Are The Republicans Sort Of Right About The Debt Ceiling?

No, this is not a Robbie Republican post. And I'm not saying that holding the economy hostage in order to destroy Obamacare is a sound strategy or a goal we should be striving towards. But at the very heart of things, when you get down to it, there is an aggravating factor that's led us down this path, one that nobody has done anything about since the Clinton administration: the insane growth of the national debt and our horribly unbalanced federal budget.

Now, let me be clear. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling does not reduce the national debt. In fact, if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and we default (can't pay our bondholders), then the national debt will actually increase. You don't reduce your credit card debt by refusing to pay your bills, and the government can't reduce it's debt by refusing to pay its bills. We need to borrow, because we have bills to pay, and not enough tax revenue comes in to cover them. If we didn't borrow money, bills don't get paid, our bonds are worth trash, the dollar loses value, and suddenly, the economy takes a tailspin, reducing tax revenues further, because suddenly everyone's out of a job. It's a crazy mess.

This is why we haven't defaulted. This is why we won't EVER default. This is why Boehner and co. are going to agree to raise the debt ceiling again, despite their whole stink about it. Because they realize a default won't do a thing to reduce our debt, and will leave us far, far worse off.

So why the stink every few months? Why the "hostage taking"? Well, at the very least, it's sparking a conversation. And so far, what's come out of that conversation has been positive for Republicans.

As I said back in December, forecasting our nation's future after falling over the "fiscal cliff":

Yes, taxes go up. Yes, defense spending is cut drastically. But both of these issues are temporary, and everyone knows it. It's very, very easy to cut taxes. It's very, very easy to justify defense spending with the global threats America faces. If no deal is struck by January 2nd, taxes will rise and defense budgets will be cut, sure. But by next January 2nd, it's very likely that taxes and defense spending will be restored to somewhere near their current levels.

The other programs? Programs for the poor and middle class? Programs for the arts and sciences? Programs for education? The Democratic desire to restore funding to these initiatives will be met with fierce resistance from the Republican caucus, and the public support behind them will not be strong enough to overcome it.

 Well, folks, we did fall over the fiscal cliff. The sequester did come into effect. And what happened? Exactly what I said would come to pass.  Military and security budgets have slowly been restored, but the other deep cuts, to programs on the Democratic side of the ledger, remain in place.

The debt ceiling threat is not intended to be a threat, because a threat can actually be carried out. What is it then? A protest. A demonstration. It's intended to rally their side in a battle for more cuts to government programs that Republicans hate. One of those programs is Obamacare.

The Republicans are right to protest increasing government debt. In that sense, the debt ceiling holdout, repeated, again and again, keeps the national conversation coming back to the budget. And that alone is not a bad thing. We need a balanced budget. We need to stop owing so much elsewhere. It is time to get something done on that front, after George W. Bush ignored it for 8 years.

Of course, that's where the Republican high ground ends. Because they're unwilling to tackle both sides of the issue--spending AND revenue. You can't just cut government programs suddenly and completely. It'll create a humanitarian disaster within our borders. A single parent family on food stamps won't immediately be able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps-- its not that easy. If it was, they would have done it already. Corporate taxes and the amount millionaires squirrel away are a joke. The rich enjoy enormous benefits of our free, safe, capitalistic society, and unfettered access to the halls of power-- they should pay for that. And I don't mean in the form of campaign contributions. You can't solve the national debt by cutting alone-- the math doesn't add up. It's just like how corporations can't improve their fortunes solely by firing workers or fixing inefficiencies.... eventually, they have to bring in money. The government can't invent the next iPhone... the only way to bring in more money is by raising taxes, preferably on people who will feel the "pain" the least.

So, yay to the Republicans for keeping an eye on the ball, the long term fiscal health of our nation. But unless they start getting realistic, instead of idealistic, we're not going to get anywhere.

Why I’m Glad I Didn’t Quit New York At Age 24

On a Saturday night a few weeks ago, I found myself in a karaoke bar at 3:45 a.m., participating in a raucous group rendition of Creed’s “Higher.” Not my choice of song, but when you’re with your cousin from out-of-town, his friend, and a bunch of random foreigners you met that evening in another bar nearby, you can’t be picky. You want to show them a good time. After all, taking country-folk on a bar crawl to your favorite non-douche-y dives and showing them the time of their lives is part of the joy of living here. “We don’t have a place like this in Charlotte,” my cousin yells in-between songs, and Amen to that. When I was in Charlotte to interview a story subject, the hotel concierge recommended visiting the finest restaurant in town: the Capital Grille. My take, since about age 18, has been, "Why would I want to make it anywhere else when I can make it here?"

An insipid, shallow article on New York Magazine’s “The Cut” blog, “Why I’m Glad I Quit New York At Age 24”, chronicles Ann Friedman’s miserable experience in the city that never sleeps. “I spent the worst year of my life in New York,” Ann writes. The worst. What was the city’s crime against, poor, innocent Ann? “Right after college graduation, I moved from Missouri to join my college boyfriend, who had landed my dream job. I ended up here not because I had something to prove, but because I couldn’t think of where else to go. No job, dreamy or otherwise.”

Hold up. Ann moved to one of the most expensive places to live on Earth… with no job? And she did this solely to join her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, who she clearly secretly despised (“my dream job”)? At least tell me she gave living here a chance.

Nope. “When I decamped for the West Coast fifteen months later, I didn’t feel failure or regret but relief. For me, New York is that guy I went out with only briefly and then successfully transitioned into friendship. We were always meant to be platonic.” Is she talking about the college boyfriend? Or the city? Because if she’s talking about the city, I’ve got news. The city is not a lover. You can try and jam a fire hydrant up your hoo-hah, but if you’re looking for romantic intimacy, you may want to try a human being, instead of anthropomorphicizing an entire city.

Now, maybe I’m biased, because I’ve spent the last 13 years of my life here. I came here first for college—not a college boyfriend—at age 18. My first experience in the city was waiting on the sidewalk on Washington Square West for a big plastic cart so I could move my things into the Hayden dormitory at NYU, and seeing a man just leave his dog’s shit on the sidewalk without picking it up. He caught me staring and said, “Welcome to New York.” While I later learned that was not representative of most New York City dog owners, it’s always stuck with me that on an island with 8 million other people, chances are you’ll meet a new character every day. Sometimes it’s a homeless guy who tells jokes for a slice of pizza. Sometimes it’s a guy who walks around town with a real, live cat on his head. Sometimes it’s a man in the park, covered head to toe by pigeons. You just don’t get this in Missouri. More meth-heads there, I’ll grant you.

It’s always struck me as hilarious that people who claim to despise the city want the world to know how much they hate it, so they write things for New York Magazine. To use Ann’s analogy, It’s sort of like stalking the prom king and then tucking little angry notes into his locker. Everyone can see right through it. It’s not that you hate him, it’s that you want him to ditch the prom queen and take your teenage dirtbag self to the prom instead. Ann Friedman writes, “New York is increasingly a city for people who are already on top, not for those looking to establish themselves.” From a financial standpoint, I can see her point. Even after 13 years, my savings account resembles that of a teenager working minimum wage at Burger King. But I vomited a little in my mouth when I read her description of the ultraviolent Chicago (safer than 8% of the cities in the U.S.!): “the friendly guy who doesn’t know how hot he really is.” What does that even mean? Or when she called the spider’s web of roadways and prostitutes that is Los Angeles—“the surprisingly intelligent, sexy stoner.” That’s actually Boulder, Colorado, not Los Angeles, Ann.

“Part of that infatuation is a willingness to consider New York from a cinematic distance, overlooking the city’s many irritants except insofar as they add grit and drama to your story,” Ann writes. California, Ann’s current state of bliss, is apparently, all “sunshine and avocados.” Clearly, us vampiric New Yorkers have never seen the sun, and avocados remain a mysterious green thing we recognize only from Trader Joe’s pre packaged guacamole. She cites, “a not-insignificant number of the vehement New York lovers I know — especially the young twentysomethings — are actually pretty unhappy day to day,” before retreating to her high school analogy about the prom king again. Her comprehensive study of New Yorkers aside, I’ve often wondered how happy anyone can be without 24-hour access to food, entertainment and excitement. There’s a reason people who move to the ‘burbs instantly pop out kids. There’s simply nothing else to do.

“The entire media industry” is located here because this is where the action is. This is where you’ll always know what’s going on. The things people re-post on Facebook and Twitter about… New Yorkers witness these things and learn about these things on our morning commute. “Your early twenties are going to suck,” Ann writes, and that’s awful, awful to tell people of that age, because it’s not true. It’s the time in your life where you find out who you really are. My twenties most certainly did not suck… but maybe that’s because I didn’t “[break] up with a college boyfriend and a mindless entry-level job.” Instead, I worked hard to climb up from my entry level position, spent my weekends and summer nights taking advantage of what the city had to offer me. Whenever I leave the city for a weekend, I’m surprised at how slow life seems. Sometimes it’s a nice break, but I’d die of boredom if I had to live there. How is a 20-something supposed to meet anyone? Where do you take your dates to, Chili’s? When I visit my friends in Jersey, and it’s not summer, we go bowling. Fun and all, but when the alley closes at 11 there’s nothing left to do.

It’s become in vogue, apparently, to hate on New York. You can blame it on Bloomberg’s elitism, the national anger at Wall Street, the obsession with In & Out Burger that I just don’t get. But if you can hack more than 15 months here—I’d suggest getting a job with decent growth potential, first—you’ll discover a deeper city that the tourists and haters don’t see. A city where the world comes together in the cramped nooks of busy neighborhood bars, where a rabbi, an imam, a priest and a guy with an alligator face tattoo really do all ride side-by-side in a single subway car, where in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere in the East Village, the front doors of a karaoke bar open wide to the street and let loose a roar of human beings, sauced and smiling, who aren’t ready to go home, not just yet.

How A New Button Will Revolutionize Facebook Forever

Facebook doesn't know you. No matter what Mark Zuckerberg says. Sure, the Feds might have made 25,000 requests for user data, but it's unlikely they learned anything other than Facebook users' affinity for cuddly cat photos and re-posted Pinterest quotations.

For a clear example of Facebook's failure to know who you are, look no further than the quiet end to Facebook Gifts, the social network's attempt to get you to buy real-life items for your friends' birthdays, engagements, and anniversaries.

As Forbes' contributor Mark Rogowsky points out, Facebook Gifts was a laughable failure:

"I looked at it four times in the past few days just to get a sense of what Facebook thought my friends might like. Three female friends had birthdays. Only of them has a young child, but somehow, all of them are good candidates for an $11 “mustache pacifier,” because, as Facebook puts in, “even babies need disguises.” There is so much wrong with this gift, it’s hard to know where to begin."

The issue is that, for all its claims about tracking users' behavior online, Facebook is unable to parse what "Likes" mean. Did you "Like" your friend's post about hamster balls because you want a hamster ball yourself, or did you merely think it was cute? Do you "Like" Pizza Hut because you find their pizza to be superior, or were they offering a 25% coupon if you clicked "Like" on their Facebook page? "Like" is such a general term, it can be maddeningly obscure: you may "Like" mustache pacifiers because you think they're a hilarious thing, but you'd never actually spend the money to buy one.

It's a well-known story that before Facebook decided on the "Like" button, they considered creating an "Awesome" button. Zuckerberg and Co. made the wise choice to go with "Like," which was more universal across cultures and age groups, applicable as a noun and a verb, and had a wide enough breadth to be used in many different contexts. The "Like" button helped spread Facebook far and wide because it didn't require much thought or discernment from the user-- one could "Like" something as a gesture of support for a friend, they could "Like" it because it made them smile, they could "Like" an opinion they agreed with or an article they thought was worth sharing. "Like" and "Share," the two methods of acknowledging and spreading content through Facebook's news feed, are pretty much the same. I'd argue there's no distinction between the two, other than "Share" allowing someone to pass along objectionable or shocking content without having to awkwardly "Like" it.

But while the vagueness and multiple applications of "Like" and "Share" helped grow Facebook, they're terrible descriptors. They lack the ability to communicate desire. And if you're a company that ultimately needs to make money by selling things (or advertising them), that's a problem.

However, a recent decision by a federal judge in Michigan could pave the way for a new button that will revolutionize Facebook forever.

What is this magical button? A "Want" button.

Back in 2010, Facebook was working on the idea. They even tested it out among a few retailers in 2012. However, another company, based in Detroit, had previously created an app called "Want Button" that allowed users to create wishlists of products on Facebook.The two parties were locked in a legal struggle until earlier this month, when a judge tossed the case and both companies agreed the court battle was over.

The decision paves the way for something that has been in the works for a while. TechCrunch thought it would happen two years ago. The legal hurdle cleared, its likely we'll see a "Want" button instead of "Like" appear on e-commerce sites and beneath product posts on your Facebook newsfeed sometime in the near future.

Anyone arguing that users won't "Like" the new button (and there have been many naysayers, mostly from the vocal "add a dislike button" crowd) haven't been paying much attention to sites like Pinterest, where users frequently create whole boards of aspirational items they desire. By getting users to voluntarily reveal the products and services they want, rather than just "Like", Facebook can create a better profile of its users, enabling advertisers to better target their audience and allowing the site to recommend complimentary products as gifts. Facebook Gifts 2.0 would draw from a better database of its users' desires and be able to churn out more accurately curated suggestions. None of this is a bad thing.... wouldn't you rather Facebook recommended birthday gifts you'd actually want?

The "Want" button is coming, people. And I expect it to help Facebook greatly in its efforts to enter the e-commerce field-- where the company will finally justify its billion-dollar valuation.

The Alarming Second Term of Barack Bush

CNN is struggling to figure out why President Obama's approval rating has dipped among young people.

Gee, what could the youth of America possibly have a problem with? Warrant-less surveillance, drone strikes on American citizens, overzealous federal prosecutors?

That's the Bush-era stuff we thought we'd gotten rid of when we made Obama President. Now he's seemingly embraced and expanded upon these violations of the constitution and America's liberties.

The question comes down to this: Do you trust your government will always use these "tools" in a responsible way without oversight? Okay. Now, imagine the other party is in charge. Do you still trust your government will always use these "tools" in a responsible way without oversight?

Keep in mind, the government is not one, seamless entity: it's comprised of individuals, most of whom we didn't vote for and don't know. Who's to say Jimmy CIA doesn't have a crush on some chick, and taps the hell out of her electronic communications JUST BECAUSE HE CAN? Without oversight, without warrants, anyone can do anything and nobody will ever find out about it.

UPDATE: That's exactly what happened.

This may be a-okay with the older folk, but for younger people, already chafing against their parents monitoring their activities, the specter of being watched by government babysitters for the rest of their lives is not a thrilling idea.

I May Have Figured Out Bob Benson, But Probably Not

Last season on AMC's Mad Men, Meagan Draper was the breakout character, stealing our hearts with "Zou Bisou Bisou," and basically looking hot in underwear. This season, a new character has emerged..... and while he has clearly stolen our favorite buxom redhead's heart, he's creeping the rest of us the fuck out.

I'm talking of course, about smiling Bob Benson.

Internet speculation has been running wild. Who is this happy, well-adjusted man, on a show where everyone is broken in some way? HE MUST BE A PSYCHO KILLER!!!

I was reading one blog's theory when a paragraph got me thinking (emphasis mine):

He's an Army-trained registered nurse, and he's available now only because he's brought my father back to full health.
-Bob Benson to Pete Campbell in "The Better Half"

Bob Benson is up to something. He's a good guy, sure. He loves to help out, and he's good at it. But he's also a liar.

When Bob sends a "royal spread" to Roger Sterling's mother's wake, Ken Cosgrove confronts him. "I was just thinking of when my father died," Benson told Cosgrove in "The Doorway," the premiere episode of Mad Men's sixth season. Unless Benson has two fathers -- one who has died, and another who has been brought back to full health by an Army-trained registered nurse -- he's being dishonest.

 Hold the phone. This blogger didn't realize it, but I think they just stumbled onto the answer. Who is Bon Benson?

He's Don Draper's son. The ACTUAL Don Draper's son.

We know Don Draper, ad man, is actually Dick Whitman, prostitute's kid. Don Draper died in Korea, and Dick stole his identity. Draper's real wife tracked Dick down, and they developed a mother-son kind of relationship. But we know absolutely nothing else about the Don Draper that died in the war. Maybe he had a child (a love child hidden from his wife, or known about but never mentioned). This child grew up, and discovered that someone was using his father's name. "When my father died," refers to when the young Bob Benson learned his dad died in the war. "An army-trained registered nurse brought my father back to full health"-- that's a reference to someone who helped Dick Whitman recover from his war injuries, something the young Bob Benson may have learned about later.

In this context, Bob Benson isn't a liar. He technically has two fathers, one dead and one who recovered, both named Don Draper.

I don't know if the timeline works out, but it's an interesting idea. Bob Benson knows Don's/Dick's secret.