Mount Duffy Erupts, Buries Three Villages in Steaming Dung
I’m surprised that my post-election musings from last week didn’t catch more flak from the Lefties (unless you’ve all given me up as hopeless). Think it might have had something to do with posting on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend? Well, in any case, they elicited one response so far – a missive from my old pal Brian Duffy, well known and loved by so many frequent visitors to this site. Usually I’ve been answering Brian in the comments area, but this latest spittle-flecked screed was so far out of right field that it deserves pride-of-place on here the home page. Here’s what Duff has to say.
Your assertion that last Tuesday was incredibly close is absurd. Rather, the midterm elections were an out-and-out rout. I see a more fundamental reason what happened, and, guess what, it has nothing to do with 9/11 or the war on Iraq/terrorism.
The outcome was not good for the Dems for sure, but the vote totals tell a different story. A swing of 20,000 votes in New Hampshire and Minnesota, plus another 20,000 for Landreau in Louisiana to avoid a run-off, would have given the D’s control of the Senate. Even one of those two wins would have made it 50/50, with the strong possibility that Chafee of Rhode Island would pull a Jeffords. Many of the contested House races were decided by small margins, and as we’ve discussed, the tiny number of actual contested seats this year was a national disgrace (blame both parties, but that’s a different issue). I have no doubt that the R’s will treat this as a rout, but it wasn’t, and my point in the article is that the D’s shouldn’t panic as if it had been.
I think it lies in the fact that more and more Americans (and more importantly, more voters) are taking part in the most basic form of Capitalism on this earth. I refer you to Wall Street and the stock markets.
Actually, the most basic form of capitalism takes place in village marketplaces. The stock market and its associated services industries is probably the most complex and abstract economic institution the world has ever seen.
For the first time in history, more than one half of American households are investing in the stock market. Most of them are participating through their 401(k) plans provided by their employers.
401(k)s are far from an unadulterated good, as I will elaborate on below. BTW, flamers take note that Brian works in pension-fund management professionally, for an honest and well-reputed company. He should know whereof he speaks on this subject. He continues:
Ironically, one would think that this fact should have helped the Democratic cause, given the horrible performance of the stock market over the last three years. How is it that the dems were not able to pin this on Dubya and his fellow GOPers? How is it that the corporate scandals that have come to light over the last year, keeping the market from recovering, did not mean death to the GOP candidates last week? After all, the GOP is synonomous with Big Business. Why the disconnect?
Good questions all. Now folks, brace yourself for some political analysis from the Bizarro world:
Simply put, most Americans recognize that the largesse that became the stock market bubble, that has burst over the last three years, was built during the reign of Bill Clinton. Of course Mr. Clinton was touched by many scandals during his time in office. It was not a stretch to connect him to one more.
OK, Brian’s right-wing Tilt-a-Whirl seems to have spun off its foundations on that one. Let me see if I understand this: the late 90s economy, that put millions of people to work, let hundreds of thousands of people (including me) afford homes, made lots and lots of people rich (including plenty of Republicans) and even managed to drag our government briefly out of the red – this was all some kind of Clintonian trick. Somehow sliver-tongued Bill Clinton managed to talk all those people into buying stock at inflated prices, forced all those VCs to invest in bone-headed dotcoms, cajoled telecoms into wasting billions on redundant fiber networks, and winked and nodded while his good pal “Kenny-Boy” Lay walked away with the company checkbook.
This is big news! Someone tell Bill O'Reilly! Brian, I’m sure you have some kind of evidence to link Clinton to these scandals? Oh, but of course, you don’t need evidence to accuse Clinton of anything. Then, as long as the accusation gets passed around, you can plausibly claim that “Mr Clinton was touched by many scandals.” When it comes to Clinton, accusation equals guilt. Just ask (former) Rep. Bob Barr, who was too kooky-right wing to get re-elected in Georgia this year. But not even he could have cooked this one up. Go figure.
Americans also realize that making Corporate America as the enemy, a common tactic of the dems, does little to help the companies that provide paychecks and security to those of us lucky enough to have jobs, which given the latest unemployment figures suggests that that would mean about 94% of Americans of working age. And when you (the dems) demonize corporate America, you put jobs and lifestyles at risk. Is it a stretch to say that this tactic backfired especially when failing to offer a credible plan in substitute?
I actually agree that the D’s need to be constructive in their criticism of corporate America, not just launch old-style class warfare attacks. That was part of the point of my original article. However, by and large, the Dems who lost are not the ones who stuck it to corporate criminals, and I think yes, it is a stretch to suggest that the voters who provided the margin of victory to R’s in tight races (e.g. not red-meaters like yourself) had any sophisticated views on this subject at all.
Perhaps Americans are smart enough to realize that by investing in stocks through their retirement plans, they become part owners of Corporate America.
Well, part of the problem in the current wave of scandals is that being an owner doesn’t buy you very much, except the opportunity to participate in the collapse of the equity value of the company when mismanagement and fraud are revealed. The whole issue in these scandals is that senior management was deceiving shareholders and sometimes their own Board of Directors with fabricated or misleading financial data.
Owners don't like being in the crosshairs. And when their well being is threatened, they vote, big time.
Again, owning stock in this day and age does not confer any great privilege. Unless you’re a major investor, equities are financial instruments, same as money market funds, bonds, real estate, whatever. Perhaps in some technical way it implicates us all as fat-cat capitalists, but I’d be surprised if real people see it that way. Beyond the abstract, the actual financial well-being of all Americans is being threatened by the most reckless, stupid and irresponsible administration ever to occupy the White House.
The collapse in the market was triggered not by some oblique activity of President Clinton, but by natural free market forces. However, it has been aggravated by imprudent fiscal policy (e.g., the tax cut) and the inability or unwillingness of Bush and Co. to put the country on a war-footing economically while forging ahead with some very costly and open-ended war plans. Don’t believe me? Just look how the market drops 100 points every time Saddam’s name appears in a headline.
Time may yet show that the death of the Democratic Party began the day the 401(k) came into existence.
Ah, the final sputter of ideology over reality. 401(k) is a classic example of what happens when politicians put short-term expedience ahead of the long-term policy objectives. The idea of pensions is to provide stable income for retired workers: accent here on stable. Most people are not retiring to golf courses and Carnival cruises, nor would they be able to even with decent returns on their investments. The lucky ones live modest lives in homes they now own, able to survive economically without the need to participate in the day-to-day workplace economy. Having a check every month makes that possible. Not knowing how much that check will be month to month because it’s predicated on swings of the economy, or on poor investment decisions made too long ago to fix, contributes to economic hardship and misery.
I’m all in favor of giving people the ability to invest for their retirement tax-free. Hell, I’ve got a SEP-IRA (and good thing I’m not going to need it for a long time!). But that’s no substitute for the social and economic benefits of a professionally-managed fixed-benefits pension. In the name of freedom (just another word for greed in this case), 401(k)s let companies offload the costs and responsibilities for management to workers who may be unqualified to make those kind of decisions, at terrible cost down the road. I’d argue that the freedom to go broke when you’re old and it’s too late to do anything about it is not one that’s really worth having.
OK, thanks for the food for thought. I hope at least we can agree that Barry Bonds deserved his MVP award today.
Commenters, please feel free to let fly at Brian with both barrels either here or on the original post. Just keep it clean, and no personal attacks.
8:07:14 AM 
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