Category: Current Events

On Political Moderation

I know very little about the intricacies of the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.  I do know one thing:  Obamacare was approved in the US Senate by a vote of 60-39.  Every single Democratic senator voted for the bill.  Every single vote against the bill was cast by a Republican.  https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00396  (Republican senator Jim Bunning did not vote.)

I also know very little about the intricacies of the American Health Care Act, colloquially known as Trumpcare.  As things currently stand, the bill will receive zero votes from Democratic senators.  If the bill is to become law, it will happen based solely (in the Senate) on votes by Republican senators.

Without commenting on the merits and demerits of Obamacare, Trumpcare, or any other potential national health care system, I am confident in exclaiming that enacting significant legislation related to health care along strict party lines is stupid.  STUPID!

The country is not split on strict party lines.  The country is moderate.  Current polling from Gallup indicates that 30% of Americans consider themselves Democrats, that 26% consider themselves Republicans, and that 42% consider themselves independent.[1]   http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx  Gallup polling from a year ago was essentially the same:  28% Democratic, 28% Republican, 42% Independent.

Unfortunately, voting does not reflect this independence.  Below are the votes cast in congressional races since 2000.

Republicans Democrats Other
2016 63,173,815 61,776,554 3,623,561
2014 40,081,282 35,624,357 2,498,286
2012 58,228,253 59,645,531 4,243,456
2010 44,827,441 38,980,192 2,849,460
2008 52,249,491 65,237,840 4,934,468
2006 35,857,334 42,338,795 2,658,668
2004 55,958,144 52,969,786 4,139,261
2002 37,332,552 33,795,885 3,414,165
2000 46,992,383 46,585,167 4,959,610
Total 434,700,695 436,954,107 33,320,935
48.03% 48.28% 3.68%

Even though 42% of Americans consider themselves independent, fewer than 4% of the votes in congressional races are cast for candidates who aren’t either Republican or Democratic.  And the situation is even worse if you consider the winners.

Republicans Democrats Other
2016 241 194 0
2014 247 188 0
2012 234 201 0
2010 242 193 0
2008 178 257 0
2006 202 233 0
2004 232 202 1
2002 229 205 1
2000 221 212 2
Total 2,026 1,885 4
51.75% 48.15% 0.10%

Thus, 42% of Americans are independent, but only 4% of votes are cast for independent candidates.  And those votes managed to elect only four Independents to the House of Representatives, barely one tenth of one percent of the members elected in the last nine elections.

The picture is slightly better in the Senate, where 4.5% of votes have been cast for independents.

Republicans Democrats Other
2016 40,402,790 51,496,682 3,492,180
2014 24,631,488 20,875,493 2,047,814
2012 39,130,984 49,998,693 3,743,446
2010 32,680,704 29,110,733 4,078,235
2008 28,863,067 33,650,061 2,625,551
2006 25,437,934 32,344,708 2,889,132
2004 39,920,562 44,754,618 3,302,332
2002 20,626,192 18,956,449 1,979,132
2000 36,725,431 36,780,875 4,410,378
Total 288,419,152 317,968,312 28,568,201
45.42% 50.08% 4.50%

Alas, only 2% of Senators are putative independents.  I say “putative” because Senators Lieberman, Sanders, and King associate with the Democratic Party rather than with the Republican Party or a third party.

Republicans Democrats Other
2016 52 46 2
2014 54 44 2
2012 45 53 2
2010 47 51 2
2008 41 57 2
2006 49 49 2
2004 55 44 1
2002 51 48 1
2000 50 50 0
Total 444 442 14
49.33% 49.11% 1.56%

The total votes and the total seats are roughly equivalent for the two parties that duopolize the political process in this country.  The political leadership in the country is essentially split between Republicans and Democrats.  Accordingly, there is no reason for either party to think that any short-term virtual monopoly on the legislative process – based on control of the Senate, the House, and the Presidency – will be long-lived.  History suggests that it won’t.

History also suggests that if, say, the Democrats have the short-term ability to impose a health care system along strict party lines, Republicans will devote considerable effort to impair that system and will, as soon as they are able, repeal that system.  Similarly, if the Republicans impose their will and repeal and replace Obamacare, the Democrats will devote considerable effort to impair the new system and will, as soon as they are able, repeal that system.

None of this is good for the country.  I would suggest that the parties don’t care.  They care more about their party than about finding long-term solutions that are supported by a broad swathe of the republic.  They would rather force-feed a political solution that is compatible with their ideology.

A better path would be to craft solidly bipartisan legislation that would be more likely to provide a long-term solution and less likely to inspire the ire of the other party.  Below is a proposal that might help ensure that legislation is bipartisan.  It could be used whenever our national legislature is crafting broad policy implicating a long-term national issue, like health care, tax reform, or massive infrastructure funding.

  1. The Senate Majority Leader selects 25 senators that do not belong to his or her party.
  2. The Senate Minority Leader selects 35 senators that do not belong to his or her party.
  3. That group of 60 senators crafts legislation that at least 51 of them support.

Quixotic?  No doubt.  But such a process would ensure that the influence of Senators inhabiting the far left and the far right would be minimized.  It would result in legislation that would necessarily be more moderate than either party would propose and enact on its own.  It would lead to more legislation that reflects the predominant moderateness of the country, instead of rewarding hard-core partisans.  It would result in long-term solutions that are less likely to turn into political footballs at subsequent elections, allowing us to focus on real issues, not politics.

I harbor no illusions that any such process will be adopted.  It would diminish the power of people who currently possess much power.  They would never allow that because they care more about themselves and their party than they care about their country.  But I continue to hope that our leaders will adopt the principles of moderation that a plurality of the country embraces instead of continuing to engage in the rancorous partisanship that is currently crippling Washington.  I remain a moderate idealist.

[1] I consider myself independent, though I am a registered Republican because the last primary in which I voted was a Republican primary.

American Exceptionalism

The current denizen of the White House is the most exceptional President in our country’s history.  To be clear, I am using the primary definition of the word (unusual), not the secondary definition (unusually good).  http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exceptional  President Trump is uniquely devoid of political experience.  He is unconcerned with being consistent, which might not be the worst thing.  See Ralph Waldo Emerson, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”  See also, Oscar Wilde, who said that “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  President Trump was the star of a reality TV show, a presidential first.  (Please let it be a last.)

President Trump is certainly the first president to play a feature role in a professional wrestling event.  Here is a clip of Donald Trump beating and then shaving Vince McMahon.  http://www.wwe.com/videos/playlists/donald-trump-greatest-wwe-moments [1]  And, of course, President Trump makes extensive use of Twitter.  Given that the 272-word Gettysburg Address is one of the greatest speeches in American history, I believe Abraham Lincoln would have used Twitter extremely effectively.[2]

I could likely go on all day and half of the night.  Instead, I will briefly explain that three recent events that we consider exceptional are not.

First event[3] is that President Trump appears unusually thin-skinned, especially for one so prolific at insulting others.[4]  “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it” comes to mind.  But he is hardly our first President who prickled when insulted.  In Robert Morris:  Financier of the American Revolution, author Charles Rappleye writes that the first President “was particularly susceptible to the barbs directed his way.”  According to Rappleye, “political attacks pierced straight to that dark core of [Washington’s] spirit which gave an air of gravitas to everything he did.”

This description unintentionally highlights a sharp contrast between our first and our current president.  The former had gravitas from leading the army during the brutal War of Independence, which included risking the hangman’s noose for treason.  Among the greatest challenges faced by Donald Trump was getting by on a $450,000 per month allowance as a condition for renewing his loans in the early 1990s.  http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/26/business/quick-who-d-have-trouble-living-on-450000-a-month.html  President Trump’s gravitas appears more fabricated than earned.[5]

The second event is that Washington and Trump indisputably have one thing in common:  each was depicted or described as headless by a political “commentator.”  Kathy Griffin recently and infamously held up a fake decapitated head of Donald Trump.  If you want to see it, here is the link.  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40108959  Less well known is a broadside by Philip Freneau, which was written during the French Revolution and described the death of Washington and Supreme Court Justice James Wilson by guillotine.  https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-15-02-0125 [6] Even though Freneau worked as a translating clerk for the Department of State, he did not lose his job.  His patron, Thomas Jefferson, at the time Washington’s Secretary of State, protected him.[7]

The third event is that there is broad consensus that the Russian government meddled in our most recent presidential election.  The efficacy of that meddling remains unknown and may never be known – there is no control group – but there is little doubt that the Russians wanted to assist Donald Trump.

Intervention by a foreign government on behalf of a presidential candidate happened at least one other time in our country.  Revolutionary France favored Republican Thomas Jefferson, who has ardently pro-France[8] to the pro-English Federalist John Adams.  Despite considerable efforts, France was unable to help Jefferson win, though he did become his staunch rival’s Vice President.  Although their opinions of each other softened through the years, at the time Adams and Jefferson were as friendly to one another as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now.  Imagine if she were his Vice-president.

If our President is exceptional, so is our country.  Below are a few examples.  I’m sure there are many more.

Countries that have not officially adopted the metric system:  Liberia, Myanmar, United States.

Countries that measure temperature according to the Fahrenheit scale:  Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Palau, United States.

Countries that use the “MM/DD/YYYY” date format:  Belize, Micronesia, United States.

Countries that had not adopted the Paris Accords:  Nicaragua, Syria, United States.

Countries whose paper currency is all the same size and without distinguishing tactile features:  United States.[9]

American Exceptionalism:  not what you expecting.[10]   

 

 

[1] A tribute to President Trump’s imagination is his embrace of the doctored WWE video, which shows him body slamming CNN.  I found it hilarious, if not particularly presidential.  http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/02/video-trump-body-slams-cnn-in-wwe-tweet/

[2] You can follow notesfromnokomis on Twitter @notefromnokomis.  I just noticed that when I set it up in May 2015, I forgot an “s”.  Rats.  Now that I’m up to four followers, I should start tweeting more than once every 2.2 years.

[3] I would have preferred to use numbers, but doing that caused all sorts of unwanted formatting issues in Word Press.

[4] Rabbit holes everywhere.  “Prolific” is used with various prepositions:  48% “in”, 10% “of”, 8% “with”, 6% “for”, 5% “at”, 4% “on”, 3% “during”, 2% “as”, and 1% each “from”, “throughout”, “since”, “over”, “inside”, “across”, “around”, “among” and “after”.  The numbers do not add up to 100%.  Don’t sue me, sue the source:  https://lingohelp.me/preposition-after-adjective/prolific-in-of-with-for-at/.

[5] To be fair, Washington was not without affectations.  For instance, he wore his army uniform to meetings of the Continental Congress prior to being named commander of the army to remind people of his military experience.

[6] I searched online, futilely, for a copy of the entire The Funeral Dirge of George Washington and James Wilson, King and Judge.

[7] Jefferson’s relationship with Freneau is rather well known.  He gave Freneau a job as a translator, though Freneau’s French was less fluent than Jefferson’s, to provide an income so that Freneau could publish the rabidly anti-Federalist National Gazette. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-20-02-0374-0001  

[8] Jefferson’s love for France led to the introduction of that most American of foods:  the French fry.  http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/08/are-french-fries-truly-french/ For that, I will always be most grateful.

[9] I’m not suggesting that we should adopt the metric system or the Paris Accords.  I’m merely pointing out that by not doing so, we are unusual.

[10] According to Wikipedia, “American exceptionalism is one of three related ideas. The first is that the history of the United States is inherently different from that of other nations.[2] In this view, American exceptionalism stems from the American Revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called “the first new nation”[3] and developing the uniquely American ideology of “Americanism“, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as “American exceptionalism.”[4] Second is the idea that the U.S. has a unique mission to transform the world. Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address (1863), that Americans have a duty to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Third is the sense that the United States’ history and mission gives it a superiority over other nations.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

Misery Index 2017

Approximately a year ago,[1] I introduced the highly anticipated (by me) Misery Index, designed to assess how anguished various cities are (or should be) based on the performance of their professional sports teams.  I made several disclaimers, which still apply.[2]   The most important things to remember are that this is just for fun, the numbers aren’t precise, and the overall concept may not even be accurate – though I think it’s reasonable.

One obvious issue with my “analysis” is that it is city based.  Some cities have multiple teams in a single sport – Angels/Dodgers, Giants/Jets.  That the Cubs won the most recent World Series is good for Cubs fans and good for Chicago (according to the Misery Index), but might actually have added to the misery of some White Sox fans, not detracted from it.  There are too many combinations for me to consider them all, so I focused on cities with more than one professional team.[3]  I made that decision in part because I live in a sea of Cleveland fans, who were in the midst of a decades-long championship drought, which mercifully ended.

Four more championships have been contested since the Cavs won.  The Chicago Cubs, New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Golden State Warriors won the last four major league championships.  Those cities are not miserable and they weren’t before.  They have all won multiple championships in the last 20 years and are now the four least miserable cities in the country according to my hyper-sophisticated algorithm.

The Misery Index is available below.  It is based solely on the number and recency of professional sports championships.  I express no opinion about the air quality, traffic, education system, or any other characteristic of the cities on the list.

Column 1 is the city (pretty obvious) with the number of franchises in that city from 1950 through 2017.

Column 2 is the total number of championships won by that city.

Column 3 is the number of years since the last championship.

Column 4 is the cumulative seasons since the last championshiop.

Column 5 is a composite of columns 2, 3, & 4.

City Total Since Cum. Index
San Diego (4) 1 55 110 102
Buffalo (3) 2 52 106 95
Vancouver (2) 0 46 52 94
Milwaukee (3) 2 45 90 90
Atlanta (4) 1 19 78 87
Arizona/Phoenix (4) 1 16 64 83
Nashville/Tennessee (2) 0 18 38 83
Washington (6) 4 26 91 82
Cincinnati (3) 3 28 56 80
Minneaplis/Minnesota (5) 5 26 104 80
Brooklyn (2) 1 63 7 76
Houston (4) 4 23 61 74
Charlotte/Carolina (3) 1 12 36 72
Tampa (3) 2 13 48 72
Toronto (4) 7 22 66 69
New Jersey (2) 3 15 29 61
New Orleans (3) 1 7 13 58
Montreal (2) 18 25 37 54
Indianapolis (2) 4 11 22 53
Philadelphia (5) 8 8 32 45
Seattle (4) 2 3 7 44
Detroit (4) 15 9 36 44
Dallas/Texas (6) 8 6 24 41
St. Louis (5) 7 5 14 39
Miami/Florida (4) 7 4 16 38
Kansas City (4) 3 1 3 34
New York (8) 33 5 35 33
Denver/Colorado (4) 5 1 6 31
Baltimore (4) 8 4 7 31
Cleveland (3) 5 1 3 28
Los Angeles (9) 22 4 17 28
San Francisco (3) 8 2 5 26
Chicago (7) 14 0 3 14
Oakland (3) 9 0 0 12
Pittsburgh (3) 14 0 0 11
Boston/New England (5) 28 0 2 8

San Diego has won one championship (in the AFL) in the last 55 years.[4]  It has been 110 cumulative seasons since that shining moment.  Their football team recently packed up and moved to Los Angeles, joining the basketball Clippers, who left San Diego in 1984.[5]  San Diego’s professional sports misery is well-earned, matched (perhaps) only by Cleveland’s as the Browns were leaving town.

Buffalo isn’t far behind, with two AFL championships and a mere 106 cumulative seasons since the last one.  Because they have lake-effect weather, they are probably actually more miserable than residents of San Diego, but my system does not account for weather.

A championship-free Vancouver is third.  And the baseball Braves-propelled Milwaukee and Atlanta are fourth and fifth.  Buffalo also had a Braves team – in the NBA.

These five cities were among the six most miserable in my first rankings.  The Cavaliers win vaulted Cleveland well into the ranks of the non-miserable.  As proof that my system is reasonable, I can attest that there was no angst this year when the Cavs lost in the NBA finals.  Cleveland fans are no longer miserable, unless the only team they root for is the Browns.  Another big riser is Pittsburgh, whose consecutive Stanley Cup victories jumped them from 13th to 2nd (in non-misery).

Boston retained the top spot thanks to the Patriots adding another Super Bowl championship.  Oakland, Chicago, and San Francisco rounded out the first top five and remain in this top five as well.  It’s much harder to move down than to move up.  Long droughts can end suddenly, but they take time to accumulate.  Just ask the fine folks in Buffalo and San Diego whose misery has been building relentlessly year after year.  If they remain without a recent championship, Buffalo is destined to pass San Diego, which now has only one team.

Expect another update in about a year.

[1] June 9, 2016 at 10:06 p.m. to be exact

[2] The disclaimers are available at https://www.notesfromnokomis.com/?p=482 .

[3] My own favorite teams in the four major leagues are illustrative:  Boston Red Sox and Celtics, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Cowboys.

[4] The American Football League existed as an independent entity with its own championship for six years from 1960-1965.  It remained independent for the next four years.  During that time, its playoff winner played the playoff winner of the National Football League in the Super Bowl for the championship of professional football.  In 1970, the leagues merged.

[5] If you are unusually knowledgeable or nerdy (I am the latter), you don’t need me to tell you that the Chargers spent their first year in the AFL in Los Angeles.  So their recent move is a homecoming of sorts – just don’t tell that to San Diegans.

President Trump

So much has been said and written about our current president that it borders on bizarre to think that an arm-chair analyst from my arm chair could add meaningfully to the subject.  Nevertheless, because writing about a topic helps me organize my thoughts, I’m going to forge ahead.

A lot of people voted for Donald Trump, enough for him to become our President.  They voted as they did for a variety of reasons, but largely it was pure politics[1] – he was the Republican nominee and a person that Republicans hate was the Democratic nominee.  It was an easy choice for most Republicans.[2]  Actually, they didn’t really have a choice – it was the brash Republican with a penchant for bullying and belittling or it was their dread enemy.

It is difficult to find objective observers.  Most liberals and Democrats reflexively decry and abhor almost anything that President Trump does or says.  Most conservatives and Republicans reflexively defend and affirm almost anything that President Trump does or says.  More’s the pity.

Whatever you thought about the politics of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, you likely considered them to be decent men.  Certainly they approached the Presidency from different angles, different backgrounds, and with different goals and communication styles.  But they also approached it with respect for the office and treated the office, their staff, their friends, and their political opponents (in the main) with respect and dignity.

It is a shame that the same cannot be said for President Trump.  He was born into an affluent family in New York, perhaps on second base, not third base like George Herbert Walker Bush and any number of Kennedys.  He has enjoyed so much of what our country has to offer.  Why hasn’t he learned to treat the truth and people like the precious treasures they are.  It is even more unfortunate that he now is able to treat great swathes of the republic with the same abrasive bluster that had hitherto been reserved for restauranteurs and subcontractors with the temerity to demand payment for services rendered.

Why does our President insist on spreading untruths?  About crowd size?  About how many illegal votes were cast?  About “tapes?”  About the electoral college?  He actually said that the electoral college makes it almost impossible for the Democrats to lose?  That’s absurd and like many seeming facts that Donald Trump utters is utterly disconnected from reality.

Since 2016, Republican presidential candidates are 1-0; since 2012, they are 1-1; since 2008, they are 1-2.  I’ll save words and just show the winning record of Republican presidential candidates after each election going back to1960:  2-2, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 5-4, 6-4, 6-5, 7-5, 8-5, 8-6, 8-7.  And the two wins before that were by Republican Dwight Eisenhower.  It’s not impossible for Republicans to win, it’s likely.

But that doesn’t fit President Trump’s principal narrative, which is that he is singularly amazing.  Every time he speaks of himself or his companies or his ideas, the only adjectives are superlatively good – best (almost anything), great (the wall), most beautiful (cake, yes he brags about cake).  Every time he speaks about the Democrats or anyone who has ever been less than fawning about him, the adjectives are superlatively bad – worst (almost anything), horrible (treaties), catastrophic (Obamacare).

A couple of days ago, I witnessed the most outrageous display of servility in the history of the United States.  In praising the President, his cabinet appeared eager to out-obsequious Uriah Heep while a beaming Donald Trump looked on approvingly.[3]  It should embarrass all Americans to think that their President enjoys, perhaps needs, that kind of flattery.

The best recent example of President Trump creating his own reality is his trumpeting of the testimony of James Comey as “vindication.”  He thinks that because Comey said four or five things that corroborate something he (President Trump) said that he was vindicated.  Obviously he was overlooking everything else that Comey said, including that the President had lied about this or that.  He ignored hours of testimony he didn’t like and cherry picked the few things that suited his fancy.  Sadly, it should surprise no one.

President Trump has a serious credibility problem.  Sure, the people who would vote for him even if he stood in the middle of 5th Avenue and shot somebody continue to believe.  But all other reasonable people seriously doubt almost anything he says.  It’s not because they are against him, it’s because he says so many things that are not grounded in the truth.[4]  Instead of expecting the rest of us to believe his untruths, he should ensure that what he is saying is actually true or he should stop talking.  If he could do either of those things (which is incredibly unlikely), he would find that there would be many fewer complaints about him and that his agenda would have a greater chance of success.

[1] There is nothing inherently wrong with politics – though I’m not a fan of the undue power our two main parties exert over the political process.

[2] It was an easy choice for me too because I could not countenance voting for either the Republican or the Democratic candidate – I punted.

[3] The only person who escaped the room with any credits in his personal dignity account was General Mattis.

[4] If he didn’t assert that the inauguration crowd was the biggest ever, nobody would be able to complain about the untruth.  If he didn’t say the Electoral College made it almost impossible for a Republican to win, nobody would be able to complain about that claim.  If he didn’t mention “tapes,” nobody would be talking about tapes.  These are self-inflicted wounds, which can be blamed on no one other than President Trump.

Lecture by the author of “Evicted”

A while back I mentioned the book Evicted, stating “It is extremely well written and it describes a world that most middle class Americans are unfamiliar with:  a world of want, a world of existential worry, an underworld in the midst of our land of plenty.  Though nonfiction, the book reads like a novel with compelling highly flawed characters.  The book concludes with a prescription for solving the problems so eloquently conveyed by its author Matthew Desmond.  If you care about our country, you should read this book.”

I stand by what I said, but I should have said more.  And now I have the chance because I saw Desmond speak earlier this week.  He explained a few of the vignettes from the book, assisted by photos on a backscreen that also displayed him larger than life.  He spoke for 45 minutes without notes, alternating between being riveting and merely highly engaging.  One key takeaway that he repeated and accentuated is that although most people think poverty causes eviction, often it’s the other way around:  eviction causes poverty.  His research (beyond what is in the book) suggests that people who are evicted almost always end up in a worse situation.

He stated that poor people who rent spend an undue amount of their income on housing, often more than 50%.  They have few good options, especially if they have a prior eviction, which is an irreparable blot on their record.  They end up spending nearly as much as a more affluent person would (for a similar sized apartment), though inevitably for a worse apartment (often not really habitable), in a worse neighborhood.  But they have to sleep somewhere.  Those with children have even fewer options because many landlords (not unfairly) consider kids a threat to the well-being of their property.

Desmond argued that a home, whether house or apartment, is a basic human need that effects many other fundamental needs.  He proposes a governmental subsidy that would ensure that poor people would pay no more than 30% of their income for housing.  He estimates that the cost would be approximately $22 billion per year.  That’s a lot of money and some might suggest that the poor don’t deserve such largesse.  If you are one of those people, Desmond considers you incredibly short-sighted.  His research indicates that people without stable housing are:

  • less likely to find or hold on to a job,
  • less likely to attend school, let alone excel,
  • likely to spend so much on housing that they can’t afford food, clothing, or health care, and
  • more likely to commit crimes.

Desmond concluded by suggesting that those who complain that $22 billion for a housing subsidy for the chronically poor is too much money are obviously unaware that the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes homeowners by approximately $170 billion annually.  Yes, as a country, we consider it worth $170 billion a year to subsidize the housing of people with enough income to borrow money to purchase a house.  But we currently don’t think it is worth $22 billion to help the chronically poor secure stable housing – even though not doing so causes even more problems whose cost is inexorably borne by society.  It’s a modern version of let them eat cake.[1]

 

 

 

[1] “Let them eat cake” is commonly attributed to Marie-Antoinette, in response to being told that the poor people of France did not have enough bread to eat.  Modern sources concur that there is no evidence that she ever uttered the words or anything like them.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau included the quote, attributed to “a great princess,” in Confessions, which was written around 1767, approximately three years before a 15-year old Marie-Antoinette left her native Austria to marry the King of France. https://www.britannica.com/demystified/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake  The modern equivalent would be for a famous real estate baron (no names please) to say “they should buy a house,” upon being told that poor people can’t afford rent.

The Fiduciary Rule

The implementation of the Fiduciary Rule has been delayed as the Trump administration studies it.  The part of the Fiduciary Rule that requires advisors to act in their client’s best interest would be great for investors.  It’s suitability for financial professionals is much less salutary.

Currently a financial professional is held to a rather mediocre standard.  Their advice about investments is considered appropriate as long as the investment meets their client’s “defined need and objective.”  Such investments are considered “suitable.”   http://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/   The standard sounds pretty good until you consider that it allows financial professionals to consider their own interests when providing advice.

There are hundreds of diversified mutual funds and exchange traded funds that invest in the US stock market.  Most of them are “suitable” for you if your objective is to invest in the US stock market.  Given the vastly different cost structures among the funds, some are more suited to your financial health than others.  That is where the current allowed disconnect between your goals and your advisor’s goals can hurt you.

Most funds are no-load, meaning that they do not charge an up-front sales fee, but many funds charge fees, often from 3-5%, but as high as 8.5%.  Assume that two people invest $10,000 in funds that buy substantially similar stocks.  At the end of the transaction, the no-load investor would have $10,000 invested in the stock market and the other investor would have $9,150 invested.  I know which person I would rather be.  http://www.fool.com/school/mutualfunds/costs/loads.htm   For an argument suggesting that load funds can be better than no-load funds in the abstract, see https://www.thebalance.com/no-load-vs-load-funds-2466715.

Moreover, ongoing management fees effect costs at least as much as load charges.  A quick screen on schwab.com reveals that there are 125 mutual funds that invest in large capitalization value stocks that are rated four or five stars by Morningstar.[1]  The annual management fees average 1.07%, but range from .26% to 1.96%.   Remember that these funds all invest in approximately the same value-oriented stocks of large cap US companies.  The funds are, of course, not exactly the same, but they are similar in profile.  For simplicity’s sake, I will assume that the funds stay flat except for fees.  At the end of five years the fund with the cheaper fee would have declined to $9,871, not great (obviously) but not bad given that stocks didn’t move.  The other fund would have declined to $9,058.  Ouch.  Fees matter.

The dollars that pay the fees don’t simply disappear from your account, they go somewhere.  That somewhere is to your financial advisor or the company he or she works for.  They hate the Fiduciary Rule because it would prevent them from purchasing funds that charge a high load (which goes to them) when a substantially similar fund with a lower load or fee structure is available.  Paying more fees is rarely in your best interest, though it is often in your advisor’s.[2]

There are various aspects of the Fiduciary Rule that are arguably good or bad.  It depends in large part on your perspective.  I am not aware of any investor advocacy groups that are against the Fiduciary Rule, whereas virtually the entire financial services industry is against the rule.  There are likely sound reasons not to adopt the Fiduciary Rule, to delay it, or to modify it.  But forcing advisors to consider the fees their clients pay when making investment decisions is an overwhelmingly good reason to implement the rule.  Advisors should not be required to be perfect, but they should act in their clients’ best interest, not their own.[3]

[1] A four or five-star rating means that after assessing risk, return, consistency, and other factors, Morningstar considers the fund to be in the top third of its peers.  http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/morningstarriskrating.asp

[2] I suspect that a significant majority of advisors act ethically and would not recommend funds that have higher loads or fees solely because they have a higher load or fee.  But some advisors are almost certainly tempted beyond their ability to resist.  The rule would have little impact on ethical advisors even as it severely curtailed the excesses of unethical advisors.  That strikes me as a good thing.

[3] Teaser alert (if you read endnotes), I’m working on a post about another group of people that should be held to a higher standard.  This post was supposed to be a one-paragraph prelude, instead it is a one-post prelude.

 

Nuclear Weaponry (of a sort)

Nuclear weapons are often invoked and, fortunately, rarely used.  They are in the news in two different venues these days.  I’ll ignore the whack-job dictator of North Korea and his penchant for threatening to use nukes and will instead focus on the US Senate and its version of a nuclear arsenal.  The so-called nuclear option is anything but — at least I don’t think it threatens the existence of the republic.

The US Senate, formerly lovingly and currently mockingly referred to as the greatest deliberative body in the world, was open to unrestrained debate until 1917.  But in that time there were very few filibusters.[1]  According to a Washington Post article, “between 1840 and 1900, there were 16 filibusters.”[2]  That seems about right.  Every once in a while a momentous issue demands unlimited discussion.[3]  www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/is-the-filibuster-unconstitutional/2012/05/15/gIQAYLp7QU_blog.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.021830de08ed

Despite its relative nonuse, the filibuster became embedded in the culture of the Senate, based on the belief that “any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.”  https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm

Like many other governmental structures in this country, the filibuster has its roots in ancient Rome.  The Roman Senate had a rule that all business before it must be concluded by the end of the day.  A long-winded senator could inadvertently speak so long that dusk and the motion under consideration fell.  Cato the Younger started purposely speaking until nightfall to forestall certain initiatives of Julius Caesar.  Thus was born the intentional filibuster.

It’s a quaint notion, one that reason and experience show to be utterly without merit.  Have you heard a senator speak recently?  When was the last time a senator said anything that made you sit up and take notice, that excited you about the prospects of senatorial action, that made you think that particular senator had something to say that wasn’t clouded over with partisanship?  I’m not going to say it never happens, just that it is a preciously rare occurrence.

The original filibuster was a test of endurance.  The person wishing to extend debate had to, you know, debate.  How picturesque.  The best known use of a filibuster occurred in a fictional setting.  You should watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to see the toll an actual filibuster exacts.  It will help you appreciate and respect practitioners of a true filibuster.  Alas, our actual senators are made of less stern stuff.  They apparently decided that, even for them, talking on and on is not worth the effort, hence the virtual filibuster.  Senators can now check a box and reap the benefits of the filibuster without expending any energy or missing any bathroom breaks.  Senators can now debate without limit without debating.

Our nation would be better served by a rule that prevents senators from speaking than one that allows them to speak without limit.  We should let them negotiate among themselves and with the executive branch and the house, let them investigate executive overreach, let them vote, let them do any number of other things, and we should require them to spare us the partisan gibber-jabber.  Surely I jest, but a man can dream, can’t he.

There are limits on filibusters, decency is one, but the most important is cloture.  In 1917, the Senate tired of its own self-administered straitjacket inhibiting the passage of legislation and adopted Rule 22.  The rule allows the Senate to end debate.  Initially, it took 66 senators to invoke cloture, but at least debate could be restricted.  Now the rule allows 60 votes to close debate – unless the leaders of the Senate decide to allow fewer votes to close debate.

The leaders did just that in November 2013, when the Harry Reid-led Democrats decided that enough was enough.  They voted 52-48 to end a filibuster of President Obama’s various executive and judicial nominees.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster That nuclear blast did not exterminate the republic, but it opened the door to more.  Talk about foregone conclusions.[4]

Recently, senate Democrats stated that they just didn’t know enough about Neil Gorsuch to vote on him.  Poppycock.  They didn’t want more debate they wanted less Gorsuch.  This time Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided that enough was enough and the Republican-controlled Senate voted to end the filibuster by a simple majority vote.  Gorsuch now sits on the highest court in the land and the republic still stands.

The rule that “requires” the Senate to act by a super-majority of 60 votes leavens the political process by forcing legislation or nominees closer to the center.  The party in the majority would accommodate enough moderates in the other party to reach 60 votes.  That no longer works because there aren’t many moderates left, the parties vigorously enforce orthodoxy, and the spirit of compromise has left the Capitol.

Every step away from a moderate position emboldens the politicians more.  Mitch McConnell recently stated, after Gorsuch was confirmed, that he felt vindicated.  If by “vindicated,” he means “I used partisan maneuvers to my advantage and I won,” then he should feel vindicated.  But did the country win?

Leave aside Gorsuch because no single nominee matters all that much in the long term.  What McConnell did was really quite shameful.  He refused to hold hearings, which, as far as I can tell, is one of the few things the Senate is any good at.  He refused to schedule a vote on a duly nominated candidate for the US Supreme Court.  He should realize that that will make it easier for the Democrats to do the same thing to a Republican nominee in the future.  He should have scheduled hearings and a vote.  Then the Republicans could have voted against the nominee and we would be where we are, but we would have arrived with integrity and respect for the process.

I like the filibuster rule, but it has become too easy.  The minority party can simply check a box and the majority party can sit on a nominee.  Neither of these positions advances the spirit or the letter of senatorial conduct.  Instead, we should demand that Senators engaging in a filibuster stand up and talk until they exhaust themselves.  We should demand that Senate leaders schedule votes on properly presented nominees.  We should demand that they stop playing all these reindeer games.

The so-called nuclear option, which is a rule change that enables the Senate to act based on a majority vote, does not strike me as unduly explosive.  But continuing to engage in partisan legerdemain will continue widening the wedge between the parties.  That will likely ultimately yield ruinous consequences.  As both the Bible (Mark 3:25) and Abraham Lincoln (June 16, 1858) assert, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

[1] The filibuster is a parliamentary procedure that allows debate on a matter to be extended.  The practical import is that a vote on the matter under discussion can be delayed or, in extreme cases, prevented.

[2] Also according to the article, the first filibuster took place 50 years after the ratification of the Constitution.

[3] Conversely, in 2009-10, there were 130 filibusters.

[4] Nominally, it still takes 60 votes to pass legislation.  But it’s just a matter of time before that barrier is breached.

 

First Do No Harm

Dream Land – The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones is an outstanding book.  It should be required reading for every politician, doctor, and government bureaucrat in the country.  It tells a sad maddening tale of a drug crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, a crisis that didn’t have to happen.

The topic is engaging, the writing direct and compelling, and the lessons to be drawn significant and applicable to fields far beyond drug abuse.  The story flits between Mexico and the United States, between drug runners and medical doctors, from California to Ohio and places in between.  The book is exceptional.  Read it.

Humans are inherently selfish and, in moderation, that’s not a bad thing.  Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” guides economic activity as people (and countries) gravitate toward their competitive advantage.  But the invisible hand also applies to illegal markets.  In a small province in Mexico, that competitive advantage is a surplus of opium and labor.  It turns out that among the competitive advantages of the United States is an abundance of money and greed.  (Who knew?)  A basic theme of the book is that our doctors and pharmaceutical companies primed the pump, creating many addicts who were ripe for a cheap fix, providing perfect entre for the Xalisco Boys.

The tale begins, almost fictionally, with a short letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, published on January 10, 1980.  Graduate student Jane Porter and Doctor Hershel Jick submitted a one-paragraph letter which concluded “despite widespread use of narcotic drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.”  And then the law of unintended consequences took over.

The letter was referenced again and again – over 900 times in scholarly papers.   http://www.businessinsider.com/porter-and-jick-letter-launched-the-opioid-epidemic-2016-5 It became de rigueur for doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, although there is no evidence that any of them ever read it.  To wit, it was referred to as “an extensive study,” “a landmark study,” and “a landmark report.”  It never purported to be any of those things and it wasn’t.  It was a simple letter based on observations in a controlled setting.  Still the letter helped spawn an entire industry: pain.

Doctors began treating pain, the so-called fifth vital sign, aggressively, and increasingly with opiates, despite residual reservations (held over from medical school) about the addictive power of opium-based products.  Even the best and most cautious doctors were worn down by colleagues and pharmaceutical companies who continually touted the Jink letter.  Despite strong reasons to believe otherwise, the gospel that “opiates are not addictive” spread throughout the medical community.

And the law of unintended consequences kicked in again.  Lesser doctors, unscrupulous even, opened pain centers, liberally dispensing OxyContin and similar drugs.  These doctors regularly failed to conduct true medical evaluations.  Among the worst of the breed, one doctor routinely saw patients for as little as 90 seconds, once prescribing 46,000 controlled substance prescriptions in nine months.  It boggles the mind, as does the money generated.  Most of the prescriptions required a doctor’s visit at $250, cash only please.  Often the drugs were then dispensed at the doctor’s office for $200 or so, again cash only.

The ready availability of the prescription drugs, primarily OxyContin, attracted drug addicts, not just those in pain.  Pain can be properly and appropriately treated with opiates, but the pill mill doctors were anything but proper and appropriate.  And addicts never are.  Because they could get more pills prescribed than they needed for their fix, they began using the pills as currency.  The street value was roughly $1 per milligram.  A single 80 milligram pill of OxyContin had street value of $80, making the prescription’s costs seem reasonable.

People drove addicts to and from doctor’s appointments, fronting the money for the visit and the drugs in return for half of the pills.  That was a good economic investment, if a moral catastrophe.  $450 invested per visit (see above) garnered $1,200 worth of pills (15 pills times $80 each).  And the drivers were not limiting themselves to one prescription run per day.  People able to procure a medicaid card received a bonus windfall as the cost of the drugs dropped to $3 for the co-pay.  With profit margins like that, it’s not surprising that many poor and desperate people succumbed to temptation — or that given the abundance of Oxy available, more people began using.

People also began dying from Oxy overdoses, enough deaths to attract the attention of police and others.  As pressure was brought to bear, Oxy prescriptions started to decline and become harder to get.  This chagrined Purdue Pharma, which continued to espouse the non-addictive nature of OxyContin right up until they paid a fine in excess of $600 million for misbranding.  And then, amazingly, things got even worse.

With so many long-time heroin addicts and newly-minted Oxy addicts searching for a fix, the path had been paved for the Xalisco Boys.  They sold black tar heroin.  They sold cheap, under $15 a fix; they sold conveniently, basically by delivering it to the addict; they sold without violence, none of them carried weapons; they sold honestly, all of them were on salary and subject to be returned to Mexico for any insubordination; they sold pure unadulterated heroin, which was much more potent and deadly than the powder more conventionally available.  And overdose deaths skyrocketed.  Approximately 47,000 people died in the United States from drug overdoses in 2014.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/07/us/drug-overdose-deaths-in-the-us.html?_r=0

The trajectory from a one-paragraph letter to 47,000 annual deaths is a true trail of tears, one that I hope we never repeat.  As I read the book, I was screaming (on the inside) “read the letter, don’t just refer to it.”  We (all humans) have a tendency to accept what we hear or read from an expert at face value.  We shouldn’t, unless they have proven reliable in the past.  Just because somebody, however expert, once said something, doesn’t mean it was true then.  And it most certainly doesn’t mean it is true now given how rapidly circumstances change.

I can’t help wondering what other solitary paragraphs are out there lurking as virtual time bombs waiting to cause another explosive crisis.  Who knows?  But we must all be more skeptical of everything we read – not just when the other (political) team is doing the writing.

It dismays me that so many doctors were not careful enough to double check what they were being told.  It infuriates me that some doctors went out of their way to “create a narrative so [primary care doctors] would feel more comfort about opioids in a way they hadn’t before.”  Dr. Russell Portenoy, Dream Land, p. 309.  Portenoy had financial ties to several drug companies at the time he was encouraging the use of more opiates.  He has conditionally recanted, stating that based on current standards, he had provided misinformation.  https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/12/doctor-who-encouraged-wider-use-opioid-painkillers-having-second-thoughts   Based on what I read in the book, Portenoy provided misinformation according to any standard you might choose to impose.

Why didn’t more doctors question the extensive use of opioids sooner?  We might never know.  I hope they are more distrustful the next time a time-honored and proven precept is so egregiously flouted.  I hope we all are.

One final reminder – read Dream Land.  It’s well worth the money and the time.

March Madness = Gambling

In college, I had a friend who infuriated me by insisting that all words be conclusively defined.  I considered constantly defining words obstructive; it certainly slowed down a discussion.  After law school and twenty plus years as a lawyer, I am now fully in Roger’s camp.  Words must be defined in order to have a constructive discussion.

Today’s, this week’s, this month’s word is “gambling.”  The standard dictionary definition of “gambling” is to play a game of chance for money.  http://www.dictionary.com/browse/gambling  It’s pretty straight forward.  No need to define any of the words in the definition, they are common words used according to our common understanding of them.

In case you aren’t a basketball fan, the reason “gambling” is the word of the day and the week and the month is because of the (men’s) NCAA Basketball Tournament.  It starts Thursday, despite the NCAA’s insipid insistence on scheduling play-in games on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it has become a national event.[1]  Some of you may recall that the NCAA tournament used to play second fiddle to the NIT (National Invitational Tournament), which the NCAA supplanted and then purchased.

Last year, approximately $9 billion was gambled on the tournament.  For comparison purposes, consider that roughly $4.2 billion was bet on the 2016 Super Bowl.    http://www.bettingsports.com/biggest-events-to-bet-on According to The Sporting News, The American Gaming Association estimates that approximately $10.4 billion will be on the line during this year’s tournament.   http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-2017-record-amount-illegal-betting-office-pools/1an4gu7kt7gkt179p9ivcaszlv

There are many different games of chance associated with the tournament.  I have a friend who runs a survivor pool.  You pick a team to win on day one.  If they win, you advance, and select another team on day two.  You cannot select a team more than once.  I selected West Virginia to win on day one.

Another friend runs a traditional bracket pool.  You predict the winner of all 63 games in the tournament,[2] from day one through the championship. You accrue points based on the round.  A typical format allots one point for a correct first round prediction and doubles the per-game allotment for each round.  That means that each round is worth the same amount of points – because the points double, but the games halve.  There are 32 games in the first round worth one point each; there are two semifinal games, each worth 16 points.  It’s hard to win if you don’t get the 32 points from selecting the champion.  I’m counting on Kansas to run the table.

Another friend used to run a variant of the traditional bracket pool.  That pool awarded points based on the seed of the team and the round.  If a 1-seed won its first-round game (and no 1-seed has every lost its first-round game), it earned one point – 1 times 1, the seed times the round.  If an 11-seed won a first round game it was worth 11 points – 1 times 11, the seed times the round.  An 11-seed winning a third round game was a bonanza:  33 points.  Unfortunately that pool no longer exists, but it was fun while it lasted.

I have a friend who usually joins an auction pool.  Each team in the tournament is “purchased” in an auction.  Points are accrued, not unlike a traditional bracket pool.  A first round victory is worth 1/32nd (because there are 32 games) of 1/6 (because there are six rounds) of the total pool.  A second round win is worth 1/16 of 1/6 of the total pool.  Dominant teams have gone for several hundred dollars.  That probably won’t happen this year because there is no consensus powerhouse.

There are also pools based on points scored by players.  In one version, players are acquired in a draft.  Eight participants each draft eight players for a total of 64 players, providing nice symmetry with the tournament.  Another version allows each participant to select 10 players (total) from ten different seeds, meaning only one player from among the four 1-seeds, one from among the four 2-seeds, etc.

There are many other ways to gamble on the games, including betting on the winner at a sports book.  By far the most common way to bet on the tournament is to fill out a bracket, which the American Gambling Association estimates 40 million of us will do.  The AGA also estimates that 97% of the $10 billion or so that will be bet this year, will be wagered illegally.  We are a nation of scofflaws.[3]  Enjoy the games and the games

[1] Would it be crazy to propose that the Thursday and Friday afternoons of the tournament be combined to form a national holiday?  So much productivity is lost anyway that we might as well make it official.

[2] The formula to determine the number of games in any single elimination tournament is N – 1.  Thus, a 64-team tournament will have 63 games.  Because of the play-in games, there are officially 68 teams in the tournament, meaning that 67 games will be played.

[3] To close the circle (sort of), a “scofflaw” is a person who flouts the law, especially a law that is difficult to enforce.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scofflaw Arresting all of us for betting in a brackets pool might be slightly easier than arresting every driver who exceeds the speed limit.  After all, the tournament only happens once a year.

On Naming Public Buildings

The renaming Calhoun College incident got me thinking about something that has troubled me for years:  naming things for politicians.  The thing might be a building, it might be an airport, it might be a bridge or a highway or an intersection, or really just about anything.

In the private sector, things are named for a substantial donor.  Colleges are especially prone to sell naming rights and it can get a little goofy.  For instance, naming a room within a named wing of a named building, which is part of a named complex.  And then of course, the piano or books in the room might have been donated and have a commemorative label.  Enough already.  (Disclaimer:  I have never donated enough to have a room or building named after me, but there are a couple of bricks somewhere indicating that my family donated to this or that project.)

I understand the business of naming rights.  It is at its core a bargained-for transaction.  I may not always agree about the economics,[1] but fundamentally it is a commercial transaction.  Even so, everything we name for a person, family, or company should have a sunset provision.  The naming rights should lapse.  Professional sports teams figured this out with naming rights to their stadiums.  It’s time for the public sector to get on board.  Naming rights should be an ongoing income stream, not a one-time windfall.

The Lincoln Center has also figured this out.  They received a substantial donation ($57 million in today’s dollars) and renamed the former Philharmonic Hall the Avery Fisher Hall.  Years later the center considered changing the name of Avery Fisher Hall to accommodate a new donor, but didn’t make a change after the Fisher family threatened to sue.  The need for money, however, did not diminish.  The hall is now named David Geffen Hall, after he donated $100 million,[2] $15 million of which went to the Fisher family in appreciation for their connivance in the name change.  https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/arts/music/lincoln-center-to-rename-avery-fisher-hall.html?_r=0

Money talks.  So does history.  There is nothing inappropriate about honoring in perpetuity a person like George Washington, who was our first president and the General of the Army that won the American Revolutionary War.  At the same time, there is no reason to honor in perpetuity a person who might already be little remembered.  I’m thinking here of various state buildings in Ohio, named for James Rhodes, Vern Riffe, and Thomas Moyer.  I do not question whether they are due some honor, only whether we should confer it forever.  Worse yet, we sometimes name buildings for people who subsequently prove themselves unworthy of the honor.  This happened at Ohio State, where a hotel is named for Roger Blackwell, who was jailed for insider trading infractions.  (To be clear, The Blackwell was named in large part based on a sizable donation.)

Significant public buildings should be named for the institution they house, not an elected official who worked there (or somewhere else) temporarily.  Among the four largest public buildings in downtown Columbus are the Vern Riffe State Office Tower, the Franklin County Court House, the Rhodes Office Tower, and the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center.  Only one of these buildings is appropriately named.  Hint:  it’s the one not named for a person.  Public buildings should be named for their historical or current use, not for some elected official.

If political friends insist on naming a building after a politician, which they will, we should require the name to lapse.  After ten years or twenty or fifty, the name should void and the proper authorities can rename it.  Perhaps they will honor a different worthy person, perhaps they will reward the highest bidder.  Perhaps in fifty years the people of Ohio will still consider Riffe or Rhodes or Moyer worth honoring with a named building.  But I doubt it.  By then there will be someone else worthy of the honor, not necessarily more worthy, but more immediate.

Let’s be fair, even now, when Ohio is full of people who knew them, it might be difficult to find someone who could tell you why any of these three men has a building named for him.  Doing something extraordinary, like winning the Revolutionary War or writing the Declaration of Independence, is worthy of forever, being the longest-serving speaker in the history of the Ohio House of Representatives is worthy of something, but not forever.  Wasn’t he just doing the job we elected him to do?  Didn’t we pay him for his public service?

Obviously, I don’t think a person must have written the Declaration of Independence to have a building named after him or her.  Cities and towns should appropriately honor their favorite sons and daughters.  But significant public buildings, for instance the one housing the Supreme Court of Ohio, should never have a name attached.  They stand on their own as the home of a grand institution.

Naming rights should be to honor a substantial donor or achievement.  Significant public buildings should have their own name and should never be named after an individual.  And all naming rights should have sunset provisions unless the name becomes part of the vernacular and a change would cause undue confusion.

[1] The $100 million that Lesley Wexner donated to Ohio State for the naming rights to its medical center is without a doubt a considerable sum.  But it seems like a relative bargain given the exposure the name receives.

[2] For comparison purposes, Geffen’s donation was the same as Wexner’s.  Geffen’s received naming rights to a hall within a center, not an entire medical center.  The annual revenues of the Lincoln center are something around $125 million, about 4% of the Wexner Medical Center’s revenues.  I’m using revenues as a proxy for exposure.  Not that we rate such things, but this is a clear win for Wexner vis-à-vis Geffen.  Alternatively, it is a clear win for the Lincoln Center vis-à-vis OSU.