Breaking News

My little tablet recently beat the networks on some important breaking news. Then I told my wife, which means that I beat MSNBC on important breaking news. No applause, please. Just a little incident that proves a big point.

Let me flesh it out. There I was, comfortably in bed, while my wife was in the shower. I had fed the pets, and was playing a game on my tablet - Sim City, if you care to know - when a bulletin flashed on the screen. The nation’s economy had grown by 4.1 percent in the second quarter of the year.

“Honey,” I said as my wife was drying her hair with a towel. “The economy went up by 4.1 percent in the last quarter.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Hard to tell,” I said. “But it’s good for Trump.”

Now. I don’t only watch MSNBC. I also look at Fox and CNN and a couple of other news sites, including some business sites and international news. And CBS and NBC and ABC too, although none of them win when the Yankees are playing the Red Socks.

That said, for the first hour or so, there was little news being reported beyond the  4.1 percent number. Then President Trump held a press conference, and his economic advisor lied and say the growth was certainly sustainable and could even hit 5 percent, because that is what the president predicted.

Then back to game shows, reruns of old comedies and mysteries, and back to the real world to take out the garbage. See, I do what most people do.

But, I also take some time to look at things, and try and figure out what they really mean. For instance, the reaction across many of the networks quickly became purely political. Does it help or hurt the President? What to his supporters and his critics think? Was he really responsible for all that growth?

Most of the coverage also ignored the important basic questions. Just what went up 4.1 percent? How does it effect real people? What does it mean?

                                       It's Hard, But I Will Explain. Or Not.

So, let me tell you. Not that I know, of course, but as a former reporter - actually, you never stop being a reporter even when you retire - I can make a pretty good guess. And, give some solid observations. And, let me tell you, it’s really complicated.

For example, I am willing to bet that while our nation’s economy went up 4.1 percent in the second quarter of the year, the salaries of workers did not go up 4.1 percent. And the money people get from Social Security did not go up 4.1 percent. The cost of groceries that people buy every week did not go up 4.1 percent (although some things did) and the price we pay for gas at the pump did not go up 4.1 percent, although it was probably closer to that increase than any of the other things I have mentioned.

Now, all of this goes to a bigger point. The nation’s economy is not the nation’s people. The two are linked of course - the Great Depression really ruined the lives of millions of our citizens and led, at least indirectly, to World War II. But the economic figures used to calculate that 4.1 percent number have very little to do with our day-to-day lives.

A commonly-accepted definition is that the increase in the economy shows the increased value of all goods and services made in the second quarter - April, May and June - of this year.

Most salaries didn’t go up at all. But lots of stocks did. If you own a lot of stock, you made a lot of money. If you spent some of that money on a new car or boat or airplane, you are raising the economic growth. If your company used a $200 million tax break to buy back some of its stock - which raises the value of all the remaining stock - and you own 50,000 shares, the economy really did go up. For you.

Now, thanks to some good reporting by other people, we learned that consumer spending really did jump in those months, by about four percent. Some experts say that accounted for about 70 per-cent of the growth. That means the economy went up, and also means your credit card debt went up. See, economic growth can be a two-way street.

                                           Direct From The Horse's Mouth

If you look it up, the Department of Commerce’s bureau of economic analysis noted that   things may already getting bumpy. It said the real PCE reflected a $1.4 billion decrease in spending for services, which was offset by increased spending for goods, with recreational goods and vehicles being a leading contributor.

(Sorry about that. Welcome to economics, the dismal science. the PCE index is the personal consumption expenditures index used as part of the Department’s calculation. It covers the money people spend, but excludes food and energy prices. There are exceptions. If you are interested, you can download it all from the department’s website. If you want to print it, start printing, go out to the store and buy some caviar and truffles for lunch, and come back and eat, then watch it finish printing. That would help the economy. Or, you could just go out and buy another RV or yacht. That would help even more.)

What really  helped was that our nation’s exports went up by 13.3 per-cent, which is really good. Unless it went up because people in other countries made a lot of purchases before our announced new tariffs made them more expensive. That means the things they bought are in warehouses, and orders will start to fall off in the third quarter. Which is not good. See, it’s complicated.

                               But, It's Historic. And, History Tends to Repeat.

Our president said this dramatic increase was historic. Now, forget for a moment that the economy has been going up steadily for more than a decade. Let’s just look at quarterly economic growth - what this 4.1 figure shows -and see if it has hit that number before. You know, historic.

Well the most recent big historic jump was 5.1 percent - bigger than 4.1 for people who can’t do math - and that happened long ago. The second quarter of 2014, to be precise. In fact, while President Trump rarely gives credit to President Obama, the economy grew by 4.1 percent or more four - using quarterly measurements - times under President Obama, in 2009, 2011 and twice in 2014.

So, let’s just wait and see if it hits a 5 percent growth rate this Summer - July, August and September. Hey, lots of people spend money in the Summer. I can think of some pricey golf courses owned by...well, let’s just say our President’s personal economy might grow by 5.2 percent.

For the rest of us, we can just wait for the fourth quarter to do something about our personal economy. Sometime in early November.

Who's The Boss

Recent events - not the world-shaking ones like our feud with Europe or the imprisonment of thousands of innocent children - have got me thinking about some of the unspoken assumptions we make every day.

In other words, I have been thinking about the meaning of words and customs.

Now we will eventually get to sports - everything I do lately seems to come down to sports - but let’s start with something more formal. A parade. A Fourth of July parade. A parade for a visiting dignitary. A parade for our President.

Not that formal? Well, how about a Presidential visit to a military base on Thanksgiving, where he gives a speech about patriotism, and all those people standing at attention or sitting in the stands rise to applaud their Commander in Chief.

A victory for the President, or for the Candidate in Chief? A show of support for the President or his programs, or his strong stand for America?

Not quite. For those who have never served in the Armed Forces, it is a simple thing that you learn in basic training. In the Army, you learn it even before you learn to march. It’s called “military courtesy.” You learn that about the same time you learn about the chain of command, and what all those stripes and stars and other symbols of rank symbolize.

Soldiers in the audience, being addressed by their commanding officer - and those commanding officers being addressed by a superior officer, or even a general officer - have a duty to show respect. It’s why people in the military salute. A sign of respect. And the person of lower rank salutes first, while the person with higher rank returns the salute as a matter of courtesy.

(There is a bit of a gap when it comes to higher rank, where some officers are a little casual or sloppy in showing respect by giving a sloppy salute. But, bosses in private businesses are a little sloppy too. It’s a management thing.)

Anyway, public officials are applauded by the assembled troops as a matter of courtesy. And they are not booed by the assembled troops because - unlike civilians - they do not have the right to show disrespect to an officer. It could lead to really bad things. Check out the UCMJ. (Uniform Code of MIlitary Justice).

I’ll save you the trouble. Under Article 89, disrespect toward a superior Commissioned Officer (Sergeants are non-commissioned officers) could lead to a year in confinement, a bad conduct discharge and loss of pay and benefits.

So, you don’t boo the President - he is, of course, the Commander-Chief. If a reporter gets close enough to ask you what you think of the Commander-in-Chief’s talk, a negative opinion is something you don’t want to share. You might, perhaps, say what a fine, fine speech it was.

So, let’s not confuse respect from a captive audience with broad military support. Unless, of course, we are talking about the Civil War, where almost all the Union troops voted for President Lincoln, who was running against a former general who wanted to make peace with the South and end the war. Ah, the ironies of history!

                                                  Where Does This Lead?

Anyway, thoughts of respect and the military and parades and other things started turning around in my head - even my friends say I sometimes have a very odd way of thinking - and they settled on another controversy - kneeling on a football field or a baseball field while the National Anthem is being played.

People who don’t like players kneeling - from our President to the owners of sports teams to Conservative radio talk show hosts - think this is a bad thing, a show of disrespect to our nation and to the audience in the stands. And, they want it punished.

Some players say it is their Constitutional right to protest, and it is their form of free speech. Some other players say they are kneeling as a way of showing support to their teammates, and still others - union officials, mostly - say if you want to ban the practice, you can negotiate it in the next contract.

Fair enough. As far as that goes. But, what about the bosses? The  team owners. Well, it depends on the sport. In basketball - where one star player can make or break the team’s season and where a certain rowdiness is part of the game - the idea of punishing players just hasn’t really become an issue. They can, mostly, do whatever they want.

In football, last September, players across the league knelt and locked arms and raised their fists when the anthem was played. Others refused to come out of their locker rooms. And, they were joined by their coaches and even some owners.

That day of protest started in London, where the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars were playing. The players then stood while the United Kingdom’s national anthem was played at Wembley Stadium.

President Trump has suggested that football players who kneel in protest - strangely, neither he nor any others who are unhappy with the practice never really address the question of what they are actually protesting - thinks that any player who kneels should be taken out of the game and, if they do it again, be immediately fired. He apparently doesn’t think contracts are an issue.

                                                     Now On To Baseball

Now, baseball still calls itself America’s Sport, and baseball owners have different ideas of what to do about player protests. They have discussed a league-wide policy, and after talking it over decided not to do anything until they talk some more. There is, of course, tradition. In the 1950’s white baseball players on segregated teams kneeled in protest over the lynching of blacks in the south. Irony, again.

So, where is this all going? Well, the question becomes “just what does a team owner really own?” If a team wins the world series, he gets to hold the trophy and be in the parade. He speaks of”my team” and “my stadium” and “my players.” And he approves contracts, and gets to decide which players will be traded to other owners in other cities.

But, does an owner really own his players? What does that even mean?

Unlike slave owners, who also spoke of their people, the baseball player who is sold to another team gets to take their family with them. Players who have been around long enough get a no-trade clause in their contract, which means they can turn down trades under certain circumstances.

Once a contract has been signed, what rights do players retain? Must they all speak only when the owner tells them to? Or speak out only when they agree with the owner? Certainly, they do not have the right to film an advertisement in their uniform without team permission, and they generally can’t endorse a brand that competes with a team-sponsored brand. Advertising alcohol is generally a no-no, too. Then there are those general clauses prohibiting behavior which would be “detrimental to the team.”

You might have heard of them in connection with illegal drug use or violence against a spouse.

But, does an owner have the right to tell a player what to say about a controversial subject, or what not to say. Owners have a commercial interest in keeping a player from doing something that might drive away ticket-buying fans. But how about endorsing political candidates, or deciding what religion to practice? How about promoting a vegan diet?

Questions, all. Unanswered questions which might better have been left alone. At least until someone tweeted that football players should be benched for one game if they take a knee in protest, and fired if they do it twice.

Well, as you doubtless know, Colin Kaepernick - the winning San Francisco 49ers quarterback who can’t seem to get a job with any football team because he took a knee in protest - has sued all the NFL owners for collusion, and the case is still working its way through court.

Now, maybe anyone being considered for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court should be asked a simple question when they appear for a confirmation hearing: “Just what does a sports team owner actually own?”

If not, maybe a reporter could yell it out in the corridor. If they have a government-issued pass to get in.

The Sweet Spot

So, once again, a lot is happening in the world. And, once again, I have been a little slow in blogging. My apologies to anyone who is bothered because my thought processes are just a little slower than the speed of events happening in Washington and around  world.

Still, if you are, you can take some comfort in knowing that it gives me just a tiny bit of guilty pleasure. Such is the mind of a writer.

Regardless, today I want to talk about the concept of a sweet spot. It is, mostly, a sports term. One that is almost universally understood.

(In fact, I googled “Sweet Spot” and got more than 70 million hits in less than a minute. And pages and pages of businesses and books with that name, from feminine hygiene products to body wipes and from vanilla blossom wash to an instant ice cream maker.)

But I am using sweet spot in the same way it was originally used, the part of a tennis racket where you get the most powerful and accurate hit. The sweet spot. Same thing for a golf club, or a bat or the best leverage in negotiating a business deal. In short, sweet spot is what works best.

                                            But Where Is The Politics?

Now what does this have to do with Washington? Well, we are being treated with a long line of Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives - the names tend to change from hour to hour - all trying to get the precise sweet spot of reacting to President Trump’s debacle in Helsinki.

They can’t criticize him too strongly, or they will lose his supporters. They can’t ignore what he said, or they will lose the support of what is left of the hard core anti-Communists. They can’t appear to be doing nothing, but they also can’t look like they are moving too quickly, too much ahead of the crowd. That last one is particularly hard, because dozens of them are moving, and if you are ahead of the crowd at 3 p.m., you may find yourself behind it by dinnertime.

Some have taken refuge in our President’s statement that he made a mis-statement, leaving out one single word that would have turned “there is no reason to believe” into “there is no reason not to believe,” Fans of Donald Trump know how easy it would be for someone so eloquent in his language to make such an error.

It may be thin, but any port in a storm for them. No matter how small a sweet spot - or maybe an escape hatch - they will take it.

                                          Not A Lot Of Options

In truth, what kind of choice do they have? Blending all those contradictions into one policy statement is just about impossible. But, coming up with a statement that doesn’t fade into the woodwork - that is just vague enough to sound like everybody else - violates the first directive, appearing to be doing something.

After all, in politics you don’t look like you are doing something - or saying something - if no one hears you say it.

So, it looks likely that all of this will just go up on a shelf, along with a whole lot of other things, and won’t be looked again until the mid-term elections show just what the small sliver of the nation that really does pick a candidate performs its civic duty,

What small percentage, you ask? Well, Loyal Democrats will vote for whoever their party picks, or won’t show up. And Loyal Republicans will do the same thing. So, that leaves the election to the non-affiliated undecided folks. You know, the marginal group that the media doesn’t cover really well in their election run-up stories.

They don’t go to rallies. They aren’t on the lists of regular party contributors. You won’t find then writing letters to the editor or at many town hall meetings. And, if you run across one or two - as I have, from time to time - they may not be able to tell you just who they are voting for early in a campaign. It seems a lot of them just don’t believe things politicians warn about until those things actually happen.

So, one big mia culpa to me for not blogging for a while. And one big mia culpa for the people in Congress, who haven’t done much of anything for a while. Except, of course, approve a really big tax cut for the rich, gut our health care system and name a Supreme Court Justice or two.

Ah, but as the undecideds who really decide our elections like to say - nothing to see yet. Just wait until November. Or next April 15. Or maybe until 2020.

The experts are wrong, again

I have been reading a lot lately about the upcoming Supreme Court nomination, and the terrible dilemma that Democrats in Congress who represent red states are facing.

I have been hearing the same thing on the cable shows as well. Amazingly, it seems to be the one thing that partisans on both sides agree on - you hear it on Fox News and MSNBC. You hear it on the network news shows, and you read it in magazines and on blogs all across the political spectrum.

It’s amazing how so many smart people can be so wrong. Which, I admit, is an overstatement. It’s just a simple manifestation of a problem that has plagued mankind ever since, well, since we invented arithmetic or medicine. People who know stuff like to use what they know.

Just ask your uncle Ted, who knows every road and intersection within 10 miles of his house,to tell you the best way to get to some obscure restaurant. Then listen to a litany of the best route, with step-by-step directions of how and where to turn to get the best shortcuts, when “It’s about ten miles down Route 183. Turn right at the Marysville police station” would do just fine.

Or ask your neighbor with the good lawn what kind of fertilizer he uses, and listen for an hour while he tells you what to use, when to use it, how much water to sprinkle once you have applied it...well,  you get the picture.

Now we have lots of smart people almost agonizing about the problems of some Democratic congressman up for election in a state that voted for Donald Trump. Vote against Trump’s nominee and you will upset all those Republicans who voted for you. Vote for his nominee and you will upset your Democratic supporters. What to do? What to do?

I recommend taking a cold shower. It might splash some reality into your life.

                                                 What Am I Talking About

Now, those arguments are - to a really limited degree - valid. There are some voters who truly believe that controlling the Supreme Court is the most important decision they will ever get to make. Not that they actually make it, but they will vote for someone who will vote for a court nominee you like, and then all will be well.

Abortion will be banned. Abortion will be protected. Government regulations will protect us from having the environment polluted and our health ruined. The heavy hand of unnecessary regulations will be lifted. You know how split our nation is.

But, there are some problems here. First of all, most voters don’t really care who is named to the Supreme Court. Want to test that? Ask anyone you are talking to about this sensitive subject to name the sitting members of the Supreme Court. Strangely, the only member of the court a lot of people can name is Clarence Thomas.

Now, let’s assume your man - or woman - gets on the court. Want to predict how they will vote on any particular case next year, or five years from now or even 15 years from now. Here’s a case - your computer’s programming is being changed by an AI unit that you have given access to as part of your 3-D video operating system.

You want to change the whole system, but a lawyer from the Universal Life Foundation - a group formed by techno-wonks and two small, radical fundamentalist churches - argues that sentient life must be preserved, and destroying that system is murder. And, strangely, the case has been kicked up from court to court in a series of badly written lower court decisions.

Go ahead, how will your candidate vote 15 years from now?

Too wild a fantasy? Here’s another that you might like better.

Let’s say I am a Democrat running for re-election in a state that Donald Trump won with two-thirds of the popular vote. If I vote for his nominee, he will probably not campaign against me or raise money for my opponent. Maybe he will even cut a commercial for me, because he is so grateful for my support.  Yes, this from a man who has been running around saying “We need more Republicans in Congress to get things done” every chance he gets.

Too wild a fantasy, again.

                                                       Back To Reality

So, let’s try a third scenario. Let’s say that the results of the election which gave us President Donald Trump and a landslide Republican Congress won’t necessarily be repeated. No president at the top of the ticket to vote for, and a sitting president who is as unpopular with more than half the country as he is popular with his base. How will that Supreme Court go for you?

Let’s say that there is a generational change coming in Washington, with some of the old guard already deciding not to run again and more of them being challenged in primaries in both parties. How will a vote putting you solidly on the side of President Trump play in those 30-second attack ads that will start running around Labor Day?

Now, tell me again why all these pundits are arguing, endlessly, about the political impact of opposing a Donald Trump Supreme Court nominee in those changeable red states.