The Wrongologist – Page 233 – Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Not Voting This Time

A Harvard University survey conducted in April found that less than 25% of Millennial voters under 30 definitely plan to vote in November. That’s less than one in four, folks.

According to the surveys, Millennials’ views on politics are not easy to follow. They support big government, unless it costs more money. They’re for smaller government, unless budget cuts scratch a program they’ve heard of. They’d like Washington to fix everything, just so long as it doesn’t grow the government.

There have been three surveys of Millennials this year, by Pew, Reason as well as Harvard. The Pew report also found inconsistencies:
• Millennials hate the political parties more than everyone else, but they have the highest opinion of Congress
• Young people are the most likely to be single parents and the least likely to approve of single parenthood
• Young people voted overwhelmingly for Obama when he promised universal health care, but they oppose Obamacare as much as the rest of the country… even though they show strong support for universal health care.

Millennials are often described as the new “me” generation. They invented the selfie, and they post most of their waking thoughts on social media. They see themselves as controlling their destinies, despite being underemployed, so it may be difficult for one party (or ideology) to hold them for very long. Maybe what they thought was cool, supporting Obama in 2008, is now passé. After all, Instagram didn’t even exist in 2008.

Some facts about Millennial voters from Do Something.org:
• By 2015, Millennials will account for one third of the electorate
• 50% of eligible young voters (ages 18-29) cast a vote in 2012, amounting to 23 million votes, and 19% of all votes cast in 2012 came from young voters
• The majority of young voters supported President Obama over the Republican candidate in both 2008 and 2012 elections
• Fewer young voters supported President Obama in 2012 than in 2008. In 2008, Obama won 66% of the youth vote (John McCain won 32%) and in 2012, he won 60% (Mitt Romney won 36%).
• In 2012, the youth vote won toss-up states, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania for Obama.

The Harvard survey shows voter enthusiasm among young people is lower than even in 2010, when Republicans took back the House of Representatives. Enthusiasm for the 2014 midterms is especially low among Democratic Millennials. John Della Volpe, Harvard’s survey director, said:

Young people still care about our country, but we will likely see more volunteerism than voting in 2014…

Harvard surveyed 3,058 web-enabled interviews with 18- to 29- year-olds. Of those surveyed, 48% were male and 52% were female. Other demographic data: 57% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 43% are between the ages of 25 and 29. 18% were married, 11% were living with a partner, 1% were divorced, and 69% had never been married. The survey also found that young women, another key Democratic constituency, are feeling uninspired to head to the polls. Just 19% of women said they were “definitely” going to cast a ballot, compared to 28% of men.

Part of the reason young people are not interested in voting, experts said, is they don’t believe politicians in Washington are addressing issues that matter to them. For example, the poll found that young people are very concerned about issues like wealth disparity in the country and student debt.

Interestingly, both parties seem to care deeply about garnering a majority share of the votes of Millennials, although in the case of Republicans, they seem to want to wait until they all have good paying jobs before trying to move them into their camp.

And for you Millennials, a piece of advice: the best way to make sure politicians continue to not give a damn about your issues is not to vote. Why vote? Let your elders determine the country’s future. Go on, abdicate any role in the decision.

After November, when the Tea Party controls both houses of Congress, and passes laws you may not agree with, maybe then you’ll think about growing some enthusiasm, and vote.

Coalition of the Willing? An Editorial

Why are the media so willing for America to go up against ISIS? Why are the media letting John McCain go on endlessly, and why are they acting as if Lindsay Graham is the second coming of Douglas MacArthur?

Our post-Cold War American politicians can’t do the intellectual heavy lifting that connects policy to strategy. They are incapable of articulating a realistic vision of the political ends that are the desired outcome of a decisive use of military force.

US foreign policy in the Middle East for nearly a century has been based on one simple principle: Maximize the security of the delivery of fossil fuels from the region to the US. The corollary: While we’re doing that, let’s make sure to maximize the profits of the big corporations that benefit from the oil trade, and the corporations that make big profits by getting America to defend the oil companies.

“I listen to the commanders on the ground” isn’t strategy. And strategy shouldn’t be formulated by the military. They have the operational role, but strategy should be based in the hands of our elected officials. Let’s see what Commander-in-Chief Obama says about our strategy for the Middle East on Wednesday. We shouldn’t second-guess the strategy BEFORE it is promulgated, we can wait to do that.

Since the administration and nearly everyone else on Earth agrees that ISIS is a threat to at least some degree, the questions are:
• In what way is ISIS a threat to America’s security? To what extent are they a threat?
• What do we want the political end state to be in the ME if/when the threat of ISIS is contained, diminished or destroyed?
• What is it worth for America to accomplish this outcome in light of our other, competing, American interests, in the region and globally?

Once we answer those questions, Mr. Obama can give our military leaders definitive policy guidance. The Generals in turn can then give the administration the best possible advice on how military force could secure our aims, or how to use it in conjunction with other elements of national power, such as diplomacy, economic coercion or covert operations.

Moving forward, as McCain, Graham, Rubio and others want, without answering these questions, is another exercise in flailing about, hoping that using sufficient force opportunistically will cause good geopolitical things to happen.

It is important to see that ISIS is different from Al-Qaeda. ISIS focuses on the near enemy, the Iraqi and the Syrian Governments and their supporters, while Al-Qaeda focuses on the far enemy (think 9/11). That should be a pointer for our strategy. The US only attacked ISIS when the Kurdish oilfields were threatened. The message should be that ISIS can do whatever they want in northern Iraq and Syria − once they step out of their box they will get slapped hard.

We should ask if a militant and backward-looking form of Islam is what the people living in Islamic countries want. They are the ones who have to contend with the Muslims who financed the growth of militant Islam, and the Imams who preach it. The citizens in Muslim countries also have to take responsibility for their actions. They can’t just point at the Russians and Europeans and Americans and say “you made us do this.” There is some culpability among the Western powers, but we didn’t suggest, or encourage, Sunnis and Shiites to kill each other. That was a decision made by Muslims, some of whom are in power because of actions by the US.

Solving the problem presented by ISIS is primarily the job of the countries that have common borders with Syria and Iraq. We have a role, but it isn’t our problem to solve. The US and its European allies do not possess the wisdom, or the will, or the tools to fix whatever it is that ails much of the Islamic world.

This is the principal lesson that the long Iraq war taught us. The direction of our future ME strategy lies in recognizing that fact.

No doubt, ISIS poses a danger. But for the US and Europe, the present danger is negligible. Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran are both more directly threatened and far better positioned to deal with it. Offering indirect assistance might be helpful, however, the US would be better served simply to butt out. We’ve done enough damage.

Let’s ask some final questions on the way to developing a new ME strategy.

First, if it’s unacceptable to have an antidemocratic Sunni fundamentalist regime that routinely beheads people, denies women basic human rights, and uses oil money to support worldwide terrorism – what are we doing about Saudi Arabia?

Second, nobody’s saying that it’s fine for the ISIS lunatics to form a Sunni caliphate. But the regional powers who should able to and interested in stopping ISIS: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Iran, and Egypt must do the heavy lifting. Some have even participated in making ISIS what they are today. Let them clean it up.

If ISIS defeats its local opponents, and then truly threatens the world, there’d be sufficient reason to step in.

But so far, it has not.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 7, 2014

It seems that we have nearly reached peak moron, but since WWIII ain’t gonna start itself, Mr. Putin and the guys at ISIS are trying to do what they can to move us in that direction:

NATO is happy to get back to an enemy it understands:

Putin wants peace with Ukraine, now that he owns about 1/3 of the country:

Turning to domestic news, on Monday, the Senate will vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. The Democracy for All amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 19, allows governments to distinguish between people and corporations. It won’t pass in the House, so the Koch Brothers will be free to continue marching the Country toward Fascism.

The public finally got behind the issue of personal privacy when nude celebrity photos were hacked from the cloud:

And the fight we really want to win goes on:

Finally, RIP Joan Rivers:

Friday Music Break – September 5, 2014

Labor Day is in the rear view mirror. November, and control of the Senate, should be our focus, not ISIS and Ukraine. In fact, the more we focus on foreign affairs, it is less likely it is that we will discuss domestic issues, and the more likely it is that voter turnout will be low in November.

So, let’s think a bit about food insecurity (and music). Economic times are tough for a great swath of our citizens. From the Wall Street Journal:

On Wednesday the Agriculture Department released the results of its annual Household Food Security in the United States survey for 2013. According to the USDA survey, 14.3% of U.S. households—some 49 million Americans—were “food insecure at least some time during the year in 2013.” The decrease from 14.5% of households in 2012 was “not statistically significant.”

This has been a familiar story for a long time in America. Today, we will listen to only one song, done three ways. The song is “Hard Times Come Again No More”. It was written in 1854 by Stephen C. Foster, America’s pioneer songwriter. Foster was born July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of US Independence. That is the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. There was a short, sharp recession in 1854 that saw an 18% drop in economic activity. As in all recessions and depressions, the poor got hit the hardest. Here are some of Foster’s lyrics from 160 years ago:

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus:
Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

Even though it sounds as if it could have been written recently, this is a traditional piece of American music. Food insecurity has been around for a long, long time.

Here are James Taylor and Yo Yo Ma performing the song. It is from the CD “Appalachian Journey“. James Taylor and Yo Yo Ma are joined by Edgar Meyer and Mark O’Connor:

James Taylor and company do a lovely job. The sad part is that it demonstrates that not much has changed in the past century and a half: the poor still suffer in this land of plenty.

Next, Mavis Staples recorded the song in 2004 as part of the CD “Beautiful Dreamer – The Songs of Stephen Foster“:

Finally, a rousing version from Tommy Fleming, who has been called the “Voice of Ireland” and is one of Ireland’s top entertainers. This song is from the “Voice Of Hope” DVD Recorded at Knock Basilica, in County Mayo:

Steven Foster’s prayer, “Hard Times Come Again No More” has not been answered in 160 years.

We Have to do Something!

Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and ISIS: We have to do something! What’s the plan, Obama? In fact most Americans have heard that Mr. Obama said “we don’t have a strategy yet” to deal with ISIS.

WTF? In fact, Obama was speaking solely about ISIS in Syria. A reporter asked last Thursday:

Do you need Congress’s approval to go into Syria?

Obama replied:

We don’t have a strategy yet…We need to make sure that we’ve got clear plans, that we’re developing them. At that point, I will consult with Congress

This has led to the “We have to do something” chorus. Consider Fox Anchor Heather Childers:

https://twitter.com/HeatherChilders/status/506918798298198018

Ever hear of the “Politician’s Syllogism”? It is a logical fallacy that takes this form:
1. We have to do something
2. This is something
3. Therefore, we have to do this.

Sound familiar? We see and hear it every Sunday morning on “Bloviating with The Old Pundits”, also known as the network week in review shows. Here is what this can lead to: The Hill reports that House and the Senate are considering action to “do something”:

Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., said in a statement Wednesday he will introduce legislation when Congress reconvenes next week that would authorize the use of military force against ISIS and other terror groups around the world, including al Nusra, Ansar al Sharia, al Shabaab and Boko Haram

House Speaker Boehner said in an appearance on conservative Hugh Hewitt’s radio show that the president will need congressional authority if he wants to strike at ISIS in its Syrian strongholds:

…If he’s going after ISIS…I think he would have to provide a War Powers notification to the Congress…And then it would be up to the House to make a decision about whether we dealt with the issue or not

Are you feeling better? We saw the pitfalls of “We must do something” following 9/11. Initial reactions to the attacks on America were shock and confusion. Traditional ideological divides were blurred, but then the Right trotted out a line that resonated with all Americans and caused the antiwar left to dissolve: We have to do something!

In US political speak, the one thing we have to do “something” about always refers to a foreign policy concern. Politicans don’t feel that we “have to do something” about domestic problems. Poverty? No need to act. Corrupt bankers? Inaction is fine.

In foreign policy, when a crisis flares up overseas, and especially if it involves possible opponents that the War Hawks, the defense industry and the media can categorize as bad guys, “we have to do something” means military action.

But, there are always supplements to military action. Half-measures can come in both military (money and weapons, but no boots on the ground), quasi-military (military and political advisers) and geo-political or diplomatic forms (coalitions, sanctions or embargoes). We can employ some, or all of those options. Or, after careful consideration of our short and long term interests, we can do nothing.

Any and all of that is called “strategy”.

And that’s the problem. We need to do something effective that has long and short term benefits, and that doesn’t bankrupt the nation. We can drop some more bombs and send more advisers. To have a useful strategy, we have to come to grips with these facts:
• We’re going to have to give Assad a pass for killing his countrymen and doing mean things with chemical weapons, because we have to work together on eliminating ISIS
• We may need to ally with Iran, a non-democratic and anti-Sunni regime that most Americans think of as an enemy
• We may need to confront our allies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who have, at best, been “soft” on ISIS
• We have to accept that we now bomb our own weapons that have been seized by ISIS. Are we OK with more of that down the road, if that is the outcome of arming the “moderates” in Iraq and Syria?

With two beheadings, American opinion is being whipped up by certain politicians and the media to get us to strike back, hard. Fine, but let’s spend a few seconds thinking about WHY ISIS is whacking the hornets’ nest that is America. We are told that it is to get America to stop the bombing in Iraq.

Could it be just the opposite, that it is their invitation to join in yet another Middle East quagmire?

Could it be that they want a chance to defeat the “sole superpower” on their way to creating their caliphate? The logic of this form of asymmetric terror is pretty straightforward. But our “tough on defense” politicians fall for it every time. They take another bite of the “counter-insurgency” apple.

It may just be that their strategy (emulating Osama bin Laden), is to:

…in any way possible, enmesh the US and NATO in unwinnable wars, and then watch as the imperial powers disintegrate

ISIS and Al Qaeda are playing a long game. By doing flashy terrorist actions they empower the War Hawks and American conservatives. War Hawks and conservatives thereafter use their rejuvenated mandate to insist on crude and violent actions in the Middle East. They push reluctant centrists and liberals to do the same.

America then completely messes up the campaign, and further weakens its economy and social contract.

Perhaps we should let ISIS terrify Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf States to the point where they will all work together to destroy ISIS and its sources of funding instead of begging us to waste American lives and money there.

That is a strategy that is not exactly a do-nothing strategy, but you can already hear the War Hawk chorus, telling America to expect beheadings on Main Street next week.

Labor Day Weekend 2014

Labor Day 2014:

(Sunday Cartoon Blogging will return in earnest next Sunday)

We pause once a year on the first Monday in September to commemorate Labor Day, a celebration of (and by) the American worker. Sadly, we live to work and we work to live, and we complain about it all week.Our real national pastime is bitching about our salaries and our jerk bosses. Here are a few Labor Day songs that are not part of the typical songs you associate with Labor Day.

And before you ask, “Where’s ‘Take This Job and Shove It’”? That’s an ANTI-work song. Despite the Wrongologist’s support for the sentiment, it doesn’t qualify. Remember, wealth does not create labor, labor creates wealth.

So, play ‘em loud, even if you’re in your cubicle.

First, here is “Salt of the Earth” by the Rolling Stones, written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. It was on Beggar’s Banquet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZGPcRyyvc0

The first stanza is the one you remember, but the 4th and 5th are the Wrongologist’s favorites:
Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

Next, “Bright Future in Sales” by Fountains of Wayne, recorded in Chicago in 2009:

Best line:

I got a new computer
And a bright future in sales

Next, “Working for the weekend” by the Canadian band Loverboy. This performance is from 1986:

Technically, now that it’s 2014, the difference is that Everybody is Working ON the weekend.

Here is “Factory” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on 10/2/09 at Giants Stadium.

Factory is a simple 3 stanza song. The meditation on labor isn’t simple though:

Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain,
I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain,
Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life,
The working, the working, just the working life.

We close with “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon. This was on his first post-Beatles album in 1970, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Since the song contains the F-word, many radio stations banned it. The Georgetown University student station, WGTB was investigated by the FCC for playing the song after a Congressman filed a complaint. The station manager, under threat of a $10,000 fine and a year in prison, replied:

The people of Washington are sophisticated enough to accept the occasional four-letter word in context and not become sexually aroused, offended, or upset.

The history of WGTB, a radical-liberal student station inside a conservative, Jesuit university was a great example of the 1970’s counterculture wars. You can read about it here. Now, the video:

The lyric tells the story of growing up to be middle class, back when middle class wasn’t working class:

There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

Friday Music Break – August 29, 2014

Welcome to the start of the Labor Day weekend. Despite Ukraine, Syria, ISIS, Uzis in the hands of 9 year-olds, and the omnipresent Mitch McConnell, we are here today to listen to songs about the end of summer. The Wrongologist thinks Labor Day feels more like New Year’s, that it is the start of something new. New academic year, the annual budgeting process in corporate America. Oh, and Congress returns from its self-imposed exile in their districts.

First up, The White Stripes “We are gonna be friends” takes you back to grammar school days when it was time to get back to school. It was the opening song in the movie, Napoleon Dynamite.

Here is a sample of their lyrics:

fall is here, hear the yell
back to school, ring the bell
brand new shoes, walkin’ blues
climb the fence, books and pens
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
yes I can tell that we are gonna be friends

Next up, a new band, Echosmith. They are 4 California siblings who make music that critics call alt-pop. Whatever. The songs are lightweight and summery, the ideal indie pop jams for when you’re a teen, cruising around, or getting ready to go out with your friends. This one shows teen angst about not being one of the cool kids. It’s called “Cool Kids”.

Here is the lyric:

I wish that I could be like the cool kids cuz all the cool kids, they seem to get it

Summer doesn’t end without the Wrongologist thinking about “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart, since we all have to get back to something at the end of summer. Here is an acoustic version by the Rodster. Note Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones and formerly of Faces along with Stewart, is playing guitar:

Apparently, Stewart wrote this about the first woman he had sex with. It is unclear whether her name was Maggie. Here is the Wrongologist’s favorite stanza:

I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school
Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playing pool
Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helping’ hand
Oh Maggie I wish I’d never seen your face

While we usually have a set of 3 songs, today it is 4. Can’t close without “Summer Skin” by Death Cab for Cutie. The song is about more than just a summer romance ending, it’s about youth and carefree days ending, and how subtle those endings can be. It is from their album, “Plans”.

Here are the lyrics:

Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water’s warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin

I don’t recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin

On the night you left I came over
And we peeled the freckles from our shoulders
Our brand new coats so flushed and pink
And I knew your heart I couldn’t win
Cause the season’s change was a conduit
And we’d left our love in our summer skin

The Circle of Graft

Trenton, New Jersey is the political home of Republican Governor Chris Christie. The rest of America sees Mr. Christie as a tough-talking know-it-all, a moderate Republican who could be a real threat to win the presidency in 2016.

David Sirota in the International Business Times reports that Christie is sending state pension money to his buddies on Wall Street. The idea was to improve pension plan investment returns. From Sirota:

Gov. Chris Christie’s administration openly acknowledged that more New Jersey taxpayer dollars were going to land in the coffers of major financial institutions. It was 2010, and Christie had just installed a longtime private equity executive, Robert Grady, to manage the state’s pension money. Grady promoted a plan to put more of those funds into riskier investments managed by Wall Street firms. Though this would entail higher fees, Grady said the strategy would “maximize returns while appropriately managing risk”.

Some of the higher risk investments were in hedge funds. Ten years ago, public pension funds stayed away from hedge funds. Possibly hedge funds seemed too risky, or opaque, or exotic. After all, public pension funds invest money so they can afford to keep sending checks to retired schoolteachers, police officers and firefighters. Christie and Robert Grady went ahead.

Now, four years later, New Jersey has achieved about half of their promised results:

With the exception of the 2012 fiscal year, annual public pension return rates in New Jersey are significantly lower than the national median. Those differences add up when you are investing a pool of $80 billion. However, the fees NJ paid to its financial managers have more than tripled since Christie assumed office:

Mr. Christie took office in 2010. In all, New Jersey’s pension system has spent $939.8 million on financial fees between fiscal year 2010 and 2013. That’s just slightly less than the amount Christie cut from state education funding in 2010.

Half the results at triple the cost! Madison Avenue is so NOT stealing that claim.

The news gets worse: NJ’s pension fund is $47.2 billion short of what it needs to fulfill its promised benefits to retirees. The gap had narrowed to $36.3 billion in 2010 after Christie signed bills that boosted contributions from employees, raised the minimum retirement age for new workers and froze cost-of- living adjustments for retirees.

But, the gap grew again after Christie skipped a $3 billion pension payment in fiscal 2011. Christie also decided in May to skip this year’s $3.1 billion payment, again, in order to balance the state budget. As justification for the move, he argued that retirement benefits for NJ police officers, firefighters and teachers are unaffordable and therefore must be reduced.

Even more bad news: Many of the Wall Street firms NJ now pays management fees have been donors to Republican groups backing Christie’s election campaigns. Employees of those firms have also donated more than $11 million to the Republican Governors Association and the Republican National Committee. Now, not all of that money goes to support Mr. Christie, but the New York Times reports that both organizations spent big in support of his 2013 reelection campaign: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

A third of the $1.65 million the [National Governors] association raised in New Jersey [in 2013 by Christie] came from people and businesses who had significant contracts with the state, or from utilities, which are prohibited from making any contributions to candidates for governor.

As the IBTimes also reported, at the time many of these campaign contributions were made, Robert Grady was moving about 1/3 of New Jersey’s portfolio to some of the donor firms. Grady is a former managing director of the Carlyle Group, and Carlyle and a subsidiary have received $450 million in New Jersey pension investments since Christie took office.

NJ has a history of pension pratfalls. In 1997, Republican Gov. Christine Whitman issued $3 billion of state bonds and used the proceeds to make a leveraged stock market bet that failed when the Internet bubble popped. Ms. Whitman went on to withhold payments of $ billions to the public employee pension funds over the next few years, using the bulk of that money to balance the state budget.

Wait! There’s more: From 2006-2009, NJ also failed under Democrats: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Orin Kramer [was]…Chairman of the New Jersey State Investment Council, which is tasked with oversight of the state’s public pension system. In 2006 he successfully pushed to shift a huge chunk of the state’s $72 billion pension fund to private money managers rather than [have them managed by] state employees.

Kramer was also the architect of the decision to invest $400 million in Citigroup and $300 million in Merrill Lynch as those firm tried to survive the sub-prime market crisis in 2008. Later in 2008, Kramer “invested” union pension money into Lehman Brothers shortly before the firm’s collapse.

That move lost $115 million.

Although “public officials” decide where to place pension funds, increasingly with hedge funds, the pension monies belong to state employees.

How ironic that these same public officials blame the employees for the failure of the pension funds to have sufficient funds to meet their obligations.

Why not blame the “public officials”?

Circle of Graft, indeed!

Why We Are Driving Less

The Driving Boom, a six decade-long period of increases in per-capita miles driven in the US appears to be over. There are still millions driving, which means there are millions taking part in the Geico vs Progressive battle for the best insurance prices, but the number of drivers is not rising like it used to. From the Frontier Group:

Americans drive fewer total miles today than we did nine years ago, and fewer per person than we did at the end of Bill Clinton’s first term. The unique combination of conditions that fueled the Driving Boom — from cheap gas prices to the rapid expansion of the workforce during the Baby Boom generation — no longer exists.

If you drive a truck then you may want to purchase an ELD Device online to make driving more safe, one of the electronic logs is a great investment.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) reported in July on data from May, 2014, showing that travel on all roads and streets changed by 0.9% (2.4 billion vehicle miles) for May 2014 as compared with May 2013.

Here is an annotated graph of the FHA data from DShort:

The only other time in history that we’ve seen a similarly long time between the peak and trough was following the 1982 recession, when it took 39 months for total vehicle miles traveled to recover to its previous peak. It’s now been more than twice that long since the all-time high in vehicle miles driven, and unlike the 1980s, we don’t have a gas-tax hike to blame for it.

The research firm Behind the Numbers argues that we’re entering a new era in which Americans simply prefer to drive less. They report that it is unlikely that miles driven will eventually return to its prior trend. Among the reasons they say a sharp reversal is unlikely:

• Boomers are getting older and driving less.
• Millennials are less interested in driving, and are now the largest generation in the US.
• The trend toward living near the urban core reduces the need for driving.
• Higher gas prices discourage driving.
• Mass transportation is winning over more consumers.

As a result, Behind the Numbers thinks that tire and auto companies won’t do well in the future, since their sales are directly related to American driving. While it’s true that Baby Boomers are aging and will continue to drive less throughout their lives, the rest of their argument warrants rebuttal.

Let’s look at the relationship of miles driven to the Labor Force Participation Rate. The participation rate is the number of people over the age of 16, who are either employed or are actively looking for work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been tracking this since 1948. Here is the relationship:

Note that the left axis is the Labor Force Participation rate expressed as a % of our total population, while the Vehicle Miles Traveled is measured on the right axis, expressed in billions of miles. It is clear that once the Great Recession started, and a smaller percentage of the population had a job or were looking for work, the miles driven stopped growing and began to decline. Conversely, when the participation rate was growing briskly, America’s miles driven grew dramatically.

The long-term growth in the employment participation rate has been discussed by many, including the Wrongologist:

During the 1970s and 1980s, the labor force grew vigorously as women’s labor force participation rates surged and the baby-boom generation entered the labor market…The labor force participation rate hit an all-time peak in early 2000 of 67.3%…And labor force participation has since dropped to 63%.

So, when the number of people working declined starting in 2007, miles driven declined. THAT may explain what is happening more clearly than “Millennials don’t like cars”, or “Mass transportation is more popular” or “Online shopping equals fewer trips”, although those may also be contributing factors. For those that are still driving on the roads, it’s worth investing in a dash cam from somewhere like BlackBoxMyCar so if an accident were to ever happen, you would have video footage to protect yourself.

Fewer miles driven means lower revenues from gas taxes. Less revenue from gas taxes means less to spend on road and bridge repair. Less spending on roads and bridges leads us toward becoming a second-world economy.

This is just one of the truly poor outcomes caused by our inability to deal constructively with the economic fallout of the Great Recession.

What can we do to reverse our national losing streak?

We do not have what it takes to leave the dysfunction of our politics behind. We have a self-reinforcing system based on our politicians scuffling for money from corporations and therefore, performing as trained monkeys for their lobbyists.

You must get out and vote. You must work to drive turnout in November. We, the people, have to get back in the game, or our losing streak will continue.

The Irony Burns at Burning Man

If you have never been to Burning Man, your perception is likely of a white-hot desert filled with 50,000 stoned, half-naked hippies doing sun salutations while techno music thumps through the air and a big wooden statue of a man gets torched on the penultimate night. From the New York Times:

….let’s go over the rules of Burning Man: You bring your own place to sleep (often a tent), food to eat (often ramen noodles) and the strangest clothing possible for the week (often not much). There is no Internet or cell reception. While drugs are technically illegal, they are easier to find than candy on Halloween. And as for money, with the exception of coffee and ice, you cannot buy anything at the festival. Selling things to people is also a strict no-no. Instead, Burners (as they are called) simply give things away. What’s yours is mine. And that often means everything from a meal to saliva.

That is what it was like 10 years ago. Not anymore. As the desert week of art, sunburns and egalitarianism has grown, it sold out all available tickets. Scalpers ran up ticket prices, and the demographics began to shift upwards. People went from spending the night in tents, to renting RVs, to building actual structures. More from the NYT:

We used to have RVs and precooked meals, said a man who attends Burning Man with a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs…Now, we have the craziest chefs in the world and people who build yurts for us that have beds and air-conditioning…Yes, air-conditioning in the middle of the desert!

The NYT reported that his camp includes about 100 people from the Valley and Hollywood start-ups, as well as several venture capital firms. And while dues for most non-tech camps run about $300 a person, he said his camp’s fees this year were $25,000 a person. A few people, mostly female models flown in from New York, get to go free, but when all is told, the weekend accommodations will cost the party goers over $2 million.

So, starting today, San Francisco will resemble a ghost-town, with empty Google buses and Starbucks gone quiet as the city’s tech community descends on the Nevada desert. And this year, there is a Burning Man Traffic Mitigation Plan. All vehicles entering Black Rock City will need a $40 vehicle pass, and only 35,000 such passes are available.

Imagine: The wealthy icons of Tech partying with hipster representatives of the 99% who buy their products. Guess that means we can hate the multinationals who are working inversion deals to pay fewer taxes, but shame on you for hating Apple, Google and Microsoft. They go to the desert with the rest of us.

Now, gentrification is inevitable in any city. This is just another gentrification of large, public events. Think about South By Southwest (SXSW), the film, interactive, and music festival and associated conferences that take place early each year in March in Austin, Texas. First held in 1987, now it has corporate sponsors. Same with Coachella, the music festival that began in 1993 at one of the Wrongologist’s favorite places, the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. (We go in January for an annual dog show, not for polo or the music festival in March).

These radical, egalitarian things morph into an amusement for the 1% just like the Hamptons, Jackson Hole, Ibiza or private islands. Its radical spending, and radical conspicuous consumption instead of the ideal of Burning Man, which is self-expression. Now, the ticket revenue is $20.4 million, ($300 x 68,000 tickets). There are no vendors allowed to set up inside the event but there are plenty of rich dudes on the inside ready to monetize and network.

In the words of Cyndi Lauper, “Money changes everything!” You know that’s true for Burning Man, since a featured guest speaker this week is Grover Nordquist, noted tax hater. It is doubtful that he would have attended this in earlier years, when it was a collection of just the naked 99%. Jon Stewart commented on Grover’s visit:

#TDSBreakingNews Grover Norquist is going to Burning Man. Thinking anti-tax message will resonate better if delivered in a neon thong.

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 30, 2014

Burning Man is organized around 10 Principles. Here is number 3: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Can you imagine what they could have done to Woodstock had it become an annual event?

This year, how about a huge moving sculpture of Burning Man jumping the shark?