First Look at 2016

I put little faith in political polls far out from elections. Until the general public begins paying attention to politics (to the extent that most people pay any attention at all, it is only in the last few months of the campaigns) ... until then, the polls are mostly just a test of name recognition.

Nonetheless, I thought this poll on the 2016 Republican nomination was interesting. Not because it tells us who the Republican nominee might be, but because it tells us that we don't have a clue. Here are the top five:

• Chris Christie 13% 
• Rand Paul 12% 
• Mike Huckabee 12% 
• Rick Perry 11% 
• Paul Ryan 11%

For all my adult life, the Republicans have almost always had a clear frontrunner far in advance, and that frontrunner has ended up being the nominee (the only exception I can think of is '08, when Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain were running neck-and-neck in the polls, with Giuliani slightly ahead; Giuliani's campaign imploded and McCain got the nomination).

This time the race is wide open. I didn't even bother to check the margin of error on the poll, since clearly all of these are well within whatever it is. As a matter of fact, all the other candidates, including 'somebody else', 'none of the above', and 'no opinion' are probably within MoE, too.

This coming nomination battle should be a lot more fun than Republicans have had in decades.

Impeachment? Why Bother?

The Democrats are doing a good job of using the (very remote) possibility of an impeachment move against Obama as a fundraising gimmick. In this effort they are getting help from a few Republican wackos (I'm looking at you, Sarah Palin).

I yield to few in my contempt for Obama, but any attempt to impeach him would be an utter fiasco. Not only would it fail miserably, but do these people not remember how much the Democrats profited from the Clinton impeachment mess in the 1998 elections? The Republicans are looking likely to win the Senate in November -- why do something to stir the Democrats up?

Besides that, what's the point of impeaching him? I often wonder whether he resigned last year and forgot to tell anybody.

A Few Thoughts on Ecuador as a Retirement Locale

Ecuador, where I intermittently live, is a wonderful country. Like all places, however, it is not perfect and it is not for everyone.

Ecuador is often touted as one of the best places in the world for Americans (and Canadians and Europeans) to retire. Although some of the touting is mere puffery by a much-quoted magazine/website called International Living (I'll tell you what I think of IL in another post – but the short version is this: don't trust them), there's still a great deal of truth to it. Ecuador is beautiful, with a wide variety of delightful environments – the Andes, beaches, the Amazon, Galapagos – as places to live and/or explore; it also has a relatively low cost of living (though not as low as IL might lead you to believe), and decent infrastructure (quite good, in fact, by third-world standards).

Anyone considering Ecuador as a retirement site, though, should give thought to the country's long-term prospects for stability. Much of Ecuador's current attractiveness is because it is enjoying the fruits of an oil boom. However, Ecuador had two major booms in the twentieth century – cacao in the early part of the century and bananas in mid-century. Both, as booms usually do, brought about periods of stability, but both also ended (again, as booms generally do) and when they ended, they were followed by considerable social/political turmoil and military coups.

Now we see Ecuador, having spent the proceeds of the oil boom, turning to currency manipulation. Having imposed (relative) fiscal restraint on itself by adopting the US dollar as its currency fifteen or so years ago, the country is now going to adopt a parallel digital currency.

Any currency (unless fully backed by something) is of course only as good as the faith it inspires in the international community (currency values fluctuate in large part because the amount of faith fluctuates based on each country's situation). Anything issued by Ecuador is likely to be greeted with some degree of skepticism, because of:

1. Ecuador's past history of multiple defaults (the most recent default was in 2008);
2. The history of defaults and/or runaway inflation of other Latin American countries (it may not be fair, but the reality is that we all take into account similar cases when making judgments about individual cases);
3. The similarity of Ecuador's spending and fiscal policies to those of Venezuela and Argentina, and the current shaky conditions of those countries' economies (see #2 for whether this is fair or realistic);
4. The unwillingness of the congress to back the new currency with dollars.

Point #4 bears further comment. The congress specifically rejected the idea of using dollars to back the new currency and said it would be backed by the assets of the country's Central Bank.

Oswaldo Larriva, a member of Correa’s political party and president of the congressional commission that studied the proposal, questioned attempts by lobbyists to require backing the new electronic money with hard currency. He said the government had expressed its commitment to using the central bank to guarantee any issuance. 

“To keep repeating the same thing, that dollarization is at risk, isn’t an issue that goes against the president, it’s against the nation,” Larriva said to reporters July 15 in Quito. “Don’t repeat those things.”

(By the way, the second paragraph is not an empty threat – in Ecuador, criticizing the president can lead to jail).

As the Bloomberg article notes, it's unclear what assets the Central Bank might use to back the new currency. Ecuador's oil is pledged for the foreseeable future to pay off debts to China, and most of the country's gold was recently turned over to Goldman Sachs in return for a temporary boost in liquidity.

“It does raise a red flag,” Bianca Taylor, a sovereign analyst who helps oversee $210 billion at Loomis Sayles, said yesterday in a phone interview from Boston. “Whenever a country needs to sell or monetize its gold reserves, it’s definitely a signal that the sovereign is strapped for cash.” 

President Rafael Correa is stepping up his search for financing at home and abroad after borrowing more than $11 billion from China since defaulting on $3.2 billion of foreign debt five years ago. Ecuador’s use of the dollar means it can’t finance deficits by printing money like other countries.

Adopting the 'digital currency' is a twenty-first century way to allow the country to effectively print money to cover its deficits. Bloomberg (the first link) also suggests that it might be easy to coerce some people, meaning those without the ability to say no, to accept the digital currency in lieu of dollars:

While the government says it won’t force anyone to accept electronic money as payment, public employees and contractors who want work may have little choice, Aguilar said.

Government contractors will just factor the discounted value of the new currency into their bids (e.g., if the new currency's street price is 91c on the dollar, they'll just add 10% to their bids). Government employees and pension recipients will just have to take the hit.

I make no claim to expertise in such matters, and even if I am right about the direction I think things are going, it could be a long time before the stuff hits the fan; but I think people should take these developments and their possible ramifications into account if planning on Ecuador as a long-term home.

On the bright side, even if my suspicions are right and Ecuador's economy is heading for the toilet, a prudent expat would be unlikely to be hurt (the people of Ecuador would be another matter, of course), because collapses of the sort I expect to see generally have many warning flags, allowing for a timely exit, if needed. A few of those flags, as noted, are already waving, but there will be more as the end nears. My advice – go to Ecuador if you want (I moved to Quito at the first of this year and plan to return as soon as I deal with some matters in the States), but keep your eyes open for further flags, and rent rather than buy.

ADDENDUM: The point of this post is about the effects I expect from this new currency, and what it likely means in light of the government's current policies. It's worth noting, though that the law also gives the government "the power to decide who gets loans and how lenders invest their reserves." Gee , what could possibly go wrong with that?

FIFA Engages in Its Usual BS re 2018 Cup

FIFA has decided to not move the 2018 World Cup out of Russia. Some European politicians have advocated withdrawing the games because of Russia's recent behavior in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

I have mixed feelings on this – I hate to see major world events of this type lending credibility to rogue states, a category that surely includes Russia. At the same time, I'm opposed to the politicization of sport. Or, I should say, increased politicization of sport.

However, in announcing their their decision, FIFA was as silly as usual:

FIFA ... said a World Cup in the country ''can be a force for good.'' 

''FIFA believes this will be the case for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia,'' the governing body said.

Right – because the idea of sports events as a force for good was so recently proven by the Winter Olympics in Russia.

Actually, I imagine the FIFA board was grateful for the political calls to move the Cup out of Russia, because it gave them an opportunity to go demand another round of bribes from Putin.

Place Your Bets Now

Michele Bachmann says she may run for President again.

I'm putting the over/under on the percentage of support she'll get at 2.

Not that I want her to stay out of the race -- we always need some comic relief (though I thought the 2012 Republican field may have had a bit too much).

Thank You, Phoenix, for the Math Help

Near my sister's place (where I'm living temporarily) is a small city park called Los Olivos (I think this area was once an olive grove before being developed). I often go to the park to walk, run, or do a light workout, as do a fair number of others.

It's a nice park with a pleasant family environment.

There is a sidewalk looping through the central part of the park with markers indicating distances. There's a sign near the starting point (shown at right) with a map of the park and the following helpful information (I've enlarged the central portion of the sign below).

How very kind it is of the City Parks Department to help us with calculating that 3 x 1/3 = 1.

This leaves us wondering, however, whether the people of Phoenix are really that dumb. Or perhaps the problem is with the folks at the Parks Department who think higher-order math of this sort requires explanation (did they bring in consultants to help them with it?)

Don't get me started on the exclamation points.

Could We Get an Update on This?

Here's a picture of Hillary Clinton presenting the Russian Foreign Minister with a 'reset' button in 2009, intended to signify the new era in US-Russian relations that she and President Obama were going to institute.

I wonder how that's been going?

The Kind of Marketing That Makes Me Ashamed of My Career

I spent almost my entire working life in marketing, and I am pleased to say that I, and most of the people I worked with, behaved ethically at (almost) all times.

Sometimes, though, I get embarrassed, as a marketer, by the actions of some practicioners. Today's example: AARP. I got a mailer today that starts:

Dear Friend, 

"We regret to inform you that your AARP membership has been cancelled. Unfortunately, because we didn't receive your renewal instructions, we had no choice.

It then goes on to pitch me on the benefits of AARP membership and to offer me an opportunity to reverse my error. There are two problems with this.

1. I'm not their friend, and
2. I've never been a member of AARP and never will be.

A common complaint about people of my age (I'm 67) is that we are a bunch of greedy bastards trying to grab every government freebie we can and passing the bills on to our children and grandchildren.

It's an ugly stereotype, but unfortunately there's some truth to it. And AARP exists for the purpose of making it totally true.

And a mailing of this type, that tries to trick people into buying a service, rather than trying to sell it on its merits, does nothing to change my opinion of AARP.

Great Moments in BS

I think I may make this a regular feature. As I mentioned in a previous post about Gwyneth Paltrow announcing that she and her husband were getting a divorce undertaking a 'conscious uncoupling', I love really good bullshit.

That may be because I'm interested in politics and government, which could not exist without BS (where else would we get such gems as 'enhanced interrogation' for torture, 'police action' for war, or 'undocumented persons' for illegal aliens).

I should point out that I could have titled this something like “Great Euphemisms”, but I don't think euphemism is the right word for this sort of thing. To me a euphemism is saying “I need to go to the bathroom” when I mean “I need to piss.” The sort of thing I'm discussing takes the practice to a higher level, at which point 'euphemism' itself becomes a euphemism for bullshit.

OK, that was a long lead-in to a short item. I was out walking today and passed an apartment complex on Indian School Road (aside: I wonder when they'll rename it 'Native American Road'). The apartment management had put out banners advertising various features of their apartments, such as WiFi.

And then there was this one. I guess the marketing folks decided that advertising their security guards might cause potential tenants to think, “Why do they need guards? There must be a lot of security problems.” So therefore, the complex doesn't have guards, it has a 'Courtesy Patrol'.

Starting Over

Yeah, I've been gone for a while (if you call almost three months 'a while'). I'll probably explain things at some point soon.

I think I'll start posting again, but a word of warning ... I think I'll probably get more political than I've been in the past, I'm in Arizona and there's an election going on and, as usual, I'm am dumbfounded by the politicians.

A Little Bit of Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing

This an old saying, and a good rule to be aware of. It is doubly true when it is a little bit of knowledge of a foreign language.

Today I got myself into a bind by thinking I know Spanish better than I do. I won't explain the whole thing because it's too long and involved (and mostly because to do so would be too embarrassing). Just trust me when I say that you should never say 'Si' unless you understand all of what has just been said to you.

You'd think I would have figured that out many years ago, wouldn't you?

I'm lucky if I catch about every third word, because I'm trying to listen and translate simultaneously.

My Favorite Conspiracy

If you hang out on expat forums, as I do, you will come across a lot of nice people. I frequent these forums because they're often an entertaining waste of time, but also because they can be helpful. If you want to know which store in Quito carries American peanut butter (answer: apparently none), there's no better place to find out.

As I said, most of the folks are both normal and pleasant. However, both here in Ecuador and in my former place of exile, the Philippines, I have noted that there seems to be an unusually high proportion of conspiracy buffs in the expat communities. After a bit of thought, I concluded that this isn't particularly surprising since expats are not a random cross-section of their home countries – obviously, people who choose to leave their country differ from those who choose to stay put, and one of those ways might be a tendency to believe that they are out to get us.

Who 'they' are is not always clear. The conspiracies seem to emanate from both the left and right of the US political spectrum, with a fair number of the believers having political leanings that are rather inscrutable.

Some of the theories are very entertaining. My favorite is that the government is trying to trigger a humungous earthquake on the New Madrid Fault in order to create a big inland sea where the Mississippi River currently resides. Why this is being done is unclear, but apparently the Illuminati is involved. Here's a video about it on YouTube, which tells us that it's being done through fracking.

Others say the plan involves HAARP, which is a popular source of conspiracy theories according to Wikipedia.

Random Thoughts on Ecuador's Oil Boom

Commodity-driven economies, history tells us, can be counted on to go through boom and bust cycles. The politicians who are lucky enough to ride the boom are, not surprisingly, very popular. The bust, of course, is less fun.

Ecuador had two such cycles in the twentieth century -- the cacao boom in the early 1900s, and the banana boom in the middle of the century. In both cases, the bust brought on periods of instability (there were military coups in the twenties and seventies).

Currently, the country is enjoying the oil boom, but there are signs that it may be nearing an end. Will that mean a bust sometime soon, and what consequences might a bust have? We'll just have to see, but Ecuador should prepare for problems if oil prices drop, and I doubt if Rafael Correa's favorability ratings will stay where they are.

Watch out, Chicago. You're Getting Set up to Be Screwed Again

The Cubs' owner is asked about the Atlanta Braves' planned move to the suburbs:

Ricketts said the Cubs have been trying to avoid such an issue. 

"We've been approached by several suburban sites and alternatives to move the Cubs to a new ballpark," Ricketts said, "and although I haven't studied it thoroughly, I imagine that's probably an attractive proposition for us. 

"But we've made it our priority to try to stay where we're at because of what it does mean to the neighbors and what it does mean to the city, both economically and just from the standpoint of quality of life in general."

Note that Rickett never says flatly that the Cubs will stay put (though such a promise would be worthless anyway), he only says they will try.

Would the Cubs actually move out of Wrigley? Probably not, but the threat is ho doubt good enough to extort a few hundred million out of the taxpayers. Rahm Emmanuel is a leading practitioner of crony capitalism, and there's plenty of precedent (e,g., Daley's Soldier Field sweetheart deal for the Bears).

On a side note: It's interesting that Cubs attendance has dropped more than 20% in the past few years. Maybe Cubs fans are wising up. One reason I could never stand the Cubs is that their fans (at Wrigley) are mostly a bunch of drunken boors who know nothing about baseball – they go to the games as an excuse to get drunk and be seen doing something cool.

(Apologies to my Cub fan friends, who are exceptions to that rule).

If You Disagree with Me You're Not Just Wrong ...

... you are "immoral, unethical and despicable."

Well no, I don't actually think that way, but Al Gore does. He said in a recent speech in Hawaii that anybody who doesn't believe in global warming is, to repeat, "immoral, unethical and despicable."

The 'immoral' part is particularly interesting, I think, as it is the sort of language and thinking one normally associates with religion. Global warming has become a religion for its adherents, and they seem to speak and act more and more in ways emulating religious fanatics.

Public Education in the USA

In Los Angeles, a science teacher was suspended for teaching science.

A popular Los Angeles high school science teacher has been suspended after students turned in projects that appeared dangerous to administrators, spurring a campaign calling for his return to the classroom. 

Students and parents have rallied around Greg Schiller after his suspension in February from the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts. Supporters have organized a rally on his behalf at the campus for Thursday, gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for his reinstatement and set up a social media page.
Schiller was ordered to report daily to a district administrative office pending an investigation after two students turned in science-fair projects that were designed to shoot small projectiles. 

One project used compressed air to propel a small object but it was not connected to a source of air pressure, so it could not have been fired. (In 2012, President Obama tried out a more powerful air-pressure device at a White House Science Fair that could launch a marshmallow 175 feet.) 

Another project used the power from an AA battery to charge a tube surrounded by a coil. When the ninth-grader proposed it, Schiller told him to be more scientific, to construct and test different coils and to draw graphs and conduct additional analysis, said his parents, who also are Los Angeles teachers. 

A school employee saw the air-pressure project and raised concerns about what looked to her like a weapon, according to the teachers union and supporters. Schiller, who said he never saw the completed projects except in photos, was summoned and sent home. 

Both projects were confiscated as "evidence," said Susan Ferguson, whose son did the coil project.

This reminds me of the recent case in New York where a Spanish teacher was (alledgedly) not just suspended but fired for teaching Spanish. She used the word 'negro', which of course means 'black' in Spanish and would seem to be a word worth knowing to someone who wants to speak Spanish. But one of her students said the word was offensive, and God forbid a student should be offended, so the teacher was fired.

Soccer in Ecuador

Next time I'm sitting on the
other side.

I attended my first Ecuadorian soccer game yesterday. It was an interesting experience. Do I have to begin calling it football now – or futbol?

The game was Universidad Catolica versus Deportivo Quito (Catolica won, 1-0). It was a good game, though not of the highest quality – about as good as an MLS game (the best Ecuadorian players, of course, go to other countries, where they can make more money).

I certainly can't argue with the price, though – general admission was five bucks. Still, next time I'll pay a little more to get a seat on the other side – the cheap seats are looking right into the afternoon sun. The other side is covered and faces away from the sun. The shade doesn't mean that much -- it wasn't hot -- but it was very difficult to see well, even wearing sunglasses.

Put down that
#$%@ umbrella!

Lots of people had umbrellas. I was sitting in the Deportivo Quito boosters section, and lots of them had blue or red (the team colors) umbrellas. Very colorful, but I'd hate to be sitting behind somebody holding one.

This was a Deportivo Quito home game, though Catolica uses the same stadium -- three Quito teams share the stadium. Another Quito team (the rich kids, I guess) has its own stadium. Can you imagine US teams sharing a stadium? Perish the thought -- much better that the taxpayers spend several hundred million to build us our own stadium (and, of course, lease it to us for a dollar a year). US sports is rife with crony capitalism.

Lots of security. There were
another bunch of cops right
behind me on the concourse. 

Universidad Catolica, despite the name, is a professional team. In fact, three of the twelve teams at the top level (Primera A) have 'Universidad' in their name (the others are from Universidad de Quito and Universidad de Loja). Apparently Ecuador has done what the US should do – acknowledge that top-level college teams are actually professionals.

We've all heard stories, of course, about Latin American soccer fans rioting. They apparently take that possibility pretty seriously here. There were a solid line of cops protecting the field, and all fans are thoroughly frisked – twice – before entering the stadium. In any case, the game was quite peaceful, and a good time was had by all. Or at least by me (I probably shouldn't speak for the Deportivo Quito fans).

I Think That's What They Call a Duty-Hug

Look at the expression on Obama's face as he hugs Kathleen Sibelius.

It Takes One to Know One

Donald Trump: 

“All talk, it’s all bullshit.”

A Step in the Right Direction

The National Transportation Safety Board is fining General Motors $7,000 per day for GM's failure to respond to the NTSB's demand for information about GM's cover-up of their safety problems.

This is a great idea. At seven grand a day, US taxpayers will have their bailout money repaid in only about four millenia. Better than I thought it was going to be.

A note on the math: $7000 x 365.25 days = $2,556,750/year x 4000 years = $10,227,000,000.

That isn't quite all of what's owed, but it's close.

More seriously: It's way past time to put an end to crony capitalism (by both parties).