Political Prose

It all goes back to Enron

victortchen@gmail.com — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Here's a fascinating piece from 60 Minutes that links last year's disastrous surge in oil prices to rampant speculation made possible by deregulation — the very kind of deregulation that Enron, at its peak, lobbied aggressively for, and that other firms and investors took full advantage of, securing handsome profits before the bubble burst.

The deregulation that Enron successfully pushed for in electricity markets was painful enough in California, which suffered from price spikes and rolling blackouts in large part because of Enron's manipulation of the unregulated market. But the worldwide effect of deregulation on oil prices seems to dwarf that crisis. Until the second quarter of last year, global oil supplies were increasing and global demand was going down — but the price of oil still went way up, driven by investor demand.

Some of the investors who sunk their money into oil futures may have took a hit once the market nosedived — 60 Minutes links the fall of Lehman Brothers and AIG, both heavily invested in oil markets, to that downturn — but the real losers were the mom-and-pop businesses and paycheck-to-paycheck families who got clobbered when gas went up to $4 a gallon. From truck drivers to gas station owners to 9-to-5 commuters, these folks didn't have the kinds of finances that could stay afloat amid such cataclysmic waves of market volatility.

It's unclear whether investment houses such as Morgan Stanley, which own large chunks of the oil wholesale business and also were advising investors to put their money into commodities futures — thus driving up the price — were manipulating the market to their benefit in the same way that Enron was in California. But that's the thing about deregulation: No one has the authority to find out what's really going on.

It seems that last year's oil spike was yet another way that deregulation has contributed to our current economic malaise. Lax oversight encourages risky behavior, which is not necessarily bad: More risk means more reward on the way up, if also more remorse on the way down. But in the mortgage market, and in the electricity and oil markets, deregulation also opened possibilities and altered the incentives, so that more people got greedy and opted for less than ethical ways to make a buck. From unscrupulous lenders and borrowers to firms manipulating markets, everyone was cashing in when the government's back was turned.

Blogging Hope and Peace in Gaza

victortchen@gmail.com — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

NPR recently aired a segment on two bloggers from Gaza and Israel. The Israeli calls himself Hope Man, the Palestinian calls himself Peace Man, and together they write the blog Life must go on in Gaza and Sderot.

Hope Man, a.k.a. Eric Yellin, lives in Sderot, a city that has faced ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza. Peace Man, who writes anonymously out of fear for his safety, lives in Sajaiya, a densely populated Gazan neighborhood with militant activity. In spite of the opposition (and danger, in Peace Man's case) they face from their own communities, the two have, over time, become steadfast friends. Says Hope Man (from the transcript):

HOPE MAN: ... as soon as I started meeting people, it created a real connection and understanding that on the other side of the border, there are people exactly like us who are suffering. We are suffering, too, through this conflict. But the only way to end this was through some kind of connection and dialogue.

NPR: And is that, do you think, the experience of Peace Man in Gaza?

HOPE MAN: Well, absolutely. I think — Peace Man has told me this so many times that, first of all, for him it was the first time ever to meet Israelis. And for him, they were always the enemy, always the oppressor. It took a while to create trust even between the two of us. And I think that over time, we have really become friends. And I think there is full and complete trust. I'd trust him with my life, and I think vice versa.

The two bloggers say that the media coverage of the conflict is "extremely biased" on both sides. They call for an immediate end to the violence and a return to dialogue. Says Peace Man:

We have said from the beginning that violence will bring more violence. I hope the world will understand that’s there people want to live safe with dignity and peace. I hope I will have the chance to write you again.

Hope Man, who is involved with the grassroots peace group Other Voice, says dialogue could have brought about a workable solution to the crisis during the five previous months of ceasefire if leaders on both sides had made a real effort rather than just blaming one another. But if the politicians won't act, he says, he and other residents of Sderot and Gaza will.

What me and others are doing is continuing the dialog with friends in Gaza. We are working to widen and deepen this dialog with more people on both sides. The day after the war we want to start finding ways to work together and create a normality. We are only several kilometers apart and that will never change. It is extremely important to widen our dialog and create trust between those that are willing to talk. To share our stories, fears and hopes.
The day after the war we need a new beginning. Let's start planting seeds of humanity and trust now.

It seems that Hope Man and Peace Man are following Gandhi's advice to "be the change you wish to see in the world." It's easy to be cynical and think that individuals are powerless to alter the decisions from up top. But in the long run, in the grand scheme, leaders react to the social forces surrounding them. Every personal connection across borders makes war less likely. Every instance of Hope and Peace is another trumpet sounding against the walls that separate us.

CIA pot calls kettle black

victortchen@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

You can't make this stuff up. Check out this Washington Post story about criticism of Obama's choice of Leon Panetta as CIA director:

Although several top CIA officials who have interacted with Obama since the election expressed admiration for his grasp of the issues, the transition process has clearly left a bad taste. One senior official said that "the process was completely opaque" and that the agency was neither consulted nor informed. The official was among several who discussed the subject on the condition of anonymity.

Yes, officials from the most secretive agency in government are complaining about the "opaqueness" of the process. That's like the arsonist who lectured kids about fire safety.

Obamanomics for the Missing Class

victortchen@gmail.com — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Now that Barack Obama has won the presidency, and the Democrats have broadened their majorities in Congress, the picture looks a little less bleak for the country's poor and near poor families.

In policies ranging from taxes to health care, from housing to job creation, Obamanomics will likely provide some welcome relief from the status quo of the last eight years, during which the ranks of low-income households grew. In 2000, 29.2 percent of the population, or 81 million Americans, lived on household incomes of less than twice the poverty line. In 2007, 30.5 percent of the country, or 91 million Americans, fell into this bottom category of poor and near poor households.

In our book The Missing Class, Katherine Newman and I looked at the situation of near poor families at the end of last decade and the beginning of this decade. Rates of poverty and near poverty were steadily falling from their peaks in the early 1990s. Americas economy was roaring. But as we described in our book, even in those boom years near poor families were struggling mightily to find quality health care, housing, and education for their children.

Now that another downturn is upon us, the economic fortunes of the less well-off look far worse. And having just approved a massive infusion of government money to prop up the country's floundering banks, the federal government — even with a progressive president at the helm — will find its options even more limited than is usually the case during recession times, as half-a-trillion-dollar budget deficits feed interest rate rises and worsen the market malaise.

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Still, if government does not act during a crisis, things could get much worse, especially for lower-income communities typically hit hardest by mass layoffs and shrinking paychecks. The Obama administration will have to step in vigorously to jumpstart sectors of the economy and reform markets so that a quick and thorough recovery — one not just restricted to Wall Street — will take place. Here are some priorities that, regardless of the situation with the deficit, will need to take place:

A "Green Deal." This may seem counterintuitive: how can we afford the "luxury" of tree-hugging during a recession? But investing in green industry is one of today's best growth strategies, as we can see abroad in places like Germany, which has become the world leader in solar power thanks to government-established incentives for private business. Green technology is also one of the few sectors where we can envision a substantial expansion of well-paying jobs that employ our poor and near poor workers. (Here's a contrarian view, but note that U.S. government support was crucial for several important industries that became private-sector engines of growth, from the telegraph to computing.)

The Internet boom showed us that sensible government investment can pay off huge dividends in new technology that creates jobs; a New Deal-style approach to green technology could be even more successful, given that it is not as wholly dependent on highly educated knowledge workers. From erecting wind turbines to installing solar arrays to manufacturing hybrid cars to building natural gas pipelines and clean coal plants, the country's shift to renewable, more efficient, and "cleaner" energy will reach every community and employ all types of workers.

Truly viable forms of alternative energy that can replace fossil fuels will take time to develop, but that's all the more reason to begin investing now. Simpler projects such as insulating homes and switching to natural gas-powered buses could employ many right away, as has been the case in Germany and India. Likewise, Obama's separate plan for investment in traditional infrastructure would grow employment in the short term as well as greasing the wheels of commerce in the long term, given that businesses rely on a well-maintained network of roads, bridges, ports, and air and train links to keep costs down and goods moving.

Tax policy. Of course, Obama's positions on taxes drew the most fire on the campaign trail — though largely because of Republican distortions of the actual proposal. While the McCain-Palin mantra was "he'll raise your taxes," the Obama platform offers a wide range of tax cuts targeted at those in the middle and lower ends of the income ladder, including refundable credits for child care, household savings, and mortgage interest — all of which will be of great assistance to working families struggling to save, buy homes, and care for their kids. His Making Work Pay credit offers another refundable credit of up to $500 ($1,000 for married couples), which will help the vast majority of workers but disproportionately benefit lower-income ones. As for the earned-income tax credit, a targeted subsidy for low-wage work that's popular with both parties, Obama proposes a much-needed expansion for married couples and childless workers; as we mention in our book, this latter group is largely ignored by current policies. All these tax policies will mean that the working poor and near poor will see significantly larger refund checks come tax time.

According to Obama's plan, rich families that make more than $250,000 a year will see their income and capital gains taxes (among others) go up, but their tax rates will be no higher than they were during the Clinton administration — which Republicans may not have particularly liked, but was surely not a "socialist" regime in the European fashion. By increasing taxes for this small, well-off segment of the population, the federal government can afford larger tax relief for everyone else, and given the fact that consumer spending by these households drives much of this economy, that's not a difficult compromise to make.

Health care reform. Forty-six millions Americans make do without health insurance in this country. Six in ten of them live in households with annual incomes of less than $50,000. As proposed, the Obama plan would dramatically shrink the ranks of the uninsured, by preventing insurers from rejecting the ill, expanding the market through public insurance alternatives akin to Medicare, and imposing legal requirements that most corporations offer insurance to their workers — and that all children have it. While the Obama administration will likely delay many of these ambitious proposals due to the economic crisis, it can move immediately to shore up state Medicaid programs and expand public health insurance for children, programs that are targeted at poor and near poor families.

Less clear, though, is how Obama's policies will slow down the rapidly rising tide of health care costs in any substantial way, without mandates that all people buy insurance (as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards proposed) or allowing insurers to compete across state lines (as John McCain proposed). As we discuss in our book, the high cost of health care means that those who have insurance are often underinsured, with limits on coverage or large out-of-pocket medical expenses. They can't afford the kinds of Cadillac health insurance policies reserved for the rich. Obama's tax credits for health care will help, but the larger problem of out-of-control prices will likely remain unresolved under his current plan.

Educational reform. The federal government provides less than 10 percent of total spending on schools, so in some ways there's little that an Obama administration can do in this area, even though the sorry state of our country's public schools is a major handicap to our national competitiveness and, as a result, our economic fortunes. That said, Obama's plan to promote early childhood education through grants to states would be a welcome support for working families whose kids start way behind in the educational race because they can't afford preschool. His proposal for a $4,000 refundable tax credit for college costs, provided in exchange for community service, would also be a big help to many poor and near poor students, whose financial aid has eroded with the value of the Pell grant, which hasn't kept pace with soaring tuition costs.

Finally, Obama has talked about promoting so-called "career ladders," a kind of incentive structure that we describe at length in the book. In the case of schools, teachers will be able to advance quickly in their careers with the help of scholarships, pay raises, and other enticements given in exchange for teaching in high-need schools and boosting student performance. Building these kind of ladders to the top will help many poor and near poor workers too often stuck at the bottom.

In Congress, the best-laid plans of presidents often go awry, and there's no telling what kind of strange soup will emerge after 535 cooks have their way with the administration's ideas. And given the downward trajectory of the markets, President Obama will surely need to trim and prioritize the proposals of Candidate Obama. In fact, there is reason to believe that Obama administration will not pursue any significant health care reform during his first term, and won't even consider a tax increase on the wealthy as long as the economy is in a slump.

But some kind of government intervention in all of the areas described above will be needed — and soon. As any businessperson knows, you need to spend money to make money. When private business is hunkering down and unwilling to invest, government needs to step up. Focusing on these four areas would be the most judicious way to devote public resources to pull the American economy out of its hole, and to ensure that poor and near poor families — not to mention the middle class — come out of this downturn alright.

This post was cross-published on the Beacon Broadside blog.

The Missing Class now out in paperback

victortchen@gmail.com — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

My book, The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America, has been released in paperback. You can find it at your bookstore, or order it on Amazon or Powells.com. (Use these links and a portion of the sale price goes to InTheFray.)

Obama's Reagan moment in Denver

victortchen@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The stadium-sized acceptance speech that Barack Obama gave tonight has been compared to those of FDR and JFK, but the note he struck by the speech's end reminded me of a Republican: Ronald Reagan.

Obama's Denver speech was a mirror image of Reagan's acceptance speech in 1980, in which the California governor called for an end to big government:

As your nominee, I pledge to restore to the federal government the capacity to do the people's work without dominating their lives. I pledge to you a government that will not only work well, but wisely; its ability to act tempered by prudence and its willingness to do good balanced by the knowledge that government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

Reagan was riding a wave of popular protest against government waste and excess. Obama spoke tonight at a time when a lack of good government — from a crippled FEMA to shoddy bridge maintenance to unaffordable health care to unscrupulous military subcontractors — is the problem. Big government "harms," Reagan said, and to that Obama answered tonight: So does an impotent government.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves — protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

(In his defense of government, Obama also channeled Roosevelt's "rendezvous with destiny" acceptance speech: "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.")

Reagan's 1980 acceptance speech chastised the Carter administration for breaking the compact between elected leaders and the people, by betraying the values of the American people:

"Trust me" government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs — in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their elected leaders. That kind of relationship, between the people and their elected leaders, is a special kind of compact.

Obama, too, talked of the disconnect between Washington's leaders and the American people, but he gave this sentiment a more populist slant. His candidacy, he declared, was about people rising up on behalf of a new politics — not placing their trust in a leader, but bringing about change themselves:

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us — that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it — because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

Reagan spoke of an "American spirit" that transcends the differences that divide Americans, that rests in hard work and love of freedom:

Tonight, let us dedicate ourselves to renewing the American compact. I ask you not simply to "Trust me," but to trust your values — our values — and to hold me responsible for living up to them. I ask you to trust that American spirit which knows no ethnic, religious, social, political, regional, or economic boundaries; the spirit that burned with zeal in the hearts of millions of immigrants from every corner of the Earth who came here in search of freedom.

Some say that spirit no longer exists. But I have seen it — I have felt it — all across the land; in the big cities, the small towns and in rural America. The American spirit is still there, ready to blaze into life if you and I are willing to do what has to be done; the practical, down-to-earth things that will stimulate our economy, increase productivity and put America back to work. The time is now to resolve that the basis of a firm and principled foreign policy is one that takes the world as it is and seeks to change it by leadership and example; not by harangue, harassment or wishful thinking.

Obama invoked again this "American spirit," this unifying creed built on the backs of immigrants, but he emphasized its moral and spiritual dimension, in Americans' constant striving toward the immaterial, the "unseen":

Instead, it is that American spirit — that American promise — that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours — a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

Finally, Obama's speech, like Reagan's, was a direct appeal to national unity, attempting to bridge an intensely partisan political landscape. Reagan, who as president would draw fierce criticism for policies hostile to minorities, reached out explicitly to them in his acceptance speech — "When those in leadership give us tax increases and tell us we must also do with less, have they thought about those who have always had less — especially the minorities?" He broadly appealed to "Democrats, Independents, and Republicans" with an optimistic message that combined the moral tenets of American liberalism and conversatism: compassion and personal responsibility, "the shared values of family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom" — while making the conservative case that American could be more compassionate if government was less powerful.

Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy; to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families; to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them.
Let us pledge to restore, in our time, the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative; a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.

Obama, too, sought to downplay political differences, while making overtures to a segment of the electorate skeptical of Democrats: national security voters. "Patriotism has no party," he said. "Democrats and Republicans and Independents" fighting abroad "have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America."

In a nod to conservatives, he spoke of the importance of both "individual responsibility and mutual responsibility" — even as his political purpose was to emphasize the latter, casting the moral imperative of compassion in biblical language:

That's the promise of America — the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

"I believe that this generation of Americans today has a rendezvous with destiny," Reagan said in his 1980 speech, an explicit reference to FDR's 1936 convention speech. Now Obama has taken the rhetoric of Reagan and used it in the service of a diametrical vision of compassionate government and shared prosperity.

Obama has himself talked about how Reagan "changed the trajectory" of America, and it seems that Obama desires to lead a similar transformation of the country's politics — though in the opposite ideological direction. The echoes of Reagan in his acceptance speech suggest that he already has this goal in mind.

So, if the 2004 election was a repeat of the Goldwater-LBJ election, perhaps 2008 will be a replaying of the 1980 election: an unpopular president succeeded by a charismatic leader, who brings a new consensus to national politics. We will have to wait three months to see whether Obama has his rendezvous with destiny.

Hershey's not-so-pure chocolate

victortchen@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Pringles are not potatoes. And now Hershey's Kissables are no longer "candy coated milk chocolate," but "chocolate candy."

From the Candy Blog [via Consumerist]:

The new version is called Chocolate Candy which is code for chocolate-flavored confection, or candy that contains chocolate but can’t be called chocolate because it has other stuff in it that’s not permitted by the FDA definitions (like more oil than actual chocolate).

That's not the only Hershey's chocolate whose chocolate has been diluted, apparently:

It strikes me as odd that Hershey’s new Pure Chocolate campaign comes on the heels of their attempts to dilute the definition of chocolate and have changed the formulation on many of their favorite candies (5th Avenue & Whatchamacallit) to include new coatings that are not pure chocolate any longer.

What's next? Non-corn Corn Flakes? Non-wheat Wheat Thins? Non-cheese Cheese Whiz? (Okay, maybe you already have your doubts about that last one.)

Another dream team

victortchen@gmail.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Talk about a Hollywood ending in yesterday's team finals in men's gymnastics at the Beijing Olympics. You had a Chinese team avenging with extreme prejudice the drubbing it had received in the 2004 Athens Games. You had a Japanese team that faltered horrifically, only to pull the silver from the jaws of defeat. And you had an American team that, with the loss of two star gymnasts to injuries, was counted out of medal contention by many observers, only to snag the bronze. (Here's the video of the finals, and here are some pics.)

This U.S. team truly showed America as its best: diverse, full of spirit and camaraderie, underdogs dreaming big. Kevin Tan, the son of Chinese-born immigrants, now representing America at Beijing. Joe Hagerty, whose father Mike was watching from the stands at Beijing in halo, still recovering from a serious car accident. Raj Bhavsar, an alternate in 2004 and again this Olympics, only to step in after Paul Hamm's injury to become one of the team's most consistent performers.

And Alexander Artemev, the son of an Russian gold medalist, who was originally selected as an alternate because he was thought to be too erratic to depend on. Artemev had a chance to redeem himself with the team's very last performance of the day, and he did so with a jaw-dropping turn on the pommel house, successfully fending off a last-minute challenge from Germany for the bronze.

If this American team has embodied the spirit of the Games, Spain's basketball team has shown its opposite. In this full-page, pre-Olympics ad in the country's largest newspaper, the men's team is shown making slit-eyed gestures on a basketball court emblazoned with a Chinese dragon.

Rule no. 1 of political campaigning: Embrace xenophobic patriotism

victortchen@gmail.com — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Political strategists think alike, and their Machiavellian mindset leads them without fail to the low road of branding their opponent as unpatriotic, un-American, and vaguely French. That's the takeaway from leaked emails by Mark Penn, former top strategist of the Clinton campaign, who it turns out suggested an uber-patriotic approach to Clinton that the McCain camp has taken up, with gusto, in the last several weeks of the presidential campaign.

The New York Times has an excerpt from a soon-to-be-published article in The Atlantic, which includes hundreds of leaked emails from the Clinton campaign. Here is one choice bit of Penn advice:

All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.
Save it for 2050. … Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America American to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back …
Let’s explicitly own "American" in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds.

McCain's campaign seems to be following this script line by line. His campaign has adopted a new slogan, "Country First," and his campaign ads and statements in recent weeks — especially since Obama's Berlin speech — have highlighted Obama's celebrity appeal to foreigners, and accused the Illinois senator of being unpatriotic.

Things get complicated by the race issue. For example, in an ABC News interview after Obama's Berlin speech, one McCain supporter made a point of mentioning how McCain was "all-American" and "one of us." Those could be references to Obama's lack of patriotism — or they could be code words for race.

Intentionally or not, McCain's current line of attack strikes both of these lightning rods. His strategists, like Penn, know that "international" and "American" are mutually exclusive terms in this country's politics — even if trends of globalization mean that, in the "real world," American and global interests look increasingly alike.

Is our food made from petroleum?

victortchen@gmail.com — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

A reader E. commented on my post, "The politics of Pringles," asking whether the claims in it were true. I wasn't sure if E. was talking about the post itself or another reader comment, which claimed that the food we eat is made from petroleum. In any case, here are the facts on both claims:

Are Pringles potato chips, or some potato-like substance in a can?

The latter. Their potato content is less than 50 percent, and Procter & Gamble, the maker of Pringles, has itself argued in a British court that the Pringle cannot be considered a "potato crisp" (the British term for "potato chip"). For corroboration, see the links in my previous post, or this BBC article.

Now, there is a silly Internet rumor floating around that Pringles are made from leftover McDonald's French fries, which is untrue, as this post at urbanlegends.about.com makes clear. That said, there is also a lot of funny business that goes into making McDonald's French fries taste so good, as you can read here.

Is our food made from petroleum?

It depends on what you mean by "made from."

Today's industrial farms grow crops like corn and wheat using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, both of which are derived from petroleum. Fossil fuels are also needed to plow and irrigate the fields and ship the harvest to market. (See this New York Times article about how rising fuel costs are hurting American farmers.)

So, our food is made using lots and lots of petroleum. Even in organic industrial agriculture, the fossil-fuel tab is considerable: Michael Pollan says that the 80 calories of energy in a single, one-pound box of lettuce requires the burning of 4,600 calories of fossil fuels to produce and ship.

Is petroleum actually in our food?

If you are like most Americans and eat food with artificial dyes in it, then yes.

Synthetic food dyes are "derived primarily from petroleum and coal sources," according to the Food and Drug Administration. In fact, this U.S. News article points out that the fears about the ill effects that petroleum- and coal-based artificial dyes may have on children are prompting companies to switch to natural, carmine-based dyes. The problem is, carmine is made from ground-up insects. Carmine also happens to be an allergen.

And so it goes.

The race war in Darfur

victortchen@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Here's one of the most concise pieces I've seen detailing the genocide in Darfur:

It seems to me that not enough attention is being paid to the racial component of the killings. This 60 Minutes piece describes the African Arab militias known as the Janjaweed as "racist," which is an apt term but one I've rarely heard, even though it might translate the genocide there into terms that Westerners can better understand. The social categories in Sudan are complicated, as they are everywhere, but that said the genocide there is not unlike the lynchings and other kinds of Jim Crow-era violence that whites used to intimidate, terrorize, and drive off African Americans.

Breaking our addiction to oil, cold turkey

victortchen@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Everyone (even the president) talks about America's "addiction to oil," and this recent debate over offshore drilling has made me think that the addiction analogy is a useful way to think through the issues.

Republicans want to drill offshore and in other new areas (such as Alaska) because they think it's a quick and easy way to reduce gas prices. I'm somewhat sympathetic to this view: More supply will lower prices, and it is clear that many Americans are hurting terribly because of the higher costs of not only gas but all the goods and services that come from the burning of fossil fuels in our economy — basically, everything else. Yes, the higher price of gas is reducing consumption, just like a gas tax (remember the discussion of that in 2004?), which means less carbon emissions and less global warming, but the pacing is the problem: Everything is happening way too suddenly. The sharp rise in prices has blindsided Americans, especially those of fewer means, and these are households that are teetering on the edge to begin with, and can't absorb the one-two punch of higher gas and food costs.

Democrats argue that drilling offshore will cause serious, irreparable harm to the environment, and may not even help lower gas prices that much, if at all, given what a small amount of oil can feasibly be pumped from the bottom of the sea, relative to Middle Eastern sources. All offshore drilling leads to oil waste being pumped into the sea, not to mention a risk of disastrous oil spills during transport, and so the damage that this kind of drilling can cause to oceans and seashores (and, more pragmatically, to the tourism industry) is very real.

But the most persuasive argument to me is that more drilling simply delays the solution to the problem. The solution is clear to everyone, I think: We need to develop non-polluting, renewable sources of energy. By drilling, we divert limited economic and political resources toward propping up an industry that eventually must be phased out. Every investment dollar that goes into the oil industry is a dollar not going to green energy.

It's like a drug addict, who knows she has to quit, but keeps finding new reasons to shoot up. The solution is to stop using. The effects of using are clearly bad, and every time she gives into temptation, she makes the situation worse, and the addiction harder to break. Likewise, by continuing to give into our oil addiction, we're making global warming and our Middle Eastern dependency worse, and moving further away from our goal of abstinence.

It's a bit ironic that the Democrats are the ones who advocate quitting cold turkey this time, while the Republicans want "just one more taste."

If we really do need just "one more taste" to tide over our struggling families, then we might as well use the oil sources that have already been tapped — diverting some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and recycling existing oilfields. It's sort of like using the drugs stashed under your mattress rather than heading into the city to re-up. (Not that I have any experience in these things.) It's still bad behavior, but at least you don't have to go too far.

Study: Mice who stop drinking booze swim less

victortchen@gmail.com — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Medical research owes much to the mouse, that wee rodent that is more guinea pig than guinea pig, standing in selflessly (if unwillingly) on behalf of human beings in countless lab experiments that palpitate, penetrate, irradiate, and incinerate it in the name of science. Apparently, the mouse is an excellent surrogate for us humans across a wide variety of physiological measures.

All this said, this study, which examines the effect of ending alcohol consumption in mice, made me laugh. The study authors argue that their research shows a "causal link between abstinence from alcohol drinking and depression." I'm sure a good deal of the theoretical complexity behind this research got lost in the write-up, but I found it hilarious that we can infer this "causal link" in human beings by seeing whether mice who stop drinking can swim in a beaker of water. (It's called the Porsolt Swim Test.) Those mice who just float without swimming are deemed depressed. No word on whether they subsequently get therapy or AA.

I also love the name of the center responsible for this study, the "Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies." It sounds like a fun place to work: beer pong every Friday?

Onward, Christian soldiers

victortchen@gmail.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

I was disturbed by this report that a former Baptist, now atheist, soldier is alleging discrimination in the Army because of his beliefs. He served two tours of duty in Iraq, but he claims he was ostracized and even threatened after he refused to pray with other soldiers.

After decades of virulent racial segregation, the U.S. military has won an admirable reputation for creating esprit de corps across ethnic and racial lines, and has made recent strides in extending equality to women servicemembers (its intolerance of gays and lesbians in uniform, of course, is a different matter). In any case, you'd think the military would know better not to discriminate based on religion, if only to avoid the public perception, particularly in the Middle East, that America is a Christian nation waging a war against Islam. It doesn't help that a group like the Officers' Christian Fellowship, which has representatives "on nearly all military bases worldwide," has made it their mission to "raise up a godly military," whatever that means.

When I was watching that series Carrier, I found the segment on religion particularly interesting, because evangelical Christians clearly dominated (well, there was a Wiccan group) and I got the sense that sometimes officers led prayers that everyone was expected to follow. It made me wonder how atheist soldiers got along with the rest of the crew. (Of course, the discrimination that believers face in many secular settings is worrisome, too. But hopefully there are fewer guns and bombs involved.)

Religiously inclined soldiers can take solace in their faith after going through the hell of armed combat, and surely that's why there are so many chaplains in the ranks of the military. Yet, if I were a man of the cloth (for the sake of argument), I wonder what would be going through my head as I blessed soldiers going off to kill the enemy. That "Thou shalt not kill" business in the Bible seems rather clear. When asking for God's help, it's probably best not to ask for things He doesn't much care for, like killing. And you know the other side is praying hard, too; asking God to take sides in a fight is like asking a parent to choose between her kids.

It reminds me of what Lincoln said during the Civil War when he was asked by a group of leaders to join them in prayer that God be on the Union's side. He answered, "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

The politics of Pringles

victortchen@gmail.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

I was hungry the other day at the pharmacy (never a good idea), and so I bought a can — okay, two cans — of Pringles. I know they're horrible for you. A telltale sign of poor nutritional value is a perfect, recurring shape not found anywhere in nature, and the Euclidean geometry of a Pringles chip is rightly described as supernatural. But, in my lightheaded state of hunger in that store aisle, I reasoned that any sane person, if posed with the choice between a Twinkie and a Pringle, would choose the chip, which in its defense has a color resembling potato, and not the unholy yellow gleam of a Hostess sponge cake.

Then I read today that the makers of Pringles successfully argued before a British tax court that the Pringle is not a potato chip. It has a potato content of 42 percent. The rest is corn flour, wheat starch, rice flour, and a host of other substances concocted by modern-day alchemists probably working out of a lab in New Jersey.

Procter & Gamble, the maker of Pringles, made an eloquent case on behalf of their product's unwholesomeness. (The corporation petitioned the court to get out of paying a British sales tax levied on food products.) The Pringle, said one lawyer, does not taste like — or "behave like" — a crisp (the British word for chip). "It has none of the irregularity and variety of shape that is always present in crisps. It has a shape not found in nature, being designed and manufactured for stacking, and giving a pleasing and regular undulating appearance which permits comfortable eating."

It is never a good sign when your food is in the same sentence as the word "manufactured." The word "undulating" should also raise hairs on the back of your head.

The lawyers for the non-chip chip went so far as to suggest in court that most shoppers didn't think of the Pringle as a potato chip (in spite of the fact that, at least in the U.S., the can clearly says "potato crisps" — as you can see in the photo above). This begs the question, "What on God's earth do they think it is?"

Perhaps the Pringle is an example of what Michael Pollan calls "edible foodlike substances." A Pringle is not real food, but an amalgam of food and various artificial dyes, flavors, and preservatives. It's unclear what some of these synthetic substances do to the body in the long term. Recently, a watchdog group called for the banning of artificial food dyes because of research that suggests they contribute to attention and hyperactivity problems in children.

Pollen advises people to buy food from the edges of the supermarket — from the aisles with refrigerated meats and dairy and unprocessed fruits and vegetables — since everything in the middle is not perishable, and therefore laced with preservatives. The pharmacy where I bought my Pringles probably counts as such a dead zone.

Maybe the makers of Pringles should have just taken the sales-tax hit and left us chip eaters in blissful ignorance. What will we as a society do, without our edible foodlike substances?

I think I'll go have some undulating chips now.

Movie analysis: Spielberg's A.I., a fable about life's loss

victortchen@gmail.com — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Here's another in an occasional series of posts on films. I call it "analysis" rather than "review" because I look at the whole film, so there are almost always spoilers (you have been warned). You read reviews before watching a film; you read analysis afterward. I call it "movie analysis" rather than "film analysis" because I'm not a film scholar and I'm not interested in the craft of films, but rather their ideas.

Stanley Kubrick came up with the idea for Artificial Intelligence A.I., and he worked with Steven Spielberg to develop the film, which Spielberg ended up directing after Kubrick's death. This may account for the peculiar mix of light and dark in the film's themes, though Spielberg says it was he who brought a more somber note to Kubrick's original script.

The film received mixed reviews, and there are certainly some conspicuous flaws in its plodding ending and the tin-ear direction of some of its scenes. But that said, A.I. is a vehicle for some powerful, profound ideas.

It is at heart a film about loss. Most obviously it is about a child rejected by his mother, but the robot boy David would have lost his mother even if she had not abandoned him. "Fifty years," the mother Monica tells her adopted son, is all she can be expected to live; and that is just a single sunrise and sunset to an immortal being. His journey in the film is a quest to find eternal love, which implies eternal life. The darkness at the core of A.I. is not the pain of abandonment but the knowledge that all things shall pass.

A.I. is also a film about the loss of the human race. "Death by global warming" is a scenario common to many futuristic films, in which a Noah-like deluge drowns a greedy, unrepentant, politically incorrect world. Politics and jeremiads aside, however, the end of human life (or all life) appears inevitable regardless of climate change, given that our sun (and all suns in this universe), the ultimate source of the energy that nurtures life, will one day burn out. (Isaac Asimov wrote a fascinating short story on this very topic.) What happens when the sun "breaks down," and "death shall have no dominion" — because life is no more? The great, unthinkable tragedy is not the loss of one life, but all life, and with it all that humanity has labored, fought, and loved.

The ending of A.I., in which David is given the chance to spend a single day with a reincarnation of his long-dead mother, is an explicit (albeit contrived) insertion of elements of the fable into science fiction. It is fantastical because the science of cloning (by replicating the DNA in a hair, in this case) can produce only a twin of ourselves, and never our true selves — our physical selves included — shaped as they have been by experiences unique in time. The popular fascination with cloning is itself driven by modern-day fairy tales of conquering death, with little basis in science. But the film depicts another, more essential fantasy: this dream that we can salvage our experiences somehow from the spacetime continuum, as the futuristic mecha do in the film when resurrecting Monica. The hope implicit in this fable is that the past is not lost to us; all that has happened has left a mark somewhere, like fossils in the earth, and perhaps one day we will find a way to recover them.

It is this reality that our civilization's fables seek to overthrow with all their magic. We do not know whether what we do matters, because if it matters there must be some eternal memory of it. We have children, in part, to live beyond death; we seek fame and fortune, in part, to leave something for the ages. But even this, too, shall pass.

Uniting a house divided

victortchen@gmail.com — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:47:18 +0100

Today's primaries drew a final tide of delegates to Barack Obama's camp that, according to the Associated Press, has put him over the top. Obama will be the first person of color in American history to be a major party's presidential nominee. (InTheFray's Bob Keeler called it.) As far as I'm aware, he's also the first person of color to be chosen as a major party's nominee for the chief executive of any Western government.

So, what next? Obama has to choose his running mate, and there's great pressure coming from the Clinton camp — reportedly from Bill Clinton himself — to put Hillary Clinton on the ticket.

There's a chance that might happen. When his campaign began in Springfield, Illinois, in February of last year, Obama consciously put on the mantle of Abraham Lincoln. From the Old State Capitol building where Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech, Obama evoked that past in his 21st-century call to bring the nation together and end political partisanship. Again, in his victory speech today in St. Paul, Minnesota, Obama quoted Lincoln twice, referencing the Gettysburg Address and calling for America to restore its image as the "last best hope on Earth." Now that he has secured the nomination, Obama may continue to walk in Lincoln's steps by choosing a cabinet — and a vice president — from among his political opponents.

As Doris Kearns Goodwin writes, Lincoln passed over the traditional crowd of yes-men in favor of powerful rivals like Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton (a man who once called Lincoln a "long-armed gorilla") in forming his cabinet. It was an audacious move that not only succeeded in quelling factionalism in the party, but also proved Lincoln's mettle as the kind of confident leader who could lie down with lions and, in the end, win them over with his magnanimity and the strength of his convictions. (Stanton, in fact, grew to admire Lincoln and is credited with saying upon his death the famous lines, "There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen ... Now he belongs to the ages.") In spite of all the bad blood spilled on the campaign trail, perhaps Obama will likewise rise to the occasion and make peace with his fiercest opponent, Clinton.

My sense, though, is that it's not likely to happen. Politics today operate on a different order of magnitude than they did in Lincoln's time, and the huge, clanking campaign machine that turns politicians into presidents today has an inertia of its own. Lincoln, the obscure legislator from the Illinois backwoods, faced a different kind of pressure than Obama, the man at the center of a fundraising and pundit juggernaut. Obama may be willing to consider Clinton, but his coterie of advisers and legions of supporters are probably less forgiving. The race for the nomination has bruised too many egos, and ego is the currency of the political class surrounding every candidate. Beyond that, there's also the sense that Clinton represents an old guard that stands in the way of Obama's call for change.

I think Obama will move in one of two directions for his vice-presidential pick. He will choose someone with a military background who will give his ticket a command-in-chief gravitas that can compete with John McCain's experience and win over older voters skeptical of his candidacy. (Someone along the lines of Wesley Clark comes to mind.)

The other likely course of action would be to choose a woman as a running mate. Clinton struck a vital chord in American politics with her candidacy, and the millions of voters inspired by the prospect of a woman as president offer the key to victory in November. It's high time that a woman was in the White House, and though the vice presidency is the equivalent of a silver medal, it still means ascending the winner's dais. If Clinton is not Obama's pick, then he can at least defuse much of the resentment — and up the historical ante — by choosing another woman. A unbeatable ticket would be a combination of Obama and a moderate Republican senator like Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, though that kind of bipartisanship would have been tough for even Lincoln (Snowe and Collins, for the record, support McCain), not to mention a slap to the face of Clinton's supporters. But a running mate from the ranks of Democratic women governors or senators could also serve Obama well in the general election, especially if she comes from a swing state such as Michigan, Minnesota, or Missouri.

Of course, there's still a chance that Obama will unite the Democratic house by choosing Clinton. If so, he will be following the lead of another tall, skinny legislator from Illinois.

Carrier takes off

victortchen@gmail.com — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:32:54 +0100

I just saw the first episode of Carrier, a documentary series that looks at life on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier. I was struck by how mundane most of the work is aboard the carrier: wiping windows, cooking food, wheeling around pallets. Except that the windows are at the top of a control tower, the food amounts to ten crates of chicken a day, and the pallets hold high-explosive weaponry. There are 5,000 people who make up the "city" of the carrier, and most of them aren't zipping around in multimillion dollar jets, yet they work 16-hour shifts to keep the planes flying.

Most of the people who serve on the carrier are people from middle -class, lower middle-class, or poor families — as an officer points out, the graduates of Exeter Academy tend to have better options. These men and women tend to be in their late teens or early twenties, and so life on the carrier is akin to high school: with gossiping, hooking up, illicit booze, and occasional temper tantrums. But the appeal of carrier life also comes across clearly in the camaraderie among the crew and the opportunities that the military provides for discipline, responsibility, and a decent career. That's what draws two women profiled in the documentary: one the daughter of a "pimp" and drug addict and the other who has lived all her life in a small town of only 3,000 people. In America, the WPA has been replaced by the military, a government-funded jobs program that both political parties support and that works for many young men and women, provided they don't get killed.

This jobs program is all about waging war, which brings both a sense of urgency and importance and some moral qualms to the equation. A woman whose job is to load ordnance on fighter planes thinks about the fact that the bombs kill people, but she points out that her role is a small one and she's just doing what people tell her. (It's amazing how little the rank and file know about what the overall mission is.) A pilot says that no one who pulls a trigger can not think about whether this war is worth it. What comes across in the documentary is the crew's range of political beliefs, which aren't necessarily in lockstep with those of their president or superiors. It's another way that this remarkable series pulls apart the civilian world's myths about the military and helps us understand the men and women who choose to serve.

A middle way to solve America's healthcare mess

victortchen@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:07:29 +0100

This week's edition of Frontline covered a topic that you'd think we'd be hearing more about, in this election year: what the United States could learn from other countries that are able to provide health coverage for all while respecting the power of markets. (You can watch the documentary here. Below is an interview with Frontline correspondent T.R. Reid.)

In our book The Missing Class, Katherine Newman and I talk about the financial hardships that families face when they don't have health insurance — or their insurance offers substandard coverage. Hundreds of thousands (some say millions) of Americans go bankrupt every year at least in part because of medical bills. Whenever we talk about the need to reform the health care system in this country, the typical response is that Americans don't want "socialized medicine." To critics of reform, it's a sad, but inevitable, fact that a free-market healthcare system like America's will leave some people out in the cold.

Yet in four of the five countries examined in the Frontline report, the private sector plays a major role in health care — which might come as a surprise to some Americans who have been told that the only options are our current Wild West free-market system and the bureaucratic nightmare of socialized medicine (which is actually not so much of a nightmare, according to the report). In fact, in Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, there are private insurers akin to the HMOs in our country.

The difference is that private insurers in these countries cannot, by law, make a profit — any profits they make have to be plowed back into the firm or used to lower healthcare premiums. Also, the insurers cannot reject anyone for already being sick, and they have to pay their members' bills in full — behavior that goes hand in hand with their not-for-profit status, since for-profit HMOs inevitably face pressures to weed out unhealthy members and deny payment.

Another good idea from abroad is allowing people to choose their insurer from among all HMOs. Germany, for example, gives people the option of more than 200 private insurers. This creates competition that drives down healthcare costs. Allowing people to choose the government as their insurer — for example, changing Medicare from an exclusive program for the elderly into an insurance option, alongside private HMOs, for all Americans — would immediately drive down costs as private firms slash their prices to compete with the government. (Surprisingly, even when private insurers can't make profits, there is still a healthy competition between them, though the rivalry is over membership growth and company survival rather than shareholder dividends.)

Rampant malpractice lawsuits exact huge insurance fees from doctors practicing in the United States, while they are almost unheard of in many countries with comparable or superior healthcare systems. Reform is needed here, too, or else those exorbitant insurance costs will continue to pad the cost of care.

Finally, making insurance mandatory for all is crucial. Government can help the poor to pay premiums, but the important thing is making sure that everyone is covered, so that the insurance mechanism — which relies on having a large pool of healthy people to balance out the costs of the unhealthy — can work. In Britain, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan — in virtually all advanced industrialized nations except the U.S., for that matter — insurance is mandatory or health care for all is paid through taxes. (In America, people without coverage turn to emergency rooms, the costliest kind of care possible.)

The results of these policies are healthcare systems abroad that cost their countries much less — as little as six percent of Taiwan's economy, compared to 16 percent of America's — and insurers with administrative overheads in the range of 17 percent, rather than the 25 percent common among U.S. HMOs. Meanwhile, the quality of care is just as good, according to national surveys, and surgical procedures in some of these countries actually happen faster than they do in America — contrary to the myth of long lines at the socialized clinic. Bankruptcy because of medical bills is virtually unheard of.

One defense of America's unfettered free-market system is that it promotes innovation. The belief is that pharmaceutical companies, for example, won't invest in research without hefty profits to be made. But the large pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland did no such thing in spite of healthcare overhaul in the 1990s: They cut their marketing budgets and maintained their levels of R&D. (The irony is that America is in effect subsidizing innovation in other countries: Swiss pharmaceutical firms make a third of their profits in the less regulated U.S. market. Swiss patients benefit from the same state-of-the-art drugs, while American patients carry the financial burdens of coverage that the drug companies would rather not take on.)

According to Frontline, none of the three major party candidates for U.S. president have offered policies that wholeheartedly embrace the good ideas already tried and tested in our fellow capitalist democracies. John McCain has talked about allowing people to buy insurance across state lines. Hillary Clinton has called for making insurance mandatory for all, while Barack Obama wants a mandate that covers children. But overall their plans are tepid, says Reid, and won't do much to dent rising healthcare costs or help the hundreds of thousands of Americans who go bankrupt every year because of medical bills.

It is baffling to our counterparts overseas that our citizens without jobs — the people most likely to get sick — go without health care, or that we provide education and legal counsel to all but not the right to see your own doctor. Surely we can learn something from what has worked elsewhere in the world. The recent experience of Switzerland, which had a healthcare system much like America's until it underwent dramatic reform in 1994, is especially instructive. Today, both conservatives and liberals there support the reforms. With enough political will and imagination, we could fix our broken system, too.

The Missing Class named one of the Best Business Books of 2007

victortchen@gmail.com — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:06:44 +0100

Library Journal has named The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America one of the Best Business Books of 2007.