Politics

Next week, Antonio Villaraigosa will be overwhelmingly re-elected mayor of Los Angeles. Do not, however, take the size of his margin – he faces no significant opposition – as evidence that all is well in the city of angels.

Whatever His Honor says to the media, the sad reality remains that Los Angeles has fallen into a serious secular decline. This constitutes one of the most rapid – and largely unnecessary – municipal reversals in fortune in American urban history.  read more »

It was during the inaugural days that an article appeared in The Washington Post about the predominantly black Mississippi Delta going for Obama – no surprise! But juxtaposed in the same time period there appeared in a Kentucky newspaper the story of predominantly white Menifee County, my birthplace – deep in the heart of Appalachia – defying the red sea of Kentucky all around it and also going for Obama.  read more »

Last night I wrote about the Obama Administration’s housing bail out. But, I hate to say, there’s more to tell you – and it’s actually worse. In addition to the giveaways to mortgage holders, we also have to consider the federal government effectively offering to give a credit default swap (CDS, remember those?) to the banks.  read more »

For decades, California has epitomized America's economic strengths: technological excellence, artistic creativity, agricultural fecundity and an intrepid entrepreneurial spirit. Yet lately California has projected a grimmer vision of a politically divided, economically stagnant state. Last week its legislature cut a deal to close its $42 billion budget deficit, but its larger problems remain.  read more »

I was laying in bed this morning, listening to discussions of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, the 2009 version of a Homeowner Bailout. (The 2008 version was spent on the banks.) I listened closely because I had to decide if it was worth getting out of bed to earn the money to pay my mortgage or not. Like all those bankers that got a bailout, I was wondering if it might be worth more to me to default on my mortgage than to pay it.  read more »

January 1979 saw one of the worst blizzards in city history hit Chicago, dumping 20 inches of snow, closing O'Hare airport for 46 hours, and paralyzing traffic in the city for days. Despite the record snowfall, the city's ineffectual response was widely credited for the defeat of Mayor Michael Bilandic in his re-election bid, leading to Jane Bryne becoming the city's first female mayor.

In January 1978, a similar blizzard had struck the city of Indianapolis, also burying the city in a record 20 inches of snow. Mayor Bill Hudnut stayed awake nearly two days straight, coordinating the response and frequently updating the city on the snow fighting efforts through numerous media appearances.  read more »

The recent decision by the Obama Administation to place the Census under the control of the White House represents a danger – not only to the integrity of the process but to the underlying assumptions that drive policy in a representative democracy. It is something that smacks of the worst anti-scientific views of the far right, or the casual political manipulation of the facts one expects in places like Russia or Iran.  read more »

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner revealed the new “Financial Stability Plan” on February 10, 2009. It’s thick with “why we need it” and thin on “exactly what it is.” He told Congress that he would open a website to disclose where all the bailout money was going. When asked if he would reveal where the first $350 billion went, he was a little vague on the details.  read more »

Executives from banks including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America (who bought Merrill Lynch) have been called to Capitol Hill to explain what they did with their shares of the $750 billion bailout. (You can watch it live or read transcripts here.)

Here’s a good question to put to those executives: how much did you spend on whores?  read more »

Call it the Paulson Principle, Part Deux.

Under the now thankfully-departed Treasury secretary, we got the first bailout for the undeserving – essentially, members of his own Wall Street class.

Now comes the Democratic codicil to the P. Principle. It's a massive bailout and expansion of the public-sector workforce as well as quasi-government workers in fields like health and education.  read more »