eli's blog

LOL: Read Burque Babble, then eat your vegetables

eli il yong lee — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:37:36 MST

If you want a few good laughs, check out Scot Key's regular blog, 'Burque Babble

Burque Babble

Scroll down (hell, read the whole damn thing) to Saturday, January 3, 2009: Cheese Sandwiches and the Hieronymus Bosch World of Public School Cafeterias. We hope the legislature will expand a great bill they passed a few years back to provide regular servings of fresh fruit and vegetables to all New Mexico public school children. You'll see some of the rationale here. But mostly, it's just damn funny.

(Check out the Food to Table website to learn more about the issue of getting local fresh fruits and vegetables into our schools for meals and snacks.)

Obama and New Mexico’s Health Care Authority

eli il yong lee — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:00:21 MST

It is clear Obama is going to move aggressively on health care reform, including it as a cornerstone of his economic recovery package. Kevin Sack, in his op-ed entitled, "Necessary Medicine?" in this Sunday's New York Times, cites Obama himself:

To broaden support for his plan -- whatever it ends up being -- he [Obama] insisted last week that systematic improvements in health care would be essential to any lasting economic recovery.

"It's not something that we can sort of put off because we're in an emergency," he said. "This is part of the emergency."

Mr. Obama said his health plan would be "intimately woven into" his administration's economic blueprint. And he directly confronted those who might ask how the country could afford a major expansion of health coverage in times of shrinking revenues and burgeoning deficits. "I ask a different question," Mr. Obama said. "I ask how can we afford not to?"

The state of health care in New Mexico is, to paraphrase Civil Rights organizer Bob Moses, like a boat in the ocean with a hole in it. You have to stay afloat to fix the boat, and fix the boat to stay afloat.

Some legislators will want to move immediately on additional reforms to New Mexico's health care system to address the urgent needs of New Mexicans facing ever-increasing costs. Other legislators will say we need to wait to see what the feds are going to do before we do anything too drastic.

Both sides lend more credence to the creation of an independent health care authority. Whether New Mexico wants to act first or whether we want to wait for the feds, we need an independent group of experts to formulate strong, thoughtful recommendations on systemic changes and the complicated interface between state and federal health care financing.

As Obama says, "how can we afford not to?" The health care system for New Mexicans is broken with no cost controls, a shortage of medical professionals and incentives for higher cost procedures rather than on a healthy population. Legislators cannot afford to wait, either for true reform or for the feds to act. An Independent Health Care Authority can move us forward with data and outcome driven solutions to our health care illness.

New Energy for Energy

eli il yong lee — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:39:16 MST

I was fascinated by Obama's choice of Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy. The choice of a scientist is unusual for a cabinet secretary, since cabinet positions often go to those from the political realm. Barb at Democracy for New Mexico has a lot more background on Chu, so I won't go into his qualifications here.

The real opportunity is that political appointees often bring in tens of loyal staffers, who themselves are political appointees, and not often best suited to the policy tasks ahead. With Chu, we may see a nice little experiment - bringing in real life, substantive experience for specific policy challenges at the top of the food chain, rather than somewhere in the middle.

See also:

Washington Monthly:
A Sterling Team at Energy and Environment

Session-omics and the Rail Runner

eli il yong lee — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:19:03 MST

The RailRunner couldn't have come at a better time, for me at least. With the legislative session starting up in six weeks, the RailRunner has already posted schedules for the Albuquerque to Santa Fe roundtrip, with a stop just south of the Roundhouse. The times work great, the pick-up and drop-off locations work great and the price is just $8, roundtrip.

That means less gas and a cheaper trip for me, less wear and tear on my car, more time to work rather than just sit behind the wheel of car and never having to spend 20 minutes finding a parking spot again up in Santa Fe.

I don't know how many new jobs the Rail Runner construction created, but those jobs couldn't have come at a better time either. I also bet that the Rail Runner project spurred additional private investment - supply companies, new construction technology and equipment and service enterprises.

That's a formula that works. When government can initiate a project that unleashes long term private investment, everyone wins.

Rail Runner website

The people spoke, but will legislators listen?

eli il yong lee — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:34:51 MST

In poll after poll prior to November 4th, New Mexican voters voiced their desire for change - not just generic change for change's sake, but real change in the economy, real change in health care, real change in the war, real change in energy sources and real change in the ethical behavior of elected leaders.

Voters put their voice into action on November 4th, electing new leaders at all levels of government, and by historic margins. With much of the media focused on our new President and Congressional leaders, will state legislators heed the call as well, or will we get inaction on these critical issues?

Here's a great example of the change we need. It's a story about Schott Solar, an Albuquerque company that has come away unscathed by the economic catastrophe

Check out the bolded section:

A study done for SEIA estimated extending the investment tax credit would create 440,000 permanent jobs and unleash $325 billion in private investment in the solar industry.

Schott is investing $100 million in its Albuquerque plant and has visions of eventually quadrupling its operation to reach 1,500 jobs and $500 million in investment. Rakes said the company is currently studying the prospects of future expansion and said the tax credit will be an important consideration.

"I think that's the engine that's going to drive a lot of the development and growth, not only for us but for others as well," Rakes said.

Yes, that's right. Smart government action - in this case, a federal investment tax credit - literally unleashed gobs of private sector investment.

What bold government actions will legislators make this year? Will they finally fix our health care system? Will they finally enact laws to reign in unethical behavior? Will they spur private sector investment in a new economy based on renewable energy?

Or will they let the same old lobbyist-driven status quo remain the same?

Climate Czar

eli il yong lee — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:26:42 MST

There have been a few ideas floating around since the election about President Obama creating a new Climate Czar position to usher in the transformation of our economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy. What about Governor Richardson for that post?

He has the most extensive track record of any national leader on climate change and renewable energy. And this effort - to simultaneously rescue America's economy, reduce carbon emissions and create green jobs - will be our biggest national security challenge for the next decade, touching every American, impacting our relationships with other countries and literally steering this country's course into the next century. It will also require enormous negotiating skills, to bring together carbon industries, renewable energy businesses, environmental advocates, economists, communities of color, rural residents and others to figure out how to make this work for all of us.

I can't think of anyone with a better combination of experience and skills to take this on.

Time To Get To Work

eli il yong lee — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:50:03 MST

As passion for the election - on both sides of the aisle - turns into the more difficult and less sexy day-to-day chore of governance and fixing real problems, regular columnist Paul Krugman and guest columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, from the ultra-conservative National Review, offered thoughtful commentaries in Friday's The New York Times.

Krugman states:

And right now happens to be one of those times when the converse is also true, and good morals are good economics. Helping the neediest in a time of crisis, through expanded health and unemployment benefits, is the morally right thing to do; it's also a far more effective form of economic stimulus than cutting the capital gains tax. Providing aid to beleaguered state and local governments, so that they can sustain essential public services, is important for those who depend on those services; it's also a way to avoid job losses and limit the depth of the economy's slump.

Ponnuru observed:

Most conservatives were preoccupied in this campaign with cultural issues: flag pins, 1960s radicals and the like. These issues are legitimate, and certainly easier to understand than the details of health policy. But they have never been enough to win over most voters. Barack Obama offered a better life to most voters. Without challenging that claim, Republicans were never going to be able to portray him as out of the mainstream.

Krugman begins the drumbeat for a new way ofthinking about how to get out of this economic mess - by investment in people's lives, through health and unemployment benefits and public services. Ponnuru warns conservatives that to continue focusing on the culture war - at the exclusion of people's economic security - is a surefire recipe for continued losses in the voting booth.

Back here in New Mexico, conservatives might be making the very mistake Ponnuru writes of. The Republican brand in the Land of Enchantment may quickly be known most, not by pocketbook issues, but by two, less glowing characteristics -- voter suppression and fanning racial flames (see Otero County Republican Party):

If conservatives do re-write their playbook as Ponnuru suggests, they might also be wise to heed another gem from Krugman:

Now, the Obama administration shouldn't emulate the Bush administration's habit of turning anything and everything into an argument for its preferred policies. (Recession? The economy needs help -- let's cut taxes on rich people! Recovery? Tax cuts for rich people work -- let's do some more!)

Yes, let's all start focusing on how to help people's pocketbook, but no, let's not use the failed economic philosophy of "tax cuts at all costs" to do it. It's time for some new thinking on how to fix the economy.

Giants Among Us

eli il yong lee — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:11:08 MDT

My mentor, Carolyn Goodman, lived a life that few would trade for. She lost two husbands to illness and her middle son to the Ku Klux Klan.

I met Carolyn in 1989 when I was a student in New York. She quickly became my friend and teacher through a relationship that lasted almost twenty years until her death in 2007 at the age of 91. Carolyn was a masterful storyteller, recounting her early activist years, organizing supplies with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to send to the Spaniards fighting Franco in the late thirties. She told me about, and often introduced me, to the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement (who often met in her living room), from Julian Bond to now-Congressman John Lewis to John Doar, a champion in the US Department of Justice during the tumultuous sixties. She and I traveled to Mississippi twice, to commemorate the murders of her son Andy and his two Freedom Summer colleagues, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, and the countless other women and men who literally sacrificed their lives to better our country. (link)

Throughout her whole life, even prior to the birth of her three children, Carolyn was an activist and a community organizer. Her Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan was a living museum to the fight for equality in the United States. There, leaders of many movements gathered to meet, strategize, raise money, weep, celebrate and rest. The photographs and ghosts in those rooms could literally trace all of American history from the thirties to the today.

I have so many memories of Carolyn, too many to go into here. I'll leave you with just two.

The first is so bittersweet, as it was for Carolyn. Carolyn was so generous with her time with everyone, including reporters, during the disappearance of her son and his co-workers in 1964, to the discovery of their bodies in an earthen dam in rural Mississippi, to the ensuing investigation and then to the forty-plus years of remembrance. Almost each time she was interviewed, she would get asked the same question: "If you could do it all over again, would you still give permission to Andy to go down to Mississippi to register black voters?"

Are Taxes Evil?

eli il yong lee — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:59:18 MDT

The roads we drive on, the Medicare that helps senior citizens, the garbage that is collected every week - we all know the source of funding for these services - the taxes assessed and collected by the government, paid for by you and I.

In today's political climate, there's no way in hell a candidate would be caught dead calling for an increase in taxes. We've all been trained since Nixon's first campaign to repeat the mantra: tax cuts good, tax increases bad.

But the worldwide financial crisis has changed things considerably. America's taxpayers bailed out not just America's largest banks, but quite possibly, the world's economy. Before all the knee jerk reaction starts about how the government overstepped its bounds, let's remember who was frantically calling for this governmental action - bank CEO's, leading investors, leadership of both political parties and the President.

Like roads, Medicare and garbage collection, this use of good old American tax dollars was not only helpful, it was critical.

Do we need to make government more transparent, efficient and accountable? God knows, the answer is yes. But it's time to acknowledge the appropriate role for government and then work together to make its services more responsive.

Should the government take a greater role in health care? Absolutely. If you didn't like the financial meltdown, wait til you see the return premium payers are getting from insurance companies.

Government Is "Bad"... until "They" need it

eli il yong lee — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:15:08 MDT

Today, the United States Government announced "an extraordinary and historic investment in the nation's banks - the biggest bet ever made with taxpayer dollars on the U.S. financial system." (link)

With the announcement that $250 billion in US tax dollars is going directly into nine of the nation's biggest banks, the stock market immediately rallied, as investors finally had something to hang their hats on:

The reports of the broad details of the plan had sparked the biggest jump in stocks in history on Monday, and that rally continued in Asian and European markets early Tuesday. U.S. stocks were also sharply higher in early trading following the announcement.

When the government tried last week to right the ship by lowering interest rates and having President Bush hold a press conference to say things were going to be OK, the Dow continued to plunge. It was only when the government - yes, the big, bad government - actually stepped in and did something did investor confidence come back to life.

One other interesting note from today's feverish news: part of the deal is that with this infusion of cash, the US government is stipulating limits on executive pay.

So there you have it. Those, who until the recent financial crisis exploded, were the leading hustlers for deregulation, tax cuts and a reduced role for government, have suddenly changed their tune. Once upon a time, they denounced the need for a functioning social safety net for working families and market regulation to protect consumers and investors. But today they are frantically pleading for a huge government safety net to rescue investment banks. Conservative rhetoric has been mugged by reality.

This Wall Street mess is teaching many hard lessons. One thing is clear. It's high time to start an honest conversation about taxation, regulation, and government's proper role in society.

There’s Nothing to Fear But a Giant Economic Collapse

eli il yong lee — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:38:23 MDT

Back in the 1992 Presidential Campaign, James Carville stamped his famous phrase into the minds of the American public: "It's the economy, stupid."

Sixteen years later, that phrase is making a roaring comeback. Last week, the Albuquerque Journal reported that two-thirds of voters believe the economy is the number one issue facing New Mexico. The kicker is that the second most important issue - the Iraq War - limped in at just 22%.

In my years of polling, I've never, never seen such a runaway result as this one. Does anyone else remember just a year ago, when the Iraq War was assuredly going to be the top issue in this election year?

But perception meets reality here. Another astounding thing may happen soon - Treasury Secretary Paulson is actively considering having us taxpayers buy equity positions in the private banks we're all about to bail out.

The impetus for the unprecedented public reaction and the even more unprecedented potential action by the Treasury Department is rooted in a singular, deep and widespread feeling: that our economy is in really, really, really deep sh*t. Unprecedented sh*t. Sh*t we've never seen before, unless you're over 80 years old.

Exactly one year ago, the Dow over 14,000. Today the Dow closed at under 8,500 for the first time since 2003. And this came in the wake of another the interest rate cut by the Fed!

It's an extraordinary turn of events. Our government, at the behest of the hardest-core capitalists and free marketeers, is on the verge of becoming part owner in private financial institutions.

CNN reported ~~last~~ this week that "A key measure of investor fear hit an all-time high: The CBOE Volatility index, or the VIX, topped 61." I have no idea what the VIX is, but it doesn't sound good for my IRA.

It seems like people like Paulson and Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke fully comprehend how dangerous these times are. That's why they are taking truly drastic and dramatic measures. I don't comprehend it, and not for lack of trying.

FDR's line about "there's nothing to fear but fear itself" might describe how I feel right now. Or it might just be a palliative to hide a real fear, an unknown fear - that we're leaning over an economic precipice.

Summing up the subprime meltdown

eli il yong lee — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:31:57 MDT

Last week, "User from Albuquerque" posted this comment on Tracy Dingmann's post about the Rescue Plan:

I am a Mortgage Banker/Broker of 20+ years experience. I have practiced and complied with the rules of my trade for that entire period. My company is not in need of bail out. I do not spend billions to generate new clients. I have, it's been said, over-educated my clients and talked them out of loans of convenience. I have watched as large national financial institutions have grown and delivered garbage loan product after garbage loan product to the masses. I have watched them charge high risk based rates and fees to those most vulnerable. During the entirety of the period I am discussing little or nothing was done to regulate them or Us, real bankers who care about our clients and live in the communities now so badly affected. For over a decade these companies posted huge profits, which only fueled their avarice. Fraud has been committed at a wholesale level and now these same financial institutions are asking us to fix their "boo boo". I agree -- self-reflection and corporate reflection is overdue. while I sit here in front of my computer and reflect..... let the folks on Wall Street Bail themselves out. Sink or swim it's the capitalist way, I'm still writing loans, good ones, for people who qualify, in all tax brackets, can't they do the same?

That pretty much sums this whole situation up pretty nicely. And then there's this, thanks to Jim Baca over at Only in New Mexico.

See also Idiots Guide to Subprime.

Conservatism Heads for Fernando’s Hideway

eli il yong lee — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:27:29 MDT

We've all read about the controversy stemming from Fernando C. de Baca's comments about Hispanics and African Americans, resulting in C. de Baca's resignation on Thursday as head of the Republican Party of Bernalillo County.

While initial media stories focused on his original comment to the BBC, it's his second comment that really caught my attention:

I feel strongly that Hispanics will not support, in my generation and the generation around my age, are not going to support the Democratic candidate for president primarily because there is a strong feeling that African-Americans during the civil rights movement took advantage, full advantage, of all the benefits and programs that the government offered, that were supposed to be offered to all minorities. But we were left behind, we were left sucking air, and we resented that ever since the 60s, and I don't see how a black president is going to change that. [emphasis mine]

C. de Baca's statement seems to suggest that Hispanics should have taken better advantage of "all the benefits and programs that the government offered." Whatever happened to the conservative philosophy to which C. de Baca ostensibly subscribed? What of the Grover Norquist doctrine of "shrink government so small you can drown it in a bathtub" or the personal responsibility credo of "pull yourself-by-your-own-bootstraps"?

Back when C. de Baca campaigned for his Republican Party leadership post, I rather doubt that his rhetoric featured complaints about LBJ's Great Society big government safety net not being big enough.

Forty years later, we have the conservative president pitching a safety net for failed Wall Street investment banks - underwritten by the American people. It's time the conservative ideologues folded up their tents. It's over. Conservatives have lost the argument.

Not to be outdone by Fernando in playing the race care, the free market fundamentalists at Fox News used it to explain the cause of the Wall Street meltdown. Neil Caputo of Fox News blamed the crisis all on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for …

"pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership… Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

My, oh my! Talk about a last rhetorical refuge for scoundrels.

It's the economy, clearly

eli il yong lee — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:08:46 MDT

Most economists are saying that the earthquake that struck the United States' financial markets hasn't even hit us fully yet. It's like a rumbling from deep in the earth's core - it's coming towards us, gaining velocity, and all that we know for sure is that there's going to be a hell of a lot of trouble ahead.

There are a few things that we do know for sure, though. First and foremost, years of deregulation created a free-for-all environment that many lenders and Wall Street firms quickly took advantage of through financially dubious sub-prime loans and plain old rip-off adjustable rate mortgages. Exacerbating the problem were over-eager developers who over-built, and then lured in first-time homebuyers that for many, turned the American Dream into the Impossible Dream.

These lenders and developers who knowingly turned a fast buck now deserve to be included under the moniker of predatory lenders, and should be quickly regulated as such.

Who's stepping in to rescue our economy, our pension plans and tens of thousands of jobs? Just as it was during the savings and loan scandal, it is the government and us taxpayers.

So here's a few questions, as we spend the next few decades trying to recoup our taxpayer bailout:

McCain: Banking system model for health care reform

eli il yong lee — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:17:05 MDT

Paul Krugman reports on Senator McCain's views on health care reform.

Here's what McCain said this month in the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries:

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

(Krugman link)

One would hope that provocative ideas like this will be thoroughly aired in the upcoming debates.

What the hell?

eli il yong lee — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:46:26 MDT

Big news broke last week about sex, drugs and offshore drilling. It turns out that big oil companies like Chevron and Shell have been giving and getting a lot more than sweetheart deals from the Department of Interior.

The AP reported, "Employees [of DOI] frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and natural gas company representatives, who referred to some of the government workers as the 'MMS Chicks.'"

To state that oil companies and DOI are "cozy" is now a gross (and disgusting) understatement. With most scientists and industry experts already in agreement that new domestic drilling will have little impact on rising oil prices in the foreseeable future, this breaking story really calls into question the motivation of oil companies.

It seems to me that they are selfishly taking advantage of this fuel crunch to open up new lands for drilling. If we are serious about reducing fuel costs, why don't we start subsidizing renewable energy technology, rather than these oil companies who are already estimated to make $40 billion in profits this year, AND are now involved in enormous ethical and illegal breaches?

Palin’s promise: Same old, same old

eli il yong lee — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:46:34 MDT

After letting Governor Sarah Palin's convention speech settle in for a few days and following the post mortem analysis on TV and the blogs, I'm reminded of many things. Let's start with Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

Frank outlined the remarkable and clever tightrope the Republican Party has walked over the past four decades, knitting together blue collar and rural social conservatives with corporate CEO's. Frank describes how social conservatives often voted against their own economic self-interests because of a more powerful and compelling narrative that the Republican Party had crafted around family values, personal responsibility, military might and the call to shrink government.

Many commentators are already heralding Governor Palin as the new champion of the social conservative base of the Republican Party. With George W. Bush exiting the stage, it's a role in desperate need of a new player. The social cons lingering suspicions of John McCain are all but forgotten. They're excited now. The 72 year-old McCain just handed them a huge head start in race to succeed him in the Oval Office, should he win in November.

But if Palin's speech reminds us of anything, it's Richard Nixon and his pit bull (sans the lipstick), Spiro Agnew. All of the elements are there - from the bashing of the straw man "liberal news media" to the politics of polarization. Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland, captures it perfectly.

To accomplish the passing of the social con torch, however, the 2008 RNC even went so far as to borrow a page out of the Orwellian "Ministry of Truth" handbook -- the expunging of politically inconvenient personages from the historical record. (Or should I say, "redacting?") George W, the man whose social con mantle Palin is assuming, just got airbrushed out of the picture, along with most of the last eight years of history. His complete absence from the RNC's graphic 9/11 video spoke volumes.

The unmistakable message: Bush! What Bush? Just keep fear alive… (and Bush's policies too).

The Worst Idea of the Year

eli il yong lee — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:57:19 MDT

The Washington Monthly has an illuminating article about the prevalent Republican approach to health care reform.

John Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis and helped write Sen. John McCain's health care policy. He and Tom Delay argue that everyone in America has access to health care - just go to the emergency room!

Emergency rooms are the least cost-effective way to provide health care, and in fact, shift the burden of paying for health care to those with health insurance.

How their solution is fiscally responsible is beyond me.

New Obama Ad

eli il yong lee — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:03:30 MDT

Matthew Reichbach wrote a short post on a new ad about Barack Obama in last week's New Mexico Independent.

It's a good ad - clear visuals and a simple message.

It's nice seeing a candidate state so clearly that in America, diversity is our greatest strength.

Higher Ed: How Committed Are We?

eli il yong lee — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:15:32 MDT

Growing up Korean, education was the Holy Grail of attainment. Like many families in New Mexico, my parents saw education as the pathway to success in America.

But over the past twenty years, tuition and fees at both two-year and four-year public colleges have more than doubled. Room and board has increased 30% at four-year colleges. But in the midst of these increases, the maximum Pell Grant was only $4,050 in 2006, a decline of 20% in real dollars since 1975.

Senator John McCain hasn't helped much.

In Congress, McCain voted against the College Cost Reduction Act, which increased Pell Grants aid, cut the interest rate on student loans and provided loan forgiveness and public service opportunities.

Even closer to home, he voted against $250,000 in funds for the New Mexico Association of Community Colleges, over $1 million in funds for the Crownpoint Institute (a tribal technical college) and $850,000 in funds for the Mathematics and Science Teacher Academy at UNM.

It's one thing to say you're for education. It's another thing to support education.