Fool Us Twice, Shame On Us

I mentioned back in December that the bailout for automakers felt like a bad idea. Specifically, I asked the obvious question: What if the bailout doesn't work? The obvious answer back then was that the car companies would STILL go bankrupt, and we (the tax payers) would be $14 billion dollars poorer.

Well, sure enough, here we are in late March 2009, and GM and Chrysler are turning their pockets inside out again, saying that the $14 billion we gave them didn't quite do the job. They want more money, and Obama is going to give it to them. Oh, he's doing his best to look all stern and grumpy while he's using the nation's overdrawn checkbook to write Detroit another check with nine or ten zeros on it. But he'll write the check, make no mistake about it.

And guess what. The automakers will still go bankrupt. But the question is, will that be the end of it? It'll go one of two ways, I think.

Option 1 has automakers filing for some kind of high-speed bankruptcy as a condition of their getting more bail out money. They'll file for bankruptcy, wiping out much of their debt (thereby screwing over their suppliers and vendors, not to mention the US tax payers). They'll take a crack at retooling their labor contracts and restructuring their pension and benefit positions. And they'll get billions more in guaranteed loans from the Obama administration. With all of this, the car companies will reemerge, ready to do business again. And guess what! They will still fail, and they will be back yet again to ask for even more money.

Option 2 has has automakers getting billions in additional money from the government before they take the step of filing for bankruptcy. They'll get the money, burn through it, and then still go belly up, wiping out the money owed from the first bailout ($14 billion) AND however much they get this second go-round. All creditors will get screwed, attempts will be made at restructuring, and they will reemerge just as screwed up as they were before. And guess what! They will still fail, and they will be back to ask for even more money.

There is, of course, a third option, but it is an option no one seems willing to take. This third option has GM and Chrysler being allowed to fail outright. We as tax payers resignedly write off the $14 billion in lost bailout money as a lesson well-learned, and we refuse to play the game any more. The automakers go belly up. And instead of allowing this privately-held company to screw over countless vendors and suppliers (and tax payers), we amke sure that their assets are used to pay all outstanding debts.

I used to think that having those big companies fail would be an unthinkable disaster for the country. I now see that there are far worse things.

Can GM and Chrysler emerge from such a liquidation and still competitively build cars? Probably not. So be it.

Lock the Door? Or Open It?

I’m conflicted these days about a lot of things. One that keeps smacking me in the face is the whole immigration issue.

Side A: California is showing a $40 billion budget deficit while they pay an estimated $13 billion annually to support illegal (not “undocumented”) aliens (not “immigrants”). States across the US are similarly burdened. Our federal immigration laws are being ignored, and crazy policies in states like CA are actually encouraging more illegal aliens to come on in. The US / Mexican border really does represent a national security weakness, too, although not nearly as much as some would like us to believe.

Side B: Mexico is a disaster; there is no hope there for the vast majority of Mexican citizens. The US immigration process is slow, unfair, and often wholly impassable for Mexicans wanting to emigrate to the US. If I was a Mexican citizen living there in poverty (as is the norm), I’d do everything in my power to get to the US. . . up to and including sneaking myself and my family across the border illegally. If I was poor in Mexico with a pregnant wife, I would do whatever it took to have my child born in the US. And in doing so, I would likely have to put myself and my family at great risk; too many people are suffering and dying as they try to get into the US.

There's a lot of fault to go around. I can find significant fault in the corrupt and broken Mexican government that has failed consistently for 200 years to foster any kind of prosperity for its people while actively encouraging its citizens to go to the US illegally and send money back home. I can find fault in US federal policy that has failed to reasonably and fairly regulate its southern border while also refusing to have any kind of reasonable enforcement and deportation processes in place. I can find great fault in the state policies in California, which have exacerbated the problem.

But if I am honest with myself, I cannot find fault in the motives of those who choose to come to the US illegally seeking a better life.

How’s that for wishy washy?

1979 Schwinn Stingray (red)

Man, from age seven to age fourteen or so, there were few things more important to me than my bicycle. It was everything.

It was transportation to school (occasionally), the swimming pool (all summer long), friends' houses, relatives' houses, stores, and movies. If I wanted a pack of gum or some kind of novelty from the drug store, I didn't ask my parents for a ride or for money. I used my own money, and I got myself there.

It was freedom to head out at 9:00 a.m. and not come back until dinner time during the summer.

It was ownership. . . ownership at a time in my life when I held supreme authority of very few other things in my life. My bike was MINE. . . not my sister's and not my friend's. Dudes had to ask before they could just pick up my bike and ride it.

It was responsibility. . . a maintenance responsibility prefiguring the responsibility of owning a car later in life. Keep the tires inflated, keep the chain lubed, maybe consider tearing it apart to install a double goose neck or a new seat or a hand break or something cool. And lock it up or it'll get swiped. Big, important decisions and responsibilities for a kid.

It was speed, too. . . the kind of speed a kid without a driver's license can't get any other way. Buzzing down a long residential hill as fast as the cars usually traveled gave me a kind of speed that almost seemed illegal. Speed AND danger. Something happened almost every day on that bike that surprised me or scared me or made me really take notice of things. A wobble at 30 mph. A rock in the road that almost sent me sprawling. A near collision with friend or a neighborhood dog. Riding my bike everywhere was the only thing my parents knowingly allowed me to do that routinely threatened my life. No helmets. No pads. Screw it. Just ride.

It was pain, too. . . the impetus for countless bruises, abrasions, serious cuts and full-on head injuries. My bike taught me to live with and play through pain, while also teaching me the finer points of scab care and maintenance. Bike riding, like life, was sometimes painful.

Perhaps most importantly, my bike was a lesson, as simple as it was profound. Getting where I was going required genuine effort on my part. No one else would help. As soon as I identified a destination, my mental GPS calculated the obstacles and risks involved. Getting to the movie theater meant tackling that huge hill on Lindbergh Blvd and that frighteningly narrow stretch of Mattis Road that had no shoulder. Before I started any trip, I weighed its benefits against the effort and risk involved. . . a cost benefit analysis as comprehensive and honest as anything I work on today.

And in the end, the benefit of a bike trip always seemed to outweigh the effort it would take. I learned that sweating up the hill to get there always promised a breezy, effortless return trip. And there was nothing sweeter to a sweaty 11 year old boy than coasting down-hill with hot summer wind pushing his hair back.

I loved my bike.

Eclipses. . .

When we experience a perfect, full solar eclipse here on Earth, the moon is directly between our line of sight and the sun. The result is that the sun is perfectly hidden by the moon, looking to us like a pitch black spot over the sun. Just a fraction of the sun's corona is visible around the outside edge of the moon. . . enough to really screw your eyes up if you look up at it with naked eyes sporting dilated pupils.

What are the odds that the Earth would come equipped with one (and only one) moon whose size and distance from earth make it perfect for eclipsing the sun for us?

Keep it the same size and move it farther from or closer to the Earth a significant amount, and you change how much of our view of the sky the moon occupies. This would change how much (or little) of the sun it blots out during a solar eclipse. Similarly, keep its distance from Earth the same but make it a bigger or smaller moon, and it stops being the perfect solar eclipse tool.

I know that the Earth's distance from the sun differs depending on its location along an elliptical orbit. And I know that the moon's distance from the earth fluctuates. Overall, though, I think the tolerances in those two variables are tight enough that full eclipses look very much the same here on planet Earth from year to year.

I wonder if there are any other planets in our solar system that have such a serendipitous combination of lunar and orbital factors?

Dunno. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night.