Open Letter To Obama

On November 28, 2011 Leon G. Cooperman, billionaire investor, Goldman Sachs alumnus, Chairman and CEO of hedge fund Omega Advisors, wrote an open letter to President Obama (here). The headline quote was "But what I can hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare'".

You can read a detailed analysis of the letter here. I can't really add a lot to this analysis. It is hard to see from my vantage point in Wisconsin how Obama is responsible for the right-wing attack on public sector unions and how this is anything other than class war. However, putting that aside, I do agree with Mr. Cooperman that President Obama is using the wrong strategy.

In a CNBC interview this morning, Mr. Cooperman said that it was all about "jobs, jobs, jobs" and in the letter said "Capitalism is not the source of our problems, as an economy or as a society, and capitalists are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be. As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products..." etc. etc

OK, if capitalists are touting their job creating abilities and the US has an unemployment problem, challenge them to put up or shut up. The usual complaints are not standing in their way: (1) taxes are at the same level they were during the Bush years, (2) unions have been largely destroyed or are about to be completely destroyed by the right-wing attack on public sector unions, (3) interest rates are at historically low levels and (4) corporations have loads a cash on their balance sheets. If the President's attitude is holding capitalists back, then he should simply change it. Now, what are your excuses?

Oh, wait, there's that pesky problem of aggregate demand and a collapsed housing market. There is just no demand for the goods capitalists are hawking and the average person's largest financial asset, their home, is unsalable in the current market. As Mr. Cooperman notes in his letter, "I cannot blame you [President Obama] for the economic mess." He doesn't say who he blames, but whoever those people are it should be their responsibility to fix the mess they created. I would lay that challenge at their doorsteps.

Sonny Rollins, Last Jazzman

There was a great interview tonight on the PBS News Hour with 81 year old Jazz Sax player Sonny Rollins (here). On Sunday, he will be recognized at the 34th Kennedy Centers Honors ceremony in Washington, DC. In the regular interview, Sonny Rollins said that he was (1) an unschooled primitive player, (2) not yet satisfied with his playing, that's why he keeps at it, (3) when he performs, he trys to empty his mind so that improvisations can "pop out" in surprising ways, (4) jazz is a medium that can absorb all the other idioms, and (5) I may be the last jazz player of an era but my music will live on.

In the extended interview (above) he talks about his relationship with other Jazz greats, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, etc. Interestingly, he commented that the reason Miles Davis turned his back to audiences when he played was that he was shy.

In the clip above, Sonny Rollins is on tenor sax, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Yoshiaki Masuo on guitar playing Alfie's Theme from 1974. I particular like that he had a guitarist in the group!

Seven Strings Are Better Than Six

There was an interesting article in today's NY Times by Joe Nocera (here) talking about the career of John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molasky. For the last five years they have been playing the Cafe Carlyle in New York City and they are finally getting some critical notice. The video above is of John Pizzarelli and Jane Monheit.

What is interesting to me is the musical history of John Pizzarelli, his father Bucky Pizzarelli, my guitar teacher Roy Plumb and guitarist George Van Eps who taught both Bucky and Roy. Here's the family tree:

The interesting link between all these guitarists (except me) is that they played seven (rather than standard six) string guitars. The seventh string allowed them to run a base line along with the standard harmony. From the clips in this posting you can hear, I hope, that these guitars sound much fuller and richer than the standard six string.

There is not a lot of information available on Roy Plumb; if you type in "Roy Plumb Guitar" or "Roy Plum Guitar" in a Google search (here) you will find other lists of his students. His Masters Thesis at the University of Wisconsin "The influence of the lute and guitar on musical texture and idiom of Renaissance keyboard literature" was published in 1961 (here). He went on to become an arranger for Frank Sinatra and later returned to Madison to teach guitar in a studio above Patti Music on State Street. I took private lessons from him in the 1970's. I'm not sure whether or not he is still alive and have been unable to find an obituary listing. When I took lessons from him, he always seemed in bad health and had particularly bad eye sight. He once played seven string for me but the guitars appeared to be unavailable when I was taking lessons.



I met Bucky Pizzarelli once in the 1970s at a dinner club in New York where he was performing. His advice to me "There are tons of great guitarists in New York who you have never heard of and who aren't working regularly. Don't come out unless you're asked!" I have to say, that was great advice.

It is a little hard to listen to George Van Eps in the clip above. Guitarists will be knocked out by the chordal improvisation. For non-guitarists, compare this to the standard guitar solo, maybe Barney Kessel, which doesn't harmonize every note. Barney Kessel was also a student of Roy Plumb.

The clip above is actually a pretty good lesson on guitar improvisation and harmony! Barney played a six string guitar.

I have many more stories about Roy Plumb. Possibly if I can find a little more information about his life I'll do another blog posting.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) In The Bible Belt

A colleague of mine at the University of Tennessee, Jon Shefner, was recently interviewed by the Knoxville News Sentinel (here). Jon studies the interaction of economic policies and how global populations advocate for change, specifically the link between austerity and protest. Government programs are essential to the survival of many working people. Closing those programs down when most needed, during an economic downturn, in order to shift income back to corporations, is the preferred right-wing solution (even when government programs had nothing to do with the economic crisis).

Jon became interested in OWS after studying austerity and protest in Latin America.

OWS is a logical extension of his earlier work, except now the austerity protests are happening in the hegemonic center of the world system.

Jon's comments to the Knoxville News Sentinel were basically that we should be paying attention to both OWS and the Tea Party Movement. However, the howls of "protest" from readers (here) suggest that he might have touched a raw nerve in the Bible Belt.

Christine Lagarde "Speaks the Truth"!

In case you missed the interview on 60 Minutes tonight (here), Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, made a number of interesting statements: (1) Compensation in the banking sector is "obscene," (2) the banking sector needs more regulation since it is capable of doing so much damage, (3) my brand is "truth telling."

Lagarde was a noted antitrust and labor lawyer (read her biography here). Her economic philosophy is described as "liberal," but from her comments I would say she was a pragmatist. One can only hope that having someone who was not trained as a neoliberal economist at the head of the IMF might make a difference in how the institution conducts itself. Time will tell.

Is "Snuck" a Word?

Conan can gloat over finding "snuck" in the dictionary (Jennifer Garner, in the video above, told Conan O'Brien that "snuck" was not a word), but "sneaked" would have been a more traditional usage (here). Is a little slap on the wrist from Jennifer Garner really that hard to take?

Sturgeon Bay Fog Horn, Not The Sound I Remember

This is a great video shot in 2009 from the sand beach just south of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, Sturgeon Bay, WI. The video was shot from the beach of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Nature Preserve. Toward the end of the video, if you listen carefully above the wind noise, you can hear the fixed fog horn at the end of the ship canal. There is some controversy over whether or not the fog horn is still in use but at least it was still being used in 2009.

The fog horn sounds different from the one I remember hearing back in the 1950's. The current fog horn sound has been described as "a cow about to croak," probably by someone with farm experience. The sound I remember was a low, deep "Beeeeeeeee-Ohh, Beeeeeeeee-Ohh," a low musical fifth. At the end of the video above the camera pans around looking South along Lake Michigan. The log cabin my father and his brothers built, Shady Nook, was about 300 yards down the beach, very close to the ship canal.

The cabin still stands but has been substantially altered since the 1950's. The beach and the old road in front of the house have also been eroded away to their present location. My father and his brothers sold the cabin when a neighbor to the North built a large, modern home on the adjoining lot. The house was built very close to the log cabin and, in my father's words, "ruined it." The area is still beautiful and a substantial sand beach remains.

The View From Cana Island, Door County, WI

Since you can't all be here...

Film Review: Inside Job

I just viewed Inside Job, an award winning documentary about the late 2000 Financial Crisis. The film starts as an indictment of Wall Street and the US Political System. It ends with an indictment of Academia and the Economics profession. Neoliberal corruption of US institutions runs very, very deep.

The film makers also produced a study guide (available here). I particularly liked the interviews with Raghuram Rajan, an economist who saw the financial crisis coming in 2005 and a sweating economist, Glen Hubbard, one of President George W. Bush's economic advisor (currently Dean of the Columbia Business School) and architect of the 2003 Bush Tax cuts, who did not see the crisis developing.

Paul Ryan and the Theory of Income Inequality

Paul Ryan, R-WI, is a conservative philosopher and theoretician of the first rank and it's a real challenge to get the best of him intellectually. He makes a very strong defense of US income inequality using the following theoretical framework.

Neoliberalism and free-market fundamentalism lead to income inequality. Rewarding people in the upper income distribution increases economic growth. Growth generates jobs. Jobs then reduce income inequality. In the economics profession, the role of income inequality in creating economic development is called a Kuznets process (or Kuznets curve) named for the economist Simon Kuznets who studied the empirical foundations of economic growth.

The Pew Economic Mobility Project makes a little different analysis, exploring the link between economic mobility and income inequality (you can read the executive summary of their report here). The video below provides a quick summary of their research.

The theory underlying the PEW mobility research can be summarized with the following directed graph.
Economic growth creates absolute mobility (in terms of the video, everyone is moving up the income escalator). However, economic growth under certain conditions (neoliberalism) blocks individuals from moving up the escalator as they enter on the bottom (relative mobility). In the view of the PEW researchers, the lack of relative mobility is "destroying the American Dream." The result is the type of class conflict that Paul Ryan accuses Democrats of inflaming.

Clearly, Rep. Ryan sees neoliberalism creating absolute mobility and endorses the rise in income inequality (declining relative mobility) because he thinks it feeds back to create growth. In a globalized world system, however, growth may not feedback to the benefit of the working and middle classes.

What seems evident from the late 2000 Financial Crisis is that income inequality leads to the concentration of cash looking for a high-rate of return. Financialization leads to the risky investments necessary to provide high rates of return. Risky investments eventually create a financial crisis which, to some extent, reduces income inequality. The extent of the reduction, however, still leaves the majority of high and low income individuals at the same place in the income distribution.

Rep. Ryan does not mention the financial crisis (and neither does the Pew Center video). However, both the Great Depression and the 2000 Financial Crisis both occurred at secular peaks in US income inequality. The conjuncture of high inequality and financial crisis must be more than a coincidence.

In the audio above, economist Greg Mankiw's gives his explanation of the growth in US income inequality. He does bring the late 2000 Financial Crisis into his discussion.

BMW Clean Coal (?) Ad Wins Green Tweener

I wonder if the Coen brothers did BMWs "clean" diesel ad (above). Looks a lot like the Coen brothers "clean" coal ad (below). In any event, both deserve a Green Tweener Award.

...or maybe, even better, another Coen brothers "clean" coal ad: