Shouldn't members of the Supreme Court at least pretend to avoid hobnobbing with interested parties?

Remember the days, before the Internet, cable news cycles, grassroots movements conceived in the boardrooms of PR firms and propaganda machines masquerading as think tanks? Now it seems like a distant mythical time of simplicity. It is probably the case that the past often seems less unsettled, less scary than the present, because it’s possible to know how it ended . All the same, when I was a teenager in the 80s, major institutions like the press and the government did at least appear to have standards of decorum and ethics, that seem absent today.

My father was an architect and I remember him telling me once, that he could not accept a job, because for some reason it would have caused the appearance of impropriety. In the 80s architecture jobs were few and far between, so foregoing a job for an abstract notion that had vaguely to do with his firm's image must have sucked.

But back in the day, people did things like that once in a while. Sometimes they even cared about the dignity of institutions where they worked. What a difference 20 years can make.

The New York Times reports that two of the richest men in America, the Koch brothers have been holding massive strategy sessions for the ultra-wealthy, and sympathetic media like Fox News and politicos like Jim DeMint. The gatherings are based on the need to "review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it.” By threatening policies they mean public healthcare, campaign finance disclosures and limitations, banking reform, consumer protection, environmental protection etc. etc.

That the Koch brothers are holding these strategy sessions should not surprise anyone familiar with their past. They founded the Cato Institute which champions the “economic theory” that when taxes are lowered, the government magically receives more money from taxpayers. Their massive fortunes come from logging, oil, mining, and fertilizers, which are probably the four most environmentally damaging industries in existence. Is it surprising that they equate liberty with debunking the myth of global warming?

This doesn't bug me so much. The Koch brothers are free to use their many billions of dollars to throw as many ultra-posh, ultra-conservative soirées as they choose. More power to ‘em.

The thing that’s sad for this country is that some of the attendees of their right-wing shindigs are members of the Supreme Court of the United States: Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Recently the Supreme Court ruled that the bulk of existing campaign-finance legislation is unconstitutional. Suddenly enormous, anonymous piles of cash can go straight into the service of "strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it."

One of the organizations that may further these strategies with the help of huge piles of secret funding is called “Liberty Central.”

Liberty Central’s website asks the websurfer if they are "ready to restore the greatness of America" and promises to connect them “with grassroots conservative and libertarian organizations."

Because of the Supreme Court's ruling on campaign finance we’ll never know who gave the money to start up liberty Central, which the Washington Post reports was mostly a single donation of $500,000.

We do, however, know who the leader of this intrepid group of libertarians is. It is Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas.

Given their shared views on things like polluter's rights and corporate freedom of speech, one wonders if liberty Central might not be looking towards the Koch Brothers for a little tiny fraction of those billions of dollars that they spend on conservative causes.

In another era a judge whose wife's business would be materially affected by a ruling before the court might have recused himself, but not these days. Clarence Thomas was content to sit on the bench and vote with fervor to allow his wife to take in as many anonymous donations as possible.

Nor does he seem to feel that it demeans the dignity of the court to attend formal partisan gatherings, that are centered on strategies for wealthy private institutions to change government policy.

But that's the era we live in, an era when many of those in power advocate for and benefit from lowering the barriers to conflict of interest in business and government.

Linda McMahon, Small Business and Federal Office

One thing that all politicians seem to stand up for is small business.

Lately, because of unemployment, the importance of small business is invoked by all sides in the tug-of-war over control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Glib political platitudes are mildly annoying, in general. But small businesses really do supply the majority of jobs. They are often the foundations that perpetuate communities. I’ve spent most of my adult life building, owning and running small businesses, so this particular empty rhetoric annoys me more than most.

That is why I would like every voter to know, and I will state, without fear of contradiction, that there is nothing less relevant, nothing more unimportant to a small business than a federal election.

The most famous small-business activist in the last election, Joe the plumber was after all a fake small businessman.

No matter what a candidate for federal office may tell you, their election will have nothing whatsoever to do with the success or failure of small businesses…except, perhaps, contractors specializing in federal contracts.

That's why I was so amused to hear Linda McMahon, who runs a very large, multi-national business, claim that a desire to help small business was partly behind her decision to run for the Senate.

"I think the best way that you can... incentivize small businesses so that they can grow is to keep money in their pocket... I think you keep money in the pocket of small businesses and entrepreneurs by reducing the tax burden," she said recently.

That's a lovely sentiment, but as far as small businesses are concerned it is local governments, state and municipal governments, that regulate, tax, penalize, zone and strangle small businesses. The federal government has almost nothing to do with it.

So if Linda McMahon wants to help small businesses, she should run for her local city council or, better yet, the zoning board. Because the real regulatory barriers to entry for start-up business are almost all local.

When I raised the capital for and opened my businesses, which happened to be bars, the single greatest expense beyond real estate was the local lawyers and expediters, who helped me navigate the local codes, which were numerous and onerous.

I had to pay these men almost half of my remaining budget, just to tell me what I was allowed to do. New York State dictated where I could be located and how I could purchase liquor, so that it could conveniently tax me at a rate upwards of 30% on every single drink I sold.

The city mandated what types of appliances I could buy, the size and location of my bathrooms, which contractors I was allowed to use, what hours I was allowed to remain open, what type of lighting fixtures were permissible, the fabric on furniture, the finish on the bar… almost every detail was a matter of concern for the City of New York.

And then there were the fines. I once paid $500 and spent 5 hours in court for the crime of failing to post a sign behind the bar that would've informed the bartenders that it's against the law to spit while serving drinks. These types of experiences occurred every couple of months, at random, until my heart-rate rose instinctively every time I received a piece of correspondence from a city or state agency.

So as anyone with a real neighborhood business can tell you, a compassionate fire chief or councilman can do a lot more to ease the burdens on small business than any US Senator.

Linda McMahon may be able to spend $50 million, to defeat Richard Blumenthal, but, as a senator, she won’t be able to do anything to really help small businesses.

A typical conversation about News

I have a friend who regularly appears on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and in the Times and the Wall Street Journal. He runs an economic think-tank and a small hedge fund. I'll call him Skipper, because I like that word, and I shouldn't write his name and it's annoying to keep writing My friend.

The other day, I met him before his work out, at a place called Joe’s, the science of coffee that sells very strong Coffee.

He began the conversation by saying that “the fourth estate (a.k.a. the press) is history.”

He was feeling cynical because he’d taken time to prepare for an interview about the latest jobs report and at the last minute the show had called it off because “there wasn’t enough ‘news’ in the report.”

He admitted that the number had not represented a dramatic shift, but said that beneath the surface there was actually newsworthy stuff, for example: the greatest number of jobs eliminated in the last month (some 50,000) were teaching jobs.

“So if a certain fact doesn’t fit into the ‘trend’ they were putting together as a narrative they don’t bother to report it,” he complained, gulping his coffee.

The next exhibit in his case against the integrity of journalism was his own father, a professor of physics. His father is from southern India, generally a democrat and tends towards the view that the global distribution of wealth is “not really fair.”

His father shocked him by saying “The other day I discovered that Clinton never really had budget surpluses… it was all accounting tricks.”

Skipper, who is acutely aware of Clinton’s budget surpluses, asked his father how he had come to this conclusion.

“Oh, I saw it on some news report,” his father had said.

Relaying the story, Skipper got really annoyed. “In a country that fires teachers to balance budgets, where a physicist who cares about politics, can’t even tell when a lie presented as news is false, what hope is there for a well informed public?” Skip wondered out loud.

“Clinton raised taxes very slightly, bought fewer aircraft carriers, happened to be in office during a rally in the stock market and was able to balance the budget. It isn’t rocket science to understand that, but somehow the press can’t manage to make a simple fact clear,” he vented and took another huge slurp of his Ethiopian-Sumatran blend.

Because he was frustrated, he didn’t realize at first that he was complaining as much about the people who watch the news as the people who report it.

Eventually, he modified his mild rant to target unsophisticated viewers and his point morphed into a sort of tree falling in the forest analogy.

“If economic reality is reported to a person who doesn’t understand economics (i.e. the average American voter) was it really reported?”

His frustration inspired him to continue asking absurd circular questions:

“If reality is complex, and America is busy firing teachers, what is the point of reporting reality?”

“If two journalist’s call each other liars and one is telling the truth, how does the average American tell the difference?”

Skipper was by now very amped on coffee. It’s a part of his workout regime to get his heart rate up. As he jogged off towards the gym he left me with following advise:

“Dude, why don’t you try this headline? Jobs report reveals- reality too complex. Americans unable to pay attention in class, fire 50,000 teachers last month.”

There is no point to this story, there is undoubtedly nothing that can change the fact that most Americans form opinions based on gut feeling and occasional TV watching.

Neo con man: Joe Lieberman and the next war

“Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States.” - Joe Lieberman

In the end not one of those threats turned out to be current or credible.

It’s absurd to be surprised, by an easily observable pattern. If a person exhibits a characteristic, they are likely to repeat it. For example: don’t leave an alcoholic alone in a liquor store.

That’s why it’s so sad that the filibuster made Joe Lieberman indispensable to democrats in this last session of Congress… He should never have been left in charge of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

He was strangely determined, misguided and wrong on the facts when it came to security issues last time around and that promotion has allowed him to amplify the effects of those repeatable characteristics. Through the bully pulpit of his committee chairmanship, Lieberman has been adamant in attempting to revive the lot of the Neo-cons and their desire for constant conflict.

As far as Lieberman is concerned it is time to get ready to invade Iran.

Despite the fact that the country is already out of money from our last ill-conceived, poorly executed and ultimately murderous military expedition, he’s been on tour sowing the seeds for another bout of armed adventurism.

At the Council on Foreign Relations last week, he shared pearls of wisdom gathered on a Middle-East walkabout.

I have been struck as I have traveled in the region in recent months by what seems to me to be a heightened uneasiness about the future of American power there. Behind closed doors, one hears an unmistakable uncertainty about our resolve and staying power.

God forfend that American military virility be perceived as lacking staying power.

To prevent that, Lieberman believes we must again show the Muslim world just exactly how assertive the United States can be.

It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table. It is time for our message to our friends and enemies in the region to become clearer: namely, that we will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability…with military force if we absolutely must.

I understand that Lieberman has a profound concern or the welfare of Israel, but is there really any evidence that Israel is safer post Iraq invasion? Is peace and stability really what a reasonable person would foresee as the result of a third US military invasion in the middle east?

No, it isn’t desirable for a despotic and dishonest regime like the theocracy of Iran to have fissionable materials, but is a financially exhausted, recession prone, culturally and politically fragmented United States really perpetually responsible for stability and security on the other side of the planet?

I think most Americans feel that deficits and unemployment are the real threats right now.

It’s time to focus on America’s decrepit infrastructure, profoundly diminished middle-class, and failing social safety net, and give regime change a rest.

Heroes Get Nothing

So you're sitting at a bar talking to a friend and you incautiously express the opinion that the New York City Fire Department is a pain the ass. Their sirens are too loud, the main thing they do is fine people for storing stuff in exit stairways and evict people living in commercial buildings. And, incidentally, it is far more dangerous to be a construction worker, delivery driver or garbage collector.

Should have kept your voice down.

Next thing you know you and your friend are surrounded by a screaming, drunk, steroid inflated, crew of heroes getting very loud and repeatedly violating your personal space. There are three at first and then four more come up to "show support." The band of New York's bravest are so close your face is getting moist with foul smelling spray saliva. They are informing you that you're a punk, a pussy, a piece of sh-t.

The bar owner who has a nose for when things are about to get out of hand decides to call the cops even though the first rule of bar ownership is never call the cops.

He might have mentioned intoxicated firemen, because three cops arrive in record time. They start calming the furious firefighters and getting between them and you and your friend. One of the largest heroes keeps craning his neck to look at you over the shoulder of the cop that's restraining him to say things like "you're fu*kin' lucky punk, I would have broke your fu*kin' neck for you!"

Eventually, the heroes decide to leave as a group after draining some complimentary beers.

On his way out, satisfied that things are under control, the head cop turns to the bar owner and says "You know what? I should really arrest these two jerk-offs, (referring to you and your terrified friend) those guys risk their lives every day and what do they get? Nothing!"

Hmmm...The heroes get Nothing?

Well, not exactly. While it is no doubt rougher for beginning heroes, the average salary in the NYFD last year was $94,571.00...not counting fringe benefits. The value of those benefits like family health insurance, paid sick leave etc. comes to $33,793.00 per hero. At least if the 2010 New York City budget is to be believed.

Additionally, after 20 years of heroism, they can retire at 50% of their last year's pay. And if they have disabilities which 72% of them manage to have, they retire at 75% -tax free. Interestingly most of those those disabled heroes are just able to work a significant amount of overtime on their final year despite their worsening disabilities.

That last burst of heroism pays off, according to this year's official reckoning the taxpayers of New York City paid $58,841.90 in pension commitments to retired firemen for every firefighter still on the job. The most of any group of City employees.

WORRIERS UNITE! Opportunities are not being acted upon, Details overlooked!

Labor Day: a time reflect on the state of Labor in America.

Atypically, at barbecues nationwide, Labor (or the lack of a demand for it) is actually a topic of conversation today.

If you have a job you’re supposed to feel lucky, no matter how boring, obnoxious and poorly compensated it is. If you like your job that means it is probably a very desirable job, so relaxing long enough to down a few hot dogs amongst friends is kind of a bad idea. If you’re wasting time reading this blog, you should perhaps realize you’re undermining yourself.

Why read someone else's opinion when you should be writing your own job-related blog right now, or at least tweeting. Optimally, you might research the people you’re likely to meet at any gatherings you’re going to. There’s never a bad time to network or develop clients. Approaching complete strangers with a thorough knowledge of their back round, interests and current professional activities can really give you an edge in terms of breaking the ice.

If you insist on clinging to the antiquated idea of relaxation for it’s own sake, it's probably a bad idea to kick back with the paper; some of the articles are likely to mention people who have lost good jobs, because they didn’t leverage their free-time, and use social engagements as a chance to mine new contacts.

Labor day is depressing. Reading about and reflecting on the current state of labor leads mostly to the conclusion that the jobs available now are either mind-numbing, repetitive and poorly compensated or a hectic, sleazy, tedious, scrabble to stay employed.