Archive for March, 2009

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…
(more…)

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.”