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kausfiles.comApril 19, 2010 3:00 PM Steven Malanga on "How public sector unions broke California". ... Which brings us to today's press release. ... 3:04 P.M. ___________________________  April 18, 2010 1:40 PM "Mighty Morphin'" mogul Haim Saban's mysterious $2 million loan to the California Dem party boss' bring-back-gerrymandering initiative was intended to save Rep. Howard Berman from an eventual primary challenge from a Latino Democrat, says Dan Morain. ... 3:08 P.M. ___________________________ Convention Report: This weekend was the state Democratic Party convention--the one where they wouldn't let me speak. I went anyway. I wrote the most provocative leaflet I could (I'll post it soon) but people persisted in being nice, and many seemed to read it. Even a few guys in union jackets. I had some heated arguments. About a dozen people dramatically handed the leaflet back. Only a couple of people walked away saying they were disgusted. All good. Several conventiongoers said what Democrats of child-rearing age often say--roughly, "I disagree with everything in here except the part about the teachers' unions. They're awful." You have to wonder if these unions' leaders know just how despised they are. In general, the big-deal party assembly seemed smaller and more insular than I'd expected. And my expectations were that it would seem small and insular! Party chair John Burton looked like he'd just stumbled in off of Telegraph Avenue. (But the afterparties were good.) Saturday, I went to a Boxer's press conference. A friend had said I should try it: "You might get thrown out of that!" But I assured the senator's press secretary I wouldn't say anything. I'm not Kanye West. Boxer came over to say hello, we shook hands, exchanged pleasantries. The reporters thought I should have made at least some sort of scene, if I knew what was good for me--and I would have if I'd seen a way to do it without being a jerk. But it's also nice to have some civility. In fact, one good thing about campaigning is it makes you be polite to everyone on an equal basis. Everyone's a potential vote--old, young, friendly, crabby. After two days in full Polite and Respectful Mode I realized something: I'd addressed every single woman as "M'am." They weren't offended! Which made me think that the famous Boxer video snip is more devastating to her than I'd thought. (Various women friends had told me how all women will identify with Boxer because they don't like to be called "M'am." In a bar, or even a grocery store checkout line, maybe. In a formal respectful setting like a convention-or a Congressional hearing--no.) CalBuzz notes that the clip had become a metaphor for Boxer’s arrogance and sense of entitlement after 18 years in office, amid the worst political atmosphere for arrogant, entitled incumbent Democrats in a generation. It's also a metaphor for disrespectful ignorance of military culture, where "Sir" and "M'am" is the norm. And lack of an intuitive social egalitarian streak! And hair-trigger insecurity! That in the fetid culture of Capitol Hill Senators and Congressmen are routinely jerks to the people who testify before them--if you don't suck up to them they make you, if you dare contradict them they go crazy--isn't an excuse. Now imagine the "M'am" clip run over and over again in Republican TV ads during the general election. Goodbye? You'd think a conspicuous, abject apology from Boxer might neutralize the Doomsday threat. But you'd also think it would have happened already. P.S.: When I was on RedEye, Greg Gutfeld said my campaign slogan should be "You can call me 'M'am.' I don't mind!" ... . 2:10 P.M. ___________________________ April 15, 2010 3:15 PM Nothing new, anyway. And they missed some stuff! ... Also: Alter, WTF? .... 3:21 P.M. ___________________________ April 15, 2010 12:00 AM Had a highly enjoyable interview on the John Batchelor Show. You can listen here. (My segment starts around 17:55). ... I especially draw your attention to S.F. Chronicle reporter Joe Garofoli's comments on the role of organized labor in the state Democratic party (confirming the item immediately below). ... 1:49 P.M. ___________________________ Sponsors, or Owners? Here are the sponsors of this weekend's California Democratic Party convention. ... And they say unions dominate the party! ... I count 18 union sponsors, 7 professional associations or lobbies, three Indian tribes (gambling), two trade associations, two regulated utilities, and Oracle. ... 12:23 A.M. ___________________________ My interview with Jonathan Rowe of KWMR (West Marin County) will be rebroadcast today, Thursday, at 11 A.M. Pacific--can be heard then here. ... 1) Rowe, a good liberal Democrat, does not seem happy with the effect the teachers' union is having on his local school. Seniority rules seem to be resulting, as they often do, in the most valuable, younger teachers being laid off. Older teachers, near retirement, are reluctant to take even a small pay cut in order to avoid layoffs, because their pensions are based on their final years' pay. .... But Rowe has a good idea for a compromise that would make for more rational layoffs: Instead of designating some worse-then-average teachers as layoff bait, while leaving the rest to be ranked by seniority--which was my suggestion--allow principals to designate one or two teachers as "franchise" players to be protected from layoffs despite their low seniority. ... That seems like a more palatable compromise, because it's easier to put people on a good list than on a bad list. ... 2) Rowe brings up what he calls the "Kuttner problem," meaning the argument that "Sure he Democratic party's constituency groups are often a problem, but, hey, they provide the money and manpower to fuel the liberal agenda." ... I've never liked that argument, but it's especially weak now that the problems caused by the Dem constituencies seem to be coming to a head, in the form of governments actually bankrupted by union wage and pension gains, school systems destroyed, as democratic class-mixing instutions, by entrenched, mediocre teachers, unskilled workers unable to take advantage of a recovery, should one come, because any recovery is accompanied by a new influx of low-wage, unskilled competitors from across the border, tolerated if not actively encouraged in the hope of pleasing the Democrats' Latino constituency. ... You might even say that we've reached the stage where the biggest obstacles to achieving the liberal agenda (especially now that health care reform has passed) are the obstacles created by these liberal constituencies themselves ... 12:47 A.M. _____________________________ Don't look at this. ... 1:11 A.M. _____________________________ April 13, 2010 4:45 PM The justifiably insecure, labor-dominated California Democratic party elite clings to its gerrymandering--or tries to. .... Hollywood money man and "Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger" mogul Haim Saban embarrasses himself by reversing field and financing an effort to repeal California's just-passed redistricting reform. ... The Kaus for Senate campaign comments. ... 4:53 P.M. ___________________________ Bloggingheads founder Bob Wright, runner-up for the Pulitzer! ... The judges say the winning book, David Hoffman's The Dead Hand, is ... "well-documented." OK! Wright's book is well-written! Also provocative. And funny. (Not just funny-for-a-book-about-religion funny.) ... 8:32 P.M. ____________________________ April 11, 2010 9:35 PM "Hispanics skeptical that Obama, Democrats will deliver immigration overhaul." Gee, I wonder why! ... At this point, it's pretty clear any immigration bill that includes a path to legalization is not going to pass before the November mid-term, after which it will probably get even less likely to pass (if Republicans make substantial gains). Democrats are cynically raising hopes of amnesty to maintain Latino turnout. The only question, it seems to me, is how far down the chain the cynicism runs. Do David Axelrod and Chuck Schumer seriously think amnesty is going to happen this year? That's hard to believe. What about Frank 'My opponents must be racists' Sharry, loser in the 2007 immigration debate? I'm not so sure. (Here's a recent unconvincing Sharry piece. You make the call.) What about Congressional amnesty champions like Rep. Luis Gutierrez? At the non-elite end of the political hierarchy, of course, the people marching in the streets for amnesty aren't necessarily calibrating its prospects. They want it and they are trying to make it a reality. Fair enough. But at some point maybe Democrats should stop leading them on and start telling them the truth: It's not going to happen anytime soon. That would not only allow them to plan their lives. It would also have the salutary effect of discouraging a surge of additional illegal immigration** should the job market start to recover. Maybe that's what some Democrats are afraid of. ... Update: Mark Krikorian has a more comprehensive take, reaching a similar conclusion. He notes a split in the pro-legalization coalition, with labor unions finally, justifiably rebelling against guest-worker ("indenture") provisions favored by businesses. You'd think labor would win that one without causing the business lobby to give up and go home. (Even non-indentured immigrants are likely provide cheaper labor than a tight labor market would.) The larger question is why unions would support a legalization bill even without the "indenture" provisions. What is it about lower wages they don't understand? ... __________ **--A new surge might be powered by the hope of getting in under the "amnesty" wire, something that is more realistic than you might think, even for immigrants who don't want to lie about when they got here, if a) Congress takes a few months to pass the law and b) the law puts the "cutoff" date as close to the date of passage as the last, failed piece of legislation did. ... 9:27 P.M. ___________________________ The Big Flip: Sure Government Work Pays More, But Private Sector Work is Less Alienating! It used to be that government--"public service"--work paid less but was more secure. Now, it's often pointed out, government work is more secure and also pays more. But Michael Barone doesn't stop there. He suggests that the role reversal is complete, in that private work--at least in a healthy economy--is now more soul-satisfying, maybe even less "alienating" (to use the Marxist word I heard and used most frequently in college) than government work. We get such satisfaction when we believe the work we are doing -- in workplaces and in community activities and voluntary associations -- is serving interests broader than our own. We're making use of our talents, as great or limited as they may be, to make a contribution to society. It's hard to get that kind of satisfaction in this kind of economy. My relatives in Michigan, the nation's No. 1 unemployment state, tell me a phrase they often hear is "At least I've got a job." Not a satisfying job, not one that it makes full use of their talents and interests, not one that provides a sense of earned success. Just a job, a source of income. The kind of job in which you keep looking at the clock, counting the time before you can leave, counting the hours until the weekend comes. The economy we enjoyed between 1983, when the Reagan tax cuts kicked in, and 2007, when the housing market collapsed, provided many more jobs in which people could gain such satisfaction. You could make a living as a master carpenter, as an actor or as a sewer of quilts because steady economic growth and low inflation meant expanded markets for custom goods. You could do work you really wanted to do. You didn't have to settle for a data entry or bolt-attaching job. The economy we have now doesn't do that. ... [snip] We've already lost 8 million private sector jobs but no public sector jobs. We'll probably create more public sector jobs. Yes, many public sector jobs provide a real service to society and a sense of earned success. But too many don't. Civil service rules, brittle organizational structures and public employee union contracts tend to stifle innovation and deter creativity. 1) Barone's right to point out that one of the great downsides of the current recession isn't just the economistic, dollars and cents, earnings loss, but the loss of the creative work possibilities that come with a tight private-sector labor market, when the bosses aren't in the saddle; 2) He's also right about the soul-killing qualities of civil service and union rules. When I left the federal government to work at a small entrepreneurial magazine (Washington Monthly) during the Carter era, the new freedom was shocking and exhilarating. If you wanted to do something, you could ... do it! Who knew? 3) But I'm still not buying the proposition that in general private sector work gives a more satisfying sense of "making a contribution to society." Journalists and writers have a warped viewpoint: Until recently it wasn't hard to get a paying job where you felt you were helping propagate useful truths. Even lawyers have the satisfaction of knowing their clients really need them. But most people, I think, still look at the clock. If they take satisfaction in their work, it's the meta-satisfaction of feeding a family, or building up an organization, or charting a career--never mind what the organization or career does. Meanwhile, even teachers in hidebound, union-addled public schools seem to feel they are "serving broader interests than [their] own." The point is rather that without labor-induced sclerosis, they'd actually be serving those interests much more effectively. With a tight-labor market, meanwhile, not only would private sector workers lose their new, perverse, second-class economic status, they'd at least have a better shot at finding more satisfying work. (The greatest threat to a tight labor market, at least at the bottom, should the economy recover? A new wave of unskilled, undocumented workers! And they say I'm not on message.) 12:51 A.M. ___________________________ April 11, 2010 12:50 AM The Kaus for Senate campaign journeys to the frontiers of Web interactivity to bring you today's poll question. ... Note: There is a right answer, which will be revealed in due course. ...
12:56 A.M. ___________________________ April 7, 2010 11:00 PM My friend J. on why she hates pre-screening candidates for "viability": It means we're always going to get the same person. Exactly. ...The incumbent will always be the "viable" one, in the eyes of the party bosses. ... The fancy Marxist word for it is "reification"--the false assumption that the way things are now is the way they will always be. ... If you disagree with the California Democratic Party's decision to apply an amorphous "viability" test to deny candidates like ... well, me, a chance to even be heard at the party convention, please email CDP Executive Director Shawnda Westly to inform her of your views. Her email is Thanks ... 11:06 P.M. ___________________________________________________ April 6, 2010 11:55 AM According to the Philadelphia Inquirer: New Jersey's public employee labor unions, long seen as a potent political force and often depicted as an 800-pound gorilla looming over the Statehouse, are running short of friends in Trenton. Gone is Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who regularly sided with unions. In his place stands Gov. Christie, a Republican who has sharply criticized labor's influence, leadership, and benefits. Public labor unions have found no refuge among Democrats, their traditional allies. Democratic labor leaders in the Legislature have been among the most vocal supporters of cuts to government benefits, saying taxpayers can no longer afford the perks. Coming soon to a Pacific Coast state near you. ... But why should it have to take a Republican statewide victory to get politicians who can tell public employee unions "no"? .... [via Newsalert] 12:05 P.M. ___________________________ April 5, 2010 11:40 PM SacBee's Dan Morain (in a nice item) says I'm "not delusional." It's a start! ... No Papoon jokes, please. ... 11:46 P.M. ___________________________ How the 1950s-style Unionism Helped Kill the NUMMI Factory: A powerful This American Life episode on NUMMI, the joint GM-Toyota auto factory in Fremont, California contains multiple indictments of the UAW and Wagner Act unionism. Act 1) The grievance-oriented adversarial culture ("Everything was a fight") helps the GM Fremont plant become one of the worst in the country; 2) Toyota installs a cooperative system that trusts workers, but asks them to pitch in where necessary (without work rules that say you shouldn't do someone else's job, etc.). The factory is transformed--the same grizzled UAW workers who used to install engines backwards--led by a few enlightened union officials--build excellent cars by giving up the old adversarial culture. Some assemblers visit dealers in their spare time just to admire what they've built; 3) Other UAW plants resist, however--including GM's Van Nuys Camaro factory. Negotiated seniority rules are threatened when workers have to pitch in doing a variety of jobs--and it's considered traitorous to actually cooperate with managers. UAW members elect militant, anti-teamwork leaders. Van Nuys continues building crappy cars and closes, costing 2,600 jobs; 4) The rest of GM--its corporate bureaucracy as well as the UAW--resists the NUMMI teamwork approach as well, despite its proven superiority. It takes 25 years for GM to adopt Japanese-style in any serious way in the U.S. (vs. a couple of years in Brazil). Too little, too late. When GM goes bankrupt, it drags the still-productive NUMMI plant down with it. ...4,700 Californians lose their jobs. ... Taxpayers get stuck with the $50 billion bailout bill. ... Why would Barbara Boxer want to bend the rules of democracy to make it easier for unions to organize factories even when workers--like the Americans assembling Hondas in Ohio--would reject a union in a secret ballot? Does she really think what the economy needs is "more UAW"? ... P.S.: One false note in the American Life story comes when the narrator sneers at GM's Saturn division for making cars that were "better marketed than built." The original Saturn factory--which also dispensed with many old-style work rules--built very reliable cars, and did it without NUMMI's advantage of using Toyota parts. Saturn was killed in quite premeditated fashion by UAW leader Stephen Yokich with the cooperation of threatened GM bureaucrats--a tale told in some detail in Paul Ingrassia's recent book, Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster. ... 2:14 A.M. ___________________________ John Cook needs your help! Gawker hasn't dropped its Kaus Oppo Project after all. A few friends of mine have just received a variation on the following email: My name is John Cook, and I'm a reporter for Gawker. I'm writing to see if you have a minute to talk about Mickey Kaus. I'm preparing an oppo research dossier on him to make him feel like a real-live Senate candidate, since Barbara Boxer surely won't bother to attempt to destroy him. It's kind of a gag, but I'm going through the motions for kicks. More background here: 'There's always something,' John. But you'll never get it just "going through the motions"! You have to be serious about these things. Please help the half-hearted Mr. Cook out by sending him your Mickey Kaus horror stories. He's john@gawker.com . ... 11:57 P.M. ___________________________ April 5, 2010 1:55 AM The Trouble With "Local Control": Ruben Navarrette of the San Diego Union-Trib argues that, for all the high-profile rhetoric from President Obama and his education secretary about getting rid of bad teachers--talk that's agitated the National Education Association--the fine print of the administration's proposed No Child Left Behind revisions puts the unions back in the driver's seat by "rolling back the involvement of the federal government in favor of more local control": You remember local control. That's the governing principle that essentially handed the power over the system to teachers unions because they contribute so much money to the campaigns of labor-friendly school board members. The unions in turn put the job security of their members ahead of the educational well-being of students, and thus helped put our public schools in bad shape. You see, local control isn't the solution; it's one of the problems. I've been arguing that the national Democratic party is less beholden to the unions than our state Democratic party. That's true. But it still may be a little like arguing that the Mark Sanford is less creepy than John Edwards. ... 1:02 A.M. ___________________________ April 5, 2010 12:00 AM A suprise mystery guest on the Ricochet podcast tells me the bitter truth. (It comes after the 55 minute mark.) ... 6:55 P.M. Teachers' unions = layoff by seniority. In average districts, that just means losing lots of good teachers, instead of losing the least effective teachers. But in big cities like New York, where there's been an influx of young, idealistic Teach for America types, it's a tragedy. The best get laid off while mediocre ed school graduates from the 70s teach your children. ... What if you tried to run a baseball team and had to lay off by seniority as opposed to performance? ... P.S.: It's not as if school districts have to choose between layoffs-entirely-by-seniority and layoffs-entirely-by-merit. It would be easy to devise a system in which everyone who was an "OK" teacher got laid off by seniority, but the worst 10% got laid off first. But that deal would never be negotiated because today's teachers' unions (unlike the old self-disciplining 'professional' teachers' unions) seem to exist to protect the worst 10%. ... 7:05 P.M. More on Unions--The Too Little, Too Late Problem: Even when unions eventually agree to necessary concessions, the tooth-pulling process of negotiation often results in a fix that's too little, too late--and that cuts only the minimum necessary, leaving no margin for error or unforeseen events (like recessions). ... Taxpayers who have followed the fortunes of General Motors and Chrysler are all too familiar with this phenomenon. But the same thing has happened in Los Angeles--where the city kept giving raises and adding jobs even as a recession loomed. When the downturn hit and revenues dropped, it took a year to negotiate cuts with the municipal unions. Now the city is up against it, facing the prospect of huge abrupt job cuts--and proposing a 28% utility rate hike to milk extra revenue from hard-pressed residents. ... Phil Willon reports. ... 7:23 P.M. April 2, 2010 2:00 PM
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Kaus for Senate
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