Carl from Chicago

Business executive interested in history, economics, taxation and energy policy.

Living Large as a Representative

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Last Friday night I was walking through the Gold Coast near Hugo’s Frog Bar when I noticed a large black SUV with congressional license plates so I snapped a photo.

I wasn’t sure which of our illustrious Illinois congressmen this was – I assumed it was our local Danny Davis (who doesn’t even pretend to represent the prosperous downtown, as I note here) – but in fact I did some digging on the internet and according to this post it is Jesse Jackson Jr. who is leasing a Lincoln Navigator at taxpayer’s expense at over $1100 / month (a new one retails for over $50,000).

I wonder what Jesse Jackson Jr. was doing up here? Based on a link to his 2nd congressional district map he is FAR from his hometown – he should be hanging out in Harvey or in nearby Calumet City (home of the Blues Brothers) if he really wants to go out for a good time. Why would he want to venture so far from his constituents? According to a simple google map he is about 25 miles out of his district on a Friday night.

Isn’t it amazing – the hypocrisy – of a “stone” democrat like Jesse Jackson Jr. driving a giant, gas-guzzling, environmentally destroying SUV like a Lincoln Navigator? Shouldn’t he paint it white so it at least reflects sunlight like a “green” roof, at the very least? Why isn’t he driving a Prius or something like that, or perhaps is it because he believes that conserving energy and leaving a smaller carbon footprint is for those that he taxes, not himself?

I won’t even pick on Mr. Jackson Jr. for his “alleged” attempt to raise money for Blago for a senate seat… we know that he is above suspicion, of course, since he is obviously a man who sticks to his principles.

Cross posted at LITGM

And These Guys Assess Risk… for a Living?

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A recent article in the Wall Street Journal was titled “Hedge Funds Raise Voices – And Returns”. Hedge fund managers are supposed to be professionals at managing risks and seeing future trends – this is what allows them to be compensated at such high levels. Thus this article made me laugh out loud:

Many fund managers say they feel… but would never say publicly: They have been disappointed by the Obama administration, left detached from a leader to whose party they gave 70% of their overall campaign donations during the 2008 election.

What sort of information were they basing their opinion that siding with Obama was GOOD for their interests? Obama always has sided far to the left on business issues, favoring unions, high taxes, and restrictive environmental rules that damage businesses. How could these “sages” of risk and reward think that he possibly could help them?

Most likely they are wealthy people and live amongst the trust-fund wealthy and they felt it was easier to say that they supported Obama than the Republicans because of W’s unpopularity. Or perhaps their new 2nd trophy wife, the one they picked up after they cast aside the one that stood by them while they were working their way up the ladder and didn’t have giant riches, pushed them into it because it seemed like all the celebrities said it was the thing to do.

Either way, it is laughable and nearly insane that 1) they donated to a guy whose interests were diametrically opposed to theirs 2) that they were SURPRISED by this outcome 3) and that they are supposedly forward-looking guys, to boot.

Cross posted at LITGM

The chink in the armor of the left

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Right now things flat-out aren’t going well for the Republicans (and libertarians, of which I’d probably classify myself) right now. Not only do the Democrats have the presidency, and both houses of congress, but they also have the media (mostly) cheer leading them on and a big financial mess on their hands which they can (rightly or wrongly) blame on the Republican administration.

While many / most of the liberal politicians ran on a “middle of the road” and “financial responsibility” message, once in power they are rapidly socializing everything in sight, raising our debt to monstrous levels, and still planning more socialization when it comes to health care and a carbon tax to further cripple our manufacturing economy. And don’t forget about new corporate taxes which will punish those few US businesses managing to eke out profits, to boot.

We have seen this in Illinois for years. Remember, Rod Blago, our impeached and disgraced governor, RAN AS A REFORMER, as did mini-Stroger, who raised our sales taxes to over 10% and packed his department with the most blatant cronies imaginable. The Democrats used their power to gerrymander seats so that they control all institutions of power, and are pretty much running the entire state into the ground, for all to see.

The difficulty with the left, however, is that they have little long-term credibility in the financial markets. The last state of Illinois bond issue was bought completely by JP Morgan Chase, who happens to be a big beneficiary of Federal bailout $ and who also has Mayor Daley’s brother as a major officer. Else the state of Illinois might have started to see the wheels come off then and there.

Watch the US debt market as they try to push these billions or frankly trillions of dollars of debt down into a weak market. The markets know that the left is lying when they say that they have fiscal discipline – they are looking at the actions, not just the talking. While the current administration gets some points for trying to clean up messes in the market that they inherited (from the prior administration and congress) they are going far beyond that by continuing to push an agenda that is fiscally irresponsible (health care nationalization, for one).

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Flu and Mortality

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I am far from an expert on medicine but was interested in the difference in mortality in Mexico and the United States on this latest outbreak of swine flu. After reading many of the accounts I noted that many of the individuals in Mexico did not have access to health care and / or delayed going to the doctor and used home remedies or self-medicated until their situation was very bad.

The victims seem to be dying of what is basically pneumonia. Pneumonia is a serious condition, and if left untreated (or not treated until far into its course) it can be deadly, even here in the US. I know several individuals who have gotten some form of pneumonia (or their children) in recent months here in Chicago – and while they missed work and obviously had high concern for any youngsters with the symptoms, they all were treated and came back fine after being ill or out of work for a while.

What you likely are seeing in the difference in mortality is the difference between a broadly based, functioning health care system from a rich society and one for a semi-functioning health care system for a poorer society. Mexico is a pretty developed country – if this sort of flu broke out in Africa it probably wouldn’t even be noticed among the endemic diseases and preventable fatalities that happen every day, sadly enough. As I note in a recent post about Angola, one of the richer African countries (they have oil revenues), a significant portion of their total health care budget goes to sending the richest friends and family of their leader off for foreign doctors overseas, to show where their priorities lie.

The media won’t come out and say it directly because it may be perceived as offensive to Mexican sensibilities but the mortality rate seems to be almost solely due to the differences in the effectiveness of our overall health care systems.

Natural Gas Wins… by Default

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In the April 27, 2009 issue of Barron’s magazine is an article titled “An Alternative to Alternative Fuels” by Mike Hogan. Barron’s is an offshoot of the WSJ and generally offers pithy and to-the-point articles, although sometimes even they go off the reservation.

The byline in italics does a pretty good job of summing up the REALITY (not the fiction, by both Democrats and Republicans) of our energy policy:

When you see more wind turbines and solar farms built, your first thoughts should turn to gas

Doesn’t that sound counter-intuitive? But the article does a decent job of explaining why.

Gue just returned form the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) annual conference, where he was puzzled by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s focus on renewables – with scant mention of oil, gas, coal or nuclear power: “This is striking to me because these four sources account for nearly 93% of U.S. primary energy consumption: and, according to the EIA’s own estimates, will still make up more than 90% of the total in 2030.”

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