If, but only if, I heard of a desire to have this happen,* I would republish my crossword puzzle which appeared in the 1983 Simon and Schuster Crossword Puzzle Book (Series 131), edited by Margaret Farrar and Eugene Maleska. It is Puzzle 49, entitled "TENNIS ANYONE?. A subline says "Mr M. makes a smashing debut and scores an ace with this fine puzzle." Unfortunately, many of its tennis references, mostly humorous, are to players in the 70's and 80's.
Reproducing this puzzle is not easy for me to do. First, I have to have a friend use Microsoft Excel to make an appropriate diagram (or have her teach me how, at my desk top computer) and then I have to have her transfer it to the blog (or show me how this is done). You cannot copy and paste crosswords.
*Email me: dmermels@duke.poly.edu or post a note on the blog site (I don't know how this is done) or telephone me--and say hello!
Friday, January 30, 2009
What is to Be Done (and Undone)
First, we must undo, somehow--and admittedly it will take time--the idea that government is bad.
Second, we must put at the top, along with the stimulus, a national health care system.
Third, also at the top, we need concrete measures to find real solutions to our environment problems, especially using mass transit.
Fourth, we must limit our military commitment to Afghanistan.
Fifth, even as a stimulus plan passes, we should be passing an update which emphasizes spending and not tax cuts.
Second, we must put at the top, along with the stimulus, a national health care system.
Third, also at the top, we need concrete measures to find real solutions to our environment problems, especially using mass transit.
Fourth, we must limit our military commitment to Afghanistan.
Fifth, even as a stimulus plan passes, we should be passing an update which emphasizes spending and not tax cuts.
Bipartisanship???
On his blog, this past week, Paul Krugman wrote the following: "The House has passed the stimulus bill with not a single Republican vote. Aren't you glad that Obama watered it down and added ineffective tax cuts so as to win bipartisan support?" (PK's bold print)
Along with PK, I've been worried about Obama's "bipartisanship." Is he saying and doing what he is doing because he really believes in bipartisanship or is this a charade, the object of which is to gain popularity in order to pass what he really wants? I fear, alas, it's the first and, worse, I fear it will do us damage (and if you believe Krugman it is already doing us harm--the word "ineffective" is in there.)
Take today's op-ed column in the Times (Friday the 30th) by, again, Paul Krugman. He expresses his fear that by not putting forward a comprehensive national health plan, and instead putting such a bill on hold, Obama is endangering its ultimate passage.
He refers to why it failed under Clinton, but I think PK's argument needs both clarification and amplification.
In general, the best time, I believe, for a president to get something passed that he really wants is in his first year in office. Clinton, listening to Robert Rubin, decided to make balancing the budget his priority in 1993. Rubin argued that a lower deficit would lower interest rates and therefore encourage businesses to borrow and invest. The tax increase was mainly one on the very well-to-do (an income tax), although there was also an increase on income taxes paid by more affluent social security recipients and also there was a small increase in taxes on gasoline. The last two increases were very small compared to the tax increase on the wealthy.
Every single Republican in both the Senate and House voted against this tax bill. In the Senate, it passed with Al Gore's vote breaking the 50-50 tie and in the House, the vote was 218 to 216. Leading Republicans denounced the increase and many of them said it would send us plummeting into another recession. Of course, it didn't. Whether you can attribute the huge surpluses at the end of the decade, and the low unemployment rate and prosperity, to this tax increase or instead attribute the surpluses to the huge amount of taxes collected from short term trades in the bubbling stock market has to be left to others to figure out.
But what is pertinent is that the tax increase downgraded the national health bill to the 2nd year of Clinton's presidency. And while a good part of its failure was the way it was mishandled by Hillary and others, I strongly suspect that had this been the priority in 1993, and not Rubin's tax increase, it would have passed.
Whether Obama will still have enough political capital to pass a national health bill in 2010 (or even later in 2009) is yet to be seen, but I doubt all his praises of bipartisanship will be of help. Those guys in the GOP are doing their best, right now, to sabatage the recovery. Ultimately, I believe, they are doing this for simple partisan reasons. They hope to be able, as early as 2010, to proclaim Obama a failure and use this as an argument to retake control of the Congress and then the White House in 2012.
Along with PK, I've been worried about Obama's "bipartisanship." Is he saying and doing what he is doing because he really believes in bipartisanship or is this a charade, the object of which is to gain popularity in order to pass what he really wants? I fear, alas, it's the first and, worse, I fear it will do us damage (and if you believe Krugman it is already doing us harm--the word "ineffective" is in there.)
Take today's op-ed column in the Times (Friday the 30th) by, again, Paul Krugman. He expresses his fear that by not putting forward a comprehensive national health plan, and instead putting such a bill on hold, Obama is endangering its ultimate passage.
He refers to why it failed under Clinton, but I think PK's argument needs both clarification and amplification.
In general, the best time, I believe, for a president to get something passed that he really wants is in his first year in office. Clinton, listening to Robert Rubin, decided to make balancing the budget his priority in 1993. Rubin argued that a lower deficit would lower interest rates and therefore encourage businesses to borrow and invest. The tax increase was mainly one on the very well-to-do (an income tax), although there was also an increase on income taxes paid by more affluent social security recipients and also there was a small increase in taxes on gasoline. The last two increases were very small compared to the tax increase on the wealthy.
Every single Republican in both the Senate and House voted against this tax bill. In the Senate, it passed with Al Gore's vote breaking the 50-50 tie and in the House, the vote was 218 to 216. Leading Republicans denounced the increase and many of them said it would send us plummeting into another recession. Of course, it didn't. Whether you can attribute the huge surpluses at the end of the decade, and the low unemployment rate and prosperity, to this tax increase or instead attribute the surpluses to the huge amount of taxes collected from short term trades in the bubbling stock market has to be left to others to figure out.
But what is pertinent is that the tax increase downgraded the national health bill to the 2nd year of Clinton's presidency. And while a good part of its failure was the way it was mishandled by Hillary and others, I strongly suspect that had this been the priority in 1993, and not Rubin's tax increase, it would have passed.
Whether Obama will still have enough political capital to pass a national health bill in 2010 (or even later in 2009) is yet to be seen, but I doubt all his praises of bipartisanship will be of help. Those guys in the GOP are doing their best, right now, to sabatage the recovery. Ultimately, I believe, they are doing this for simple partisan reasons. They hope to be able, as early as 2010, to proclaim Obama a failure and use this as an argument to retake control of the Congress and then the White House in 2012.
Left-Handed Compliment? Or Complement?
Have you noticed? Barack Obama is left-handed. George W. Bush was not.
What is interesting is that there was only one left-handed president prior to the 20th century--James A. Garfield, our 20th president (at least according to the sources I have used).
But in our century, there was Herbert Hoover (31), Harry S. Truman (33), Gerald Ford (38), Ronald Reagan (40), George H. W. Bush (41), Bill Clinton (42) and now Barack Obama (44).
Does the fact that W's father was left-handed and W was right-handed mean anything? Or what are we to make of the fact that one of the twin Bryan brothers--one of the greatest men's tennis doubles team in history--is left-handed and the other right-handed?
The only thing I can make out of this is that presidents are more left-handed than they used to be. Perhaps his parents made the father of our country, George, (a natural lefty) use and write with his right hand, because there was opprobrium to being left-handed then?
What is interesting is that there was only one left-handed president prior to the 20th century--James A. Garfield, our 20th president (at least according to the sources I have used).
But in our century, there was Herbert Hoover (31), Harry S. Truman (33), Gerald Ford (38), Ronald Reagan (40), George H. W. Bush (41), Bill Clinton (42) and now Barack Obama (44).
Does the fact that W's father was left-handed and W was right-handed mean anything? Or what are we to make of the fact that one of the twin Bryan brothers--one of the greatest men's tennis doubles team in history--is left-handed and the other right-handed?
The only thing I can make out of this is that presidents are more left-handed than they used to be. Perhaps his parents made the father of our country, George, (a natural lefty) use and write with his right hand, because there was opprobrium to being left-handed then?
Crossword Puzzle Answer
If you are still working on the puzzle, don't peek! Inadvertently, the clue for 27 Down was omitted. It is: _____week
Hope you enjoyed it. David
Hope you enjoyed it. David
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Helpful Hints on What to Read First
Unfortunately, I don't know how to change the order of postings and fear if I try I'll simply screw things up.
The puzzle can done first or last, whatever.
But, if you want to read the recent economic postings in the most helpful way, read first: Recent Thoughts of Mr. Pessimist, Noriel Roubini. Follow this up with: Some Thoughts on Roubini and the Economic Debacle. Then read Krugman--Column and Blog
The puzzle can done first or last, whatever.
But, if you want to read the recent economic postings in the most helpful way, read first: Recent Thoughts of Mr. Pessimist, Noriel Roubini. Follow this up with: Some Thoughts on Roubini and the Economic Debacle. Then read Krugman--Column and Blog
Crossword Puzzle "O" By David Mermelstein / Not Edited By Will Shortz
Below is a crossword puzzle, entitled O. But first, I'm reminded of a poem I wrote in the 9th grade (or thereabouts), rendered here from memory (!)-I think it actually came in 2nd or 3rd
place in a junior high poetry contest, which only shows how low the bar was placed.:
Title: A Crossword Puzzle
A crossword puzzle
Now let me see
What's a word
Meaning trickery
How many letters
I'll tell you it's three
But how that will help you
I really don't see.
It begins with an X
And it ends with a Z
And the letter in the middle
Well it just couldn't be
Something is wrong
It's plain to see
It must be the puzzle
It couldn't be me
*************
More important, I think you should all know that the composer of this puzzle-me-has had (years ago) two daily puzzles that were accepted and ran in the New York Times and Eugene Maleska, the well-known Times crossword puzzle editor, placed my larger Sunday puzzle in a Simon & Schuster Crossword Puzzle book. Maleska hand-wrote me a long letter, ending with a hope that I would not turn out to be "a nova." I guess I did. But when I look up nova, I'm not sure: "a star that suddenly becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades to its original intensity." 1000's??
This puzzle, somewhat hurriedly composed, does not, I think, quite meet the standards of the Times, but on the other hand, it has a political orientation which the Times would never allow.If you need hints, email me at dmermels@duke.poly.edu. Some day, in the not too distant future, I'll put the answer on the blog. Have fun.
Across
1 A special O word (be careful)
4 Barry's favorite Pres.
7 Worn, presumably, by Hoffman in Tootsie
10 Econ. ratio, involving money earned and money owed
13 Hit 42 homers in 1929
14 14-14
15 ____ shore (Maryland, Delaware, Virginia)
17 January 20, 2009
20 Palindromic member of the family
21 Precedes last name of film maker who gave us Vivre sa vie
22 Stake put into the pot
23 What many GOPers think of O
27 5th album by Flake, 1995
28 Last word on screen, usually, before the credits
29 What OJ gained bef. he became infamous
30 RR law, passed in 1926
33 Beginning of what many GOPers might answer to popular O phrase
35 A place to buy
37 Plated horse
39 What to call a team with both genders
40 Word with caboodle
42 Precedes present
43 USS ____ (Desert Storm ship)
45 Sounds of surprise
47 Conclusion of 33 Across
48 Loser to DDE
49 Pitching stat
52 Beginning of Capra movie, with James Stewart
54 7, 14, 21, abbr.
55 What Democrats think of America, since November 4
58 Precedes acte
61 Wall Street option
62 Gang
63 January 20, 2009
69 Reid or Biden will do this, vis-a-vis the Senate
70 Fighter in Iwo Jima
71 Earlier
72 Indiana airport letters
73 O admitted using marijuana, cocaine and alcohol, but not this
74 April 15 org.
75 See 1 Across
Down
1 Some like it this way
2 Schwahn created teen TV drama (initials)
3 First name of tennis great (be careful)
4 ____ the ____ of Crispian (King Henry V)
5 Activity at a card game, before playing
6 ____ Laws on discrimination and ec. pay
7 ____ and the Beast
8 Foul
9 Enzyme suffix
10 "Coming Home" star
11 One Down "to ____ "(1988)
12 ____ Gault, landmark Supreme Court decision, 1967
16 Air ____ (flown by puzzler to Memphis)
18 Rare girl's name (ranked 3887, in US)
19 Where S.C. messed up, in 2000
23 Played Lawrence, in 1962
24 Seen on stage at classical concerts
25 Just below Sask. and Man.
26 Predecessor to CIA
30 Hard, salty cheese
31 Used to live at Dakota
32 Mining accesses
34 Former name of Tokyo
36 Yummy bake, but healthy?
38 Hic, haec, ____
41 The ____ Man, with Powell and Loy
44 Young female aristocrat who comes out
46 Postal worker, at times
50 Grand ____
51 "We are not ____ "
53 Brews
55 People of middle-earth
56 Greek goddess personifying recklessness
57 ____ Saud
58 Caltech Econ. and Pol. Sci. lab, initials
59 Labor bd.
60 ____ age
64 "____ the end of time," sung by Como
65 Super Bowl won by 49ers, 26-21
66 Interjection, sometimes denoting frustration and/excitement
67 Kind of maniac
68 Inside ____
place in a junior high poetry contest, which only shows how low the bar was placed.:
Title: A Crossword Puzzle
A crossword puzzle
Now let me see
What's a word
Meaning trickery
How many letters
I'll tell you it's three
But how that will help you
I really don't see.
It begins with an X
And it ends with a Z
And the letter in the middle
Well it just couldn't be
Something is wrong
It's plain to see
It must be the puzzle
It couldn't be me
*************
More important, I think you should all know that the composer of this puzzle-me-has had (years ago) two daily puzzles that were accepted and ran in the New York Times and Eugene Maleska, the well-known Times crossword puzzle editor, placed my larger Sunday puzzle in a Simon & Schuster Crossword Puzzle book. Maleska hand-wrote me a long letter, ending with a hope that I would not turn out to be "a nova." I guess I did. But when I look up nova, I'm not sure: "a star that suddenly becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades to its original intensity." 1000's??
This puzzle, somewhat hurriedly composed, does not, I think, quite meet the standards of the Times, but on the other hand, it has a political orientation which the Times would never allow.If you need hints, email me at dmermels@duke.poly.edu. Some day, in the not too distant future, I'll put the answer on the blog. Have fun.
Across1 A special O word (be careful)
4 Barry's favorite Pres.
7 Worn, presumably, by Hoffman in Tootsie
10 Econ. ratio, involving money earned and money owed
13 Hit 42 homers in 1929
14 14-14
15 ____ shore (Maryland, Delaware, Virginia)
17 January 20, 2009
20 Palindromic member of the family
21 Precedes last name of film maker who gave us Vivre sa vie
22 Stake put into the pot
23 What many GOPers think of O
27 5th album by Flake, 1995
28 Last word on screen, usually, before the credits
29 What OJ gained bef. he became infamous
30 RR law, passed in 1926
33 Beginning of what many GOPers might answer to popular O phrase
35 A place to buy
37 Plated horse
39 What to call a team with both genders
40 Word with caboodle
42 Precedes present
43 USS ____ (Desert Storm ship)
45 Sounds of surprise
47 Conclusion of 33 Across
48 Loser to DDE
49 Pitching stat
52 Beginning of Capra movie, with James Stewart
54 7, 14, 21, abbr.
55 What Democrats think of America, since November 4
58 Precedes acte
61 Wall Street option
62 Gang
63 January 20, 2009
69 Reid or Biden will do this, vis-a-vis the Senate
70 Fighter in Iwo Jima
71 Earlier
72 Indiana airport letters
73 O admitted using marijuana, cocaine and alcohol, but not this
74 April 15 org.
75 See 1 Across
Down
1 Some like it this way
2 Schwahn created teen TV drama (initials)
3 First name of tennis great (be careful)
4 ____ the ____ of Crispian (King Henry V)
5 Activity at a card game, before playing
6 ____ Laws on discrimination and ec. pay
7 ____ and the Beast
8 Foul
9 Enzyme suffix
10 "Coming Home" star
11 One Down "to ____ "(1988)
12 ____ Gault, landmark Supreme Court decision, 1967
16 Air ____ (flown by puzzler to Memphis)
18 Rare girl's name (ranked 3887, in US)
19 Where S.C. messed up, in 2000
23 Played Lawrence, in 1962
24 Seen on stage at classical concerts
25 Just below Sask. and Man.
26 Predecessor to CIA
30 Hard, salty cheese
31 Used to live at Dakota
32 Mining accesses
34 Former name of Tokyo
36 Yummy bake, but healthy?
38 Hic, haec, ____
41 The ____ Man, with Powell and Loy
44 Young female aristocrat who comes out
46 Postal worker, at times
50 Grand ____
51 "We are not ____ "
53 Brews
55 People of middle-earth
56 Greek goddess personifying recklessness
57 ____ Saud
58 Caltech Econ. and Pol. Sci. lab, initials
59 Labor bd.
60 ____ age
64 "____ the end of time," sung by Como
65 Super Bowl won by 49ers, 26-21
66 Interjection, sometimes denoting frustration and/excitement
67 Kind of maniac
68 Inside ____
Monday, January 5, 2009
Krugman--Column and Blog
PK's op ed column, in Monday’s Times (January 5) is a good antidote to the super-optimists Uchitelle wrote about. Rank the pessimism of Roubini, Krugman and me (not that I am in the same league as the others, but that’s obvious).
Fighting Off Depression
"If we don’t act swiftly and boldly," declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, "we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment." If you ask me, he was understating the case
The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.
So will we "act swiftly and boldly" enough to stop that from happening? We’ll soon find out.
We weren’t supposed to find ourselves in this situation. For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the "central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades."
Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: "You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again."
It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.
Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment. The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.
But these plans may turn out to be a hard sell.
News reports say that Democrats hope to pass an economic plan with broad bipartisan support. Good luck with that.
In reality, the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years.
More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.
The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs — a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.
This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment "which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles." What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.
All of this leaves me concerned about the prospects for the Obama plan. I’m sure that Congress will pass a stimulus plan, but I worry that the plan may be delayed and/or downsized. And Mr. Obama is right: We really do need swift, bold action.
Here’s my nightmare scenario: It takes Congress months to pass a stimulus plan, and the legislation that actually emerges is too cautious. As a result, the economy plunges for most of 2009, and when the plan finally starts to kick in, it’s only enough to slow the descent, not stop it. Meanwhile, deflation is setting in, while businesses and consumers start to base their spending plans on the expectation of a permanently depressed economy — well, you can see where this is going.
So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?
*************************
KRUGMAN'S BLOG
January 5, 2009, 7:48 am
Is Obama relying too much on tax cuts?
I don’t know yet. But news reports this morning certainly raise questions.
Let’s lay out the basics here. Other things equal, public investment is a much better way to provide economic stimulus than tax cuts, for two reasons. First, if the government spends money, that money is spent, helping support demand, whereas tax cuts may be largely saved. So public investment offers more bang for the buck. Second, public investment leaves something of value behind when the stimulus is over.
That said, there’s a problem with a public-investment-only stimulus plan, namely timing. We need stimulus fast, and there’s a limited supply of "shovel-ready" projects that can be started soon enough to deliver an economic boost any time soon. You can bulk up stimulus through other forms of spending, mainly aid to Americans in distress — unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc.. And you can also provide aid to state and local governments so that they don’t have to cut spending — avoiding anti-stimulus is a fast way to achieve net stimulus. But everything I’ve heard says that even with all these things it’s hard to come up with enough spending to provide all the aid the economy needs in 2009.
What this says is that there’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.
But the numbers being reported — 40 percent of the whole, two-year plan — sound high. And all the news reports say that the high tax-cut share is intended to assuage Republicans; what this presumably means is that this was the message the off-the-record Obamanauts were told to convey.
And that’s bad news.
Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid — which would undermine that part of the plan, too.
OK, maybe this is just a head fake from the Obama people — they think they can win the PR battle by making bipartisan noises, then accusing the GOP of being obstructionist. But I’m really worried that they’re sending off signals of weakness right from the beginning, and that they’re just going to embolden the opposition.
Like Barney Frank, I’m feeling a bit of post-partisan depression.
Fighting Off Depression
"If we don’t act swiftly and boldly," declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, "we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment." If you ask me, he was understating the case
The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.
So will we "act swiftly and boldly" enough to stop that from happening? We’ll soon find out.
We weren’t supposed to find ourselves in this situation. For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the "central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades."
Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: "You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again."
It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.
Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment. The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.
But these plans may turn out to be a hard sell.
News reports say that Democrats hope to pass an economic plan with broad bipartisan support. Good luck with that.
In reality, the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years.
More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.
The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs — a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.
This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment "which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles." What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.
All of this leaves me concerned about the prospects for the Obama plan. I’m sure that Congress will pass a stimulus plan, but I worry that the plan may be delayed and/or downsized. And Mr. Obama is right: We really do need swift, bold action.
Here’s my nightmare scenario: It takes Congress months to pass a stimulus plan, and the legislation that actually emerges is too cautious. As a result, the economy plunges for most of 2009, and when the plan finally starts to kick in, it’s only enough to slow the descent, not stop it. Meanwhile, deflation is setting in, while businesses and consumers start to base their spending plans on the expectation of a permanently depressed economy — well, you can see where this is going.
So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?
*************************
KRUGMAN'S BLOG
January 5, 2009, 7:48 am
Is Obama relying too much on tax cuts?
I don’t know yet. But news reports this morning certainly raise questions.
Let’s lay out the basics here. Other things equal, public investment is a much better way to provide economic stimulus than tax cuts, for two reasons. First, if the government spends money, that money is spent, helping support demand, whereas tax cuts may be largely saved. So public investment offers more bang for the buck. Second, public investment leaves something of value behind when the stimulus is over.
That said, there’s a problem with a public-investment-only stimulus plan, namely timing. We need stimulus fast, and there’s a limited supply of "shovel-ready" projects that can be started soon enough to deliver an economic boost any time soon. You can bulk up stimulus through other forms of spending, mainly aid to Americans in distress — unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc.. And you can also provide aid to state and local governments so that they don’t have to cut spending — avoiding anti-stimulus is a fast way to achieve net stimulus. But everything I’ve heard says that even with all these things it’s hard to come up with enough spending to provide all the aid the economy needs in 2009.
What this says is that there’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.
But the numbers being reported — 40 percent of the whole, two-year plan — sound high. And all the news reports say that the high tax-cut share is intended to assuage Republicans; what this presumably means is that this was the message the off-the-record Obamanauts were told to convey.
And that’s bad news.
Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid — which would undermine that part of the plan, too.
OK, maybe this is just a head fake from the Obama people — they think they can win the PR battle by making bipartisan noises, then accusing the GOP of being obstructionist. But I’m really worried that they’re sending off signals of weakness right from the beginning, and that they’re just going to embolden the opposition.
Like Barney Frank, I’m feeling a bit of post-partisan depression.
Thoughts on Roubini and the Economic Debacle
Not long after Roubini’s "article" came out, I read on January 2nd, in the Times, an article by Louis Uchitelle (who I met briefly, once, at a friend’s wedding) that describes the view of a number of "optimistic" financial analysts. These were 50 professional forecasters associated with Blue Chip Economic Indicators. I was not impressed.
To be sure, their optimism was only partial: the recession would not end until mid-2009; unemployment not reach double-digits–joy, joy–and GDP growth (for 2009, I believe) would be positive, but only about 1%. With 1% GDP growth, unemployment increases, unless people all become too pessimistic to look for jobs, in which case their unemployment doesn’t show up in "the unemployment rate."
Uchitelle alludes to Roubini in the article (and I suspect he probably agrees more with him than he does with the 50 hot shots he is writing about). In any event, things are obviously so bad that Roubini, believe it or not, may not be the worst of pessimists. Even if the financial sector begins to return soon to normality, a monumental if, we still have manufacturing plummeting to a degree not seen since the 1930's. And if we are all aware of the plight of the auto industry, have you noticed that the steel industry will apparently also need to be bailed out? Thus, the recession might continue even longer into 2010, or (heaven help us) even beyond.
True, the "optimists" are basing their optimism on Obama’s rescue plan, as it now being called. Specifically, they believe that $675 billion over two years will do the trick. I (and Krugman) doubt it (and it may depend on exactly how the $675 billion is distributed. As I have previously mentioned, I fear Obama will not be bold enough, but I also feel that the Republicans will, as best they can, make the rescue plan not work, or not work well, in order to win back seats (and appeal) in 2010.
But even if the stimulus makes it to one trillion over two years, we should keep in mind that almost all of the states are in dreadful fiscal shape. Housing and manufacturing continue to be collapsing. And even more important, perhaps, almost all of the world is in dreadful economic shape. Read it all in Krugman, following this comment.
Every post-war recovery from a recession was previously generated by low interest rates, brought down by the Federal Reserve (who generally had pushed them up to create the recession to stop the inflation). But in 2009, monetary policy is either stone cold dead or in a deep and lasting coma. But it’s also hard to evaluate an unknown stimulus plan, other than obvious moves, like improving unemployment compensation, which Obama is apparently going to make a priority–good for him and those who receive it.
The optimists are also of the belief that there is a normality around the corner, after most of this bad stuff is magically made to disappear. But I think Roubini does not think you can look at how the economy worked in the years since 1945, and simply believe we will regain shortly our normality, and live happily ever after. Anyway, whatever Roubini believes, I think this is not how the situation should be viewed.
Not that there will not someday be a new normality, but it is not one that most people are going to be happy with. The budget and trade deficits will continue, ensuring that sooner or later the value of the dollar will fall (and therefore bring with it inflation). Since manufacturing is not likely to revive, but will continue to leave our land for shores where workers get paid pittances, unemployment will be high. Our normality, then, will be stagflation and falling living standards. An abnormal normality.
A successful effort to dig our way out of this mess requires a positive view of government which most Americans simply don’t have. Instead, government is bad, obviously so, and there is dragged out various "proofs"–an oldie being that welfare clients drive up in their Cadillacs to get their checks–a comment I actually heard just two weeks ago in Memphis.
Gifts for the rich, though, are apparently OK. Otherwise, why is the virtual theft of 100's of billions of taxpayer money (doled out by Henry M. Paulson Jr.), and given out without significant stipulations, not the stuff of everyday political outrage? For an utterly delightful, informative and insightful article, which does refer to Paulson critically, but not quite as strongly as I would have liked, read "The End of the Financial World As We Know It, in this past Sunday’s Times (January 4, 2009), by Michel Lewis and David Einhorn. One will learn more about the moral corruption in finance, including government agencies, which are under the thumb of those they are supposed to regulate, than you (or at least I) would ever have believed.
Finally, is Roubini a pessimist by nature. I haven’t the foggiest idea. I suspect not. That is, I suspect he is simply a smart realist who read correctly the handwriting on the wall. In contrast, Alan Greenspan is an ideologue, whose belief in "free markets" didn’t allow him to see what was going on as he lay in his bathtub, reading the statistics.
An amusing (or maybe not) afterthought. After WW II, most economists thought we would very shortly return to the Great Depression, unless government became super-Keynesian. They ignored the billions of dollars in US war bonds that were soon cashed in and spent on cars and houses, as well as aid to Western Europe, and finally the spending associated with the Cold War.
But one group constantly saw, in each recession, the return of THE DEPRESSION. These were the Marxists who wanted so badly for capitalism to fail, and socialism to take its place, that their illusions framed their analysis, just as, on the other side, and more recently, Greenspan’s illusions framed his analysis.
I don’t think Roubini has a political agenda, of this type. He sees what we all see–a broken financial system; a world–just about every country–in an economic crisis (and just a few days ago, I read about the enormous economic difficulties of what had been a great success story–Ireland); US manufacturing and housing in free fall; and a need for a new conception of the role government must play, if we are to survive, but a conception that, as far as I can see, is nowhere in sight. Government is bad, except if you’re a financial institution and are being given 100's of billions, with no accountability.
And believe it or not, the new normality we will soon be entering may be better than what we will face in the year that lies before us. Woe is us.
To be sure, their optimism was only partial: the recession would not end until mid-2009; unemployment not reach double-digits–joy, joy–and GDP growth (for 2009, I believe) would be positive, but only about 1%. With 1% GDP growth, unemployment increases, unless people all become too pessimistic to look for jobs, in which case their unemployment doesn’t show up in "the unemployment rate."
Uchitelle alludes to Roubini in the article (and I suspect he probably agrees more with him than he does with the 50 hot shots he is writing about). In any event, things are obviously so bad that Roubini, believe it or not, may not be the worst of pessimists. Even if the financial sector begins to return soon to normality, a monumental if, we still have manufacturing plummeting to a degree not seen since the 1930's. And if we are all aware of the plight of the auto industry, have you noticed that the steel industry will apparently also need to be bailed out? Thus, the recession might continue even longer into 2010, or (heaven help us) even beyond.
True, the "optimists" are basing their optimism on Obama’s rescue plan, as it now being called. Specifically, they believe that $675 billion over two years will do the trick. I (and Krugman) doubt it (and it may depend on exactly how the $675 billion is distributed. As I have previously mentioned, I fear Obama will not be bold enough, but I also feel that the Republicans will, as best they can, make the rescue plan not work, or not work well, in order to win back seats (and appeal) in 2010.
But even if the stimulus makes it to one trillion over two years, we should keep in mind that almost all of the states are in dreadful fiscal shape. Housing and manufacturing continue to be collapsing. And even more important, perhaps, almost all of the world is in dreadful economic shape. Read it all in Krugman, following this comment.
Every post-war recovery from a recession was previously generated by low interest rates, brought down by the Federal Reserve (who generally had pushed them up to create the recession to stop the inflation). But in 2009, monetary policy is either stone cold dead or in a deep and lasting coma. But it’s also hard to evaluate an unknown stimulus plan, other than obvious moves, like improving unemployment compensation, which Obama is apparently going to make a priority–good for him and those who receive it.
The optimists are also of the belief that there is a normality around the corner, after most of this bad stuff is magically made to disappear. But I think Roubini does not think you can look at how the economy worked in the years since 1945, and simply believe we will regain shortly our normality, and live happily ever after. Anyway, whatever Roubini believes, I think this is not how the situation should be viewed.
Not that there will not someday be a new normality, but it is not one that most people are going to be happy with. The budget and trade deficits will continue, ensuring that sooner or later the value of the dollar will fall (and therefore bring with it inflation). Since manufacturing is not likely to revive, but will continue to leave our land for shores where workers get paid pittances, unemployment will be high. Our normality, then, will be stagflation and falling living standards. An abnormal normality.
A successful effort to dig our way out of this mess requires a positive view of government which most Americans simply don’t have. Instead, government is bad, obviously so, and there is dragged out various "proofs"–an oldie being that welfare clients drive up in their Cadillacs to get their checks–a comment I actually heard just two weeks ago in Memphis.
Gifts for the rich, though, are apparently OK. Otherwise, why is the virtual theft of 100's of billions of taxpayer money (doled out by Henry M. Paulson Jr.), and given out without significant stipulations, not the stuff of everyday political outrage? For an utterly delightful, informative and insightful article, which does refer to Paulson critically, but not quite as strongly as I would have liked, read "The End of the Financial World As We Know It, in this past Sunday’s Times (January 4, 2009), by Michel Lewis and David Einhorn. One will learn more about the moral corruption in finance, including government agencies, which are under the thumb of those they are supposed to regulate, than you (or at least I) would ever have believed.
Finally, is Roubini a pessimist by nature. I haven’t the foggiest idea. I suspect not. That is, I suspect he is simply a smart realist who read correctly the handwriting on the wall. In contrast, Alan Greenspan is an ideologue, whose belief in "free markets" didn’t allow him to see what was going on as he lay in his bathtub, reading the statistics.
An amusing (or maybe not) afterthought. After WW II, most economists thought we would very shortly return to the Great Depression, unless government became super-Keynesian. They ignored the billions of dollars in US war bonds that were soon cashed in and spent on cars and houses, as well as aid to Western Europe, and finally the spending associated with the Cold War.
But one group constantly saw, in each recession, the return of THE DEPRESSION. These were the Marxists who wanted so badly for capitalism to fail, and socialism to take its place, that their illusions framed their analysis, just as, on the other side, and more recently, Greenspan’s illusions framed his analysis.
I don’t think Roubini has a political agenda, of this type. He sees what we all see–a broken financial system; a world–just about every country–in an economic crisis (and just a few days ago, I read about the enormous economic difficulties of what had been a great success story–Ireland); US manufacturing and housing in free fall; and a need for a new conception of the role government must play, if we are to survive, but a conception that, as far as I can see, is nowhere in sight. Government is bad, except if you’re a financial institution and are being given 100's of billions, with no accountability.
And believe it or not, the new normality we will soon be entering may be better than what we will face in the year that lies before us. Woe is us.
Recent Thoughts of Mr Pessimist, Nouriel Roubini
Below is a recent blog entry of Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at the Stern School of Business. In 2005, when he said that "home prices were riding a speculative wave and would soon sink the economy," he was mocked as a Cassandra. [Definition one of Cassandra in my Random House dictionary says her prophesies were true, while definition two simply describes her as someone who prophesies doom or disaster. The mockers, perhaps should have come up with something more appropriate.]
The next year he warned that the US "was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession," and added that the "global financial system (would be) shuddering to a halt." Mocked again as an absolute loony. Now, he is regarded as a prophet and honored the world over. Following his pessimistic projection of what "lies ahead," little me will make a few comments.
*********
Global financial markets in 2008 experienced their worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Major financial institutions went bust; others were bought up on the cheap or survived only after major bailouts. Global stock markets fell by more than 50%; interest-rate spreads skyrocketed; a severe liquidity and credit crunch appeared; and many emerging-market economies staggered to the International Monetary Fund for help.
So what lies ahead in 2009? Is the worst behind us or ahead of us? To answer these questions, we must understand that a vicious circle of economic contraction and worsening financial conditions is underway.
The United States will certainly experience its worst recession in decades, a deep and protracted contraction lasting about 24 months through the end of 2009. Moreover, the entire global economy will contract. There will be recession in the euro zone, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Canada, Japan, and the other advanced economies. There is also a risk of a hard landing for emerging-market economies, as trade, financial, and currency links transmit real and financial shocks to them.
In the advanced economies, recession had brought back earlier in 2008 fears of 1970's-style stagflation (a combination of economic stagnation and inflation). But, with aggregate demand falling below growing aggregate supply, slack goods markets will lead to lower inflation as firms' pricing power is restrained. Likewise, rising unemployment will control labor costs and wage growth. These factors, combined with sharply falling commodity prices, will cause inflation in advanced economies to ease toward the 1% level, raising concerns about deflation, not stagflation.
Deflation is dangerous as it leads to a liquidity trap: nominal policy rates cannot fall below zero, so monetary policy becomes ineffective. Falling prices mean that the real cost of capital is high and the real value of nominal debts rise, leading to further declines in consumption and investment - and thus setting in motion a vicious circle in which incomes and jobs are squeezed further, aggravating the fall in demand and prices.
As traditional monetary policy becomes ineffective, other unorthodox policies will continue to be used: policies to bail out investors, financial institutions, and borrowers; massive provision of liquidity to banks in order to ease the credit crunch; and even more radical actions to reduce long-term interest rates on government bonds and narrow the spread between market rates and government bonds.
Today's global crisis was triggered by the collapse of the US housing bubble, but it was not caused by it. America's credit excesses were in residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. There was also excess in the securitized products that converted these debts into toxic financial derivatives; in borrowing by local governments; in financing for leveraged buyouts that should never have occurred; in corporate bonds that will now suffer massive losses in a surge of defaults; in the dangerous and unregulated credit default swap market.
Moreover, these pathologies were not confined to the US. There were housing bubbles in many other countries, fueled by excessive cheap lending that did not reflect underlying risks. There was also a commodity bubble and a private equity and hedge funds bubble. Indeed, we now see the demise of the shadow banking system, the complex of non-bank financial institutions that looked like banks as they borrowed short term and in liquid ways, leveraged a lot, and invested in longer term and illiquid ways.
As a result, the biggest asset and credit bubble in human history is now going bust, with overall credit losses likely to be close to a staggering $2 trillion. Thus, unless governments rapidly recapitalize financial institutions, the credit crunch will become even more severe as losses mount faster than recapitalization and banks are forced to contract credit and lending.
Equity prices and other risky assets have fallen sharply from their peaks of late 2007, but there are still significant downside risks. An emerging consensus suggests that the prices of many risky assets - including equities - have fallen so much that we are at the bottom and a rapid recovery will occur.
But the worst is still ahead of us. In the next few months, the macroeconomic news and earnings/profits reports from around the world will be much worse than expected, putting further downward pressure on prices of risky assets, because equity analysts are still deluding themselves that the economic contraction will be mild and short.
While the risk of a total systemic financial meltdown has been reduced by the actions of the G-7 and other economies to backstop their financial systems, severe vulnerabilities remain. The credit crunch will get worse; deleveraging will continue, as hedge funds and other leveraged players are forced to sell assets into illiquid and distressed markets, thus causing more price falls and driving more insolvent financial institutions out of business. A few emerging-market economies will certainly enter a full-blown financial crisis.
So 2009 will be a painful year of global recession and further financial stresses, losses, and bankruptcies. Only aggressive, coordinated, and effective policy actions by advanced and emerging-market countries can ensure that the global economy recovers in 2010, rather than entering a more protracted period of economic stagnation.
Nouriel Roubini is Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University and Chairman of RGE Monitor (www.rgemonitor.com), an economic and financial consultancy.
The next year he warned that the US "was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession," and added that the "global financial system (would be) shuddering to a halt." Mocked again as an absolute loony. Now, he is regarded as a prophet and honored the world over. Following his pessimistic projection of what "lies ahead," little me will make a few comments.
*********
Global financial markets in 2008 experienced their worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Major financial institutions went bust; others were bought up on the cheap or survived only after major bailouts. Global stock markets fell by more than 50%; interest-rate spreads skyrocketed; a severe liquidity and credit crunch appeared; and many emerging-market economies staggered to the International Monetary Fund for help.
So what lies ahead in 2009? Is the worst behind us or ahead of us? To answer these questions, we must understand that a vicious circle of economic contraction and worsening financial conditions is underway.
The United States will certainly experience its worst recession in decades, a deep and protracted contraction lasting about 24 months through the end of 2009. Moreover, the entire global economy will contract. There will be recession in the euro zone, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Canada, Japan, and the other advanced economies. There is also a risk of a hard landing for emerging-market economies, as trade, financial, and currency links transmit real and financial shocks to them.
In the advanced economies, recession had brought back earlier in 2008 fears of 1970's-style stagflation (a combination of economic stagnation and inflation). But, with aggregate demand falling below growing aggregate supply, slack goods markets will lead to lower inflation as firms' pricing power is restrained. Likewise, rising unemployment will control labor costs and wage growth. These factors, combined with sharply falling commodity prices, will cause inflation in advanced economies to ease toward the 1% level, raising concerns about deflation, not stagflation.
Deflation is dangerous as it leads to a liquidity trap: nominal policy rates cannot fall below zero, so monetary policy becomes ineffective. Falling prices mean that the real cost of capital is high and the real value of nominal debts rise, leading to further declines in consumption and investment - and thus setting in motion a vicious circle in which incomes and jobs are squeezed further, aggravating the fall in demand and prices.
As traditional monetary policy becomes ineffective, other unorthodox policies will continue to be used: policies to bail out investors, financial institutions, and borrowers; massive provision of liquidity to banks in order to ease the credit crunch; and even more radical actions to reduce long-term interest rates on government bonds and narrow the spread between market rates and government bonds.
Today's global crisis was triggered by the collapse of the US housing bubble, but it was not caused by it. America's credit excesses were in residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. There was also excess in the securitized products that converted these debts into toxic financial derivatives; in borrowing by local governments; in financing for leveraged buyouts that should never have occurred; in corporate bonds that will now suffer massive losses in a surge of defaults; in the dangerous and unregulated credit default swap market.
Moreover, these pathologies were not confined to the US. There were housing bubbles in many other countries, fueled by excessive cheap lending that did not reflect underlying risks. There was also a commodity bubble and a private equity and hedge funds bubble. Indeed, we now see the demise of the shadow banking system, the complex of non-bank financial institutions that looked like banks as they borrowed short term and in liquid ways, leveraged a lot, and invested in longer term and illiquid ways.
As a result, the biggest asset and credit bubble in human history is now going bust, with overall credit losses likely to be close to a staggering $2 trillion. Thus, unless governments rapidly recapitalize financial institutions, the credit crunch will become even more severe as losses mount faster than recapitalization and banks are forced to contract credit and lending.
Equity prices and other risky assets have fallen sharply from their peaks of late 2007, but there are still significant downside risks. An emerging consensus suggests that the prices of many risky assets - including equities - have fallen so much that we are at the bottom and a rapid recovery will occur.
But the worst is still ahead of us. In the next few months, the macroeconomic news and earnings/profits reports from around the world will be much worse than expected, putting further downward pressure on prices of risky assets, because equity analysts are still deluding themselves that the economic contraction will be mild and short.
While the risk of a total systemic financial meltdown has been reduced by the actions of the G-7 and other economies to backstop their financial systems, severe vulnerabilities remain. The credit crunch will get worse; deleveraging will continue, as hedge funds and other leveraged players are forced to sell assets into illiquid and distressed markets, thus causing more price falls and driving more insolvent financial institutions out of business. A few emerging-market economies will certainly enter a full-blown financial crisis.
So 2009 will be a painful year of global recession and further financial stresses, losses, and bankruptcies. Only aggressive, coordinated, and effective policy actions by advanced and emerging-market countries can ensure that the global economy recovers in 2010, rather than entering a more protracted period of economic stagnation.
Nouriel Roubini is Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University and Chairman of RGE Monitor (www.rgemonitor.com), an economic and financial consultancy.
View Nephew Bruce's Erection on Inauguration Day
Excerpts from an email from my brother-in-law.
"If you watch the Inauguration on TV, you can look for some of the things that Bruce's firm has built.
In the ceremony, the steps of the Capitol will be filled with dignitaries sitting on seating provided by Bruce. They'll be behind the new President, a natural seating arrangement, no?
Bruce regularly gets this contract because the Capitol architect is very concerned about protecting the Capitol steps. Bruce's firm seems to be the only one that assures step protection correctly.
Secondly are TV towers along the parade route. One for CBS and one for several Euro TV stations.
There may also be "bicycle racks," the crowd protecting devices along the parade route. He's waiting to bid on those." (Added by DM: he has been given these contracts in the past and been praised highly by, I believe, the secret service. Bruce lives in Baltimore and his business is in Baltimore.)
"If you watch the Inauguration on TV, you can look for some of the things that Bruce's firm has built.
In the ceremony, the steps of the Capitol will be filled with dignitaries sitting on seating provided by Bruce. They'll be behind the new President, a natural seating arrangement, no?
Bruce regularly gets this contract because the Capitol architect is very concerned about protecting the Capitol steps. Bruce's firm seems to be the only one that assures step protection correctly.
Secondly are TV towers along the parade route. One for CBS and one for several Euro TV stations.
There may also be "bicycle racks," the crowd protecting devices along the parade route. He's waiting to bid on those." (Added by DM: he has been given these contracts in the past and been praised highly by, I believe, the secret service. Bruce lives in Baltimore and his business is in Baltimore.)
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