THE ONE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION FROM THE SEPTEMBER GOP DEBATE

9/18/15

One can make plenty of observations regarding Wednesday night’s GOP debates:

• Donald Trump has some chinks in his electoral armor and his opponents are starting to find them.
• Jeb Bush has a pulse.   That his supporters are touting as a huge positive for his campaign the evidence the debate provided of that pulse’s existence shows how much trouble the fair haired boy of the GOP establishment is in.
•  Marco Rubio did a pretty good job but, for some reason, the punditocracy didn’t notice.  He might be the establishment’s alternative if Mr. Bush should continue to fail to live up to what look like cut from whole cloth expectations.
• Mr. Rubio, if he is to inherit Mr. Bush’s well moneyed support, will have to somehow transcend Chris Christie, who performed quite the Lazarus act on his presidential hopes Wednesday night.   Christie was terrific, especially when lambasting the front runners for their obsessions with themselves and positioning himself as an establishment Republican who can still speak for the middle class.
• Rand Paul’s sensible, sober approach to foreign policy clearly disqualifies him for the nomination of a Party that equates to treason the exercise of caution, prudence, and Constitutionality when putting the lives of young Americans on the line.
• You can stick the proverbial fork in Scott Walker. 
• If the American people were yearning for the Fred MacMurray (the good, My Three Sons Fred MacMurray, not the double dealing, caddish, scheming, Double Indemnity and The Apartment Fred MacMurray) approach to life and politics, John Kasich would be a shoo-in.   But that approach became passé when yours truly was a small child.   Too bad.
• Ben Carson is probably too smart, and too much of a gentleman, to be president.  Also too bad.
• The debate was too long.   Even those of us who have yet to overcome our silly addiction to politics were getting bored as the debate moved into the third hour.

While those are all, at the risk of sounding a touch braggadocious, searingly insightful observations, we can only draw one inescapable conclusion from Wednesday night’s debate:  Carly Fiorina is going to be on the GOP ticket.  If she is not at the top of the ticket, still something of a long shot, she will be in the vice-presidential spot.

Mrs. Fiorina is clearly bright, articulate, forceful, and, despite Mr. Trump’s apparent opinion, attractive.  And she is a woman, which certainly has its attractions whether or not Hillary Clinton heads the Democratic ticket.  (See “Something(s)about Hillary,” 9/8/15.)  Mrs. Fiorina is also a cancer survivor, which not only shows courage and grit but is, ironically, a big plus in the increasingly emotional electoral climate we face.  The establishment is more than comfortable with this former corporate chieftain and the social conservatives also like her for her strong pro-life positions.  

Mrs. Fiorina only has two obvious drawbacks.   The first is that her record in corporate America is, to put it charitably, worse than mediocre.   However, the American people seem to be coming to the (correct) conclusion that even someone who did far less than stellar work in a real job is a better choice than someone who has spent his or her life in and around electoral politics, i.e., who has made his or her living having his or her hindquarters smooched and who consequently is terrified at the thought of having to work in the private sector, or even in a public sector job with responsibilities that transcend preening for the cameras, for a living.

The second drawback is that Mrs. Fiorina, unlike Messrs. Kasich, Rubio, Walker, or Bush, has no chance of bringing a swing state, or any state, into the GOP Electoral College fold.   California isn’t going to go GOP regardless of who is on the Republican ticket.   But enhancement of the electoral map by selection of one’s running mate is an overrated strategy, as evidenced by Bill Clinton’s selection of Al Gore, Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden, and Ronald Reagan’s selection of George Bush as their running mates.   Each of these veeps either didn’t bring his state into the fold or was from a state that was already solidly in the fold.   Running mates have an appeal that transcends their home states.   This is especially true in the case of Mrs. Fiorina.

ETF: EXCHANGE TRADED FRAUD?

9/14/15

This (i.e., Monday, 9/14/15’s, page C1) morning’s Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled “The Problem With ETFs,” which outlined a host of problems with exchange trade funds.   These problems, almost exclusively manifested on the wild trading morning of Monday, August 24, included wide bid/asked spreads, stop orders getting executed at far lower prices than the stop prices, and, most saliently, ETFs’ trading at prices far below the net asset values of the funds.  

The first of these two problems (wide spreads and blown through stop orders) were not at all unique to ETFS on that wild morning; the same problems plagued trading in stocks of individual companies.   The third was an ETF-centric problem; prices of the ETFs were falling much further than were the prices of the stocks comprising the ETF.   Thus, some traders were, to use a technical financial term, screwed if they sold their ETF positions in the panic stricken trading of the morning of 8/24.   On the other hand, some traders, to use another technical financial term, lucked out if they bought during those ulcer inducing hours, or, really, minutes.  The article tells the story of one such fortunate investor, CIC Wealth CEO Ryan Wibberley, who, to his credit, not only had the courage to buy in that panic stricken downdraft but also has the class to admit that he did indeed experience some very good luck that morning.  As Mr. Wibberley put it

“I was just waiting for them to take it away from us.  (i.e., for the exchange to cancel the trades)   There’s someone on the other end who just is not having a good day.”

Two observations come to mind to yours truly, who both invests in and trades ETFs.

First, trading is not for the faint of heart.   Most people shouldn’t engage in it.   Most days, I think yours truly shouldn’t engage in it.

Second, the problems of ETFs that manifested themselves on the morning of 8/24 were problems not for investors but only for traders and thus do not detract from the inherent beauty of the ETF product for investors. 

Initially, ETFs were promoted as types of index funds that could be traded throughout the day, which is, effectively, what they are.   The target market at that time was thus people, probably primarily traders, who liked traditional closed end mutual funds, and especially index funds, but didn’t like waiting until the end of the day to close or initiate a position.   Such traders wanted to be able to get in and/or out of a position at any point in the day, often to take advantage of short term fluctuations in the market.   Traders wanting a more exciting sport and/or a bigger adrenaline rush could trade options on ETFs, which were, for obvious reasons, almost instantly active with the introduction and expansion of the ETF market.

However, as time went by, ETFs were seen not only as trading vehicles but also as lower cost alternatives to already low cost index funds for long term investors.   Many ETFs feature expense ratios far lower than comparable closed end index funds.   For example, here are the expense ratios of comparable Vanguard ETFs and closed end index funds: 

                                                Expenses, in basis points

                                              Closed End Fund       ETF

S&P 500 Index                                 17                       5

Total Stock Mkt Index                   14                       5

Bear in mind that the expense ratios on the closed end funds are themselves, to use another technical financial term, super cheap compared to actively managed funds.   And if an investor can put more money to work in Vanguard index funds and thus go to the Admiral class of shares, the expense ratios fall to the same as those of the ETFs.   However, several brokerage firms, including Schwab, TD Ameritrade, and Vanguard’s brokerage arm, allow investors to buy certain ETFs with no commissions, usually with no, or very small, minimum purchases, thus making ETFs, at worst, even money propositions, expense wise, with the cheapest closed end funds.

So while ETFs originally were designed to appeal to traders, or to nervous investors, and still retain that appeal, more and more ETFs are being used as cheaper alternatives to closed end mutual funds by long term investors.  ETFs have served that function exceptionally well…unless, for some reason, investors felt compelled to get out of, or even into, positions precisely during those few hours (minutes, really) on the morning of 8/24 when the market was in turmoil.   Such periods of ETF market inefficiency should be rare…unless the ETF product is fundamentally flawed, which is possible but highly unlikely, given the 25 year track record of the ETF.

Long term investors, in ETFs or otherwise, were not, or should not have been, much fazed, or damaged, by the, er, eccentricities of the trading of the morning of 8/24 or by similar trading which is bound to briefly repeat itself, perhaps in the near future.  They don’t use ETFs as trading vehicles and thus weren’t hurt by wide big/asked spreads, blown through stop orders, or ETFs’ temporarily trading at big discounts to their NAVs.  Such investors were just riding the markets…and paying the lowest possible price for their tickets.   For them, ETFs remain what they have been since their inception, i.e., very low priced and efficient ways to execute long term investment strategies.

“LOOKING FOR (IT PEOPLE) IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES”

I wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal at the end of August in response to a technology entrepreneur who decided that computer science education at the college level is a failure because the people he hired, or tried to hire, in those fields from Harvard and the like didn’t work out.  He decided that he would look for people without degrees for such work.  While I can sympathize with people’s frustration at the quality of graduates some of our colleges are producing, I suggested a less radical path than eschewing college grads altogether.   You can probably guess where I directed him.

The letter was published a few days ago (Wednesday, 9/9/15).  In case you missed it, I have reproduced it below:

 

8/29/15

Dan Gelernter says the he is not looking to hire computer science majors because CS “education is a failure” and “Computer science departments prepare their students for academic or research careers and spurn jobs that actually pay money.”  (Opinion, 8/29-8/30/15)  To fortify his argument, he cites the failings of computer science programs at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, of all places.

While I agree, to some extent, with Mr. Gelernter’s lament, perhaps he is looking in the wrong places.  If he would expand his search for CS candidates beyond the Ivy League cocoon from which he emerged (Yale, 2010) and look to places like Illinois, Purdue, Iowa, and Iowa State, he would find candidates who have been prepared, and are eager, for jobs “that pay actual money.”

There is a world out there beyond the Ivy League…thank God!

Mark Quinn
Naperville, IL

SOMETHING(S) ABOUT HILLARY

9/8/15

The pundits and the pols have been scratching their heads for weeks, or months, over the popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, populists from opposite ends of the political spectrum.   Why, the pundits ask, would a public that is fed up with the establishment pols be so attracted to two non-establishment pols?   The bar over which one must jump to become an officially recognized pundit must be awfully low, but I digress.

This navel-gazing on the part of the punditocracy came to a heretofore head this weekend on the talk shows that the pundits follow in order to know which mewings to echo or reflexively denigrate, depending on their nominal world view.   One such notable, utterly dumbfounded that the benighted electorate is not flocking to the preferred candidate of the media establishment, Hillary Clinton, offered the sage insight that Mrs. Clinton’s problems with such things as her private e-mail account and the Clinton Foundation “obscure her message.”

Hmm…the allegations directed against her, and, more saliently, her horrific mishandling of those allegations, don’t merely “obscure” Hillary Clinton’s message; they expose her message for the precariously wispy reed that it is.

What is, after all, Hillary Clinton’s message?   It is certainly not an ideological message, or at least not an ideological message that can be easily or publicly distinguished from those of her Democratic challengers.  No, Mrs. Clinton’s message is that she is supremely, indeed uniquely, qualified to be president of the United States.   She is hyper-competent and therefore entitled to the office.   Her country’s needing her would be more obvious if the benighted masses were not so utterly incapable of knowing what’s good for them, which provides further evidence of how badly her country needs her.  

Hillary’s having dropped the ball on the e-mails and joked about serious investigations thereof does not “obscure” this message.   No, these missteps and pratfalls directly contradict this message.   If Hillary Clinton cannot properly manage her own feckless finagling, her image of competence, the very reason for her being, in her mind and those of her fervent followers, the obvious choice for president, falls apart.

On related notes….

Perhaps yours truly is being too glib when he states that Hillary’s only message is that she alone is qualified to be president and that anyone who cannot see that is somehow mentally or morally impaired.   There are two other unspoken aspects of Mrs. Clinton’s message, the “wink and nod” facet of Hillary’s continuing lifelong campaign for the presidency.

The first is that, if Mrs. Clinton has any ideology at all, she is to the right of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley and thus is an electable Democrat because she is capable of winning the middle.   This message, of course, is never to be spoken of in the heat of a Democratic primary season, any more than the message that a Republican is to the left of his opponents and therefore can win “the middle” is to be uttered in the context of a GOP primary season.

The second unspoken component of Hillary Clinton’s message is that putting her in office would return us to the halcyon days of her husband’s presidency.   As much as many people with whom I agree on most things don’t want to admit it, Mr. Clinton, despite his many, er, peccadilloes, was one of our great post-war presidents, certainly if his presidency is considered from the perspective of peace and prosperity, which is, understandably and justifiably, the whole ball game for most people and certainly for that vast “middle” everyone seems to be courting.   That Hillary would be a Bill redux is a powerful message and, if it were true, would be a very good reason for plenty of people to vote for Mrs. Clinton.  But this message, too, cannot be spoken out loud; the “watch me roar” crowd, supposedly a big part of Hillary Rodham’s constituency, would never brook such a sexist message.

And one more thing…

Hillary Rodham Clinton is often compared to Richard Nixon, usually in the context of disregard for the law and propriety when such piffles get in the way of the all consuming goal of getting the anointed one elected.   There is doubtless something to this analogy.  Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Nixon have (had) credentials that would seemingly make her (him) an obvious choice for president.   She (he) failed the first time around, but only because the American public was temporarily anesthetized by the siren song of a young, dynamic, “different” kind of candidate who ultimately turned out to be far less compelling, “different,” or competent than the electorate’s naïve hopes had led them to believe.   Once the voters sober up, the thinking of both Hillary Clinton and Dick Nixon goes (went), they will return to the obvious choice.

But there is one more point of similarity between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Nixon:  both are about as likeable as cornered rattle snakes.   Likeability may not make one a good president, but likeability certainly helps one become president.   Mr. Nixon overcame his omnipresent similarities to the bad guys on The Three Stooges to become president.   Can Hillary do the same?    

Further, the same “qualities”…the paranoia, the shiftiness, the amorality….from which he had to divert the public’s attention in order to become president ultimately became Mr. Nixon’s undoing.   Will those same shared qualities contain the seeds of the demise of a second President Clinton?

“I’M AS (SCARED) AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE”?

9/1/15

Since I refuse to make predictions regarding the direction of the market (See today’s other post, ON THE EDGE OF THE FINANCIAL ABYSS?), what can yours truly say about this market with any degree of certainty?  Perhaps only two things, to wit…

If this market makes you nervous, you’re human, but

If this market makes you really nervous, to the point at which you can’t sleep, you have too much money in the stock market.

As I said in today’s other post, I have no idea if we are at or near a bottom…or top, for that matter (Think about it.)  I don’t know if we are heading into the abyss or if we are on the verge of another multi-year rocket ride.   But I do know that markets go up and markets go down.   While this was becoming increasingly hard to believe from the perspective of the more than doubling of the market from the 2009, markets don’t go up in a straight line…and all the efforts of the wunderkinds of Wall Street won’t change that.   So if you expect stock market returns with bank account stability, you are badly misinformed and/or delusional.

Perhaps the hardest aspect of planning one’s investment strategy is making a realistic, let alone accurate, appraisal of one’s risk tolerance.  We consistently overestimate our risk tolerances when markets are going up and consistently underestimate our risk tolerances when markets are going down.   Today’s market tribulation, and resultant nervousness, may be merely an example of the latter, but, given the magnitude of the market’s move, it is probably more than that.  The current market difficulty is, as yours truly just said, a rare opportunity to take a realistic look at how much, if any, money one should have invested in markets that are subject to the laws of economics, finance, and common sense.

ON THE EDGE OF THE FINANCIAL ABYSS?

9/1/15

The Dow and the S&P are down about 3% for the day as I write this.   This drop is just the latest leg of a prolonged dive in the markets that has brought that average and that index down 12% and 10% respectively from the all time highs they reached in May.

Most of the experts are telling us not to worry.   Despite

• the problems in China and throughout the developing world,
• tanking commodities markets,
• a domestic economy that is so weak that the market doesn’t seem to think it can sustain even its halting growth if the Fed begins normalizing interest rates, and
• mountains of richly priced debt throughout the world,

there is nothing to worry about, we are told, unless one is a trader.   Why?   Because, unlike in 2007-2009, there is little to no risk of financial contagion arising from the aforementioned.   The banks are far stronger than they were in 2008 primarily due to strict regulation (Dodd-Frank, Volcker Rule, etc., etc.), wise management, and resultant stronger capitalizations.

Yours truly is not so comforted by these anodyne assurances.   

Can we be so sure that the banks are safe and that financial contagion is therefore a remote possibility?   How much exposure do these now super safe institutions have to oil and other producers?   How much exposure do they have, in one form or another, to the high yield market, which we know is heavily exposed to the energy markets?   What are the trading desks of these institutions up to?   How exposed are the other components of these organizations to the activities of those trading desks?   How much different is the current management of these mega-institutions from the 2008 management of said institutions?  If the experts’ answer is “very different,” or even “different,” why are the names of so many of the captains of said institutions the same as they were in 2008?

Yours truly is not saying that we are on the precipice, or in the early stages, of another “big one” a’la 2007-2009.   Since I am no longer in my 20s or 30s, I no longer know everything and am no longer able to make predictions about the financial markets with absolute certainty.  One supposes that if I had somehow finagled my way into a job in which I was paid astronomical sums to appear in the media and make predictions on the unpredictable, I would have retained this ability, but I was never able to obtain such employment.  Perhaps in the next life.  But, for now, the years have taught me to be very circumspect regarding my prognosticatory abilities and to avoid investing based on such talents.  

I am also reminded, as I watch those in the know opine with such great confidence on the inherently unknowable future, of a quote by the late, great Mayor Richard J. Daley, uttered in an admittedly different, yet still quite relevant, context:

“What the hell do the experts know?”

So, no, I’m not predicting that we are looking at a 50%+ drop in the markets.   But I’m not as sure as are most of the experts that we are not facing such a calamity, either.

THE NATION’S BEST PARTY SCHOOLS—THE I’S HAVE IT…AGAIN!!!

8/15/15

I wrote the following missive to the Chicago Tribune; the Trib published it on Wednesday, 8/12 in slightly redacted form.   Their editing was largely mild and understandable, but they did drop the last sentence, which I thought was the best line in the letter.     

With all the bad news emanating from my alma mater of late, one would think the administrators at what remains one of the world’s great universities would have more to bewail than an award that should be far from a source of shame.

ILL--!

Thanks.

8/8/15

As a long ago graduate of the University of Illinois and a continuing financial supporter of my alma mater, I am bothered not a whit by the Princeton Review’s designation of the Big U as the nation’s Number 1 Party School.  The wailing and gnashing of teeth emanating from the school’s administration in response to the “award” is not only silly but also demonstrative of the pusillanimous attitudes that pervade modern day academia.

Who in the world thinks that my alma mater is “…a place where people can just goof off,” as a university spokesperson lamented after the Princeton Review’s pronouncement?   Illinois and its students consistently rank in the top five universities in the country by employers.  UIUC’s business, agriculture, and especially its engineering, math, and science programs, are among the best, if not the best, in the nation.  22 Nobel Prize winners are, or were, associated with the Big U as either alumni or faculty members.  If you are an Illinois resident, Champaign is perhaps the best bargain out there in higher education.  And if you a resident of South Korea or China, you know the U of I; much of the technological infrastructure of both countries, and of others, has been built by U of I alums.

Students at my alma mater work very hard under intense pressure just to keep up with their hyper-achieving colleagues.   Is it any wonder that they also play hard when given the opportunity?   Do we wish that some of the students would play hard in less destructive ways?   Certainly.   But kids are kids and temptation is temptation; attempts to keep our kids in cocoons can ultimately be as destructive as the activities about which the U of I administration is currently wringing its hands.  Part of going to college is learning how to deal with the stress and temptation that will be our near constant companions as we proceed through life.

Yes, students at the U of I work very hard and play very hard.   Is the latter so terrible?  The world is not run by people who spent their Saturday nights in college in the library, even so magnificent a library as those on the Urbana campus.

Mark M. Quinn

Naperville

PULLING THE TRUMP CARD…AND COMING UP DEUCES

8/15/15

So what is there to say about the “Donald Trump Phenomenon” that seems to be gripping the not only the Republican Party but also the time and imaginations of political junkies of all stripes?   Maybe nothing original, but, from the perspective of a self-described genuine conservative (a moniker that conveniently allows one plenty of leeway), I think Mr. Trump’s still quixotic quest for the White House can be summarized as follows:

Mr. Trump reflects and largely embodies some very legitimate views and some very understandable concerns about issues of vital importance to a large portion, perhaps the predominant portion, of the electorate.   His stances (or, more properly, attitudes regarding; Mr. Trump has no policy stances as far as one can tell) on, among other things, illegal immigration, economic nationalism, and the incompetence and pusillanimity of our preening politicasters are shared by legions of people who work, pay taxes, and vote, and who have a large measure of responsibility, and should take a large measure of the credit, for keeping this economy and country running.

Mr. Trump’s problem, however, is at least two-fold.   First, he is a decidedly imperfect vessel for addressing the problems he highlights.  He is neither trustworthy nor as competent as he seems to think.   He has a history of stiffing creditors and taking a scattershot approach to his business endeavors along with showing incredibly poor judgment in those with whom he does business and in those frivolous activities with which he chooses to fritter away his time.   Note his being a paid cheerleader for dubious multi-level marketer ACN and his beyond fatuous “The Apprentice” show.  Those with solid judgment and a sense of integrity don’t associate with the likes of ACN and those who place any value on their time don’t squander it on trendy piffles like “The Apprentice.”

Second, Mr. Trump has a habit of saying stupid, ill-informed, and gratuitously insulting and demeaning things about people he doesn’t like or merely disagrees with.   Everyone likes spirited debate and, truth be told, we all like to aim a zinger at our opponents and feel a usually short lived shot of satisfaction when such barbs find their marks.   But one should at least be clever and pointed in one’s insults.   Comments about the manifestations and origins of the anger of previously largely unknown anchor people and the desirability of seeing certain women on their knees are not only demeaning and gratuitously insulting; they are also pathetic, uncouth, puerile, and reflective of an inability to control one’s urges or to effectively express one’s opinions.  

By making such inane pronouncements and graceless, thoughtless, misogynistic attacks, Mr. Trump delegitimizes the legitimate views and concerns for which he is acting as a herald.  He defeats his own purposes…assuming that Mr. Trump has purposes that transcend gratifying his own ego.

(SAME SEX) MARRIAGE: THE WORLD CATCHES UP TO YOURS TRULY

7/5/15

For those of you who are even the least bit interested in the issue of marriage, gay or straight, ought to read the article entitled “Chicago priest protests same sex marriage, won’t sign civil marriage licenses,” on page 4 today’s (i.e., Sunday, 7/5/15’s) Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-orthodox-priest-refuses-marriage-licenses-met-20150702-story.html#page=1

Father Reardon (which strikes one as an odd name for an Antiochian Orthodox priest, but the article explains that) has a terrific idea.   But the article points out that the Reverend Tony Jones, who supports same sex marriage, has had about the same idea since 2010.

However…

Long time readers of mine are completely familiar with Father Reardon’s, and Reverend Jones’, brilliant solution to this controversy.   Back in 2012, I wrote the following Insightful Pontificator piece, which referred my readers to a letter I wrote to Steve Chapman, who is surely one of the best columnists in the opinion business, back in 2006:

“…AND IF THERE’S NO OTHER BUSINESS TO DISCUSS, I’D LIKE TO ATTEND MY DAUGHTER’S WEDDING.”

2/8/12

The lead story on many news outlets yesterday was news that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages in the nation’s largest state.   The Ninth Circuit’s decision thus set the stage for the Supreme Court to rule on the legality of gay marriage, or at least on the right of states to ban gay marriage, perhaps as early as next year.

Why this story should have been the lead story anywhere, on a day when Syria was almost literally on fire, Americans were effectively being held hostage in Egypt, the Congress continued to wrangle over the payroll tax break, which directly affects every American who works and which will expire in three weeks, and the Catholic Church and the Obama administration were duking it out over a mandate for contraceptives, is beyond me.   Gay marriage is a very important issue for gays, and especially for gays who would like to marry, and for those who consider gay marriage an abomination before God and man.   Both groups feel very passionately about this issue, and understandably so.   But, for most of us, this is not a non-issue but not a burning issue, either.   While all of us care, or at least should care, about the rights of others and all of us have moral and/or religious sensitivities and sensibilities, most of us are not gay and don’t really care all that much about the sexual orientations of other people.   Whom people choose to sleep with is none of our business and we prefer to keep it that way…please.   So why the brouhaha over this story?  One supposes the media think anything even remotely connected with sex (and it’s hard to imagine many things more remotely connected with sex) sells.   And, in our increasingly strange and superficial society, they may be right.   But I digress.

Gay marriage has been an issue for a number of years.   Back in November, 2006 (and the issue was not new then), I sent a letter to Steve Chapman, who writes for the Chicago Tribune, is one of my favorite columnists, and shares my libertarian tendencies.   In it, I proposed a solution to this controversy.    Here is a reproduction of that missive:

11//5/06

Hi Steve,

I enjoyed your observations on gay marriage in your 11/5 column and have a hard time disagreeing with any of your arguments.   However, I have another take on the gay marriage issue.

Why should the government be involved in the institution of marriage?   Shouldn’t marriage, which many, if not most, Americans consider a sacrament, be the exclusive province of churches, leaving civil unions and the legal rights that would attend thereto, to the government?    The government would then decide legal rights and obligations and the churches would decide sacramental rights and obligations.   Why should the government have the right to decide who conforms to religious rules and parameters?  Why should churches decide who conforms to legal rules and parameters?   Those who belong to a religion and wish to proclaim their fidelity before their church could opt for both civil unions and marriages.  Those gays and heterosexuals who have no religion, and who don’t care to abide by the current hypocrisy exhibited by many who are completely unfamiliar with the interior of a house of worship but go through a church marriage  strictly for appearance’s sake, could opt only for civil unions.

With the government’s having lost its role in dabbling with religious definitions, at least in this application, gays who wish to have all the legal rights currently reserved for  married people in most jurisdictions would encounter less, albeit still considerable, opposition to achieving those rights.   Those gays who wish to marry, in addition to being granted civil unions, would surely be able to find a church who will marry them, and it will be strictly their business and the business of that church and its congregants.

More importantly, however, the government will have been removed from an area in which it should never have had any business:  deciding who is married before God and the church.

Mark Quinn

To clarify this proposal, under such a system, everyone who wishes to enjoy the legal rights and privileges that now attach to marriage would apply for a civil union, which would confer such rights and privileges.   Those who, in addition to obtaining a civil union, wish to marry inside their church, synagogue, mosque, temple, etc., would get married according to the rules and guidelines of that institution.   The marriage would confer no legal rights and the civil union would not have to conform to any religious rites.  

I suppose, by the way, that one could have a religious marriage without a civil union if one wished to proclaim his or her marriage before God but cared nothing for the legal rights of a spouse, but one suspects that such circumstances would be rare.   Who knows, though?

The solution I proposed in 2006 has withstood the test of time on at least three fronts.   First, it preserves the sacramental nature of the institution of marriage and a faith’s right to determine who is, and can be, married before God.   Second, it respects and furthers the rights of gay people to access all of the legal and familial rights that society formerly, and, in many cases, still, reserves for heterosexuals.   Third, it keeps government out of the business of telling faiths on whom they must confer the rites of matrimony (Think it can’t happen?   See today’s other post, “IT’S THE BISHOP!”) and faiths out of the business of telling government on whom they must confer legal rights.

WSJ: THE MAGAZINE FOR PORTENTOUS POPINJAYS AND POLTROONS

6/28/15

As a (long time; I think since about 1982) subscriber to the Wall Street Journal, every couple of months I receive something called WSJ, which is a slick “lifestyle” type magazine of the type one normally finds stuffed in the back pockets of airline seats.   I don’t read this rag and wish that the Journal did not feel compelled to publish it; perhaps the price of my subscription could be brought down commensurately if the publishers didn’t put money into WSJ…or perhaps I’m being hopelessly naïve, which is not a trait that I generally display.   But I digress.

As I was saying, I don’t read WSJ (the magazine, not the paper for which WSJ is the appropriate abbreviation); the day my life becomes so empty that I feel compelled to become a regular reader of such a publication is the day when I’ve overstayed my welcome in this mortal coil.   But I wanted to write something and I have the time to do so with my wife visiting her family in New York, my daughters being in their respective college towns for the summer or the weekend, and my son hanging out with his buddies.   I figured that this issue of an estimable publication like WSJ would provide plenty of grist for a point I’d like to make; it didn’t disappoint.

This issue (July/August, 2015) of WSJ features ads for the following, which is only a small sampling of the figurative large intestinal product that fills the magazine:

• $395 Ralph Lauren swim trunks
• $1,095 Gabriela Hearst chilton blouse
• $4,000 Louis Vuitton bag (which I presume is what women used to call a purse; a bag is something into which one puts groceries…or so I thought)
• $2,795 Chloe wool and silk knit poncho
• $4,895 Burberry Prorsum cashmere poncho
• $4,491 Berluti blazer, worn in the magazine by a model who has some deep seated problems that manifest themselves in his assuming the appearance of a man whose recent receipt of very bad news has compelled him to don a wardrobe five sizes too large and to lose any vestige of skin pigment
• $4,000 Salvatore Ferragamo coat
• $12,320 side table designed to look like a bird’s silhouette.   Don’t ask; I’m sure I won’t know the answer.

Three thoughts come to my febrile mind:

First, this is a joke, right?   People, especially people who are seemingly clever and smart enough to earn the money necessary to expend such sums, don’t excrete $4,000 on purses, $4,491 on blazers, and $12 grand on tables that look like birds but otherwise serve no purpose, right?   And, on the off chance that people do blow a middle class worker’s monthly wage on some overpriced bauble simply because it bears a designer name, the whole idea behind WSJ Magazine is to ridicule these imbeciles.  In any case, WSJ isn’t a serious bid to hawk expensive manifestations of outright silliness; it’s all a joke, a good laugh on a summer’s morning at the expense of the hopelessly cowed and sheepish.  Right?

Second, assume for a moment that the availability, and the apparent successful hawking, of such “goods” is not a joke.  If this is indeed the case (It can’t be, right?   Please tell me this can’t be serious!), those who have made the money necessary to pee it away on such fluff are not helping their cause when they argue for, say, a flatter tax code or against, say, massive government social programs ostensibly designed to help the “poor” but really designed to enrich the pols and the hangers-on who, one supposes, read and buy the products featured in WSJ Magazine.   The point is that perfectly legitimate arguments for enabling the wealthy to keep a greater share of the wealth they generate are undermined when those of great wealth (or perhaps (probably) only great income, uncontrollable urge to spend, or great willingness to go into brobdingnagian amounts of debt) squander their wealth on such utter figurative intestinal detritus.   To put is bluntly, people who spend so lavishly, pointlessly, and gormlessly help make the case that the rich are just a bunch of idiots who deserve to be punished…usually by those who will get rich punishing the rich, but that is grist for another mill.

Third, if such spending is a manifestation of the judgment of those who have attained power and wealth in this country, we are in big trouble.   No matter how clever a trader one might be, or even how smart an innovator or business mind one is, one is a complete moron if one spends his or her money on $12,320 side tables designed to look like birds.   One would be far better off buying a sensible table for a small fraction of that amount and donating the difference to, say, the Salvation Army or the Retirement Fund for Religious, or, if one is not of the giving proclivity, putting the money in the bank or into an index fund.  (Come to think about it, one would be far better off buying a cheaper, more sensible table and tossing the difference out the window; some of the unfortunates who inhabit the streets could then blow the money on cheap, rot gut hooch, which is no match for a donation to a worthy cause or further wealth accumulation but still beats a useless table designed to look like birds.)  Yes, one can be ostensibly smart but not at all wise, indeed, utterly bereft of good solid judgment.   If WSJ Magazine is any indication of what those of great wealth and power are thinking, we are being led by a pack of portentous poltroons and popinjays...and one quickly develops a good idea whither they lead us.

But WSJ Magazine is a joke, right?   Right?  

DENNY HASTERT AND H.L. MENCKEN

5/31/15

When I first learned of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s problems with federal law enforcement, my first thought was “Good.  Glad they nailed the SOB.”   These perhaps uncharitable thoughts arose not only from the schadenfreude that, to varying degrees, afflicts us all, but also from my never having liked Mr. Hastert.   From the get go, I considered him a complete lackey, a toady, a Bush lapdog whose role in getting our once great country involved in the Iraq fiasco was, if such a thing were possible, nearly as heinous a crime as those that were driven by Mr. Hastert’s (hopefully) erstwhile enthusiasm for young boys and the glaringly misplaced hubris he displayed in his clumsy attempts to cover up the disgusting, vile consequences of his perverted propensities.  

After briefly enjoying the guilty pleasure that arose from Mr. Hastert’s having his taste of karma, my thoughts quickly turned to one of my heroes, H.L. Mencken.   As some of you might suspect, I have been told on numerous occasions that I am a modern version of that late great Baltimore Sun scribe.   While that might sound braggadocious, it is an occasion not only for great pride but also great fear; can I possibly be that cynical?   But I digress.

Mr. Hastert’s sudden and well deserved defenestration immediately brought to mind what is perhaps Mr. Mencken’s greatest, though far from his most celebrated, utterance, to wit…

“All men are frauds.”  

The “aw, shucks, I’m just a wrestling coach from a small town west of Chicago” Mr. Hastert is the living embodiment of what, frightfully, may be an entirely true statement by Mr. Mencken.   There is hope, though, that this condition exemplified by Mr. Hastert is not universal; those of us not caught up in the hype that surrounds the professional narcissists who inhabit our governing class knew all along that Mr. Hastert was a fraud.   So maybe at least some men who appear not to be frauds indeed are not frauds.   At least we hope so.

Quickly, though, I asked myself where Mr. Hastert was getting all these spondulicks to pay off the former object of his misguided lust.  Again, Mr. Mencken has the answer:

“Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

There’s a lot of money in public service; the selfless public servant, the big hearted Mr. Hastert was cashing in on his years of good works for the people.   No wonder he was in such a hurry to hit the jackpot that he resigned as Speaker, and exited Congress, in what looked like mid-career; he wanted, and as it turned out, needed the money.

Finally, Mr. Hastert’s particular manifestation of perversity is not, at least we hope, nearly universal among the barnacles on the ship of state that inhabit Washington, D.C.   But his clearly misplaced hubris, his grossly inflated opinion of his craftiness, and his unrelenting thirst for the boodle that accompanies public service are indeed universal, firmly planted in the DNA of those who go to Washington brimming with messianic certainty that they have all the answers to all the problems that afflict the benighted folks back home who yearn for the wisdom that these modern day Olympians deign to impart to us.   So, again, Mr. Mencken comes to mind…

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”

Thank you, Mr. Mencken.   Good riddance, Mr. Hastert.  One down, (at least) 535 to go.