Author: mhasegawa

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Gerald Henderson the Elder

Gerald Henderson a native of Richmond Virginia played for Virginia Commonweath University.  I watched him play for VCU, and even worked out at the same gym.  (back then it was a Nautillus Club and there were only a couple in the Richmond area so lots of people were members.)  We were all excited when he was drafted in 1978 and in my family at least, we were most excited when he started playing for the Boston Celtics.

Today, his son, Gerald, plays for Duke as a key player in their NCAA tournament run.  This weekend the Hendersons return to Boston: Gerald the Elder to revisit the town where he made his most famous play and Gerald the Younger to try to lead Duke into the Round of eight – and maybe the final four.  All this will take place in the building that is often referred to as the New Garden, the real Boston Garden long torn down to make way for an area that has changed names multiple times.  The New York Times has an interesting article about father and son.

Twenty-five years after Gerald Henderson stole the ball, his son of the same name is going to Boston, scene of the crime.

What was that crime?

Go back to May 31, 1984, Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals, the Celtics facing the unthinkable prospect of losing the first two games at home to Magic Johnson and the Lakers. With 18 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Lakers had a 2-point lead and the ball in the backcourt.

Henderson is a little fuzzy on whom he was supposed to guard, on what exactly came next, but he will never forget James Worthy, after taking a pass from Magic, floating one to the right side, toward Byron Scott.

For years, Scott would rue his rookie mistake of not moving to the ball, of letting it come to him. Henderson seized his parquet moment, angling in for the interception, deflecting the ball with his left hand, soaring to the basket to lay it in.

Resuscitated, the Celtics won in overtime, 124-121. The series would end with Magic overdribbling the Lakers into a Game 7 defeat in Boston, where Bird’s triumph over Johnson was illuminated like a darkened Garden full of victory cigars.

…

The son, who bears a striking facial resemblance to his father, goes to Boston in the 25th anniversary year. Maybe he celebrates by stealing the show.

Of course, I didn’t pick Duke to get to the final four, but they are an ACC team and even if they mess up my bracket I won’t be too unhappy is Gerald the Younger leads them to an upset of Pittsburg.

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Paul Krugman v. Tim Geithner

It is no secret that I’m not an economist.  I have long depended on Paul Krugman to help me understand what was going on.  And given the current state of the world, I seem to be blogging about economics a lot.

So is the Tim Geithner toxic assets plan viable or not?    Larry Summers (against whom I have a grudge because of what he did to Cornel West while president of Harvard) took at slap at Paul Krugman’s op-ed piece saying “I wish he waited for the plan to be announced before he wrote his column.” 

What exactly did Paul write?

And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing.

It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. And by the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone.

Let’s talk for a moment about the economics of the situation.

Right now, our economy is being dragged down by our dysfunctional financial system, which has been crippled by huge losses on mortgage-backed securities and other assets.

As economic historians can tell you, this is an old story, not that different from dozens of similar crises over the centuries. And there’s a time-honored procedure for dealing with the aftermath of widespread financial failure. It goes like this: the government secures confidence in the system by guaranteeing many (though not necessarily all) bank debts. At the same time, it takes temporary control of truly insolvent banks, in order to clean up their books.

If I understand him correctly, what Krugman is worried about is 1) should we have just gone ahead and nationalized the banks temporarily and gotten it over with and 2) if the plan doesn’t work does it will Congress vote more money to nationalize.

I think Krugman is a great economist, but he maybe underestimating the larger political situation.  I think President Obama believes that health care reform and, to a less extent, eduational reform are additional keys to turning the economy around.  Obama is already hearing the footsteps of those in Congress who are looking at the deficit and wanting to put the breaks on.  Obama wants to pass his budget. Therefore he didn’t want to pick my option 1 and nationalize the banks.  If the plan doesn’t work, option 2 is an unknown.

One thing I do know is that while the market did go up today and that Tim Geithner did do marginally better that his first disasterous press conference, I love Jonathan Mann of Rock Bottom Cookie’s new song, “Hey Paul Krugman”.  Mann extoles Krugman while putting Geithner down.  Great catchy song.  Listen to the song and sing along with the refrain.” When I listen to you it seems to make sense, when I listen to him [Geithner] all I hear is blah, blah, blah.”

At this point all we can do is hope that the Geithner gamble works out.  I’m sure that Paul Krugman will be the first to be happy if it does.

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AIG Backstory: The Gramm Leach Bliley Act

Today (May 11, 2012) JP Morgan Chase appears to have engaged in the same kind of behavior that lead to the 2008 meltdown and people are talking about reviving the Glass-Steagall Act.  I thought I should repost this from March 2009.

Yesterday one of my Random Thoughts was to ask if anyone remember when banks were banks and stock brokers were stock brokers.  A few hours later, Rachel Maddow had a piece on the Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) of 1999. According to the summary of the bill the first provision is

TITLE I — FACILITATING AFFILIATION AMONG BANKS, SECURITIES FIRMS, AND INSURANCE COMPANIES

 Repeals the restrictions on banks affiliating with securities firms contained in sections 20 and 32 of the Glass-Steagall Act.

(The GLBA also did some good things like require lending in poor neighborhoods which began to end redlining, but that’s a whole different story and discussion. It also required ATM’s to post fees for use. And I need to confess that  in 1999, Representative Bliliey was my Congressman.)  

At the signing, by President Clinton, of the Gramm Leach Bliley Act Senator Phil Gramm said

“In the 1930s, at the trough of the Depression, when Glass-Steagall became law, it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.

“We are here today to repeal Glass-Steagall because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.

So it has taken about ten years to figure out Phil Gramm was wrong.  We did not “..promote stability by having competition and freedom.”

The GLBA was what allowed AIG to go from insurance company to a financial behemoth “too big to fail”.  It let CitiBank purchase Traveler’s Insurance and become CitiGroup. 

Circling back to Rachel Maddow, her guest David Cay Johnson compared the lack of Wall Street regulation which was supposed to save tax payers money with deciding that we no longer needed the expense of traffic lights, speed limits and stop signs because drivers will regulate themselves. 

My bottom line?  We need to get back to some sensible regulations with proper funding of regulators.  But will Phil Gramm’s sucessors – Eric Cantor and the other Republicans – understand that their essentially unregulated free market because government is bad mantra is what helped get us into trouble and brought us to the place where we are spending trillions to bailout the very companies that Gramm Leach Bliley helped to create.

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Friday Night Random Thoughts

Why have I picked the wrong upsets in the first round?  I picked  Cornell over Missouri and VCU over UCLA for example and totally didn’t see Dayton beating West VA. 

Why is everyone so focused on the President’s Special Olympics “gaffe”?  I thought his dancing around the Tim Geithner question was much worse.  Besides all those special olympians are now going to get to bowl at the White House. 

Why hasn’t Norm Coleman surrendered yet?  I have read that it is expected that Al Franken will likely pick up some votes as the court studies some more ballots.  Then Coleman says he will appeal.  Franken is asking Coleman to pay his legal costs.  I think Minnesota needs an second Senator and let’s just certify the election and let Al take his seat.

Why is is always so cold on the first day of spring in Boston?  At least this year it isn’t snowing.

I wonder what criticism the Republicans will come up with about the White House vegetable garden?  Marion Burros had a lovely story in the New York Times yesterday.  Seems everyone will have to pull weeds, including the President.  I guess that will be more time he is wasting when he should be focused on the economy.

Will President Obama and Barney Frank acually suceed in rewriting the regulations concerning financial institutions?  Does anyone else remember when stock brokers were separate from banks and the twain was never supposed to meet?  Maybe we need to go back to those days?

The cats are gathering and telling me it is time to stop having random thoughts and focus on their dinner.

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Inequality in America

The Republicans can scream that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid want to move the country toward a European type socialism all they want while the gap between the rich and poor keeps getting larger.   As many have said (including me), the current AIG bonus debacle seems be symbolize the rich getting richer at the expense of the rest of us. 

Dalton Conley, Acting Dean of Social Sciences at New York University has written in the Nation of March 23 about the Human Development Index (HDI) which shows the United States as Number 15 in the world.  The index “The score consists of three dimensions: health, as measured by life expectancy at birth; access to knowledge, captured by educational enrollment and attainment; and income, as reflected by median earnings for the working-age population. ”

Conley writes

The president’s proposed budget will do much to bring progressivity back to the tax code. Upper-income households–which have gained the most over the past three decades–will contribute around 80 percent of federal revenues, and more modest incomes will finally catch some real tax relief. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans have applauded the administration’s move to impose limits on executive compensation by attaching strings to bailout money. The reason is one of basic fairness, of course. But it turns out that limiting the windfalls of the few may actually be good for us all. That’s because there appears to be a relationship in the United States between inequality–which is largely driven by an explosive rise in incomes at the top–and overall levels of human development.

…

This decline proceeded apace through the Reagan and first Bush administrations, during the go-go Clinton ’90s, and through the regime of George W. Bush. We have slipped in periods of budget deficits and during the largest surplus in US history. So something deeper about the structure of American society is probably responsible.

Of course, there are some pretty good suspects. There is, for example, the issue of nearly 50 million people who don’t have health insurance. There is the fact that college completion rates have been flat since the ’70s despite an increasingly technological economy. And there is the wage stagnation for the bottom half, a problem that has dogged us since the oil shock of 1973. But there is one larger force underlying these trends that has been gaining steam over the past three decades, and that’s income inequality.

So it seems that what the Republicans call “redistribution of wealth” might actually be good for our country.

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AIG, Bonuses, and the Auto Workers

I’m pretty sure that those traders at AIG who are due for massive taxpayer paid bonuses would be insulted being compared to members of the UAW, but I’d like to understand exactly how they are different.   Both work for industries/companies in financial difficulty.  Both companies got help from the taxpayers.  Both the traders and the auto workers had valid contracts.  So those are some ways they are the same.  How are they different?  Only the UAW is being asked to renegotiate their valid contract, to make sacrifices for the good of the country. 

In this morning’s New York Times there is a defense of paying the AIG bonuses by Andrew Ross Sorkin.  Sorkin writes

That may strike many people as a bit of convenient legalese, but maybe there is something to it. If you think this economy is a mess now, imagine what it would look like if the business community started to worry that the government would start abrogating contracts left and right.

As much as we might want to void those A.I.G. pay contracts, Pearl Meyer, a compensation consultant at Steven Hall & Partners, says it would put American business on a worse slippery slope than it already is. Business agreements of other companies that have taken taxpayer money might fall into question. Even companies that have not turned to Washington might seize the opportunity to break inconvenient contracts.

If government officials were to break the contracts, they would be “breaking a bond,” Ms. Meyer says. “They are raising a whole new question about the trust and commitment organizations have to their employees.” (The auto industry unions are facing a similar issue — but the big difference is that there is a negotiation; no one is unilaterally tearing up contracts.)

And there we have it in the last sentence.  The UAW is negotiating.  So what’s keeping AIG from negotiating with Congress.  With Senator Feingold, Senator Bond, Congressman Frank, and Secretary Geithner.    Senator Russ Feingold wrote to Geithner

I am deeply troubled by reports that the American International Group intends to pay about $165 million in bonuses to its executives. As you know, the federal government has provided AIG with $170 billion in taxpayer money and currently owns 80 percent of the company. I share your outrage that a company which has been bailed out by the taxpayers for its mistakes would turn around and pay its executives such a staggering sum of money. 

Reports suggest that AIG’s chairman claims AIG is legally obligated to pay some or all of these bonuses. I write to ask why any bonuses would be legally required, given the company’s abysmal performance. In addition, I would like to know what legal options have been explored for canceling the bonuses or recouping the money from the recipients, and in particular whether the administration has considered holding AIG executives accountable in court for any breaches of their fiduciary duties to the shareholders

To me the most troubling part of all this is calling what these AIG employees are “legally obligated” to receive a bonus.  I think most people would agree with me and Senator Feingold that a bonus is something one gets for outstanding performance.  As a taxpayer/shareholder in AIG I want to know what the performance level – as judged from some outside auditor- of each person to receive a bonus is before I hand over the money. 

In Politico, Roger Simon  writes what I think many of us wish we had written first

The only real difference between Bernie Madoff and the management of AIG is that when Bernie Madoff got caught, he pleaded guilty. When AIG got caught, it asked the government for $170 billion.

And it got it. Now the American International Group is going to pay $165 million to its executives as a reward for the fine job they did in duping everybody.

The last word goes to Republican Senator Kit Bond

It is outrageous and unacceptable for failed Wall Street executives to receive a bonus after the American taxpayer was forced to bail them out. Policymakers should quit debating how to lower pay for some of these executives who got us into this mess.

Capping pay or taking away corporate jets isn’t enough. Before these companies get any more tax dollars, the failed senior executives and board of directors need to be fired 

The President is angry.  Democrats in Congress are angry.  Even some Republicans are angry.  The UAW is making concessions.  Time for the Wall Street moguls to do the same.

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Almost Time for the Big Dance

I’m looking at the March 9 Sports Illustrated cover showing the Elite Eight picks – as they say themselves “for now” and thinking it is a measure of just how unpredictable the tournament is going to be.  Of the eight, only Memphis, Duke, and Louisville have survived in conference tournament play.  The cover curse striking?

Louisville overcame a worn out Syracuse team which has played 7 overtimes in the past two days and just ran out of gas.  I think it is remarkable that the Orange still only lost by 10.  I have to say right off that I don’t like either Louisville or Syracuse – not because of their player but because I don’t particularly like either coach.  I’ve never forgiven Pitino for his awful years trying to be Mr. Celtic and trying to make Antoine Walker into something he was not.

The Big East is bragging that they will get 3 number one seeds.  I think Memphis and North Carolina (despite their loss to Florida State) will be number one seeds.  That gives the Big East two possible slots. 

Some things I wish for:  That Ty Lawson’s big toe heals and Carolina makes into the final Four.  That Memphis loses in an early round (I wish they would play in a more competitive conference and get beaten up like ACC and Big East teams do).  That Virginia Commonwealth makes at the least Sweet Sixteen.  Ditto for Syracuse.  That there are no injuries and every game is close.

Sleeper team?  Haven’t decided yet.  Robert Morris or American University?  Maybe Morehead State.

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Women and the Obama Administration

There is the shining example of Michelle Obama.  Then there are the many women who still haven’t gotten over the fact that Hillary did not get to be President.  There is the idea of a Presidential Commision on Women (like the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights).  Then there is the President’s Council on Women and Girls.  Politico reports

After Barack Obama’s election, some in the women’s movement thought big – pushing for a Cabinet-level office, or even a blue-ribbon Presidential Commission on Women.

But when Obama announced his plans Wednesday, he brushed aside those requests.

Instead, he started the White House Council on Women and Girls — a sort of inter-agency task force with no full-time staff, no Cabinet-level leader and no set meeting schedule.

Women’s advocates who filed out of his East Room announcement Wednesday said they were delighted that their issues would get White House-level attention, whatever the forum.

But Obama’s move left others in the women’s movement questioning why he simply wouldn’t give the panel the prestige and heft they feel it deserves. Some activists already are strategizing about new ways to elevate women’s issues, beyond what Obama did.

I know one of the things that President Obama can do to help women.  He can finally ask Congress to radify CEDAW, the Conventionon on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.   Somewhere on a disk that I can no longer read is the text of a speech I gave on an International Women’s Day in the 1990’s on why the United States needed to radify CEDAW but couldn’t mostly because of objections from the late Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.  And after reading the many reservations conservatives in the Senate wanted to place on the it, many women, including me,  could no longer support its radification.  CEDAW was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979.  We are one of a handful of countries like North Korea and Sudan not to adopt it. 

I understand that the Obama Administration has already taken steps to start the process, but the trick will be to get Congress to adopt CEDAW with the fewest possible attached  conditions or reservations.  (Think signing statements.)  In her posting on the Nation’s Blog, Betsy Reed calls for the adoption of a “Clean CEDAW“.

What does CEDAW promise? Guaranteed maternity benefits. The right to equal pay. (And no, Lily Ledbetter didn’t give us that. The right to sue after you’ve been discriminated against for years is not the same as the right to be free from discrimination.) A commitment, at the broadest level, to eliminate acts of discrimination against women–i.e., to prohibit them, and to punish them when they do occur.

It’s good stuff. One of the best things about the treaty is that it requires governments periodically to review and evaluate their policies and programs relating to women’s equality, provoking what Human Rights Watch’s Marianne Mollmann calls “a democratic dialogue” about women’s rights, which has already occurred in some of the 184 signatory nations, including Peru.

Another admirable aspect of CEDAW is its stipulation that, when traditional cultural or religious practices collide with women’s rights, the state is obliged to intervene on the side of women.

But there will be problems like a woman’s right to choose to end a pregnancy which was the big hang-up in 2002.  Reed writes

One of the most egregious [reservations presented] addressed abortion. It read: “Nothing in this convention shall be construed to reflect or create any right to abortion and in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.” As Janet Benshoof, president of the Global Justice Center, recently noted, this language was “…drafted to be used as an antiabortion tool. Under U.S. law nearly all abortions, including those needed by women due to serious health problems or fetal abnormalities incompatible with life, are defined as abortions as a ‘method of family planning.'”

Moreover, as Benshoof points out, the inclusion of this provision would undermine women’s access to reproductive health services around the world. Already, CEDAW has been cited in court rulings striking down laws criminalizing abortion in signatory nations, such as Colombia. An endorsement of this qualification by the US it would weaken the legal position of women’s advocates in these cases, giving aid and comfort to abortion rights opponents everywhere.

To pass Congress, we need 67 votes.  But we need to pass a “clean” version.  If Morocco can do it, the United States can do it also.

This past December, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, King Mohammed VI of Morocco lifted the “reservations” that his country had imposed on the implementation of CEDAW, and embraced an unqualified version. Wouldn’t it be a fitting tribute to the late Senator Helms if the United States did the same?

So if you are reading this and you agree, call or write you Senator.  And tell Senator Boxer to keep pushing for a clean CEDAW.

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Updates on a couple of recent posts

A few days ago I wrote about Al Franken’s struggles to get elected Senator from Minnesota.  The blog TPMDC has an update.

Today’s announcement by the Franken campaign — that they will provisionally rest their case tomorrow — has likely changed the timeline of the case dramatically, a top election expert in Minnesota tells TPM.

Professor David Schultz, a teacher of election law at Hamline University, was previously predicting that a ruling would take until mid-April at the earliest. But that assumed Team Franken would take 2-3 weeks to make its case, as opposed to the week and two days they’ll have actually used. “I would say we could anticipate — we should anticipate at this point — definitely before the end of the month,” said Schultz. “It very well might be in a couple of weeks.”

After that, the next step will be the appeals, which are likely to be fast-tracked straight to the state Supreme Court — and which Schultz expects will come from Coleman, with the court likely to have ruled that Franken is the winner: “It doesn’t look like at this point the Coleman campaign has either made the arguments or has the numbers to switch it over to his side for victory. So I presume at this point that the court will find for Franken.”

Franken himself was in Washington yesterday and told Senators and Politico that he doesn’t expect to be seated until after the Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling.

Correction:  In the post, “Where is Al?”  I said that the Minnesota Supreme Court was now counting ballots.  It is not, the Supreme Court but a three judge panel.

A bit more on Bobby Jindal and Kenneth the Page  from Calvin Trillin in this week’s Nation.   The title is “Bobby Jindal Bombs”

Republicans had hoped they might rekindle
Their party’s prospects through one Bobby Jindal.
But Jindal proved an easy man to mock
(He’s like the dorky page on 30 Rock).
So Sarah Palin might just have her day–
With hopes that Tina Fey will stay away–
Though Romney nurtures still that White House yen.
His imitator’s Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken.