Off To Sond Land

I’ve been watching the impeachment hearings in Washington the same way that a lot of people look at car wrecks on a busy highway.

They know it’s wrong to let your idle curiosity intrude on other people’s suffering, and they know that everyone else is doing it and creating a monumental traffic jam. 

Still, they slow down when they pass the wreck and take time to stare. Then, when its passed, they step on the gas and speed away - probably 20 miles over the speed limit - and feel virtuous it’s not them.

So, let’s take a road trip. We’ll go down the Sondland Highway, speeding along in our old Chevy Ambassador.

So, what do we see? Everything. Ambassador Sondland had lots of time to testify, to revise his earlier testimony and to respond to endless questions from partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans. And, somewhere in those hours of testimony, some truths have emerged. We’ll get to them a little later.

First, though, we have to look at what I mean by everything. I mean that Sondland testified that he saw quid pro quo, that he never saw it, that he had a cell phone conversation with the President and that he didn’t remember it.

He said he never talks with the phone held away from his ear, but that he might have done it, and would not question the testimony of another man at his table who said he saw it.

He said he was always interested in the Ukraine, and was concerned about corruption there. But he didn’t quite get the point of naming anyone who was corrupt, and saw nothing wrong with the President of Ukraine announcing an investigation into Joe Biden’s son and the Ukrainian company paying him an outrageous sum to be on its board of directors.

That’s just one thing.

No one talked much about Sondland writing a $1 million check to the Trumps inaugural committee. No one asked him if it was that, or the hotels he owns, that made President Trump to make him an ambassador in the first place.

He was asked about a lot of things that happened around President Trump’s demand that Ukraine’s president publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden’s son and the company he was connected with as a pre-condition of getting vital military aide when his country was under attack by Russian-controlled forces.

He remembered something about it. But, he didn’t take notes, so he couldn’t be sure. And, he was sure it was all Rudy Giuliani’s fault. Because President Trump personally directed him to listen to the President’s lawyer who was pushing for those very same investigations.

But, it wasn’t the President’s fault, he also testified.

Well, just two things to take away from this.

First, when you lawyer up and you face questioning about things that other people have already testified to, you stick to what you are told to talk about. And never answer questions your lawyer has told you to avoid.

Which, you might have noticed, that no matter what he was asked, the answers were often the same. “I don’t quite remember. I didn’t take notes. Ha, ha, ha.”

Second, and more important, he did provide at least one honest answer to one big point,

He was asked about the growing pressure among Democrats and Republicans and non-political government officials to get the money released so that the weapons would start flowing to Ukraine, just as Congress planned when they passed a bipartisan resolution to approve $400 million dollars for that purpose.

He pressed Ukrainian officials to make that statement that they would be investigating Biden and his company. It was, he said, the best way to break the logjam, to get the pipeline clear so that the weapons would flow.

He made it seem almost noble, the best of a number of bad choices.

( Let’s not forget that the logjam broke when the Washington Post broke the story about the hold-up. Credit where credit is due. )

So, here’s what I would have asked him.

Mr. Ambassador, you said this was the best of some bad choices. What if the President said you have to open an investigation, and you had better come up with evidence of corruption, and get it done before the Democrats nominate a candidate for president?

Mr. Ambassador, what if the President said I won’t approve the aid unless Joe Biden’s reputation is damaged - it’s his kid, after all - so badly that he drops out of the race?

Mr. Ambassador, what if the President said something really bad had to happen to someone to keep Joe Biden from running?

Mr. Ambassador, what if the thing you are asking for is just one of many steps leading to the destruction of our democratic government as we know it?

Just where do you draw the line? Oh, yes, you didn’t take notes.

Andrew Yang, Praise and Sympathy

Andrew Yang has singled himself out among all the candidates for president by coming up with a radical proposal - give $1,000 a month to every adult in the country and build a trickle-up economy.

It’s an expensive idea, and that alone will kill it. It’s a radical idea, and that alone will kill it. Lots of people say it will only encourage the lazy, the losers and the undeserving, and that will kill it.

Well, they my be right, or they may be wrong, but just saying those things will probably kill the idea as well.

So, let’s just take a few minutes and look at the conversation he has started, the one beyond “It’s crazy and he has no chance.”

I think he is a man ahead of his time, probably generations ahead of his time. That’s because Capitalism has driven the progress of mankind since we invented money, but it may be time to put a governor on the machine.

Our wonderful capitalist machine really does run by itself as we approach the 21st century. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” creates fortunes and mega-fortunes in ways a lot of us don’t understand. Think you do? Just read the entire 3Q statement of any mutual fund.

When you finish it, in a year or so, you might know where that fund was when you started. But only If you ignore the footnotes, which is where the real information can often be found.

Or explain to me just what automated trading is - how the algorithms that drive changes in stock market trading by giving value to events and actions really work, or how they evaluate volume trades and price changes.

                                                         So what?

Let’s not miss the main point. The economy is going great, despite the dangers from really big problems that are ignored in the short term. Our unemployment numbers are getting worse and the official figures don’t actually reflect the size of the problem because they ignore people no longer looking for jobs. Full employment has come to mean people working at two or three part-time jobs because that is the only work they can get. And, don’t get me started on private contract workers - the people who work for a company but are not in the company.

I was a private contract worker once. I delivered newspapers on my bicycle, and the newspaper didn’t have to worry about things like insurance or benefits, or deal with replacing me if I got sick. That was my problem. I bought the papers and made about seven cents a week for each customer, plus tips. If I missed a day, people asked for a refund from the paper and I lost money for the week.

So, here comes Andrew Yang who wants to set a $12,000 annual income floor for every adult in the country. Frankly, I could use the money.

But what about the debt? Well, our Republican government gave a big tax break to the wealthy and to corporations that added a trillion dollars to our national debt, and that we will be paying for with interest. Lots of companies became wealthy by using that money to buy back stock.

Let me explain how that works. Your company is worth $10 million, and you have 5 million shares of stock outstanding. Each share would be worth $2, depending on your dividends. Now lets say you used your government tax gift to buy back 10 per-cent of the shares. Every share you hold has just gone up 10 per-cent. And you haven’t created a single job.

Now if all that money went to every adult, we would have a lot more customers for a lot of things. Prices would change, of course, and rents would probably go up. But more people would be buying lots of things they might not be able to afford now, and more people would be needed to make them, and ship them and sell them. That’s job creation.

Now, I do worry about our federal deficit. And I know that the first one to try something new often fails. Kinda like the first woman running for president or the first person who said slavery was wrong.

But I also know that the technology that keeps our economy going results in fewer workers each year, and we have to recognize there will be a lot more people out of work. Training for new jobs just won’t make up for the actual job losses and the extra competition for new positions as more and more unemployed people compete for the new jobs.

                                                      Now, The Future

So, what to do? In Star Trek - and there have been lots of interesting things written about the Star Trek economy where people no longer need money - there was assumption that Adam Smith’s invisible hand worked so that people freed from working would find useful things to do with their lives. They became artists and inventors, doctors and poets, space explorers and entertainers.

Or, they just sat around and enjoyed the fruits of the new social order, kind of like some of the the children of our wealthy families do today.

So, let’s just say Andrew Yang is a politician (he is running for president, after all) who is a couple of centuries ahead of his time. I remember one Star Trek episode where the crew ended up in the past, and were shocked to find that people needed money to get things. “What is money?” I think one of them asked.

Well, I can already imagine someone from today going back to the 1940’s with nothing but a credit card in her wallet and trying to buy something in a store. “Chip or tap?,” she might ask. Explain that economy at the cash register.

Yes, Andrew Yang is a prophet ahead of his time. But, he won’t get beamed up to the White House.

Taking Judicial Notice

Like a lot of other people, I went to the polls this week to cast my ballot.

Not surprisingly, the very first contest involved people I had never heard of.  It has happened before, and it will happen again. And, not because I take no interest in politics.

People who know me will tell you that I take politics very seriously. Even my wonderful wife will sometimes look at me as I am discussing one or two vital points in a political debate and say, lovingly, “shut up, already.”

So, why didn’t I know those people? You will understand in just one word.

Judges.

The first people you vote for on the ballot in my county were judges. You got to vote for any of the people named.

So as not to harm the stellar reputation of any of those now-respected jurists, I’ll make up some fake names here.

I got to vote for Joe Smith on the Democratic Line. I got to vote for Joe Smith on the Republican line. I got to vote for Joe Smith on the Conservative line.

I couldn’t vote for him more than once, so I went on to the second name, to pick a jurist who represented the values of my party. That was Tom Jones, and - surprise, surprise - his name was on the same three party lines.

The third? I’ll call him Tommy O’Brien, although he wasn’t Irish. Same thing.

We don’t have to keep making up names for all the candidates, since the result is mostly the same. To be fair, there were two candidates who were not cross-endorsed. They had lonely ballot spots on the Libertarian Party line. Next time, I will seek them out as a protest vote.

Now here in New York we go through waves of political reform, just as we argue over how long we can keep the title of Most Ineffective State legislature or most corrupt government. We call that one the Tweed Trophy. (Look it up of you don’t know who Boss Tweed was.)

Well, the political reform wave goes something like this: Judges aren’t allowed to express political opinions, or let their political philosophy interfere with their rulings. When running for office, they can’t talk about anything except their background, but they can be endorsed by organizations like the firefighters benevolent association or a civil service employees association.

And, of course, they can be chosen by a political party to run for office. In fact, to get on the ballot, they have to be chosen by one party or another.

Now, in years past, just one party ran the county. Every two years they got a majority of the votes, which meant they almost always had a majority on the county legislature and all their judicial candidates won.

At that time, they argued that the voters had the right - nay, the duty - to pick the candidates of their choice. And so, it was done.

Then, in the course of time, things changed. Some scandals, some mismanagement, some financial problems and tax increases, and all of a sudden winning those judicial seats wasn’t a certainty any more.

A lawyer who worked hard for the party for many years could no longer be certain that their name would be put into the golden circle of candidates who might get the nomination to a judgeship. And being a judge is, among other things, a pretty good job.

For a time, the powers that be tried apportionment. We got 70 percent of the votes, you can have 30 percent of the judicial seats. Ten judicial seats up for election, we get 7.

But, it wasn’t a great system. Now, we have a better one. Vote for anyone you like, on any party line. All we get to do is choose the names that will be on the ballot.

See, everybody gets to do something. Isn’t democracy grand.

Footnote: Our country really is a laboratory for democracy. There are 38 states that hold elections for some judicial posts, but we have a wonderful mix of appointments, retention elections, general elections and legislative conformation. In Rhode Island, they are appointed by the governor for a life term.

The Brennan Center For Justice has a really nice summery of the way we pick our black-robed jurists from state to state. It makes interesting reading if you want to look it up.

It’s that or just happily voting for people you have never heard of every two years,