Ravengate
Partners - Stock market, economic and political commentary by Patricia Chadwick

I used to think that we (moderate Republicans) comprised the base of our party. All the wackiness of the presidential primaries and caucuses was mere grandstanding, designed to placate the small Evangelical and Tea Party factions of the party’s base in early primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina. But once the silly season was over, I felt we could count on nominating a solid citizen as our candidate for President. This confidence was not based on naiveté but on a stellar record; we did it in 1979 with Ronald Reagan, a brilliant visionary and an adept pragmatist who knew how to work both sides of the aisle, and most recently, with Mitt Romney, a less-than-natural campaigner but an honorable man with vast talent who had been a successful governor of the most Democratic state in the Union.

But this year has turned out to be downright depressing, as we witness a modern day “Luddite” spout vitriol and diatribes against anyone who doesn’t pay him the respect he craves but can’t earn.

Moderate Republicans are so mainstream that some people mistake us for moderate Democrats. I like that because what we have in common is our moderation. We are more alike than either of us is relative to the far reaches of our respective parties. I tend to think that together we represent a significant majority of voters in the American electorate —in effect, the vast silent majority.

Moderate Republicans believe that government is necessary but should not be overwhelming — and never intrusive. We believe the government needs to stay out of the bedroom and out of the doctor’s office.

Moderate Republicans realize that government is not the solution to all problems; we know that it’s the private sector that generates profits, and profits are what’s needed for both economic growth and individual wealth creation. So, limited government is essential, and regulation should aim to support, not stymie, free-market behavior.

Moderate Republicans respect science and are committed to the responsible stewardship of our planet. Our leaders were the instigators of public discourse about air and water quality, which was the genesis of the Environmental Protection Agency, and they played a key role in the mitigation of acid rain from the Midwest to the Northeast. But they also acknowledge that onerous and excessive regulation that does not take into account legitimate cost benefit analysis is deleterious for the well-being of the country.

Moderate Republicans believe that a minimum wage that keeps a head of household below the poverty level is a hindrance to economic growth, and that it’s also morally deficient.

Moderate Republicans support immigration reform, abhorring the notion of deporting millions of workers, the vast majority of whom pay income and Social Security taxes, contribute to our economic growth and, in many cases, bear the pain of separation from their loved ones thousands of miles away in order to support them. They also believe that our borders need to be more open to the many around the world who want to benefit from the opportunities this country offers to those who are willing to work hard to improve their chance of a better life.

Moderate Republicans make an effort to educate themselves on social issues that have a bearing on the lives of those who might be victims of discrimination, prejudice and retaliation. They respect diversity and support a social order that allows human beings to lead their lives without fear. (And, yes, moderate Republicans believe that gender police should stay out of the bathroom!)

Moderate Republicans find abhorrent the notion of our nation defaulting on its debt  because a government that would not honor its financial obligations is the moral equivalent of a government run amok. That’s what happens in failing states in the third world, not in the most powerful nation on the planet.

Moderate Republicans believe that the Second Amendment was written during a time when our newly formed country had to be defended by a ready citizen militia, and that the right to bear arms should not stand in the way of government regulation to ensure the safety of the population at large.

Moderate Republicans believe that their president should show leadership by actively embracing members of the opposite party, building respect and having the courage and integrity to compromise when it’s in the best interest of the country.

These are but a few of the many ways moderate Republicans think about the issues facing our country today. Sadly, we have no candidate who represents our values. We are left holding our noses (as an Italian friend of mine said she would do when voting for Berlusconi) on election day and voting for whomever we think is the lesser of two bad choices.

And, dear Democratic friends, I’m already anticipating your invitations to join your party. But I can’t — I am a true and tried moderate Republican and proud of it.

© Copyright 2016 Patricia W. Chadwick

Simply put, Bernie Sanders is not a Socialist; rather he is a progressive Democrat, not unlike a number of others who have toyed with the idea of running for President —namely, Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean (another Vermonter). He is earnest and honest; he believes what he preaches with all his heart, and while that is rare in a politician and may be admirable in itself, it doesn’t legitimize his political theories.

What Bernie Sanders espouses is a social welfare system, in which the government first defines the well-being of its citizens and then takes on the responsibility of ensuring that well-being. His litany of those guarantees has popular appeal and certainly tugs on the heartstrings of many Americans, both Democrats and Republicans. I admit that they are lofty (but impracticable) ideals.

What retiree wouldn’t be happier with a higher monthly Social Security check?

Who can find fault with “free” tuition for all college students, relieving them and their parents of the burden of education loans?

Why can’t we have a single-payer health care system that would give everyone the same options and coverage?

Why shouldn’t the minimum wage be high enough to allow earners an income above the poverty level?

The problem is that Bernie Sanders doesn’t have a realistic plan for funding these objectives. All he has done so far is rail against the billionaires (who buy elections, in his words) and Wall Street (whom he has yet to define), seeming to imply that if the government could simply confiscate the wealth achieved by some, it could make life better for all.

It’s not surprising that his followers are predominantly the young, who have yet to achieve their professional dreams and their earning potential. The throngs of students supporting Bernie Sanders bring to mind the late 1960s, when I was living in Harvard Square as a young twenty something myself. During those years, there were seemingly daily demonstrations that often turned into tear gas confrontations between students and police. The frenzy of emotion expanded beyond the students’ opposition to the war in Vietnam, as they railed against their professors, their parents and any authority figure.

Some of those young rabble rousers of yesteryear are today’s millionaires and, possibly, even billionaires. Through dint of maturity and hard work, they achieved success, paying their taxes along the way. To imply that they are an advantaged class misconstrues how success is achieved in this country.

I would venture to guess that the vast majority of billionaires (or even 1%ers) in this country started their careers with little or no money to their name. They have achieved what we think of as “the American dream” through their own talents. They are hardly relegated to the ranks of “Wall Streeters”; rather they are dominated by a host of entrepreneurs — the founders of technology companies like Apple, Facebook and Google; astoundingly gifted athletes; or superstars in the entertainment industry. We all enjoy a better quality of life because of their achievements.

Bernie Sanders’ theory of redistribution of wealth is dangerous for U.S. economic growth and risks putting a dagger into the entrepreneurial ethic that drives success in this country. What the country needs is more growth and this can best be achieved by providing incentives to small companies and startup entrepreneurs to invest and expand.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, more than half of the jobs in the private sector are in small companies. Even more importantly, those small companies account for nearly two thirds of the new jobs created.

Small companies face many obstacles in their endeavors to achieve growth and generate wealth for their owners, not the least of which is onerous government regulation, something which has become increasingly burdensome in recent years. Bernie Sanders would do well to come up with a plan to support the “little guy” (his primary constituent in his endeavor to become the Democrats’ presidential nominee). I’d like to see him talk about incentives (tax and otherwise)that would provide small companies with the opportunity to take greater risks, hire new employees, flourish and, once again, be the engine for strong growth in the U.S. economy.

The Indian friend of mine arrived in New York harbor with a college degree and $125 in his pocket thirty years ago. Today he is a wealthy man, overseeing a firm that invests in biotechnology startups. He told me that every time he sees the Statue of Liberty, he has to wipe away tears.

The stories are legion, but what triggered this blog was a small encounter yesterday.

I returned a lamp to a furniture store because it had fallen apart. There were six sales people sitting together as I entered. When I explained my problem, they quickly advised me that they weren’t responsible for handling any product without a warranty or that had been purchased more than a year ago.

Then one man quietly approached me and taking the lamp in his hands examined it. “The screw is too short; let me see what I can do,” he said in a gentle voice with a hint of a foreign accent. In short order, he found a longer screw and spent the next half hour working on the lamp until it was repaired. (Mind you, he, too was a salesman, not a repairman.) As I thanked him, I couldn’t resist asking where he was from. “I’m Persian,” he said, with a note of pride.

Driving home, I pondered the contrast between the xenophobic, nationalistic rhetoric of Donald Trump and our everyday reality, the substantial benefit to each of us Americans from the influx of immigrants.

The litany of immigrant luminaries in this country is awe-inspiring. They have come to our shores from scores of countries, pursuing a vast array of professions and subscribing to diverse political and religious beliefs. Contrasting them is interesting: Rupert Murdoch and George Soros; Ayn Rand and Emma Goldman; Madelaine Albright and Henry Kissinger.

And in contrast to Trump’s diatribes against generalized “immigrants” and the crimes he declares they commit, the data show clearly that the crime rate among immigrants is markedly lower than among the rest of the population. That’s not surprising; why would they relocate to these shores to improve their lot in life and then set out to destroy it by breaking the law?

The many refugees from the chaos of war in Syria and Iraq are not a threat to us in this country. The vetting system refugees are required to endure is arduous and long. We have much more to fear from those who might arrive on student and tourist visas. This is a process that has little vetting and is the route by which nearly all the 9/11 hijackers arrived. There’s where more effective control is needed.

American exceptionalism is a term that has been debased in recent years by certain loud conservative zealots. American exceptionalism is indeed at the core of our country’s founding ideology; it is based on freedom of religion, speech and ideas, combined with the ability and determination to seek opportunity and to pursue one’s dream under the umbrella of a system of government established on the principle that all are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That’s what immigrants are seeking when they come to America. Let’s open our doors to them and prove that the American dream that attracted our ancestors still lives in our land today.

Happy New Year!

Patients, ranging in age from three to seventy-five, came to the clinic with their medical records book, and they stood patiently in line to have blood drawn and tested. There was no shoving or pushing; infants and children tagged along with their parents. The fact that most of the children did not need to be tested was a tribute to their mothers for taking their daily dosage of life-saving medication during their pregnancy. It was also evidence of the significant progress among the population in understanding the importance of adhering to the daily therapy prescribed to contain the wracking harm of HIV infection.

At the end of a work schedule that began at seven o’clock in the morning and concluded just before midnight, fatigue and deep satisfaction meant that sleep came fast.

After a few days, it dawned on me that I had been blissfully oblivious to the shenanigans roiling the political silly season back home in the U.S. I didn’t know and I didn’t care about which presidential candidate had inched ahead by a nano-percent in the polls.

I reveled in not feeling hostage to the tedious drone of pundits, from left and right,  whose chief raison d’être seems to be analyzing the latest slip of the tongue by an  addled candidate as a pivotal event worth exhaustive and exhausting chatter.

In the balance of life’s realities, what was consequential came into sharp relief. The HIV initiatives in Zimbabwe are vital to the survival of many members of the human family and being part of that worthy project, though only for a week, brought a sense of balance that even the most compelling punditry cannot provide.

The eye opening truth was the realization that nearly all the funds required to provide medications to the patients at the clinics in Zimbabwe are coming from private donations, while back home more than $1 billion is being raised in the pursuit of a single job, the presidency of the United States. What an irony that the costly pursuit of that office, viewed from the perspective of an HIV clinic, seems suddenly so inconsequential.

Think of the societal good that might be wrought if only a small portion of that money were spent to better the lives of the poorest and most needy around the world.

“Please have checks made payable to: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., or cash ready on entry. Thank you.”

The event was being hosted by Ernie Boch, Jr. (purported to be worth $500 million), although both he and Trump (who says he is worth $10 billion, but has yet to prove it) claimed to be footing the bill. Regardless, either one of them most assuredly could have defrayed the cost of the event with a rich man’s equivalent of pocket change.

So why were attendees being asked for money, even if it was for only $50?

“I’m self-funding”

is how Trump has described the financing of his campaign. Notice his use of the present tense. What he has never said is: “I will self-fund my entire presidential campaign.”

Trump may be rich, but I’ll wager he doesn’t want to spend his personal fortune on what it will take to try to secure the Republican nomination. And when he capitulates, he’ll be just like all the other candidates — an ordinary person doing his best to raise sacks of money from the public, because that’s what it takes to try to become President of the United States.

Crack Number Two:

On September 3, Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio talk show host, exposed Trump’s stunning lack of knowledge regarding the leadership of well-known political and terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

Trump’s later diatribe against Hewitt, asserting he asked a

“gotcha question,”

and his retort that

“I’m a delegator. I find great people…..”

are sad defenses and will serve him ill, as future debates will inevitably focus on each candidate’s personal grip on foreign policy and global affairs.

Crack Number Three:

A day later on September 4, Donald Trump “took the pledge,” signing (in ink but not in blood) a piece of paper (not legally binding, mind you) promising  to support the party’s eventual nominee, giving up the option to run as an Independent should another candidate get the Republican nomination.

In response to questions on the matter, he stated that he

“got absolutely nothing in response for signing the pledge.”

But wait a minute. South Carolina was threatening to keep his name off its primary ballot if he didn’t sign such a pledge, and Virginia and North Carolina were considering requiring loyalty pledges, as well.

Trump caved! It’s as simple as that. And the quid pro quo was huge: You take the pledge, and your name is on the ballot; You don’t take the pledge and your name is not on the ballot.

Crack Number Four:

Perhaps the lowest blow in Trump’s ad hominem attacks against fellow Republican contenders was his comment on September 2 regarding Doctor Ben Carson, whose genteel demeanor and thoughtful delivery are in sublime contrast to Trump’s own narcissistic style.

In Trump’s own words,

“I just think it’s a very difficult situation that he [Carson] puts himself into, to have a doctor who wasn’t creating
jobs and would have a nurse or maybe two nurses…. I’ve
created tens of thousands of jobs over the years.”

So the only criterion for president is how many jobs you have created? That would imply that the only legitimate candidate for president is someone from a very large private sector organization. Unless you are winking past Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose New Deal created millions of government-funded jobs for the unemployed during the Great Depression.

Well, there hasn’t been an elected president who hailed from the private sector in Trump’s lifetime. In fact, I believe George Washington may be the only president who had a long private sector career before becoming president.

Without belaboring the point, Trump’s comment about Carson is both vile and absurd, and the litany of his vitriolic jabs against those in both the Republican and the Democratic race for president is losing its appeal as comic relief.

Bombastic rhetoric may fire up the audience, boost television ratings and steal headlines. But it is at best an edifice built on a suspect foundation.

In summary, the cracks in Trump’s pedestal are the harbingers of his day of reckoning. When grandiloquent edicts regarding issues of national, economic and social importance are not backed up by coherent and viable solutions, it can’t be long before the statue topples.

That day is fast approaching for Donald Trump.

© Copyright 2015 Patricia W. Chadwick