about the electoral process. That this information was leaked only made it more obvious to voters.
The geographic and political identity of the democratic party has been shifting. The Democratic party has an urban liberal identity which was intensified during the Obama administration. This includes the majority of the population as the population has shifted, but it does not successfully carry the country by congressional or electoral college tally. Some of this disparity is the result of a concerted effort by Republicans at the state level to gerrymander control of voting state by state in accessible states. This is a slow incremental process begun by Newt Gingrich (!) and Democrats do not seem to have the patience for this task. Also the shift in demographics of the country has been economic but not political. Urban areas are much more likely to be economically advantageous (with certain obvious exceptions in the Rust Belt) but the political distribution of votes and house seats has not adjusted as quickly. (This changes only from census to census.) The Clinton campaign is blamed for the failure to lure rural voters in key states Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. This is partly a demographic issue and partly a problem in strategy of how to engage these voters. The Obama recovery of the auto industry should have been enough, but the Clinton strategy did not know how.
Does the electoral college invalidate votes of the majority? Or even votes of the minority in some states? Though after the election Trump made the comment that it should be abolished, he would have lost without it! For Liberal Democrats it seems like an obstacle to getting the full public vote for President, but what if a demagogue ran uniting White Supremacist voters across many states? Would Liberals be in a hurry to abandon the Electoral College then? It stands as a method of insuring national participation against the dominant role of certain large states: New York, Florida, Texas, and California. Should those states have an outsized role in picking the President?
There is much recognition by pundits that the Democratic party abandoned the lower middle class white voter. This began with Bill Clinton and his recognition of the need for Wall St and Hollywood money. It was continued by Obama, and then Hilary Clinton. Her statement on the “deplorables” of the Trump campaign sealed the rejection of this group. And there are many women in that group who rejected her candidacy as not representing their values. H Clinton was the “women’s candidate” for only a part of the female electorate and barely a majority. In effect the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting for the same educated, economically stable, middle class and upper middle class voters for more than 8 years, with both parties offering false messages to this other lower social group for support that never comes. Neither party has a track record for this group of voters. Trump capitalized on this with a voice honed out of talk radio, Clinton was clueless. One one critic put it: framing debate about overtime etc was more important than transgender bathrooms and sexual abuse.
There are technically more poor and lower middle class people than middle class and rich people, so demographically Republicans should always be the minority party. This has led to several strategies to attempt to counter this problem including “voter ID laws” and limiting poll access by inconvenience to interfere with worker voting. Democrats have responded with motor-voter and other initiatives, and court fights against ID laws. The irony is that while this struggle has been going on, the Democrats have abandoned positions that would maintain the commitment of these voters, so the importance of all this is now unclear. “the election day should be a national holiday” as it is in some countries so voters could have off to vote, but if they won't vote for your party it doesnt matter!
2) specific problems of this election
The Democrats had a potentially successful candidate: Biden but his recent loss of his son and long career in politics made him decide not to run. He seemed the more suitable candidate and the fact that the DNC did not look for a similar person, but opted for Hilary because she had bowed out in 2004 and it was “her turn” was catastrophically stupid.
The Clinton campaign was run more as a media blitz campaign than by the ground game data of the Obama team. Clinton had a data driven ground game and “game plan” but it was not attuned to local concerns according to all feedback, and assumed that certain states were lost and unimportant, and others were sure. These were core strategic errors in the campaigns tactics and represent the kind of central management Hilary Clinton is famous for, and which has caused her to have problems at other times. Is she unable to delegate effectively?
Terrorism and domestic terrorism were issues facing the country as the result of overseas events. Each candidate was required to define a position regarding this. Trump took the extreme view: exclude the bad guys, I will protect you. Clinton took the conciliatory role: we are all in this together, don’t alienate the loyal members of our country. Both positions are valid and could have been effective but Clinton was not an effective presenter of her position and the exclusionary view is always easier to sell. By calling Trump supporters “deplorable people” she undermined her own position of inclusion and seemed to say “Moslems are ok but loud angry lower class Whites are not”.
Pollsters were consistently wrong, even Trump’s, who believed he was going to lose. This led to Clinton slowing down, and probably mis-allocating resources. But it also revealed the inability of pollsters to capture the energy in the society at rallies for Sanders and Trump and the lack of same for Clinton. She was accused of slowing down and being overconfident at the end of the campaign but seemed tired and lacking the energy to push through. (Or it may indicate that Republicans manipulated the vote in some states.)
Johnson (and Stein) seemed to be marginal 3rd party candidates but took more from Clinton than Trump, perhaps even enough to throw the balance in the few key rust belt states. Clinton et al did not take their impact seriously during the election and did not acquire Sanders followers effectively.
There was a strong racial backlash against Obama that was surfacing in the later years of his presidency in the form of murders by police and a “black lives matter” movement. This was potentially lethal to Democrats splitting these voters and they never came up with a workable strategy and lost turnout from both. This broke the Obama coalition which was essential to offsetting this racist backlash. The talk radio, Fox News, etc media blast against Clinton was fierce and constant and help swing voters in key states away from her or away from turning out for her. (But they did as much to Obama and he was able to reverse and use it. She was not.) Trump played this intensively and there is a surprisingly strong racist element in American society at this time. Who they are and why this has emerged is not entirely clear, but Clinton was unable to reverse the tide.
3) challenges of the specific candidate.
Clinton’s failure to define major issues was a problem. The greatest mystery of the campaign was Hilary’s decision to run against Trump’s sexual behavior not his failures in life and policy. This played to a very narrow PC world of sexually reactive women, and did not even have much traction in the “rainbow” community. (It even back fired in the end when Huma Abadin’s husband came into view.) In effect she was running against her husband’s behavior! And this was noted by many and undermined her position: why didn’t she leave Bill if this is so terrible?
Sexual misbehavior is seen by some as a sign of masculinity and harping on this did not help her with key demographics.
Trump harped on the lost jobs, but in fact the economy was growing. He made the issue the Clinton trade deals which HAD lost jobs. The two key issues were manufacturing jobs, and the failure to recover the middle class. Clinton had ideas about these but could never express them in good sound bite terms. Trump had used the very foreign labor that he railed about for his hotels and could have been skewered on this instead of his sexual attitudes. Clinton could not attack corporations like Sanders did because she was beholden to corporate money. She could never effectively frame the economic debate with Trump. Trump was a “blue collar billionaire” who ran a confused disorganized campaign and shoulds have lost. But he was able to verbalize the frustration of marginalized lower class whites in a way that Clinton could not.
She has been accused of arrogance which is more about entitlement. She thought being the “first female president” would speak for itself as the first black president had, and did not appreciate the complex campaigns that Obama ran. “its my turn” did not resonate with anyone. Her inability to accept responsibility is interesting. It was most obvious after the campaign when she began blaming Comey and the Russians in just the way Trump had threatened to do, if he lost. A loser who blames others is not taking responsibility. But in the broader sense she is just not an appealing candidate: her speeches, her style, her gestures have little charisma, and her record is far from stellar.
Both Clinton and her committee failed to understand the issues of internet security and hacking. Even after she had been discovered to allow classified emails on her insecure server, and was warned by the FBI that the committee servers were hacked, she did not recognize the significance. She is of the generation that cannot deal with the internet which was a striking (apparent) contrast to Trump who had advisors who helped him use social media effectively.
What does this tell us about this time in US history? The most important issue is the weakening of the two party system. This is partly the result of economic changes the democratic party has embraced while ignoring the impact on its traditional supporters. But it is also about the importance of building base and structure at the local level. The most Liberal Democrats have had the least patience for that task, while Conservative Republicans have had the most. Maybe this will change things. Regarding the electoral process, first the Democrats ignored all the processes put into place to ensure a more popular involvement in the primary selection. There was a candidate that might have been stronger. Second, a pure media campaign is no longer effective with voters. Social media, BUZZ, and direct charismatic skill have more impact, some would say too much. And a high tech computerized well managed ground game is important. The role of polling is suspect and was clearly almost worthless in this election. The candidate must be carefully focused toward the key voter issues, and polling does not consistently tell what will create "turnout".
The most difficult message of this campaign was why the United States was saddled with two unappealing candidates as the choice for the highest office of the country. Neither primary process adequately enabled more appealing candidates to come forward and be recognized. But who might they be? There is a worrisome sense that being a political candidate and especially a presidential candidate is a tiring thankless job, only taken on by family dynasties and arrogant billionaires.
If there is a serious message for the country in this election, it is that we have lost the fundamental motivation of individuals for public service.
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