I had a thought about the Debt Ceiling crisis. But first, let’s think about Iraq. After Saddam Hussein was deposed and Iraq got a new government, they still owed all the money that Hussein borrowed when he was in power. Many nations forgave some or all of that debt, but there was never any doubt that it was owed. It doesn’t matter if a ruler borrows lots of money just to abuse all the people in that country, after he’s gone those abused people owe that money.

Got that?

Because I’m not sure that the Republicans in Washington understand this. Their manufactured Debt Ceiling crisis is exactly the same. The 112th Congress voted to spend a certain amount of money. President Obama, as the head of the executive branch, is constitutionally required to spend that money. Now, the 113th Congress is suggesting that they don’t want to pay for roughly 40% of what the last congress voted for.

I am starting to lose my patience with this discussion. Platinum coins? Moral obligation bonds? Do we really need to live in this fantasy world created by the Republican Party? The Congress has mandated spending. The spending must be done. If they don’t want to mandate spending going forward, then cut the budget. The Debt Ceiling is ridiculous and it makes our country look even more foolish than usual.

But I’m not a fool. I know why the Republicans don’t want to fight over the budget and are instead trying to blackmail the president over the Debt Ceiling. They don’t want to be held accountable for budget cuts. Hell, they don’t even know what they want to cut! They know that the government is too damned big and they are going to continue knowing that until the government doesn’t exist. Because their knowledge is not based on any facts whatsoever.

If I had any faith in the American electorate, I would say, “Fine! Let the Republicans destroy the economy!” But I feel certain that on 5 November 2014, we would find that at best, all that had happened was that the Republicans had lost a couple of seats in the House. A great country like the United States, does not get a revolutionary party like the Republicans without a dysfunctional electorate—without 40% of its (mostly liberal) members not voting.

Unfortunately, unlike Iraq, there will be no one eager to cancel out our debt if we default. People in the military will not be able to go without pay. Seniors will die without their benefits. Oh yeah, and bond holders will not sit idly by while their investments disintegrate. But there will be a big up side for conservatives. The government will have to pay far more for its debt going forward and so will use this as an excuse to reduce benefits. Shock doctrine USA!

I have a new definition for the word “patriot”: someone who hates—Really hates—the United States. Or we could all just agree to call the Republicans what they are: terrorists.

I almost never use the word “romantic” to describe sexual attraction and relationships. I generally mean it to indicate that something involves heroic archetypes. Sadly, I’m afraid that I got this way reading Ayn Rand. However, it is a far more useful word when used this way. I think it is a mistake to cloak sexual love in airy words.

This comes to mind because I just watched the first season of a very romantic television show: Downton Abbey. My sister Kim has been bugging me to watch it because she likes it and thought it would appeal to me. I checked and noticed that it was created by Julian Fellowes, whose script for Gosford Park is as great as anything ever created for a film. So I got very excited for about a minute, before forgetting that Fellowes had anything to do with the series. But yesterday, I finally sat down and watched the show. And I swear I am not making this up, I though, “Oh! Julian Fellowes create this!” It was only after talking with my sister that I was helped to remember that, in fact, I already knew it was by Fellowes.

The series is very good and I find it deeply affecting. This is mostly because the vast majority of the characters are so noble. And, of course, the characters are rather familiar. Bates seems very much like Parks from Gosford Park, for example. But Fellowes does a good job of mixing up things that it all feels comfortable without being stale. It also shares about the same mix of up and downstairs plot, with the downstairs getting a bit more of the focus.

The first episode works the best. As the series progresses, it gets more and more far fetched. Even apart from this, there is the continuing problem of Thomas and O’Brien, the male and female Iagos[1] of the series. It would be one thing if they, like Iago in Othello, were critical to the plot. But they are nothing but working in the alleys—mostly making trouble for Bates. Add to this that Downton Abbey is a modern drama with otherwise fairly well developed characters, and these two create problems that are much bigger than any of their evil machinations. Namely: they add an unwelcome melodrama to an otherwise fairly sophisticated modern drama.

There is a theme that is everywhere in Fellowes’ work: the responsibility of rank. I am deeply divided on this point. On the one hand it is true: the rich have traditionally had responsibilities that went with their positions. On the other: it is much easier to be rich, and today the rich have no such obligations. So I wonder why we talk about this. The idea that the rich have responsibilities continues on today, of course. But it now manifests itself in the myth of the Job Creator where the rich flatter themselves they are doing good moral work when all they’re really doing is getting richer. But in Downton Abbey we see a very clueless young man learn that his valet needs a sense of self-worth as much as he does. It is a nice sequence.

Overall, Downton Abbey is a very good series. It does have its problems. Sometimes, I think the directors try too hard; there is too much Steadicam work and artistic touches that pull me out of the story. There are character problems, as I’ve noted. And I don’t think that Fellowes does a good enough job as Executive Producer—there is not enough subplot resolution; I feel that the series is nothing but loose ends going forward. But all of this is transcended. I have enjoyed spending time with these characters and I want to spend more time with them.

Afterword

I really liked this bit of dialog by Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith), “When something bad happens, there’s no point in wishing it had not happened. The only option is to minimize the damage.” Alas.

[1] I am going to try to be a little more understandable. Iago is the villain in Othello. He is the one who, through insinuation and other machinations, convinces Othello that his new bride is unfaithful to him. This causes Othello to kill her and then when he learns the truth to kill himself. Whenever I talk about Iago, what I’m getting at is not so much that he is evil. It is rather that there would be no story without Iago. Truly, Iago is a pathetic plot device. Basically, because he is evil he causes trouble that the plot depends upon. A modern drama generally provides much more motivation for an “evil” character. In Othello, Iago does have some motivation: Othello passed him over for a promotion. Is that enough of a motivation? I don’t think so. Similarly, Thomas doesn’t like Bates because Bates has the job he had temporarily. Is this enough for him to still be plotting years later? Again: I don’t think so.

Andrea suggested that I check out the BBC sketch comedy series Little Britain. She said it was funny, but also crude. She had no examples to delight me with how amusing it was, but she went to some length to gross me out. She’s like that. I don’t have much tolerance for this; I’m still freaking out over the 5 seconds of “two girls one cup” that some coworkers tricked me into seeing. (I have been told it gets much worse, but defecating into a cup is more than enough for me.) Little Britain has nothing this disgusting, although it does have, for example, painting with feces.

I got bored and checked out the series. I found it quite amusing and there was really nothing offensive in it. But it doesn’t stay that way, which I want to discuss. Matt Lucas and David Walliams create an amazing array of characters. In fact, for the first couple of episodes, I thought there were four actors. Matt Lucas is so convincing as a woman that when he plays a transvestite, they put a mustache on him. One of his impressive female characters is Marjorie Dawes, a woman who runs a “Fat Fighters” meeting. She uses her position to belittle the members, mostly for being fat even though Marjorie is too, but also an Indian woman, Meera, who speaks perfect English but who Marjorie claims she can’t understand. The following video is a good example of how Little Britain uses the same joke over and over but still manages to be funny; this is a compilation of interactions between Marjorie and Meera:

As awful as Marjorie is, there is a distinct difference in her character starting in the second season. She becomes so mean that, for me anyway, it stops being funny. The second season pushes the comedy to a new (and for me lower) level. Quite suddenly, Little Britain is filled with crude humor. Suddenly, every episode has at least two vomiting scenes. We get to see an adult man breast feeding from his mother and grandmother. A very lazy romance novelist in the first season, Dame Sally Markham, turns into Bubbles DeVere, an obese woman who uses her sexual “charms” to avoid paying for time at the Hill Grange Health Spa. All of these bits are funny at times, but there is far too much gross for my tastes.

My understanding is that the series only got more popular as it got more harsh and disgusting. I don’t claim to speak for the masses. But I do think the first season is well worth checking out.

Other than the fact that I don’t like the comment about how many troops died, because modern warfare normally kills a lot more civilians than troops, this is a very good cartoon. It explains the economics of our relationship with Mexico: they send us drugs and we send them guns. We get the better of that deal.

I just read Chrystia Freeland’s new book Plutocrats. I know her from her repeated appearances on Up with Chris Hayes. And I have to say, my reaction to the book is the same as it is to her: what a muddle. Plutocrats really isn’t clear what it is trying to say. Intellectually, it can see that the rise of the super rich is a bad thing, but it is simultaneously almost worshipful of these people. But that might be okay all by itself. I do not have a problem with the vagaries of the human soul. But there is little in the way of new information. Inequality is more extreme the further you go up in income; many of the super rich are “self made” and yet are working to make it harder for others to achieve similarly; the super rich have a separate world in which they life. These are well established facts.

She is strangely sympathetic to these people. She notes their high stress and hard working lives. This is really too much and seems designed to keep open her access to all the plutocrats who took to time to talk to her about their very difficult lives. But please! It is ridiculous to think that a rich man’s self-imposed work life is anything like the very real problems faced by a poor man who has no choice. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking and apologizing for the super rich does not belong in any book that wants to be taken seriously as a study of income inequality.

There are parts of the book that work, although even they don’t have the snap that one would get from Jeremy Scahill or Michael Hastings—two men unafraid of offending their subjects. In the last chapter of Plutocrats, Freeland discusses the rise of La Serrata in 14th century Venice, which she compares to our current system where after the super rich rise, they pull up the ladder from those above. This is a big problem, but it is hardly the worst. Our system is set up so that the poor do far worse than their abilities and work justify while the rich do far (almost unimaginably) better than their abilities and work justify. This is not an issue that Freeland seems to be much interested in.

But she does know the basics. I do like that she understands that there really is no difference between the supposedly good plutocrats like Steve Jobs and the supposedly bad plutocrats like Lloyd Blankfein. She writes:

In other words, Jobs and Blankfein are doing exactly the same thing and if you changed them around there would be no difference. I would go further. I find it constantly aggravating that people hold Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in such high regard. The (wrong) idea is that these are men created great things that we all benefit from. The truth is that the little good these men did is swamped by the things they did that harmed progress. And the things they did to harm progress are what made them “great men” and what made them household words. Certainly Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds did far more to improve all of our lives than either Gates or Jobs. And yet, only the computer geeks will have even heard their names before. And why is that? Because they didn’t make any money and they certainly aren’t plutocrats.

Plutocrats is a lively and even fun read. Chrystia Freeland is a good writer. But like many writers, she is a bit too in love with her subject.

The Cone of Silence was a recurring comedic idea used in the Get Smart comedy series of my youth. It is ostensibly a device that lowers over two people so that they can have a private conversation. The joke is that it completely doesn’t work: the couple inside cannot hear each other but those outside can. The standard performance (as seen in the video below) involves someone on the outside relaying messages between the pair inside who cannot hear the other. This is silly stuff. And about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Even after all these years.

The gag was invented by series co-creator Buck Henry. It is comic genius, but there were many writers who did a lot of stuff with the idea. In one episode, Chief asks Smart what he found out about KAOS headquarters. Smart insists that Chief lower the Cone of Silence. This is something that Chief is always reluctant about doing because it never works. Anyway, he does so. The Chief again asks what Smart learned. “Nothing,” Smart tells him. Good thing that information didn’t get out!

In the end, my favorite take on the Cone of Silence is the simplest as in the following clip:

I don’t see how this video has not gone viral. It is of a 6 month old lab mix teaching an 8 week old puppy how to walk down the stairs. At least, I think that’s what’s going on. It is very inspiring:

H/T Sarah Kliff

Greg Sargent’s The Plum Line blog is quickly becoming my favorite Washington Post reading, which is to say I turn to it more often than Ezra Klein’s excellent Wonk Blog. Sargent just seems to write more about the stuff I’m interested in. Klein writes a lot more about economics, but I’m afraid i read a good deal too much economics elsewhere. Anyway. This morning Sargent is focused on gun control.

He notes a couple of articles about where the White House is regarding an assault weapons ban. The New York Times claims that they are planning to dump it and focus on background checks and high capacity magazines. But Sam Stein claims they are still pushing the ban on these guns.

I think the focus on assault weapons is misplaced. I understand that they look scary. On a recent trip to Mexico, seeing all the military with these kinds of guns was intimidating. But like syringes with drug addiction, they are just provocative and indicative, not the problem itself. To me, the thing that I most associate with assault rifles are the 30-round banana clips.

Sure, assault rifles tend to shoot huge rounds with enormous amounts of gun powder. But I think we can all agree that the main problem is the bullet itself. A handgun with a 30-round clip would have done a similar amount of damage. The biggest problem is that a shooter can continue to shoot—30 times!—without reloading or grabbing another gun.

There is also the issue that “assault weapon” is not the most well defined a term. It’s not that I think these are great guns that we ought to promote. In fact, they are designed to appeal to a certain kind of thinking. We don’t need more people thinking we are on the verge of revolution. But the design of these guns is essentially a cosmetic issue.

Given that we will be limited in what we can do about guns in this country, I think we need to first determine what will be the most effective measures. If I had to pick one change, I would require a two week waiting period for guns—especially handguns—at the national level. Currently, very few states require any waiting period at all. Gun suicides are still the number one problem and waiting periods help reduce these because, as they say, “Suicide is a long term solution to a short term problem.”[1]

Additionally, I do not see any need for large-capacity magazines. Most often, a limit of ten rounds is proposed. I think we ought to take this down further, but I don’t claim to be an expert. I’d also like to see something done about handguns. But I’m not suggesting banning them. I just don’t think we could get such a thing through Congress, much less the courts.[2] But I do think that public education campaigns could convince a lot of people that their handguns are more likely to harm them than save them. Again: my concern is overwhelmingly suicide but also accidents.

We can ban assault weapons. I’m not against it. But doing so is like getting China to more rigorously enforce our intellectual property laws: it makes more effective policies less likely. Let’s face it: all options are most definitely not on the table. I haven’t heard any discussion of handguns, which are responsible for most gun homicides and suicides. Instead, it is all about assault rifles, which are actually a fairly minor problem. And that’s fine: death is death. But I also haven’t heard much talk of waiting periods. And that’s criminal.

Afterword

One of the main writers on The Plum Line blog is Jonathan Bernstein. But I found out yesterday that all the links to his personal page go instead to Robert Samuelson’s page. People may know the foolish and evil Mr. Samuelson from his repeated apologia for conservative efforts to screw the poor. I alerted Sargent to this fact and he is working on it. But it will be a big job; I don’t envy his website tech!

[1] I don’t mean to suggest that suicide is always irrational or that it ought to be criminalized. I do think, however, that the vast majority of suicides are mistakes and that as a society, we should do everything we can to help those unfortunates who are driven to it.

[2] It is not true that the Second Amendment only applies to militias. Since around the time of the Civil War, the courts have interpreted the Constitution to mean that individuals have a right to own guns. This right is not going to change unless we change the Constitution. Thus: this right is not going to change.

[Update: see my article Creepy Christian Mingle Girl Not So Creepy. It turns out that this model is actually a reasonably attractive young woman. I still don’t understand why the company went with that image. The best looking people in the world look creepy if you photograph them wrong. I thought that professional advertisers understood that. -FM]

This image is from a major ad campaign for the Christian dating service Christian Mingle. That’s great. I actually think that religious compatibility is important, although it can be a problem with raising children. (I don’t think that children should be forced into a religion when they are too young to know what is going on.) But this ad? Really?!

I’m usually very open minded about attractiveness. In general, I think all young people look attractive. But this woman? She looks like she is either the unfortunate victim of an evil plastic surgeon or the resident of a galaxy far far away. She also has so much make-up on, I’m sure anyone who kissed her would choke on the dust.

Speaking of creepy Christians, have you seen the Tim Tebow TiVo commercials? There is one where the kids talk about how their mother gets all hot and bothered regarding Tebow. What’s more, their father is jealous. Is that really in keeping with Christianity? I mean, you know: the tenth commandment and all? Don’t covet your neighbors pig or ass or abs?

The truth is that when Christians enters the marketplace, they tend to make a mess of it. Either because they think creepy blond girls are attractive or because they show that their religion doesn’t mean much to them. Regardless, I hope they pair up and don’t procreate.

John Nichols gives us twelve reasons to pause over the Jack Lew nomination for Treasury Secretary, in his The Nation column yesterday. I’ve already said that I’m fine with the Lew nomination, although I haven’t looked into it that much. But my thinking is generally that the president should be able to have the cabinet that he wants. In fact, I would go further. After listen to all of the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings, I concluded that as much as I hated the man, I thought he should be confirmed. We get a choice when we elect the president. If we are stupid enough to vote in Reagan, we deserve what we get. And if we elect a spineless promoter of the status quo, then we should not complain when he surrounds himself with the more reasonable members of the Washington establishment.

I think that Nichols’ problem with Lew is the same as his problem with the Clinton administration. And I agree with him! Two major mistakes of that time were NAFTA and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. But there are two big problems with laying this on Lew. First, Lew wasn’t that big a player in the Clinton administration, and anyway, the policies were Clinton’s, not Lew’s. Second, Obama is no more liberal on these policies than Clinton was. The truth is that the Democrats have been unable to elect even a marginally liberal president since Johnson, and I would argue all the way back to Roosevelt.

But that doesn’t mean I think we should just (as Nichols says) “rubber stamp” Lew. I would really like to hear him answer all of Nichols’ questions. Nichols pulls no punches:

If I thought that any Democrats might ask questions like these, I’d be glued to C-SPAN. But alas, I think it will not be so. Instead, we’re likely to get a lot of conservative questions about whether Lew is now or has ever been a member of the human race. That alone would disqualify him in the eyes of most Republicans.

Any concerns I may have about Lew as a liberal are trumped by this one fact: he can’t possibly be worse than Tim Geithner.

You have probably seen the commercial below for Merit Gold. I am not putting this ad here because I think you should invest in gold. For the normal investor, gold is always a stupid investment. It is just one bubble after another. You would be as smart to invest in some ponzi scheme. It isn’t because gold is necessarily a bad investment. The problem is all the nutjobs who invest in it. You start with really ignorant but popular people like Glenn Beck and Ron Paul and you end up with a lot of irrational exuberance.

This ad is interesting in a couple of ways. The first is how it pushes fear. It seems like a trailer for a disaster film. “What’s a billion dollars look lie? What about a trillion? What about our national debt? It’s massive!” This is especially funny if you have seen the skit from That Mitchell & Webb Look about the guys giving away massive yachts. But even still, it is completely over the top. We see the stacks of money piling up until they overwhelm us. Run!

The second part is the false but common belief that government debt causes inflation. “Whereas the national debt has tripled in the last ten years, gold has gone up more than 600%.” The implication is that if the national debt has tripled, the value of the dollar must have gone down. This isn’t the case, but even more so, it doesn’t really make sense as a blanket concept. The value of the dollar is only relative to other currencies. The dollar is up compared to the Euro, for example. But more than this, one could have made similar claims about real estate in 2006. If gold has gone up more than 600% in the last decade, we know one thing: now is not the time to buy it.

But this is a perfect ad for the kind of people who buy gold. It cleverly feeds the conceits and exploits the ignorance of the Tea Party crowd. And you can hardly blame these people for falling for the line. Stacks of gold look so much more impressive in your bomb shelter than piles of cash.

Afterword

I have some advice for those survivalists out there. If you’re serious, don’t stockpile gold; it will be worthless in the post-society dystopia. Stockpile drugs: opioids and antibiotics. Those will be worth a fortune.