Sara Haile-Mariam

James Surowiecki in the New Yorker considers an alternative explanation (h/t Ben Smith).

“The money the government has been giving the automakers has been going not to shore up their capital base, but literally to pay their bills. In the absence of government aid, the automakers would have had to shut down their factories because of their inability to pay suppliers and workers. That’s not true of even the most troubled big banks, which are having no problem meeting their debt payments or paying their bills: the government’s aid has gone instead to replenish their capital and allow them to stay in regulatory compliance. That doesn’t mean the government’s aid was not essential, but it was different: the money the government gave G.M. has already gone out the door, while in the case of the banks it’s still, for the most part, sitting on their balance sheets (which is where it’s supposed to be).”

There are a number of reasons to read Kert Andersen’s latest piece in Time Magazine. The entire piece is really insightful but the quote below in particular grabbed my attention for it’s relevance as well as, I think, it’s accuracy.

“The so-called millennials, on the other hand, have come of age during a period defined by the digital revolution, 9/11, financial bubbles bursting, a possible depression and the election — possibly their election — of an African-American President: the makings, frankly, of a healthier, more useful generational creation myth than assassinations, antiwar protests and countercultural bacchanalia (which, by the way, enabled the risk-taking, party-hearty, quasi-utopian paradigm of the past quarter-century). In other words, the kids are all right.”

Understanding the effects of the period in which millennials are coming of age is the key to understanding how to market to them (or I should say us) in a political sense.
More after the jump…
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I’ve got a post up on gomyd.com (the website for Manhattan Young Dems) on the race upstate. For those of you who aren’t familiar- there’s a special election being held Tuesday for Kristen Gilibrand’s vacant Congressional seat between Democrat Scott Murphy and Republican Jim Tedisco. Murphy was down by something like 20 points a month ago and now some polls have him ahead so it’s anyone’s game. The RNC is already looking to position a Murphy loss as a referendum on President Obama’s budget or leadership or maybe even his bracket. A Murphy win (which would be a huge upset) will likely be positioned as a referendum on Michael Steele who by the way has given up on reaching out to the President…of the United States of America…So we’re clear, Stelle oversees a political party, Obama oversees the country, just in case there was any confusion.

In any event- check out the post, there’s a little call to action for those of you who long for the days of phonebanking.

Friedman addresses the need to approach our economic future while making sure to deal wit our environmental inefficiencies.

“These are the pillars of a climate bailout. Yes, some have upfront costs. But all of them would pay long-term dividends, because they would foster massive U.S. innovation in new clean technologies that would stimulate the real Dow and much lower emissions that would stimulate the Climate Dow.”

Mike Pence- Congressman from Indiana is on MSNBC right now discussing the Republican budget proposal. I haven’t looked at their budget proposal yet, but this struck me as shocking. Nora O’donnell asked Mr. Pence how much the budget proposal would decrease the national deficit and Mr. Pence had no answer. Now, here’s why this is so problematic. The GOP talking point against the Obama budget was that it would ultimately increase the deficit, or at least fail to decrease the deficit by 2012. They’ve proposed a new plan, that upon first inspection does nothing to address their initial argument against the Obama budget (the deficit). What I surmise from this is that ultimately this is a gimmick- they’re not interested in substantiating their claim (Obama will raise the deficit) and providing an alternative (a plan that is more efficient or requires less government spending but somehow manages to remain stimulative) but rather, they just want to propose something that can then use to justify their disapproval of the Obama plan. What we’re watching is an entirely ideological battle- Mr. Pence responded to Nora’s request for more insight into how the GOP plan would decrease the budget by snapping “there are lots of numbers in our plan”. That’s not a sufficient response- and frankly, we’re at a point where we need to insist upon a more serious debate as opposed to something that’s entirely founded on political calculations and assumptions.

Schumer comes out for gay marriage.

A statement from Schumer’s office today reads;

“It’s time. Equality is something that has always been a hallmark of America, and no group should be deprived of it. New York, which has always been at the forefront on issues of equality, is appropriately poised to take a lead on this issue.”

And lead we must.

A dramatic take on twitterism.

The Obama administration has indicated that they will soon be declassifying and releasing “ugly” torture memos that detail the Bush administrations approach to using water boarding and other coercive measures to extract information from enemy combatants. (The Obama administration also recently announced that they are abandoning the term enemy combatants)

These articles remind me of something that I heard a former Presidential speech writer say at a meeting this past summer. The conversation was off the record, but suffice it to say that the individual is a political legend who suggested that in order to avoid inflaming an already polarized Washington that a President Obama should avoid pressing charges, or even investigating Bush administration abuses. The individual suggested that this was a matter to be deliberated and decided by international courts. I haven’t heard many people echo that sentiment, and while I agree that it’s important to unmask abuses so as to prevent them from being repeated in the future, I also realize that President Obama doesn’t have the political capital, or quite frankly the luxury to make this a center point of his administration. Pundits are already criticizing his administration for taking on too much too quickly, this is such a hot button issue- I just don’t see how this is something that the administration can take on right now.

I’m reserving judgment until this week when the full details of the plan emerge.

In the meantime- you can check out Brad DeLong’s blog for a question and answer on the plan. (h/t Huffington Post)

Ultimately, DeLong markets the plan as the treasury’s attempt to combat unemployment.

“Q: How does having the U.S. government invest $1 trillion in the world’s largest hedge fund operations reduce unemployment?

A: At the moment, those businesses that ought to be expanding and hiring cannot profitably expand and hire because the terms on which they can finance expansion are so lousy. The terms on which they can finance expansion are so lazy because existing financial asset prices are so low. Existing financial asset prices are so low because risk and information discounts have soared. Risk and information discounts have collapsed because the supply of assets is high and the tolerance of financial intermediaries for holding assets that are risky or that might have information-revelation problems are low.

Q: So?

A: So if we are going to boost asset prices to levels at which those firms that ought to be expanding can get finance, we are going to have to shrink the supply of risky assets that our private-sector financial intermediaries have to hold. The government buys up $1 trillion of financial assets, and lo and behold the private sector has to hold $1 trillion less of risky and information-impacted assets. Their price goes up. Supply and demand.”

” Suns center Shaquille O’Neal posted a note on his Twitter feed before a home game against Washington on Saturday night, suggesting he plans to post to the popular social networking website during halftime.
And sure enough, a brief message was posted on Shaq’s feed before the third quarter.
“Shhhhhhh,” it read. “

Twitter on CNN, twitter on E-News, twittering in the halls of Congress and now in the middle of a Suns game?

I’m on twitter…I tweet…but I have to say to say I’ve restrained myself from allowing my twittering to interfere with living. Frankly, I don’t think people care that much about what I’m having for breakfast. The only time I really twittered regularly was when I was at the Democratic convention last summer- I meant to twitter during the inauguration but I lost track of time hustling around DC in ball gowns trying to hail cabs in the freezing cold and ultimately forgot to tweet about how cold it was, and how sick I got as a result.

As I re-read the last paragraph I realize how ridiculous it sounds- “twitter” exists as a noun and a verb, it’s become this thing that’s larger than language that allows us to use language in 140 character intervals to provide snap shots into our lives.

The whole Twitter phenomenon is really fascinating- as if life isn’t busy enough there’s now an entire market centered around marketing the contents of your life on the one hand, and following the contents of the lives of (sometimes) strangers on the other. It’s extremely invasive and yet it’s ascribed to by choice. I’m still figuring out how to navigate twitter, to be honest, I haven’t had much time as of late to really figure out the whole reply/ re-tweet concept (the fact that the new Facebook is trying to be a twitter alternative is completely throwing me off as well). I’m 21 years old… theoretically one of the people targeted by the technology but I’m totally out twittered by everyone from John McCain to Shaq to even Jake Tapper.

I don’t really know what to make of that…suffice it to say that I think that a case study on twitter twenty years from now could be really interesting. In some senses it does serve as a public diary of sorts, you can look back on what you did at any given day. On the other hand though, so can anyone with access to a computer…

Update Keith Olberman names Twitter “Worst Person”- evidently he has 14,000 twitter followers despite the fact that he doesn’t have an account. Raising another interesting point- how do you know who you’re following is who they say they are?