Letters to the Editor
anonny
Published Letters: 124 Editor's Choice: 13
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CoDs
[Read the article: Touché, Senator McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, here's a strange little aside about consumer economics during the Jimmy Carter years. If you did happen to have some extra cash you could stash, you earned up to 17 percent on certificates of deposit.
Not *exactly* true. CoDs never got that high during the Carter years -- they did, though, in 1981.
You see, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Fed near the end of Carter's term. Volcker's view of the situation was that Monetary Theory (at the time) wasn't up to dealing with Stagflation, which was a new phenomenon. He felt that the only solution was to first starve out inflation, then fix the economic growth problem. The concept was that people had come to expect double-digit annual inflation, and in doing so it became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Union contracts had as annual double digit raised built right in. So, in order to fix that Volker tighten the money supply and forced the economy into a deep recession.
This was bad enough in 1980, but in 1981 Reagan pushed for a massive tax cut with no net cut in spending. Econ 102 (Macro) will tell you that this is a massive economic stimulus -- which Volcker protested was exactly at the wrong time, but of course he was ignored by the Reaganuts supply-siders, who were (and are) capable of believing anything to justify fattening their wallets.
So, by the summer of 1981 Volker had raised interest rates to insane levels, to counter the economic stimulus of the tax cuts, and that's when CoDs could be had near 20%.
Volcker kept it up all the way through 1983. He was probably the least popular economist amongst Republicans as late as mid-1983 -- there was thought to be no way he'd be reappointed as chairman -- but then a funny thing happened. In 1983 inflation finally, and predictably, plummetted. By the end of 1983 he opened the Money spiggot and, after 7 or so years of sup-par growth, the economy started the mid-1980s boom. Volcker was Wall Street's hero, and Reagan begrudingly reappointed him.
Lessons: 1) Although Reaganuts love to take credit for the mid-1980s boom, it was Volcker who caused it, over their intense protests and despite their mis-timed tax cut. 2) Part of the reason for the massive Reagan deficit was that the tax cut was passed at a time that the Fed was insistent on causing a recession -- so the weak economy made the revenue shortfall much worse. 3) The tax cut did not generate a revenue increase, as supply-siders and rich TV pundits alike continually assert. There were 6 tax increases passed by the Republican Senate and Reagan subsequent to the big tax cut, in order to reduce the deficit. Alas, Reaganuts have amnesia about those. 4) Volcker did leave the job in 1987 and Alan Greenspan, who was thought to be his ideological equal, replaced him. Alas, in the 2000s we learned that unlike Volcker, Greenspan actually has no firm principles.
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Stating the obvious ....
[Read the article: How bleak is the picture for Republicans?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are two reasons the Republicans are making these dire predictions now. The first is to energize their base and their contributors. The second is to set low expectations so that they can claim a moral victory in the fall.
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Stern
[Read the article: Lakers beat Celtics: Was the fix in again?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ok, let's acknowledge the obvious. Stern is a habitual liar. We've seen that time and again in his history.
Then let's acknowledge that there have been a lot of legitimate, unanswered questions regarding fixes.
Consider the lottery. The very first lottery gave the obvious #1 pick, Patrick Ewing, to New York (the worst ranked lottery team). Stern was openly estatic that NY was getting a player like Ewing, who at the time was expected to be the most dominant player of his generation, and analysis of the video showed that the envelope with NY's logo, which was chosen first, was marked externally before it was chosen. Stern solved that problem by moving future drawings off camera.
A few years later Orlando won the lottery against extremely high odds (they were the best non-lottery team), which allowed them to draft Webber (who they traded for Hardaway and picks) one year after Shaq. At the time the NBA was looking for another marquee team, with the Celtics and Lakers fading, and the coinicidence was just too much.
Of course, inconsistent officiating has plagued the NBA forever, so it's easy to guess that any given close game might be fixed. But in truth if a fix is put in they wouldn't rely on a last minute shot, but instead would try to keep the game from being close. That infamous 2002 game with the Lakers and Kings is an example -- yes it *was* close despite the bad calls, but that's only because the Kings were the better team, playing at home in game 6, and were totally ready to finally topple the Lakers. We've seen similar games over the years that weren't close -- such as game 7 of the conference finals between the Lakers and Seattle a few years earlier, and one of the games in the conference finals between the Pacers and Knicks in the mid-1990s. In each case the TV-favorite was in trouble and in a late-series game the calls all went on their side.
For Stern to simply deny this and to impugn the credibility of the accuser -- well, that's a Bush tactic. In reality Stern has no credibility. He needs to offer more of a defense than what he has.
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Racism and Sexism
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is almost certainly more latent racism than sexism in America. However, and possibly because of that, sexist comments appear to be are more social acceptable than racist ones.
Thus, Hillary got a lot more sexist verbal assaults than Obama did racist verbal assaults. But it's not clear who was hurt worse at the polls.