I decided to return to the blogosphere after all, and the topic for today is reforms.
Having grown completely and entirely sick, tired and disgusted of all politicians and of politics in general, I spent part of my hiatus from this blog thinking about what I'd do differently "if I were king," to rip off the Wizard of Oz.
If I were prez, this would be my agenda, in no particular order (recognizing that in the current environment in DC I could never accomplish it, and that some of these things would be beyond my purview as POTUS - either states' issues or congressional ones):
1. Complete campaign reform. This includes limiting campaigning for president to a nine-month period running prior to the election - none of this running for two years crap. Debates would be set in advance, limited to three for the primaries and three for the general election, and would follow the same format for each. Every candidate would have an opportunity to answer each question - no more limiting questions to some candidates, as happened to Huckabee and Paul in one of the last GOP debates. The moderator could not come from the mainstream media - I'm not sure whom I'd pick, maybe draw from a lottery, or maybe have all questions submitted from the people, electronically via a website, e-mail or phone. A switch would be placed on each candidate's mic, and when they hit their time limit for a question the mic would shut off. Likewise, if their answer were off-topic, or if they tried to veer off-topic after giving an answer, the mic could be shut off and we'd move to the next question. Three infractions, and they're out of the debate, and all subsequent ones. If they can't play by the rules in a debate, they're unlikely to in office.
There would also be significant campaign finance reform, including the elimination of all PACs, and a cap on funds raised - any funds donated above the cap would go to pay down the national debt.
2. Congressional term limits, two terms for senators and six for representatives. Twelve years is long enough to serve in any job. Also, congressional bennies would expire after a time period equal to the time the congressperson served. So if the lawmaker serves the full 12 years, they'd get 12 years of post-service bennies before they expired and they had to get a real job. If a rep serves one term then loses, they'd get two years of bennies. The bennies would be those they'd get during active service; the pension would be equivalent to 80% of their annual pay the last year they served, with no COLAs during the payout period.
3. Congress could no longer approve their own pay raises. They - and the president - would get an annual COLA equal to headline CPI for that year, period. And in any year there was a budget deficit, they'd get nada. If the deficit exceeded 5% of GDP, they would each take a pay cut that year equal to the deficit as a percent of GDP (this year they'd get whacked by about 13%), with the money going to pay down the deficit. And they'd get no chance to recoup that pay cut, just the annual COLAs.
4. I'd pursue real, meaningful tort reform. There would be caps on awards, including medical malpractice suits, maybe dependent on the nature of the injury. I'd want to consult more on that with my HHS Secretary, a very smart doc I know. I'd also streamline the FDA drug approval process - it shouldn't take any longer to get a drug approved here than in other developed countries. And I'd break the insurance companies' stranglehold on medicine - again, I'd defer to my HHS Secretary on the details.
5. Neither the president nor congress would have more than six weeks' paid vacation per year, and there would be no junkets. Camp David would only be used if the president had to be whisked out of DC for security reasons, or to entertain foreign dignitaries - never for a leisurely getaway. It would be a working retreat. AFOne could not be used for weekend trips on leisure, at least on the taxpayers' dime - if the president wanted a weekend getaway, he'd still use AFOne and have the appropriate security detail, but it would come out of his own pocket (or hers). In fact, the president and each elected congressperson would have an annual travel budget that could not be exceeded except if there's a national emergency that required travel, and any expenditures over budget would come out of pocket.
6. It would be law that former lobbyists could not be given cabinet appointments, and no elected official could serve as a lobbyist after their term for a period of time equal to the term served in office.
7. The Fed would function solely as a central bank and lender of last resort, and its balance sheet would be limited in size. It could not regulate. And it would be completely independent, by a constitutional amendment if necessary.
8. There would be a line-item veto. Also, no spending bill could be voted on until the people had a chance to review it for three weeks, and no lawmaker could vote on a spending bill without signing an affidavit, subject to legal action, attesting to his/her having read and understood it.
9. The IRS, Dept. of Education, and probably the DEA and ATF would be eliminated. A flat tax would be imposed in place of the current structure, with no itemized deductions.
10. Unemployment benefits could not be extended by Congress. Thirteen weeks, period.
11. Any state that wanted federal funding for education would have to make financial literacy a part of the core public school curriculum, beginning at the elementary school level and continuing through high school.
12. Usury limits would be put in place. Payday lending would be illegal. Any financial institution that offered car loans in excess of five years and/or mortgages other than fixed-rate loans with at least 10% down, documented income, and maximum debt-to-income ratios would have to hold all such loans in portfolio.
13. Derivatives markets would be regulated, and the old CFTC rules relating to hedging would be brought back. Wall Street firms could not qualify as real commodity hedgers, only qualified end users.
14. I'd kill the cap and trade idea.
15. Illegal immigrants would be just that: illegal. If they wanted to apply for citizenship, they could, following the same rules as anyone else, after the appropriate punishment for being in the US illegally. If someone was in the US illegally and had a child, that child could not be a US citizen without going through the application process. No free education, welfare, etc.
16. The US would pull out of the UN, and the UN would be kicked off US soil.
I'm sure I could think of more, but that's a decent start for my first term.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Uncle!
Alright, dammit. I'm going to get on Facebook. But I don't have to be happy about it, do I? No, I'm going to be my typically curmudgeonly self about this. And I'll be damned if I'll Twitter.
It's been some time since I've posted on here, by the way - very busy times, with a daughter graduating from high school and a host of other trials and tribulations in my life these past few weeks. My posts may be few and far between for a while as well, because I plan to undertake writing not one, but two books. So forgive me if my economic and political rants are sparse for a while. On the economic side, you'll get plenty of reading out of one of the books, and on the political side ... well, I'll have to save that one for awhile. The second book will be built on the "All Good" post.
Speaking of "all good," there's another "all good" member of my family - my daughter Sydney, who just graduated from high school, and will attend my alma mater, Pittsburg State University, in the fall - on academic and music schollies, no less. She's bright, beautiful, very well-grounded, talented in art (her major) and music (her minor), and has been accepted into the Honors College at Pitt. We'll be empty-nesters (as much as one can be so with three dogs, including a diabetic), but we'll see her often, as we still have our season football tix, and she'll be at all the games. It will be a new chapter for us, and I'm looking forward to lots of "us-time" with the most wonderful woman in the world, and the best Mom ever.
Watch for the books - I'll post updates on the progress - and in the meantime, I hope to occasionally throw out at least a brief rant.
It's been some time since I've posted on here, by the way - very busy times, with a daughter graduating from high school and a host of other trials and tribulations in my life these past few weeks. My posts may be few and far between for a while as well, because I plan to undertake writing not one, but two books. So forgive me if my economic and political rants are sparse for a while. On the economic side, you'll get plenty of reading out of one of the books, and on the political side ... well, I'll have to save that one for awhile. The second book will be built on the "All Good" post.
Speaking of "all good," there's another "all good" member of my family - my daughter Sydney, who just graduated from high school, and will attend my alma mater, Pittsburg State University, in the fall - on academic and music schollies, no less. She's bright, beautiful, very well-grounded, talented in art (her major) and music (her minor), and has been accepted into the Honors College at Pitt. We'll be empty-nesters (as much as one can be so with three dogs, including a diabetic), but we'll see her often, as we still have our season football tix, and she'll be at all the games. It will be a new chapter for us, and I'm looking forward to lots of "us-time" with the most wonderful woman in the world, and the best Mom ever.
Watch for the books - I'll post updates on the progress - and in the meantime, I hope to occasionally throw out at least a brief rant.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A Brief One
Most of my posts are nigh unbearably long-winded, so enjoy this brief one. It's actually a cut-and-paste from the D2 football message board I frequent, in response to someone asking if now was the best time for a viable third party.
My short reply was that now would be an excellent time for a viable first or second party.
The thread went on with the token liberals saying the GOP has become irrelevant, and will stay irrelevant forever.
So they hope.
I responded with this summary of the political picture, which I think is pretty accurate:
With all this talk about the demise of the GOP, we've heard this before. We heard it when Nixon made a shambles of his presidency (after LBJ squandered the Dems' political capital, opening the door for the Republicans to get Nixon the W). That paved the way for Carter's win. And when he turned out to be a Frenchman with a Georgia accent, Reagan got elected. Bush I capitalizes on Reagan's political capital, then squanders that with the one-two punch of the infamous "read my lips" flip-flop and a too-slow jobs recovery after a recession (more Greenspan's fault than his, but still a catalyst for Clinton's copying the Reaganism, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"). And again we heard of the death of the GOP. After Clinton made the White House a National Enquirer cover story, that opened the door for W, and a succession of totally lame candidates to run against him both times got him in, until the country reached the point of "let's elect anybody, so long as it's not a Republican." So in waltzes Obama, and all we hear about is that the GOP has become irrelevant. Well, it's happened before, and it'll cycle back. In four, eight, twelve years the country will be sick of what the Dems have done, and it'll open the door for a Republican candidate.
In saying this I'm not defending the Republican party. I'm simply recounting the irrefutable pattern of American party politics over the past several decades. The fact of the matter is that both parties suck, and both parties generally succeed in mucking things up until we're ready for something different. So we vote for the other party, and find that there is no change we can believe in from the current system. There are just different letters after the schmucks' names.
My short reply was that now would be an excellent time for a viable first or second party.
The thread went on with the token liberals saying the GOP has become irrelevant, and will stay irrelevant forever.
So they hope.
I responded with this summary of the political picture, which I think is pretty accurate:
With all this talk about the demise of the GOP, we've heard this before. We heard it when Nixon made a shambles of his presidency (after LBJ squandered the Dems' political capital, opening the door for the Republicans to get Nixon the W). That paved the way for Carter's win. And when he turned out to be a Frenchman with a Georgia accent, Reagan got elected. Bush I capitalizes on Reagan's political capital, then squanders that with the one-two punch of the infamous "read my lips" flip-flop and a too-slow jobs recovery after a recession (more Greenspan's fault than his, but still a catalyst for Clinton's copying the Reaganism, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"). And again we heard of the death of the GOP. After Clinton made the White House a National Enquirer cover story, that opened the door for W, and a succession of totally lame candidates to run against him both times got him in, until the country reached the point of "let's elect anybody, so long as it's not a Republican." So in waltzes Obama, and all we hear about is that the GOP has become irrelevant. Well, it's happened before, and it'll cycle back. In four, eight, twelve years the country will be sick of what the Dems have done, and it'll open the door for a Republican candidate.
In saying this I'm not defending the Republican party. I'm simply recounting the irrefutable pattern of American party politics over the past several decades. The fact of the matter is that both parties suck, and both parties generally succeed in mucking things up until we're ready for something different. So we vote for the other party, and find that there is no change we can believe in from the current system. There are just different letters after the schmucks' names.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Must've Been A Typo
First, let me apologize for the long hiatus. It's not that there's been a lack of economic and political goings-on to ponder, it's just that I've been busy. My praise band recently played a concert at the state prison in Lansing, and before that we played for a men's retreat at a church near Baldwin City, Kansas. I played lead guitar for the prison concert, so between rehearsals and the performances themselves, I was kept hopping, and when it was all done, as John Lennon famously shouted at the end of Helter Skelter on The White Album, "I've got blisters on my fingers!" So anyway, now I'm back at it. I'll eventually do a post on the concert experience, and also on my daughter's upcoming high school graduation, which will keep me pretty busy for the next couple of weeks. But first, I want to dissect President Obama's 100th day "press conference."
Before I begin, though, let me explain the post title. Remember his campaign slogan, "Change you can believe in?" I'm beginning to suspect it was a typo, and what he really meant was "Change what you believe in."
Now the President is very articulate - a fine speaker, with or without his teleprompter, though he does much better with. I chalk that up to inexperience. Once his on-the-job training is completed, as his now-Secretary of State once warned he'd need, I imagine he'll be a fine extemporaneous speaker. He's also affable, and can be funny - all in all, very engaging.
But every time he talks, I'm reminded of what Hamish said to William Wallace in Braveheart, just before the battle at Stirling: "Fine speech. Now what?"
See, President Obama talks a good game. But his actions run counter to his words, and there were a number of examples of that in the "press conference." One more aside before I tuck into that, though. The reason I put "press conference" in quotes is that it isn't really a press conference, it's an orchestrated speech. He takes the podium with a pre-set list of which reporters he's going to call on and in what order. And when they ask their questions, he blathers for too long in response to each, so that the number of questions is very limited. And in so blathering, he basically talks about whatever he wants. Sort of reminds me of the "debates."
But on to the Q&A.
He began by talking about the swine flu (I could digress and pick on Joe "Stand up, Chuck!" Biden here, but I won't), then segued into the budget:
"The second thing I'd like to mention is how gratified I am that the House and the Senate passed a budget resolution today that will serve as an economic blueprint for this nation's future." Mr. President, if that's the blueprint, I'm not so sure I want to live in the house, at least not without a hard hat.
"We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs ..." Whoa, gotta call BS here. The US has lost 1.2 million jobs since he took office - likely to grow to about 1.9 million by next week's jobs report. And his economic team has thus far refused to release how it counts said jobs "saved or created" - and that terminology makes the numbers murky at best, as estimating "jobs saved" is pure speculation.
"And we launched a housing plan that has already contributed to a spike in the number of homeowners who are refinancing their mortgages, which is the equivalent of another tax cut." Again, bovine poo. A tax cut is a tax cut. And the only people who've refinanced their mortgages are people who already could qualify for a conforming loan, who probably didn't need the added cash. Now, his point was that the freed-up cash from refinancing, in addition to the extra 12 bucks a month most of us are getting in our paychecks, will stimulate the economy. There are a couple of problems with this.
First, some of the refi candidates were folks who qualified for a conforming refi but did need to pare down some other debt. They'll use the extra cash to do that. The rest were financially astute enough to not be in debt trouble, but weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth when mortgage rates fell to record lows. They're smart enough to save the extra dough.
The other problem stems from juxtaposing that assertion with his next statement: "We can't go back to an economy that's built on a pile of sand: on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards; on over-leveraged banks and outdated regulations that allow recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of all."
Well, hear, hear! I wholeheartedly and curmudgeonly agree! But if that's the case, why is he still clinging to the notion that the way out of the economic morass is to help free up cash in people's pockets so they'll spend it? If he wants us to get away from over-leveraging ourselves, where are the incentives to save? The disincentives to borrow? Why are we bailing out only the "reckless few," both the homeowners and the banks? Why the pressure on the banks to lend more? And, most importantly, where's the fiscal restraint at the federal level?
Okay, the first question was about the swine flu, then one on Chrysler. Then he got a couple from reporters trying to get him to say that the Bush administration sanctioned torture, which he side-stepped. Then came a gem from Chuck Todd of MSNBC - a guy I can't stand from a network I can't stand - that illustrated why I'm too much of a smart-ass to ever be president.
Chuck Todd: "Thank you, Mr. President. I want to move to Pakistan."
I'd have immediately replied, "I'd be all for that, Chuck - I'll even loan you Air Force One to get you there. I'm sure we could get a photo op out of it even."
The rest of my comments are largely fluff. In response to a question on abortion and the freedom of choice act, he said, "The reason I'm pro-choice is because I don't think women take that position casually." Au contraire, Mr. President. I think too many women who are pro-choice take too many positions too casually (rimshot).
Then he got Jeff Zany - er, Zeleny's - odd question: "During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office, enchanted you the most about serving in this office, humbled you the most and troubled you the most?"
Seriously? "Enchanted" you the most? The President made light of the question, stopping Zeleny to repeat the four-part question so he could write each part down. But the "enchanted" piece shows just how the mainstream media fawns over this president, failing to call him to task for things like the massive deficits we're creating, or the bungled bank bail-out efforts that leave taxpayers on the hook while providing windfalls to Tim Geithner's cronies, and on scaring the devil out of lower Manhattan for a photo op that could have been taken care of with Photoshop (he didn't get a single question about that, by the way).
He also addressed his bipartisan efforts, which brought to mind the infamous "I won" comment. And he said something about the fine team he'd assembled, which made me wish once again that I hadn't filed my taxes. And he said that the sooner the government gets out of the business of running banks and auto companies, the better off we'll be, to which I also say, hear, hear.
The bottom line is this: the ideology and the actions don't match the words. And that troubles me. The strategy seems to be "tell 'em what they want to hear, and do whatever you want." And that tells me that what he really wants too many Americans to do is change what they believe in.
Before I begin, though, let me explain the post title. Remember his campaign slogan, "Change you can believe in?" I'm beginning to suspect it was a typo, and what he really meant was "Change what you believe in."
Now the President is very articulate - a fine speaker, with or without his teleprompter, though he does much better with. I chalk that up to inexperience. Once his on-the-job training is completed, as his now-Secretary of State once warned he'd need, I imagine he'll be a fine extemporaneous speaker. He's also affable, and can be funny - all in all, very engaging.
But every time he talks, I'm reminded of what Hamish said to William Wallace in Braveheart, just before the battle at Stirling: "Fine speech. Now what?"
See, President Obama talks a good game. But his actions run counter to his words, and there were a number of examples of that in the "press conference." One more aside before I tuck into that, though. The reason I put "press conference" in quotes is that it isn't really a press conference, it's an orchestrated speech. He takes the podium with a pre-set list of which reporters he's going to call on and in what order. And when they ask their questions, he blathers for too long in response to each, so that the number of questions is very limited. And in so blathering, he basically talks about whatever he wants. Sort of reminds me of the "debates."
But on to the Q&A.
He began by talking about the swine flu (I could digress and pick on Joe "Stand up, Chuck!" Biden here, but I won't), then segued into the budget:
"The second thing I'd like to mention is how gratified I am that the House and the Senate passed a budget resolution today that will serve as an economic blueprint for this nation's future." Mr. President, if that's the blueprint, I'm not so sure I want to live in the house, at least not without a hard hat.
"We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs ..." Whoa, gotta call BS here. The US has lost 1.2 million jobs since he took office - likely to grow to about 1.9 million by next week's jobs report. And his economic team has thus far refused to release how it counts said jobs "saved or created" - and that terminology makes the numbers murky at best, as estimating "jobs saved" is pure speculation.
"And we launched a housing plan that has already contributed to a spike in the number of homeowners who are refinancing their mortgages, which is the equivalent of another tax cut." Again, bovine poo. A tax cut is a tax cut. And the only people who've refinanced their mortgages are people who already could qualify for a conforming loan, who probably didn't need the added cash. Now, his point was that the freed-up cash from refinancing, in addition to the extra 12 bucks a month most of us are getting in our paychecks, will stimulate the economy. There are a couple of problems with this.
First, some of the refi candidates were folks who qualified for a conforming refi but did need to pare down some other debt. They'll use the extra cash to do that. The rest were financially astute enough to not be in debt trouble, but weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth when mortgage rates fell to record lows. They're smart enough to save the extra dough.
The other problem stems from juxtaposing that assertion with his next statement: "We can't go back to an economy that's built on a pile of sand: on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards; on over-leveraged banks and outdated regulations that allow recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of all."
Well, hear, hear! I wholeheartedly and curmudgeonly agree! But if that's the case, why is he still clinging to the notion that the way out of the economic morass is to help free up cash in people's pockets so they'll spend it? If he wants us to get away from over-leveraging ourselves, where are the incentives to save? The disincentives to borrow? Why are we bailing out only the "reckless few," both the homeowners and the banks? Why the pressure on the banks to lend more? And, most importantly, where's the fiscal restraint at the federal level?
Okay, the first question was about the swine flu, then one on Chrysler. Then he got a couple from reporters trying to get him to say that the Bush administration sanctioned torture, which he side-stepped. Then came a gem from Chuck Todd of MSNBC - a guy I can't stand from a network I can't stand - that illustrated why I'm too much of a smart-ass to ever be president.
Chuck Todd: "Thank you, Mr. President. I want to move to Pakistan."
I'd have immediately replied, "I'd be all for that, Chuck - I'll even loan you Air Force One to get you there. I'm sure we could get a photo op out of it even."
The rest of my comments are largely fluff. In response to a question on abortion and the freedom of choice act, he said, "The reason I'm pro-choice is because I don't think women take that position casually." Au contraire, Mr. President. I think too many women who are pro-choice take too many positions too casually (rimshot).
Then he got Jeff Zany - er, Zeleny's - odd question: "During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office, enchanted you the most about serving in this office, humbled you the most and troubled you the most?"
Seriously? "Enchanted" you the most? The President made light of the question, stopping Zeleny to repeat the four-part question so he could write each part down. But the "enchanted" piece shows just how the mainstream media fawns over this president, failing to call him to task for things like the massive deficits we're creating, or the bungled bank bail-out efforts that leave taxpayers on the hook while providing windfalls to Tim Geithner's cronies, and on scaring the devil out of lower Manhattan for a photo op that could have been taken care of with Photoshop (he didn't get a single question about that, by the way).
He also addressed his bipartisan efforts, which brought to mind the infamous "I won" comment. And he said something about the fine team he'd assembled, which made me wish once again that I hadn't filed my taxes. And he said that the sooner the government gets out of the business of running banks and auto companies, the better off we'll be, to which I also say, hear, hear.
The bottom line is this: the ideology and the actions don't match the words. And that troubles me. The strategy seems to be "tell 'em what they want to hear, and do whatever you want." And that tells me that what he really wants too many Americans to do is change what they believe in.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
All Good
First, let me apologize for the length of this post. Some folks who've read this blog have commented on my long-windedness. (Okay, complained, not commented.) And rightfully so. But this isn't about economics, or politics. It's a good story, one that deserves to be told. And if it's going to be told, it deserves to be told right. I promise not to post any more this week, so if you want to read it in chunks, you'll have several days to wade through it.
************
My daughter is a senior in high school, and trying to keep up with the latest slang is like learning a new language at times ("facebook-official," for example). But one of the terms that I've come to understand perfectly well is, "It's all good."
See, I have an acquaintance - a family member, actually - who is truly all good.
His name is Dominic - Dominic Kohl Hague. He's eight years old. And he's a miniature schnauzer. He's one of three in our house; the other two are litter-mates - Max (Pixie's Maximilian) and Kramer (Baron von Kramer, but really named after the Seinfeld character, because he acts just like him). We love them all, but Dominic ... well, he's just special.
My wife and I both had dogs growing up, and I had an aging mutt when we met, but he had to be put down at the age of 13, shortly before my wife and I got married. Our daughter loves animals, and always pined away for a dog, but all of our allergies pretty much prevented it - my wife's being the worst.
But being the trouper that she is, she went through several years of allergy shots (not just to get a pet), and a little over eight years ago, we decided we could get a dog for our daughter for Christmas, in 2000. We researched breeds extensively to find one that isn't too big (big dog = big poop), is easy to train, is good with kids, and doesn't shed - as near to being hypo-allergenic as we could find. We settled on the mini schnauzer.
Next, we researched breeders, and found a good one in Oklahoma, a few hours south of us. We checked out her website, and she had a litter that would be ready for adoption in January 2001. We contacted her, and picked one, and pulled a picture of him off the website.
On Christmas morning, our daughter opened a package that contained a schnauzer wall calendar, a certificate of adoption that we'd made up for her, and a picture of the pup. At first, she didn't understand that she was actually getting the dog, but when she did, her excitement was uncontainable.
She went upstairs to the computer and spent several hours - this was Christmas, mind you, and her other gifts went entirely ignored - researching dog names. She wrote down the ones she liked. When she was done, she had filled a page front and back.
She told us that she had considered "Algonquin," but when she imagined calling, "Here, Algonquin!", it just didn't sound right. Thank God.
So she settled on Dominic - Dominic Kohl, the middle name's spelling an homage to her favorite store at the time.
(Funny aside on dog names - one of my wife's dogs when she was growing up was named "Hey You." One day a repairman came to their house, and he went out to his truck to get some tools, accidentally letting the dog out. My wife's Mom opened the front door and yelled, "Hey You, get back in here!" The poor befuddled repairman looked at her like she was the most demanding customer he'd ever had.)
When Dominic was old enough to bring home, we made the trek to Cookson, Oklahoma, near Tenkiller Lake. We found the breeder's house. It was like a trip to another world - the lady was in the shower when we got there, so her two little kids, one of them running around in diapers, let us in, and we waited (rather uncomfortably) for her. Rescue dogs were running around the house, eating out of the kids' cereal bowls that were still sitting on the floor, etc. The little guy in diapers wanted to take our daughter into his room to show her his toys, which freaked her out a bit (she was 10 at the time, at least).
Finally the breeder came out, and took us into the yard. Now, Sydney, our daughter, was free to pick any other pup she wanted, not necessarily the one in the picture. But when she stepped over the low fence into the pen, one puppy ran ahead of the others and jumped right up on her, and she recognized him.
It was Dominic, and it was love at first sight, for all of us.
We took care of the paperwork (by now the little diaper-clad guy was completely naked and running around indoors and out), and were on our way. In spite of the third-worldliness of the place, she was a good breeder, and Dom's bloodlines included show dogs.
It didn't take long to figure out that this was the smartest, strongest, fastest, and best-behaved dog any of us had ever known. Oh, he had his moments, which I'll share below, but he's always been just the best dog.
Smart? He's always known when supper time is, and he'll come sit in front of you and bark - just one short bark at a time - until you feed him. Loyal? If I'm upstairs in my office, and my wife is downstairs watching TV, he'll lie at the top of the stairs, to be in between us. Sometimes, he'll come over by my desk and do the sit-and-bark-once thing until I get up and go downstairs - seemingly saying, "That's not important - we need some family time." He uses that bark to tell us all manner of things - if we don't know right away what he wants, we get up and say, "Show me," and he does.
Strong? When he plays "tug" with one of his toys, he can practically pull my arm out of the socket. He never loses at "tug," he just eventually feels sorry for us and lets go, so that we can throw his toy again. He can also do a flip in the air to catch a ball, landing perfectly on his feet every time.
Fast? We have a 20-acre woods behind our house, so we get squirrels, rabbits, birds, and all kinds of other critters in the yard. Even a full-grown rabbit doesn't stand a chance. He's scary-fast, and can turn on a dime. Every summer I get to play "carcass removal" a few times. He's even caught two full-grown robins on the ground, before they could take off.
There are many more examples, but this post is going to run long enough. Maybe I should write a book, a la "Marley and Me."
Some of his "moments":
On his first birthday, my wife made plans to spend the entire day just hanging out with him (she's like that). So, on this particularly nice mid-November day, they were in the back yard, and my wife was going to plant some hyacinth bulbs. Her mistake? Setting the bag down. Dominic grabbed it, and took off running, scattering bulbs all over the yard. My wife tried to catch him, but remember how fast I said he was? If he doesn't want to be caught, it's not happening. And this was his game.
During the chase, he also managed to ingest a bulb or two. So my wife called the vet, and they said, yes, they can be toxic. So in to the vet's office she went, and he spent the rest of his birthday there, getting ipecac squirted in his mouth so he could throw up.
One Wednesday night a little before Christmas, when Dominic was two, I worked quite late while my wife and daughter went to youth group at our church, where my wife volunteered. I got home after they did, and my daughter met me at the door, in tears. When I asked what was wrong, she sobbed that Dominic had gotten into some candy, and had made messes all over the house, and my wife was cleaning them up. Now, this dog never got into much of anything (okay, we found him on the kitchen table once, eating everyone's pork chops), and he was housebroken in about a week, so this was unusual.
My daughter's tears led me to believe that my wife must be pretty mad at the dog - it takes a lot to make Sydney cry - so I went upstairs to find my wife, treading cautiously all the way. I found her in the hallway, outside the laundry room, scrubbing the carpet - apparently he'd had some major explosions from both ends. She was crying, herself. When I asked her what was wrong, she sobbed, "I killed my dog!" (He wasn't dead, but she knew dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate.)
It seems he'd gotten into a dish of Hershey's Kisses that was on an end table in our living room, next to the sofa, onto which he climbed to access the candy. When my wife and daughter got home, the dish was empty. There were four Hershey's Kiss wrappers on the floor. Apparently he'd unwrapped the first four - I said he was smart - then decided, "Screw it," and just ate the rest, wrappers and all. I figure maybe that saved him, as the foil irritated his stomach enough that the stuff came up - and out - right away.
Later, we re-filled the dish to its previous point of full-ness, and counted the Hershey's Kisses. There were 50. He's on the big side for his breed, but still weighs just about 20 lbs. That's a lot of chocolate for me, let alone a dog that size.
When I say he never got into anything, I should mention that when he was a pup and we'd leave him home, he did enjoy going into our half-bath in the entry hall, and grabbing the toilet paper, unrolling it out into the foyer. But that was about it. Oh, we did keep the candy dishes out of reach after the Hershey's Kiss incident.
He also enjoyed getting up on one of the spare dining room chairs, to look out the window at the neighbor's back deck, where they would tie up their dog - he'd sit their and bark that yappy schnauzer bark, indignant at the invasion of his space. After all, he was master of all he surveyed.
On one such occasion, my wife walked to the dining room doorway from the kitchen, and yelled at him to stop barking. Realizing he was in trouble, he took the path of least resistance to get to her - which involved jumping onto our nice inlaid-wood dining room table. When he hit the slick, polished surface, he slid across it, and fearing the fall off the other side, dug in his claws to arrest the slide. Now, our table has "character."
Another time, my wife called me at work. Dominic had gotten out of our fenced back yard, and she couldn't find him. I won't say she was in a panic, but ... my office is just three miles from home, so I left and headed that way. As I was driving down our block, toward our house, there was Dominic, soaking wet and trotting home. Guess he'd had his fill of playing in the neighbors' fountains and so forth, and was ready to come home. So I rolled down my window and yelled, "Dominic! You get home!" He looked at me like, "Where do you think I'm going? Sheesh!" and continued on his way.
When we arrived home at the same time, there was my wife, standing on the porch, trying to be mad but crying as she scolded him: "You little shit!" He ran to her, and she took him in her arms and hugged him, impervious to the mud, while he kissed her tears.
At the risk of getting too long-winded, Dom's story isn't complete without telling how Max and Kramer came into our lives. We had thought for a while that Dominic might like a playmate, but we never really got serious about it. When he was two-and-a-half, my wife accompanied me on a business trip to Phoenix. We were fortunate to stay at the Biltmore, where my conference was. We spent a few extra days there, since we had a suite at the hotel.
I needed a haircut, and for what little hair I have, I just go to Great Clips. So we found one in Scottsdale. There was a wait, so I put in my name, and suggested we go to the grocery store in the strip mall and get some snacks for the suite.
My wife wanted to visit the pet store next door instead.
We went in, and they had some pens set up on the floor with puppies in them. One of the pens had two adorable mini schnauzers and a boxer, and they were fighting like mad. We picked up the schnauzers and petted them for a while, then put them back in the pen and left.
A couple days later, we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and had a couple of margaritas, which I blame for everything that followed. I kept saying to my wife, "You're thinking about those dogs, aren't you?" She points out that I wouldn't have kept saying that if I hadn't been thinking of them first. She's smart like that.
Of course, we wound up back at the pet store. When we walked in, the schnauzers were no longer in the pen, so I thought maybe they'd been sold. But my wife inquired about them.
The next thing I knew, we were in "the bonding room" with the two little fellas, and my wife was asking me what would be the $2,000 question (before the vet bills, etc.): "Which one should we leave behind?"
I'm a total softie when it comes to that kind of thing. One of them was just this adorable little guy with long eyelashes, who'd look at you and literally will you to take him home. That was Max, whom we've since come to learn is all about two things: food and attention. He's like Roly in "101 Dalmations."
Kramer, on the other hand, was this happy-go-lucky, ADD-suffering loose cannon of a pup who made you feel that if you didn't take him home and love him, nobody else would appreciate him. His favorite game now is chasing a ball (or a piece of ice - we call that "hockey" across the hardwood floor, sliding all the way; at least he doesn't run head-first into the wall anymore).
So my wife, who is masterful at making deals, said "Maybe they'll make us a deal." They did, and we were suddenly the owners of three miniature schnauzers.
A brief aside here, in the way of a lesson: think about the stuff the grocery stores put on the racks by the check-out line. Those are impulse buys. Chewing gum is an impulse buy. Magazines are an impulse buy. Altoids are an impulse buy.
Pure-bred schnauzers are not an impulse buy. At least not for most people.
We inquired as to our options to get them home. Flying them back to Kansas was discussed, but we learned that we couldn't get them on our flight, and it would be expensive to boot. So the next thing I know, we're planning to cancel our return flight, keep the rental car and arrange to drop it off in Kansas City, and drive three days back home with two eight-week-old puppies in tow.
You know this is all true; I'm an imaginative guy, but I could not make this up.
So, we're back at the hotel, and I'm on the phone with my secretary, making the travel arrangements, while my wife is checking in with her Mom, who's keeping Dominic (my wife's parents live about a half-hour from us, and they have three fenced acres, so they're our babysitters - the dogs know "Grandma," "Grandpa," and "Do you want to go to the farm?", and saying any of those things will work them into a cacophonic frenzy).
Then came the news: my Father-in-law had had a heart attack, and was in the hospital.
My wife had to fly home right away, but I still had to speak at the conference, so I couldn't leave. Now, I was darned if I was going to drive, by myself, three days back to Kansas with two little puppies. So my wife got an early flight, and I made arrangements to fly the pups home (which ate up the savings we'd gotten on our "deal," and then some).
At the Kansas City airport, my wife and Dominic met Max and Kramer's flight, while I took the shuttle to their terminal - a harbinger of things to come, it seemed. When their kennel came up the freight elevator, Dominic stood in front of the kennel door, refusing to let them out. That, too, was a harbinger of things to come. It was as if he was saying, "You've GOT to be kidding me! I'M the dog around here!"
The next day, we put the pups in a laundry basket and went to pick Sydney up from middle school. When she opened the back door, she had this wide-eyed look, thinking that perhaps we were dog-sitting. Nope, we told her, they're ours.
We then learned that our city requires a special permit to own three dogs. You have to fill out a multi-page form stating your qualifications and ability to care for them, show that your house will sufficiently accommodate them, and that they won't be left outside all day to bark the neighbors crazy, etc. Then, after submitting the form, an animal control officer visits your house, meets you and your dogs, then interviews the neighbors two doors on either side of you before giving the blessing.
I could be a 17-year-old single mother on crack with eight kids by six different fathers, and the city of Overland Park would not care one whit about my qualifications for or ability to care for my brood, nor the sufficiency of their environment. But by God, have three dogs, and you get the third degree. Plus the privilege of a $100 up-front permit fee and a $50 annual renewal fee to keep them. The crack mother just gets more tax deductions.
Dominic tolerated the little guys pretty well at first. He'd engage in their several-times-daily brawls, even. It was always Kramer and Dominic picking on poor little Max. Kramer's a classic, cowardly in-and-out fighter, waiting for Dominic to pin Max before grabbing a hind leg, then darting to safety when Max squirmed free.
But one day, "poor little Max" pinned Dominic, and that was the end of his participation in their little games.
If you've ever had a schnauzer, you know how deafening the high-pitched, yappy bark can be. Try it with three. Every time we'd come home, they'd all wail - led by Dom - as if we'd been gone for months. Even if we'd just been to the mailbox and back. We even taught them to "sing" - sitting and howling in unison, Kramer throwing his head back in full, lusty howl so far that he nearly topples over backward.
Not long after we brought the little guys home, our vet expanded his office to a larger space. I'm sure we funded it. I told my wife it was like endowing a chair at Harvard - the least they could do is name an examination room after us. "The Hague Wing for Schnauzer Research" - has a nice ring to it, don't you think? They've all been to the emergency clinic, and they've all been x-rayed. About a year and a half ago, our daughter went to work for our vet. She loves animals, and was thinking of going to vet school at one point. We get an employee discount, and with the tabs our three rack up, we keep thinking they'll figure out that the discount costs them more to employ Sydney than they pay her.
But enough about the whole brood. Fast-forward to last summer.
Dominic hadn't seemed his old puppy self for a while. He'd gone through various bouts of this and that - whipworms, viruses, etc. - but we could never pin anything down. Then, last summer, he was diagnosed by our vet as having diabetes - not uncommon in dogs of his breed and age.
That means twice-daily insulin shots to regulate his glucose levels, just as with a diabetic human. We were in the process of getting his glucose levels regulated with the right dosage of insulin, when he developed this impacted bowel problem. So we took him to the vet, and they cleaned him out.
Then, one Saturday morning a few days later, I came downstairs and found my wife lying on the couch, holding Dominic.
I'm no vet, but I could tell he was dying.
My wife asked what we should do, and I said we'd better get him to the vet. We did, and he took blood and ran some new tests, then came out to tell us Dominic had pancreatitis and keto-acidosis - basically, stuff that's as bad as it sounds. He told us to take him to a 24/7 doggie ICU place (which, as it turned out, is owned by a guy in my small group at church), because he'd need around-the-clock care that the vet couldn't provide.
We took him there, and it didn't sound good. They put him on a pain medication patch, and gave him an IV with fluids and meds. His abdomen was bloated, full of fluid from the pancreatitis (he's a lean dog), and that had to go down before he could start getting food, and then he'd have to be eating solids before he could start getting better.
Later, after an internal medicine specialist had examined him, my wife talked to her on the phone. She asked her what she would do if it were her dog. She said, "Well, he's in a lot of pain. I'd give it 24 hours, and if he's not getting better, I wouldn't prolong the agony."
My wife is a pragmatist. I'm eternally hopeful, in a blindly stupid way. So I figured, there's no way at seven years old (as he was then) he's going to just die. We talked about it, and I said that if a couple of days of pain could give him several more years of a good, healthy life, it would be worth it. My wife pointed out that his life hadn't really been good and healthy for a couple of years now; we just hadn't known what the problems were.
We went back to visit him that night. He was in a very large cage on the lower level of their rows of cages, in the ICU. It was nice, in that we could visit him pretty much whenever we wanted, and the cage was big enough that we could both sit in it with him, Dominic lying in between us.
We sat there and petted him. He was obviously in a great deal of pain, and his breathing was very labored. He didn't look good at all - he was going downhill, in fact. We stayed a long time, and when we told him good-bye, it didn't feel like, "See you tomorrow, boy." It felt like good-bye.
I made it to the car before the dam broke. Then I completely lost it, I don't mind saying. This good, good dog - smart, fast, funny, unconditionally loving, patient, forgiving - was slipping away from us. And we were going to have to make a very hard decision the next day. I wasn't ready for it. Every moment that I'd told him to wait until I was finished doing some stupid thing before I was ready to give him attention, all the walks I'd meant to take him on but had some excuse not to, all the beautiful spring and fall days he'd stood in the yard, smiling, tail wagging, imploring me to come outside and play with him, and I'd gone back in the house to watch TV or play guitar or some other selfish thing - all of it ran before my eyes like a guilt-ridden movie. My wife offered to drive home, but I knew the only thing that would keep me from breaking down altogether was to have something to concentrate on. When we got home, I prayed and prayed for him.
I don't recall whether we talked to the internal med doc - Dr. Grigsby, or "Grigs" to us - before we went to see him the next day. But I know I was expecting the worst.
When we got there, he sat up and was happy to see us. His breathing was still strained, but vastly improved. He was better. We were guardedly optimistic.
We went back later that day, and it was time for him to go outside. My wife asked if we could take him, and they said yes. So we put a leash on him and took him out. He practically dragged my wife around the building. He was getting better.
For the rest of that week, he got better every day. Yes, it was a very expensive week. But it was worth every penny. Besides, after a couple of days, what were we going to do, say, "Sorry, but we've hit our limit - we'll have to put him down now"?
When he came home, he was the old Dominic - playful as a pup. He played tug again, strong as ever. In fact, he wanted to play every night - it was part of his routine again. And it had indeed been worth it - a couple of days' pain for what looked like several more years of the old, healthy Dominic. We got his insulin dosage right to regulate his glucose, and while it imposed on our routine, it was more than worth it. At every follow-up visit, he was just fine - our old Dominic, only not "old" at all, but a spry puppy again.
Last Sunday morning, I started a new music gig: leading worship with three other guys from our praise band at a local assisted living facility for the elderly. A bright young seminary intern from our church leads services there the first and third Sundays of each month, and we committed to play one Sunday a month. So at about 8:00 am, with my wife still in bed and the dogs in their kennel, I loaded my guitar and gear into the car and went to play.
On the way home, I called my wife to ask if she wanted me to pick up breakfast. No answer. I got home, and her car was gone. I went inside, and Max and Kramer met me at the door - frantic, as they always are when Dom gets to "go bye-bye" and they have to stay home.
I tried my wife's cell. No answer. I figured it was no big deal; I knew Dominic was out of the special diet food we have to feed him now, and I thought she was out somewhere trying to buy some. So I went down to the basement and started straightening up my studio, getting sheet music put away and setting up my guitars on their stands, etc.
My wife came home a bit later, without Dominic. He was back at the doggie hospital. When she woke up, he couldn't get out of the kennel. She carried him downstairs and outside, and set him on the ground. He just lay there. So she picked him up, put him in a blanket-lined laundry basket, put it in the car, and took him to Mission Med Vet. They said he had the impacted poop issue going again - we didn't know why - so they were going to clean him out, then run some tests and see what the problem was.
They were very busy with emergencies, and didn't call us back. So we went to see him Sunday evening. The doc on duty said that the enema was successful - "very productive," as she put it. He sat up and whimpered when we got there. This time, he was in a smaller, upper-level cage, so we couldn't sit with him. We petted him, and he just sat there with his head down, panting, and I noticed he didn't seem to want to look up. When I lifted his chin, his eyes were closed. When he opened them, he was squinting.
We left, and I tried to think of anything but Dominic. I didn't want to fear the worst. He could have another bout of pancreatitis. We had already agreed that we wouldn't prolong things if he did - with a diabetic dog, that stuff can recur, and we knew that while a few days' pain for a few years' health was worth it, running through that cycle every few months was not.
The next day, they called in an eye specialist to examine him. He had uveitis, an inflammation of the eye. They said it could be cleared up, but that it could also lead to cataracts. I did a little google-searching, and found that cataracts for dogs are operable, as they are with humans. It's not cheap, but again, I'd do it for him. Blindness just wouldn't be an option, not at eight years of age. If he were 13 or 14, it would be different; I could opt to put him down.
My wife brought him home Monday - yesterday. When I came home from work, he was excited as ever to see me, but then he just laid on the couch, resting his eyes. They'd dilated his pupils, and the sun was very bright yesterday, so he didn't want to be outside. I can understand, having had my own pupils dilated by the optometrist, then going outside on a sunny day without sunglasses.
He's on a regimen of various meds - taken both orally and in the eyes - that keeps my wife treating him about 18 times a day, not counting the insulin shots. He's eating fine, and she told me that today he went out in the yard in the bright sunshine and rolled in the grass on his back, as he loves to do.
So we'll see. I'm hoping - and praying - that he recovers from the inflammation, and it's nothing more than that.
I had wanted to post this last fall, after he recovered from the pancreatitis. But I never got around to it, as is typical for me.
Well, I couldn't possibly write any of this if he were gone. It would be too painful. But Dominic is the best dog ever - he's ALL GOOD - and his story needed to be written. So here it is.
He's too good a dog to have to suffer this way. So I hope this goes away, and he has several more years of great health, with no more trips to Mission Med Vet, as wonderful as the people are there.
And I hope that, if that happens, I never take him for granted again.
Dominic, you are all good, buddy. All good.
************
My daughter is a senior in high school, and trying to keep up with the latest slang is like learning a new language at times ("facebook-official," for example). But one of the terms that I've come to understand perfectly well is, "It's all good."
See, I have an acquaintance - a family member, actually - who is truly all good.
His name is Dominic - Dominic Kohl Hague. He's eight years old. And he's a miniature schnauzer. He's one of three in our house; the other two are litter-mates - Max (Pixie's Maximilian) and Kramer (Baron von Kramer, but really named after the Seinfeld character, because he acts just like him). We love them all, but Dominic ... well, he's just special.
My wife and I both had dogs growing up, and I had an aging mutt when we met, but he had to be put down at the age of 13, shortly before my wife and I got married. Our daughter loves animals, and always pined away for a dog, but all of our allergies pretty much prevented it - my wife's being the worst.
But being the trouper that she is, she went through several years of allergy shots (not just to get a pet), and a little over eight years ago, we decided we could get a dog for our daughter for Christmas, in 2000. We researched breeds extensively to find one that isn't too big (big dog = big poop), is easy to train, is good with kids, and doesn't shed - as near to being hypo-allergenic as we could find. We settled on the mini schnauzer.
Next, we researched breeders, and found a good one in Oklahoma, a few hours south of us. We checked out her website, and she had a litter that would be ready for adoption in January 2001. We contacted her, and picked one, and pulled a picture of him off the website.
On Christmas morning, our daughter opened a package that contained a schnauzer wall calendar, a certificate of adoption that we'd made up for her, and a picture of the pup. At first, she didn't understand that she was actually getting the dog, but when she did, her excitement was uncontainable.
She went upstairs to the computer and spent several hours - this was Christmas, mind you, and her other gifts went entirely ignored - researching dog names. She wrote down the ones she liked. When she was done, she had filled a page front and back.
She told us that she had considered "Algonquin," but when she imagined calling, "Here, Algonquin!", it just didn't sound right. Thank God.
So she settled on Dominic - Dominic Kohl, the middle name's spelling an homage to her favorite store at the time.
(Funny aside on dog names - one of my wife's dogs when she was growing up was named "Hey You." One day a repairman came to their house, and he went out to his truck to get some tools, accidentally letting the dog out. My wife's Mom opened the front door and yelled, "Hey You, get back in here!" The poor befuddled repairman looked at her like she was the most demanding customer he'd ever had.)
When Dominic was old enough to bring home, we made the trek to Cookson, Oklahoma, near Tenkiller Lake. We found the breeder's house. It was like a trip to another world - the lady was in the shower when we got there, so her two little kids, one of them running around in diapers, let us in, and we waited (rather uncomfortably) for her. Rescue dogs were running around the house, eating out of the kids' cereal bowls that were still sitting on the floor, etc. The little guy in diapers wanted to take our daughter into his room to show her his toys, which freaked her out a bit (she was 10 at the time, at least).
Finally the breeder came out, and took us into the yard. Now, Sydney, our daughter, was free to pick any other pup she wanted, not necessarily the one in the picture. But when she stepped over the low fence into the pen, one puppy ran ahead of the others and jumped right up on her, and she recognized him.
It was Dominic, and it was love at first sight, for all of us.
We took care of the paperwork (by now the little diaper-clad guy was completely naked and running around indoors and out), and were on our way. In spite of the third-worldliness of the place, she was a good breeder, and Dom's bloodlines included show dogs.
It didn't take long to figure out that this was the smartest, strongest, fastest, and best-behaved dog any of us had ever known. Oh, he had his moments, which I'll share below, but he's always been just the best dog.
Smart? He's always known when supper time is, and he'll come sit in front of you and bark - just one short bark at a time - until you feed him. Loyal? If I'm upstairs in my office, and my wife is downstairs watching TV, he'll lie at the top of the stairs, to be in between us. Sometimes, he'll come over by my desk and do the sit-and-bark-once thing until I get up and go downstairs - seemingly saying, "That's not important - we need some family time." He uses that bark to tell us all manner of things - if we don't know right away what he wants, we get up and say, "Show me," and he does.
Strong? When he plays "tug" with one of his toys, he can practically pull my arm out of the socket. He never loses at "tug," he just eventually feels sorry for us and lets go, so that we can throw his toy again. He can also do a flip in the air to catch a ball, landing perfectly on his feet every time.
Fast? We have a 20-acre woods behind our house, so we get squirrels, rabbits, birds, and all kinds of other critters in the yard. Even a full-grown rabbit doesn't stand a chance. He's scary-fast, and can turn on a dime. Every summer I get to play "carcass removal" a few times. He's even caught two full-grown robins on the ground, before they could take off.
There are many more examples, but this post is going to run long enough. Maybe I should write a book, a la "Marley and Me."
Some of his "moments":
On his first birthday, my wife made plans to spend the entire day just hanging out with him (she's like that). So, on this particularly nice mid-November day, they were in the back yard, and my wife was going to plant some hyacinth bulbs. Her mistake? Setting the bag down. Dominic grabbed it, and took off running, scattering bulbs all over the yard. My wife tried to catch him, but remember how fast I said he was? If he doesn't want to be caught, it's not happening. And this was his game.
During the chase, he also managed to ingest a bulb or two. So my wife called the vet, and they said, yes, they can be toxic. So in to the vet's office she went, and he spent the rest of his birthday there, getting ipecac squirted in his mouth so he could throw up.
One Wednesday night a little before Christmas, when Dominic was two, I worked quite late while my wife and daughter went to youth group at our church, where my wife volunteered. I got home after they did, and my daughter met me at the door, in tears. When I asked what was wrong, she sobbed that Dominic had gotten into some candy, and had made messes all over the house, and my wife was cleaning them up. Now, this dog never got into much of anything (okay, we found him on the kitchen table once, eating everyone's pork chops), and he was housebroken in about a week, so this was unusual.
My daughter's tears led me to believe that my wife must be pretty mad at the dog - it takes a lot to make Sydney cry - so I went upstairs to find my wife, treading cautiously all the way. I found her in the hallway, outside the laundry room, scrubbing the carpet - apparently he'd had some major explosions from both ends. She was crying, herself. When I asked her what was wrong, she sobbed, "I killed my dog!" (He wasn't dead, but she knew dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate.)
It seems he'd gotten into a dish of Hershey's Kisses that was on an end table in our living room, next to the sofa, onto which he climbed to access the candy. When my wife and daughter got home, the dish was empty. There were four Hershey's Kiss wrappers on the floor. Apparently he'd unwrapped the first four - I said he was smart - then decided, "Screw it," and just ate the rest, wrappers and all. I figure maybe that saved him, as the foil irritated his stomach enough that the stuff came up - and out - right away.
Later, we re-filled the dish to its previous point of full-ness, and counted the Hershey's Kisses. There were 50. He's on the big side for his breed, but still weighs just about 20 lbs. That's a lot of chocolate for me, let alone a dog that size.
When I say he never got into anything, I should mention that when he was a pup and we'd leave him home, he did enjoy going into our half-bath in the entry hall, and grabbing the toilet paper, unrolling it out into the foyer. But that was about it. Oh, we did keep the candy dishes out of reach after the Hershey's Kiss incident.
He also enjoyed getting up on one of the spare dining room chairs, to look out the window at the neighbor's back deck, where they would tie up their dog - he'd sit their and bark that yappy schnauzer bark, indignant at the invasion of his space. After all, he was master of all he surveyed.
On one such occasion, my wife walked to the dining room doorway from the kitchen, and yelled at him to stop barking. Realizing he was in trouble, he took the path of least resistance to get to her - which involved jumping onto our nice inlaid-wood dining room table. When he hit the slick, polished surface, he slid across it, and fearing the fall off the other side, dug in his claws to arrest the slide. Now, our table has "character."
Another time, my wife called me at work. Dominic had gotten out of our fenced back yard, and she couldn't find him. I won't say she was in a panic, but ... my office is just three miles from home, so I left and headed that way. As I was driving down our block, toward our house, there was Dominic, soaking wet and trotting home. Guess he'd had his fill of playing in the neighbors' fountains and so forth, and was ready to come home. So I rolled down my window and yelled, "Dominic! You get home!" He looked at me like, "Where do you think I'm going? Sheesh!" and continued on his way.
When we arrived home at the same time, there was my wife, standing on the porch, trying to be mad but crying as she scolded him: "You little shit!" He ran to her, and she took him in her arms and hugged him, impervious to the mud, while he kissed her tears.
At the risk of getting too long-winded, Dom's story isn't complete without telling how Max and Kramer came into our lives. We had thought for a while that Dominic might like a playmate, but we never really got serious about it. When he was two-and-a-half, my wife accompanied me on a business trip to Phoenix. We were fortunate to stay at the Biltmore, where my conference was. We spent a few extra days there, since we had a suite at the hotel.
I needed a haircut, and for what little hair I have, I just go to Great Clips. So we found one in Scottsdale. There was a wait, so I put in my name, and suggested we go to the grocery store in the strip mall and get some snacks for the suite.
My wife wanted to visit the pet store next door instead.
We went in, and they had some pens set up on the floor with puppies in them. One of the pens had two adorable mini schnauzers and a boxer, and they were fighting like mad. We picked up the schnauzers and petted them for a while, then put them back in the pen and left.
A couple days later, we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and had a couple of margaritas, which I blame for everything that followed. I kept saying to my wife, "You're thinking about those dogs, aren't you?" She points out that I wouldn't have kept saying that if I hadn't been thinking of them first. She's smart like that.
Of course, we wound up back at the pet store. When we walked in, the schnauzers were no longer in the pen, so I thought maybe they'd been sold. But my wife inquired about them.
The next thing I knew, we were in "the bonding room" with the two little fellas, and my wife was asking me what would be the $2,000 question (before the vet bills, etc.): "Which one should we leave behind?"
I'm a total softie when it comes to that kind of thing. One of them was just this adorable little guy with long eyelashes, who'd look at you and literally will you to take him home. That was Max, whom we've since come to learn is all about two things: food and attention. He's like Roly in "101 Dalmations."
Kramer, on the other hand, was this happy-go-lucky, ADD-suffering loose cannon of a pup who made you feel that if you didn't take him home and love him, nobody else would appreciate him. His favorite game now is chasing a ball (or a piece of ice - we call that "hockey" across the hardwood floor, sliding all the way; at least he doesn't run head-first into the wall anymore).
So my wife, who is masterful at making deals, said "Maybe they'll make us a deal." They did, and we were suddenly the owners of three miniature schnauzers.
A brief aside here, in the way of a lesson: think about the stuff the grocery stores put on the racks by the check-out line. Those are impulse buys. Chewing gum is an impulse buy. Magazines are an impulse buy. Altoids are an impulse buy.
Pure-bred schnauzers are not an impulse buy. At least not for most people.
We inquired as to our options to get them home. Flying them back to Kansas was discussed, but we learned that we couldn't get them on our flight, and it would be expensive to boot. So the next thing I know, we're planning to cancel our return flight, keep the rental car and arrange to drop it off in Kansas City, and drive three days back home with two eight-week-old puppies in tow.
You know this is all true; I'm an imaginative guy, but I could not make this up.
So, we're back at the hotel, and I'm on the phone with my secretary, making the travel arrangements, while my wife is checking in with her Mom, who's keeping Dominic (my wife's parents live about a half-hour from us, and they have three fenced acres, so they're our babysitters - the dogs know "Grandma," "Grandpa," and "Do you want to go to the farm?", and saying any of those things will work them into a cacophonic frenzy).
Then came the news: my Father-in-law had had a heart attack, and was in the hospital.
My wife had to fly home right away, but I still had to speak at the conference, so I couldn't leave. Now, I was darned if I was going to drive, by myself, three days back to Kansas with two little puppies. So my wife got an early flight, and I made arrangements to fly the pups home (which ate up the savings we'd gotten on our "deal," and then some).
At the Kansas City airport, my wife and Dominic met Max and Kramer's flight, while I took the shuttle to their terminal - a harbinger of things to come, it seemed. When their kennel came up the freight elevator, Dominic stood in front of the kennel door, refusing to let them out. That, too, was a harbinger of things to come. It was as if he was saying, "You've GOT to be kidding me! I'M the dog around here!"
The next day, we put the pups in a laundry basket and went to pick Sydney up from middle school. When she opened the back door, she had this wide-eyed look, thinking that perhaps we were dog-sitting. Nope, we told her, they're ours.
We then learned that our city requires a special permit to own three dogs. You have to fill out a multi-page form stating your qualifications and ability to care for them, show that your house will sufficiently accommodate them, and that they won't be left outside all day to bark the neighbors crazy, etc. Then, after submitting the form, an animal control officer visits your house, meets you and your dogs, then interviews the neighbors two doors on either side of you before giving the blessing.
I could be a 17-year-old single mother on crack with eight kids by six different fathers, and the city of Overland Park would not care one whit about my qualifications for or ability to care for my brood, nor the sufficiency of their environment. But by God, have three dogs, and you get the third degree. Plus the privilege of a $100 up-front permit fee and a $50 annual renewal fee to keep them. The crack mother just gets more tax deductions.
Dominic tolerated the little guys pretty well at first. He'd engage in their several-times-daily brawls, even. It was always Kramer and Dominic picking on poor little Max. Kramer's a classic, cowardly in-and-out fighter, waiting for Dominic to pin Max before grabbing a hind leg, then darting to safety when Max squirmed free.
But one day, "poor little Max" pinned Dominic, and that was the end of his participation in their little games.
If you've ever had a schnauzer, you know how deafening the high-pitched, yappy bark can be. Try it with three. Every time we'd come home, they'd all wail - led by Dom - as if we'd been gone for months. Even if we'd just been to the mailbox and back. We even taught them to "sing" - sitting and howling in unison, Kramer throwing his head back in full, lusty howl so far that he nearly topples over backward.
Not long after we brought the little guys home, our vet expanded his office to a larger space. I'm sure we funded it. I told my wife it was like endowing a chair at Harvard - the least they could do is name an examination room after us. "The Hague Wing for Schnauzer Research" - has a nice ring to it, don't you think? They've all been to the emergency clinic, and they've all been x-rayed. About a year and a half ago, our daughter went to work for our vet. She loves animals, and was thinking of going to vet school at one point. We get an employee discount, and with the tabs our three rack up, we keep thinking they'll figure out that the discount costs them more to employ Sydney than they pay her.
But enough about the whole brood. Fast-forward to last summer.
Dominic hadn't seemed his old puppy self for a while. He'd gone through various bouts of this and that - whipworms, viruses, etc. - but we could never pin anything down. Then, last summer, he was diagnosed by our vet as having diabetes - not uncommon in dogs of his breed and age.
That means twice-daily insulin shots to regulate his glucose levels, just as with a diabetic human. We were in the process of getting his glucose levels regulated with the right dosage of insulin, when he developed this impacted bowel problem. So we took him to the vet, and they cleaned him out.
Then, one Saturday morning a few days later, I came downstairs and found my wife lying on the couch, holding Dominic.
I'm no vet, but I could tell he was dying.
My wife asked what we should do, and I said we'd better get him to the vet. We did, and he took blood and ran some new tests, then came out to tell us Dominic had pancreatitis and keto-acidosis - basically, stuff that's as bad as it sounds. He told us to take him to a 24/7 doggie ICU place (which, as it turned out, is owned by a guy in my small group at church), because he'd need around-the-clock care that the vet couldn't provide.
We took him there, and it didn't sound good. They put him on a pain medication patch, and gave him an IV with fluids and meds. His abdomen was bloated, full of fluid from the pancreatitis (he's a lean dog), and that had to go down before he could start getting food, and then he'd have to be eating solids before he could start getting better.
Later, after an internal medicine specialist had examined him, my wife talked to her on the phone. She asked her what she would do if it were her dog. She said, "Well, he's in a lot of pain. I'd give it 24 hours, and if he's not getting better, I wouldn't prolong the agony."
My wife is a pragmatist. I'm eternally hopeful, in a blindly stupid way. So I figured, there's no way at seven years old (as he was then) he's going to just die. We talked about it, and I said that if a couple of days of pain could give him several more years of a good, healthy life, it would be worth it. My wife pointed out that his life hadn't really been good and healthy for a couple of years now; we just hadn't known what the problems were.
We went back to visit him that night. He was in a very large cage on the lower level of their rows of cages, in the ICU. It was nice, in that we could visit him pretty much whenever we wanted, and the cage was big enough that we could both sit in it with him, Dominic lying in between us.
We sat there and petted him. He was obviously in a great deal of pain, and his breathing was very labored. He didn't look good at all - he was going downhill, in fact. We stayed a long time, and when we told him good-bye, it didn't feel like, "See you tomorrow, boy." It felt like good-bye.
I made it to the car before the dam broke. Then I completely lost it, I don't mind saying. This good, good dog - smart, fast, funny, unconditionally loving, patient, forgiving - was slipping away from us. And we were going to have to make a very hard decision the next day. I wasn't ready for it. Every moment that I'd told him to wait until I was finished doing some stupid thing before I was ready to give him attention, all the walks I'd meant to take him on but had some excuse not to, all the beautiful spring and fall days he'd stood in the yard, smiling, tail wagging, imploring me to come outside and play with him, and I'd gone back in the house to watch TV or play guitar or some other selfish thing - all of it ran before my eyes like a guilt-ridden movie. My wife offered to drive home, but I knew the only thing that would keep me from breaking down altogether was to have something to concentrate on. When we got home, I prayed and prayed for him.
I don't recall whether we talked to the internal med doc - Dr. Grigsby, or "Grigs" to us - before we went to see him the next day. But I know I was expecting the worst.
When we got there, he sat up and was happy to see us. His breathing was still strained, but vastly improved. He was better. We were guardedly optimistic.
We went back later that day, and it was time for him to go outside. My wife asked if we could take him, and they said yes. So we put a leash on him and took him out. He practically dragged my wife around the building. He was getting better.
For the rest of that week, he got better every day. Yes, it was a very expensive week. But it was worth every penny. Besides, after a couple of days, what were we going to do, say, "Sorry, but we've hit our limit - we'll have to put him down now"?
When he came home, he was the old Dominic - playful as a pup. He played tug again, strong as ever. In fact, he wanted to play every night - it was part of his routine again. And it had indeed been worth it - a couple of days' pain for what looked like several more years of the old, healthy Dominic. We got his insulin dosage right to regulate his glucose, and while it imposed on our routine, it was more than worth it. At every follow-up visit, he was just fine - our old Dominic, only not "old" at all, but a spry puppy again.
Last Sunday morning, I started a new music gig: leading worship with three other guys from our praise band at a local assisted living facility for the elderly. A bright young seminary intern from our church leads services there the first and third Sundays of each month, and we committed to play one Sunday a month. So at about 8:00 am, with my wife still in bed and the dogs in their kennel, I loaded my guitar and gear into the car and went to play.
On the way home, I called my wife to ask if she wanted me to pick up breakfast. No answer. I got home, and her car was gone. I went inside, and Max and Kramer met me at the door - frantic, as they always are when Dom gets to "go bye-bye" and they have to stay home.
I tried my wife's cell. No answer. I figured it was no big deal; I knew Dominic was out of the special diet food we have to feed him now, and I thought she was out somewhere trying to buy some. So I went down to the basement and started straightening up my studio, getting sheet music put away and setting up my guitars on their stands, etc.
My wife came home a bit later, without Dominic. He was back at the doggie hospital. When she woke up, he couldn't get out of the kennel. She carried him downstairs and outside, and set him on the ground. He just lay there. So she picked him up, put him in a blanket-lined laundry basket, put it in the car, and took him to Mission Med Vet. They said he had the impacted poop issue going again - we didn't know why - so they were going to clean him out, then run some tests and see what the problem was.
They were very busy with emergencies, and didn't call us back. So we went to see him Sunday evening. The doc on duty said that the enema was successful - "very productive," as she put it. He sat up and whimpered when we got there. This time, he was in a smaller, upper-level cage, so we couldn't sit with him. We petted him, and he just sat there with his head down, panting, and I noticed he didn't seem to want to look up. When I lifted his chin, his eyes were closed. When he opened them, he was squinting.
We left, and I tried to think of anything but Dominic. I didn't want to fear the worst. He could have another bout of pancreatitis. We had already agreed that we wouldn't prolong things if he did - with a diabetic dog, that stuff can recur, and we knew that while a few days' pain for a few years' health was worth it, running through that cycle every few months was not.
The next day, they called in an eye specialist to examine him. He had uveitis, an inflammation of the eye. They said it could be cleared up, but that it could also lead to cataracts. I did a little google-searching, and found that cataracts for dogs are operable, as they are with humans. It's not cheap, but again, I'd do it for him. Blindness just wouldn't be an option, not at eight years of age. If he were 13 or 14, it would be different; I could opt to put him down.
My wife brought him home Monday - yesterday. When I came home from work, he was excited as ever to see me, but then he just laid on the couch, resting his eyes. They'd dilated his pupils, and the sun was very bright yesterday, so he didn't want to be outside. I can understand, having had my own pupils dilated by the optometrist, then going outside on a sunny day without sunglasses.
He's on a regimen of various meds - taken both orally and in the eyes - that keeps my wife treating him about 18 times a day, not counting the insulin shots. He's eating fine, and she told me that today he went out in the yard in the bright sunshine and rolled in the grass on his back, as he loves to do.
So we'll see. I'm hoping - and praying - that he recovers from the inflammation, and it's nothing more than that.
I had wanted to post this last fall, after he recovered from the pancreatitis. But I never got around to it, as is typical for me.
Well, I couldn't possibly write any of this if he were gone. It would be too painful. But Dominic is the best dog ever - he's ALL GOOD - and his story needed to be written. So here it is.
He's too good a dog to have to suffer this way. So I hope this goes away, and he has several more years of great health, with no more trips to Mission Med Vet, as wonderful as the people are there.
And I hope that, if that happens, I never take him for granted again.
Dominic, you are all good, buddy. All good.
Monday, March 16, 2009
That's Entertainment
To the best of my knowledge, Helicopter Ben Bernanke's appearance on 60 Minutes last night was a first for a sitting Fed Chairman. It's clear why he chose to do the interview: by making the Fed Chair appear accessible to the American people, he hoped to shore up confidence in the face of the current economic situation. Unfortunately, a Fed Chairman simply isn't going to be able to educate the average American in a (relatively) brief interview.
Especially this one, who's hardly up to the task.
Bernanke must have had some control over the questions asked, as most of them were softballs. On the ones that could have been pressed into a challenge, the interviewer failed to follow up where he could have. For example:
"When does this end?" (Referring to the current recession.)
"It depends a lot on the financial system. The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis ... until we get that stabilized and working normally, we're not gonna see recovery. But we do have a plan ..."
Follow-up opportunity: "Outstanding, Mr. Chairman! What is the plan?"
But that question never came. Of course, there is no cohesive plan at this juncture; Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner are following the same haphazard, "we'll figure out what to do when the next flashpoint fires up" approach taken by Bernanke and Geithner's predecessor, Hank Paulson. Geithner has been mum about Treasury's plans, in spite of President Obama's promise during his first press briefing that a "detailed" plan would be forthcoming the next day - much to the market's frustration.
So if the recovery depends on the plan to stabilize the financial system, there's no recovery on the horizon. They're just hoping it turns around at some point.
Bernanke finished that answer by saying, "... we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year." In answer to the follow-up question, whether we'd see the recession end this year (which would seem academic given his first answer), Bernanke replied, "In the sense that this decline will begin to moderate and we'll begin to see leveling off. We won't be back to full employment. But we will see, I hope, the end of these declines that have been so strong in the last couple of quarters."
Note the key phrase, "I hope." But two points are in order: first, the end of a recession does not come when the sharp declines ease. It comes when the economy stops declining, period. It does not come with leveling off, especially when the level we've hit is a very low one. It begins with reaching a point where year-over-year declines in key indicators turn into year-over-year gains, or at least reach the zero point. We haven't even hit bottom yet, and we're a long way from zero.
The second point is that this Fed Chairman famously said, just about a year ago, that the subprime contagion could be contained, and was unlikely to spill over into the broader economy. Here we are, a year later, in the deepest recession since the end of World War II. Should the American public actually trust Ben Bernanke's prognosticating skills? I think not.
The 60 Minutes crew should have put up footage of Bernanke making that claim last year, to show just how reliable his forecasts are. Heck, even Jon Stewart would have done that. Maybe Bernanke should go on The Daily Show. He probably doesn't have the cojones.
Most of the rest of his responses came back to the "if we fix the financial system, everything else will fall into place" pattern. And that should scare us, given that there is no plan to fix that system. True, by going massively into debt, we're running up long rates, which steepens the yield curve, which is a good recipe for banking profits - maybe sufficient to offset continued asset devaluations, which will only be exacerbated by higher yields. But I hardly think that's the master plan to salvage the banking system.
Regarding the decision not to save Lehman Brothers, Bernanke said it wasn't a mistake, because "we didn't have the option, we didn't have the tools. All the Federal Reserve can do is make loans against collateral."
Really? Then how did the Fed save Bear Stearns? AIG? Merrill? True, it did make loans in those instances. But it also brokered deals with acquirers. Barclay's wanted to acquire Lehman, but the Fed said "Let it fail." The Fed set up a fund to hold Bear's riskiest assets so that JPMorgan Chase wouldn't have to. And it has created vehicles to buy up mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, in an effort to create liquidity in those lending markets. So it would seem the Fed has whatever powers it wants to have.
As for the AIG bailout, now that it's been revealed that AIG paid billions to other banks - including foreign banks - out of the taxpayers' largess, and plans to pay millions in bonuses to the very derivatives desks that buried AIG eyeballs-deep in the credit default swap swamp that it couldn't ultimately get itself out of, everyone is angry, from you and me to President Obama. What's Bernanke's take?
"Of all the events and all of the things we've done in the last 18 months, the single one that makes me the angriest, that gives me the most angst, is the intervention with AIG." (emphasis added)
Me too, Ben, me too. So tell me, why are you still Fed Chairman? You presided over the AIG bailout, without asking where the money would go. You, Ben. So if you're looking for the object of your anger, look no further than the bathroom mirror. (Oh yeah, you did have help from your cracker-jack New York Fed Bank President - what was his name again?)
************
A quick note on the billions AIG paid to other banks. That seems to have made Congress and the administration quite angry. But let's think about it: AIG was bailed out because it had its tentacles deep in the international financial community, and the fear at the time was that if AIG failed, it would take down the global financial system with it.
So, if AIG subsequently paid its counterparties what they were due ... isn't that what we hoped to accomplish by bailing it out to begin with? So why the sudden hue and cry over AIG making good on its obligations? What did we want them to do with the money, enter into new deals?
************
On a related note, a couple more quick anecdotes. Hank Paulson's whiz-kid Neal Kashkarian, who was hired to oversee the TARP and who remains in place under Paulson's successor, Mr. Geithner, was testifying before Congress last week. He was being grilled by Rep. Dennis Kucinich about B of A and Citigroup having made loans - with TARP money - to a Chinese construction concern and the government of Dubai.
Kucinich asked Kashkarian whether the Treasury believed that it was more stimulative to the US economy to make those loans than to make loans to US businesses and consumers. Kashkarian stammered his way around the politically sensitive question. But I'd have taken a different approach. This would have been my answer:
"You'd better believe it is. What the banks need to do now is make profitable loans, not loans they're just going to lose money on. And let's face it, a construction loan in the US would be a likely money-loser right now. Construction spending year-over-year in this country is at a record low pace of -9.1%. And it's not just residential construction that's driving it down anymore; the pace of non-residential spending - which was the only salvation for total spending last year - has fallen out of bed since September.
China, on the other hand, still has cash to spend on infrastructure projects (which it has decided is a better investment these days than US Treasuries, which I'll get to momentarily). China's economy is still growing, though at a slower pace than last year, but is still expected to grow at a better than 8% clip this year, which will account for more than a quarter of global economic growth. So where better to make a profitable construction loan than in China?
As for Dubai, that country still has a significant amount of petro-dollars, though it too has seen slowing growth. Still, if nobody - including China - wants to loan money to the US government anymore, why should our own banks? Again, a loan to the Dubai government is likely a more profitable loan - and arguably a less risky one - than to the US. As for lending to consumers, please - US consumers don't even want to borrow right now. And making loans to them at a time when they're increasingly facing difficulty just meeting their monthly obligations, when unemployment is rising toward double-digits, is a bad decision for any bank.
So yeah, Congressman, I'd say making a loan that will actually MAKE MONEY for a US bank, enabling it to save jobs and provide the taxpayers a return on their largess, and contribute to positive income that can be taxed, is infinitely more stimulative than continuing to make bad loans here at home, which is precisely what got us into this predicament in the first place."
But they didn't ask me.
************
A final brief note on a somewhat related topic. The Employee Free Choice Act - the much-feared union bill - is being debated among lawmakers. Some see it as the worst possible legislation given the economic situation:
"In a time when we have an economy that's already struggling, we can't put more burdensome regulations on employers." - Sen. John Thune, S.D.
The bill's supporters pooh-pooh that risk:
"In 1935, we passed the Wagner Act that promoted unionization and allowed unions to flourish, and at the time we were at around 20% unemployment? So tell me again why we can't do this in a recession?" - Sen. Tom Harkin, IA
I'll tell you why, Tom. In 1935, we were about four years into the Depression. Then we passed the Wagner Act. And the Depression lasted another 6 years, until World War II began, AFTER which the economy began to recover. So if you want this downturn to last a decade, then yeah, this is a fine time to pass the bill. Otherwise, how about you turn your attention to something else - like that study that's earmarked in the omnibus bill, the one that will try to determine why pig poop stinks in your home state?
Especially this one, who's hardly up to the task.
Bernanke must have had some control over the questions asked, as most of them were softballs. On the ones that could have been pressed into a challenge, the interviewer failed to follow up where he could have. For example:
"When does this end?" (Referring to the current recession.)
"It depends a lot on the financial system. The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis ... until we get that stabilized and working normally, we're not gonna see recovery. But we do have a plan ..."
Follow-up opportunity: "Outstanding, Mr. Chairman! What is the plan?"
But that question never came. Of course, there is no cohesive plan at this juncture; Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner are following the same haphazard, "we'll figure out what to do when the next flashpoint fires up" approach taken by Bernanke and Geithner's predecessor, Hank Paulson. Geithner has been mum about Treasury's plans, in spite of President Obama's promise during his first press briefing that a "detailed" plan would be forthcoming the next day - much to the market's frustration.
So if the recovery depends on the plan to stabilize the financial system, there's no recovery on the horizon. They're just hoping it turns around at some point.
Bernanke finished that answer by saying, "... we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year." In answer to the follow-up question, whether we'd see the recession end this year (which would seem academic given his first answer), Bernanke replied, "In the sense that this decline will begin to moderate and we'll begin to see leveling off. We won't be back to full employment. But we will see, I hope, the end of these declines that have been so strong in the last couple of quarters."
Note the key phrase, "I hope." But two points are in order: first, the end of a recession does not come when the sharp declines ease. It comes when the economy stops declining, period. It does not come with leveling off, especially when the level we've hit is a very low one. It begins with reaching a point where year-over-year declines in key indicators turn into year-over-year gains, or at least reach the zero point. We haven't even hit bottom yet, and we're a long way from zero.
The second point is that this Fed Chairman famously said, just about a year ago, that the subprime contagion could be contained, and was unlikely to spill over into the broader economy. Here we are, a year later, in the deepest recession since the end of World War II. Should the American public actually trust Ben Bernanke's prognosticating skills? I think not.
The 60 Minutes crew should have put up footage of Bernanke making that claim last year, to show just how reliable his forecasts are. Heck, even Jon Stewart would have done that. Maybe Bernanke should go on The Daily Show. He probably doesn't have the cojones.
Most of the rest of his responses came back to the "if we fix the financial system, everything else will fall into place" pattern. And that should scare us, given that there is no plan to fix that system. True, by going massively into debt, we're running up long rates, which steepens the yield curve, which is a good recipe for banking profits - maybe sufficient to offset continued asset devaluations, which will only be exacerbated by higher yields. But I hardly think that's the master plan to salvage the banking system.
Regarding the decision not to save Lehman Brothers, Bernanke said it wasn't a mistake, because "we didn't have the option, we didn't have the tools. All the Federal Reserve can do is make loans against collateral."
Really? Then how did the Fed save Bear Stearns? AIG? Merrill? True, it did make loans in those instances. But it also brokered deals with acquirers. Barclay's wanted to acquire Lehman, but the Fed said "Let it fail." The Fed set up a fund to hold Bear's riskiest assets so that JPMorgan Chase wouldn't have to. And it has created vehicles to buy up mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, in an effort to create liquidity in those lending markets. So it would seem the Fed has whatever powers it wants to have.
As for the AIG bailout, now that it's been revealed that AIG paid billions to other banks - including foreign banks - out of the taxpayers' largess, and plans to pay millions in bonuses to the very derivatives desks that buried AIG eyeballs-deep in the credit default swap swamp that it couldn't ultimately get itself out of, everyone is angry, from you and me to President Obama. What's Bernanke's take?
"Of all the events and all of the things we've done in the last 18 months, the single one that makes me the angriest, that gives me the most angst, is the intervention with AIG." (emphasis added)
Me too, Ben, me too. So tell me, why are you still Fed Chairman? You presided over the AIG bailout, without asking where the money would go. You, Ben. So if you're looking for the object of your anger, look no further than the bathroom mirror. (Oh yeah, you did have help from your cracker-jack New York Fed Bank President - what was his name again?)
************
A quick note on the billions AIG paid to other banks. That seems to have made Congress and the administration quite angry. But let's think about it: AIG was bailed out because it had its tentacles deep in the international financial community, and the fear at the time was that if AIG failed, it would take down the global financial system with it.
So, if AIG subsequently paid its counterparties what they were due ... isn't that what we hoped to accomplish by bailing it out to begin with? So why the sudden hue and cry over AIG making good on its obligations? What did we want them to do with the money, enter into new deals?
************
On a related note, a couple more quick anecdotes. Hank Paulson's whiz-kid Neal Kashkarian, who was hired to oversee the TARP and who remains in place under Paulson's successor, Mr. Geithner, was testifying before Congress last week. He was being grilled by Rep. Dennis Kucinich about B of A and Citigroup having made loans - with TARP money - to a Chinese construction concern and the government of Dubai.
Kucinich asked Kashkarian whether the Treasury believed that it was more stimulative to the US economy to make those loans than to make loans to US businesses and consumers. Kashkarian stammered his way around the politically sensitive question. But I'd have taken a different approach. This would have been my answer:
"You'd better believe it is. What the banks need to do now is make profitable loans, not loans they're just going to lose money on. And let's face it, a construction loan in the US would be a likely money-loser right now. Construction spending year-over-year in this country is at a record low pace of -9.1%. And it's not just residential construction that's driving it down anymore; the pace of non-residential spending - which was the only salvation for total spending last year - has fallen out of bed since September.
China, on the other hand, still has cash to spend on infrastructure projects (which it has decided is a better investment these days than US Treasuries, which I'll get to momentarily). China's economy is still growing, though at a slower pace than last year, but is still expected to grow at a better than 8% clip this year, which will account for more than a quarter of global economic growth. So where better to make a profitable construction loan than in China?
As for Dubai, that country still has a significant amount of petro-dollars, though it too has seen slowing growth. Still, if nobody - including China - wants to loan money to the US government anymore, why should our own banks? Again, a loan to the Dubai government is likely a more profitable loan - and arguably a less risky one - than to the US. As for lending to consumers, please - US consumers don't even want to borrow right now. And making loans to them at a time when they're increasingly facing difficulty just meeting their monthly obligations, when unemployment is rising toward double-digits, is a bad decision for any bank.
So yeah, Congressman, I'd say making a loan that will actually MAKE MONEY for a US bank, enabling it to save jobs and provide the taxpayers a return on their largess, and contribute to positive income that can be taxed, is infinitely more stimulative than continuing to make bad loans here at home, which is precisely what got us into this predicament in the first place."
But they didn't ask me.
************
A final brief note on a somewhat related topic. The Employee Free Choice Act - the much-feared union bill - is being debated among lawmakers. Some see it as the worst possible legislation given the economic situation:
"In a time when we have an economy that's already struggling, we can't put more burdensome regulations on employers." - Sen. John Thune, S.D.
The bill's supporters pooh-pooh that risk:
"In 1935, we passed the Wagner Act that promoted unionization and allowed unions to flourish, and at the time we were at around 20% unemployment? So tell me again why we can't do this in a recession?" - Sen. Tom Harkin, IA
I'll tell you why, Tom. In 1935, we were about four years into the Depression. Then we passed the Wagner Act. And the Depression lasted another 6 years, until World War II began, AFTER which the economy began to recover. So if you want this downturn to last a decade, then yeah, this is a fine time to pass the bill. Otherwise, how about you turn your attention to something else - like that study that's earmarked in the omnibus bill, the one that will try to determine why pig poop stinks in your home state?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Cramer vs. Stewart
Not nearly as entertaining as the classic Dustin Hoffman/Meryl Streep film "Kramer vs. Kramer," but not as sad either. I'm referring, of course, to the recent skirmish between Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" and Bubblevision's loudmouth-in-chief, Jim Cramer of "Mad Money."
Let me first say that I'm a fan of neither of them - at least, for what they try to be. I am a fan of both for what they are.
Stewart first. He's a comedian. He's not a political pundit. He himself said it best: he's at his best making fart noises and funny faces. Political commentary, let alone market commentary, just isn't his long suit.
To wit: this whole escapade started with Stewart's incensed reaction to Rick Santelli's recent rant about having a "Chicago Tea Party," in protest of the housing bailout.
After Robert Gibbs (can you say worst press secretary ever?) stated that Santelli doesn't know what he's talking about, Stewart repeated that, and took it a step further.
Let me first take a quick detour: Rick Santelli has forgotten more about economics and finance than Gibbs and Stewart combined will ever know (and you can throw in President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and Sens. Dodd, Frank and Waters for good measure). Santelli is a former interest rate derivatives trader - as am I. Trust me, it's not a layman's game.
Anyway, Stewie didn't like the notion that Santelli didn't like Stewie's favorite president's latest bailout plan. So he went after CNBC.
Now, readers of this space know that I'm no fan of Bubblevision. So it was entertaining to me that Stewart went after them. He threw up one example after another of bad calls they've made over the last year, then followed them up with the facts. And Lord knows they've made their fair share of bad calls. That's to be expected; we're in a bear market, and CNBC's advertisers make money off of bull markets. So CNBC gets paid handsomely to talk the bullish talk. If I had a buck for every time they've called a bottom to this market over the last year or so, I could retire.
But some of Stewart's examples made the point that CNBC was saying this company or that was in good shape, when in fact, if you watched the clips, they were interviewing company management, who was saying the company was in good shape, and they simply reported that. I recall watching David Faber grill then-Bear CEO Alan Schwartz, just days before Bear collapsed. Faber was hitting Schwartz hard, and the latter was clearly flummoxed, stammering that Bear had adequate liquidity, to which I wanted to invoke the classic Eddie Murphy line from "Beverly Hills Cop" (British version below):
"You were lyin' your arse off!"
But, what was Faber supposed to do, say that? Call Schwartz on it? No, all a journalist can do at that point is say, "There you have it, folks - according to Bear Stearns' CEO, they don't have a liquidity problem." Then it's up to the market to judge for itself - which it did.
Now, a Stewart could probably call a Schwartz a liar. But that's because (A) Stewart's a comedian, not a journalist, and (B) for that very reason, an Alan Schwartz wouldn't give a Jon Stewart the time of day.
So anyway, one of Stewart's targets is Cramer. Now, let me turn my attention to him. Cramer once ran a hedge fund. And if he'd been any good at it, he'd be at it still. Why?
Because when Cramer ran his fund, the rule of pay for hedge fund managers was "one and twenty" - a 1% management fee, and 20% of the fund's gains. More recently (until last year brought hedge fund redemptions en masse, which brought the funds to their knees), the rule was expanded to "two and twenty."
For a decent-sized fund, that kind of coin would far eclipse what Cramer could make pitching stocks on TV.
Yeah, he has an impressive knowledge of every obscure stock his callers ask him about - so impressive, in fact, that it's obvious the calls are pre-screened, so his staff can bone him up on the stocks in question.
His "boo-yahs," cute sound effects and theatrics are a sideshow. It truly is "Mad Money," but it ain't smart money (you want that, tune in here - my recommendations have beaten the snot out of Cramer's over the last year).
So these two duking it out is about as enthralling for students of the market as Tonya Harding going toe-to-toe with Nancy Kerrigan. Just not very exciting stuff.
************
Gotta take another swipe at Warren Buffett. I read the other day that Berkshire Hathaway's stock got downgraded by Fitch because of:
"Potential losses from derivatives."
Now, in and of itself, that's not such a big deal, compared to concerns like, oh, AIG for instance.
But I immediately recalled Mr. Buffett's 2004 letter to Berkshire's shareholders, in which he made the following statements:
"Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction."
"Derivatives generate reported earnings that are often wildly overstated and based on estimates whose inaccuracy may not be exposed for many years."
"Large amounts of risk have become concentrated in the hands of relatively few derivatives dealers ... which can trigger serious systemic problems."
Buffett also likened the derivatives market to hell: "Easy to enter and almost impossible to exit," and he said that some contracts appeared to have been devised by "madmen."
So, were I a Berkshire shareholder, my question would be:
"So, Mr. Buffett, having so eloquently and ominously warned us against the dangers of derivatives, why, pray tell, did you choose to expose us to them?"
Tomorrow, I take on "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke on "60 Minutes."
Let me first say that I'm a fan of neither of them - at least, for what they try to be. I am a fan of both for what they are.
Stewart first. He's a comedian. He's not a political pundit. He himself said it best: he's at his best making fart noises and funny faces. Political commentary, let alone market commentary, just isn't his long suit.
To wit: this whole escapade started with Stewart's incensed reaction to Rick Santelli's recent rant about having a "Chicago Tea Party," in protest of the housing bailout.
After Robert Gibbs (can you say worst press secretary ever?) stated that Santelli doesn't know what he's talking about, Stewart repeated that, and took it a step further.
Let me first take a quick detour: Rick Santelli has forgotten more about economics and finance than Gibbs and Stewart combined will ever know (and you can throw in President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and Sens. Dodd, Frank and Waters for good measure). Santelli is a former interest rate derivatives trader - as am I. Trust me, it's not a layman's game.
Anyway, Stewie didn't like the notion that Santelli didn't like Stewie's favorite president's latest bailout plan. So he went after CNBC.
Now, readers of this space know that I'm no fan of Bubblevision. So it was entertaining to me that Stewart went after them. He threw up one example after another of bad calls they've made over the last year, then followed them up with the facts. And Lord knows they've made their fair share of bad calls. That's to be expected; we're in a bear market, and CNBC's advertisers make money off of bull markets. So CNBC gets paid handsomely to talk the bullish talk. If I had a buck for every time they've called a bottom to this market over the last year or so, I could retire.
But some of Stewart's examples made the point that CNBC was saying this company or that was in good shape, when in fact, if you watched the clips, they were interviewing company management, who was saying the company was in good shape, and they simply reported that. I recall watching David Faber grill then-Bear CEO Alan Schwartz, just days before Bear collapsed. Faber was hitting Schwartz hard, and the latter was clearly flummoxed, stammering that Bear had adequate liquidity, to which I wanted to invoke the classic Eddie Murphy line from "Beverly Hills Cop" (British version below):
"You were lyin' your arse off!"
But, what was Faber supposed to do, say that? Call Schwartz on it? No, all a journalist can do at that point is say, "There you have it, folks - according to Bear Stearns' CEO, they don't have a liquidity problem." Then it's up to the market to judge for itself - which it did.
Now, a Stewart could probably call a Schwartz a liar. But that's because (A) Stewart's a comedian, not a journalist, and (B) for that very reason, an Alan Schwartz wouldn't give a Jon Stewart the time of day.
So anyway, one of Stewart's targets is Cramer. Now, let me turn my attention to him. Cramer once ran a hedge fund. And if he'd been any good at it, he'd be at it still. Why?
Because when Cramer ran his fund, the rule of pay for hedge fund managers was "one and twenty" - a 1% management fee, and 20% of the fund's gains. More recently (until last year brought hedge fund redemptions en masse, which brought the funds to their knees), the rule was expanded to "two and twenty."
For a decent-sized fund, that kind of coin would far eclipse what Cramer could make pitching stocks on TV.
Yeah, he has an impressive knowledge of every obscure stock his callers ask him about - so impressive, in fact, that it's obvious the calls are pre-screened, so his staff can bone him up on the stocks in question.
His "boo-yahs," cute sound effects and theatrics are a sideshow. It truly is "Mad Money," but it ain't smart money (you want that, tune in here - my recommendations have beaten the snot out of Cramer's over the last year).
So these two duking it out is about as enthralling for students of the market as Tonya Harding going toe-to-toe with Nancy Kerrigan. Just not very exciting stuff.
************
Gotta take another swipe at Warren Buffett. I read the other day that Berkshire Hathaway's stock got downgraded by Fitch because of:
"Potential losses from derivatives."
Now, in and of itself, that's not such a big deal, compared to concerns like, oh, AIG for instance.
But I immediately recalled Mr. Buffett's 2004 letter to Berkshire's shareholders, in which he made the following statements:
"Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction."
"Derivatives generate reported earnings that are often wildly overstated and based on estimates whose inaccuracy may not be exposed for many years."
"Large amounts of risk have become concentrated in the hands of relatively few derivatives dealers ... which can trigger serious systemic problems."
Buffett also likened the derivatives market to hell: "Easy to enter and almost impossible to exit," and he said that some contracts appeared to have been devised by "madmen."
So, were I a Berkshire shareholder, my question would be:
"So, Mr. Buffett, having so eloquently and ominously warned us against the dangers of derivatives, why, pray tell, did you choose to expose us to them?"
Tomorrow, I take on "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke on "60 Minutes."
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