Porn Industry Bailout

File this under: “I didn’t make this up.”

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/

Follow-up: The Citizen’s Inaugural Ball – They DID IT!

Take a look…

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/obama-to-attend-neighborhood-ball/

…

He’s not calling it the Citizen’s Inaugural Ball but rather the Neighborhood Ball. Great! Clearly, I wasn’t the only person thinking about this (well, maybe I was back on Nov. 30 when I first wrote about it), but I’m glad this time I actually got the idea in print before it was announced formally.

Hopefully, me and my friends can get in.

The Citizen’s Inaugural Ball

As the Inauguration Planning Committee works, they should keep in mind the distributed nature of the Obama campaign. In past inaugurations, like the one I went to in 2005, the celebrations matched the size and the demographics of the base of support for the winning candidate. The last inauguration’s biggest ball, the Texas-Wyoming Ball, was sponsored by major corporate donors (the same donors that had sponsored the President’s campaign) and by large donors who could afford $500+ tickets.

People who can afford these prices shouldn’t be denigrated for their wealth; indeed, their generousity in part helped elect President-elect Obama. So let them eat cake at their parties (edit: keep out the huge corporate sponsors), but it’s time to recognize the sacrifices of time and money made by millions of Americans who cannot afford these exorbinate prices.

The Citizen’s Inaugural Ball could be one huge event that could help promote one of DC’s large venues: RFK or Nationals Stadiums. The committee need not be constrained to find one venue though. Like the organizing it did during the campaign, Obama’s people could help set up many many smaller venues throughout the DC-area or even the country with much lower ticket prices: $15-$40.  Obviously, the new president would be unable to visit many sites in person, but a special message to these individuals gathering to celebrate the momentous day would go a long way to showing that the Obama presidency will be as revolutionary as the Obama campaign.

Econ Article of the Day: A Defense of CPI

In today’s Article of the Day, I present to you a newly spunky Bureau of Labor Statistics, normally one of the most staid parts of our federal bureaucracy. In this article, the BLS explains many of the complexities of and changes in measuring consumer inflation, the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Using pretty easy-to-understand examples the BLS is hoping to enter the fray with bloggers and Wall St. talking heads that criticize the CPI as understating inflation.

Go get ‘em, BLS! Your dry, yet informative articles will surely be read by the masses!

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/08/art1full.pdf

Delta: On why I’m not in Israel and wasted two vacation days

I already wrote this letter to Consumerist.com (a great consumer advocate blog, read it!) and hopefully they’ll post it. But, for right now, if you’re wondering why Jill (my sister) and I are still in the USA, wearing the same clothes over and over again, this is why. Delta.

UPDATE 8:15pm on 8/15: Delta doesn’t know where our baggage is. They said they checked it in at JFK and they may have forwarded it to Tel Aviv tonight, but they don’t know. Oh and get this… apparently Delta is a loose confederation of local baggage claim services, that is, according to floor manager Miss Scott in Georgia. If I want to know where my bags are, I’ll have to call JFK Delta’s baggage services. What’s the number for that desk, you ask? She doesn’t know. Me either. She told me to call 411. Great service, Delta!

UPDATE 1:40pm on 8/16: Leaving for the airport right now. Delta still doesn’t know where our stuff is. I will not be going to Israel if I don’t know my bag will be there when I land.

Dear Ben and the Consumerist community:

My sister and I have been planning a trip to Israel through a group called Birthright Israel for the last year. Now we’re stranded in NYC. Here’s our story. Can anyone help us?

I flew up from Washington, DC yesterday (8/14) to meet my sister on her birthday at JFK airport at 4:30 for our 9pm flight to Tel Aviv. That’s when our troubles began. The group planned to meet in Delta’s terminal 3 check-in. I got there and found a group staff member who looked understandably overwhelmed at the mayhem of crowds and confusion Delta generously calls their main check-in area. After waiting half an hour in line, we discover half of our group is at another check-in area which some Delta representatives tell them is the only area they can check-in. (What line have we been standing in?!) So, we move. By 6:30pm, we finally make it through baggage check and security, only to hear over the intercom that our flight has been seriously delayed without a time announced. This delay seems due to a huge thunderstorm overhead. Obviously, this was not Delta’s fault and, while some in our group moaned, most were quite content to watch Michael Phelps win his sixth gold medal and get to know the rest of the group.

Delta announced a first of many delays… 9:50pm (delay #1): just a forty minute delay. I remember thinking at the time, “Wow! I’m surprised how short this delay is. I hope it’s not foolishly optimistic!” It was. Delta quickly learned of its own buffoonery and rescheduled the flight to about 10:45pm (delay #2). This too was not to last. Somewhere about 10 o’clock, Delta announced yet another delay: 11:55pm (delay #3). This seemed more reasonable given the weather situation and most of us consoled ourselves that at least we would get to leave sometime. Delta, it seems, thought they had given up an opportunity to yank us around and announced that the plane had landed earlier than they thought so we would be leaving at 11:25pm (undelay #4) Very excited that the plane was actually at the airport and that the weather had cleared up, most of us thought we could already taste the falafel we were to enjoy the next day in Tel Aviv. Again, so so wrong.

Even though the plane had arrived and the masses of passengers assembled, Delta decided to announce yet another delay: 1am (delay #5). Fine. Whatever. Just get us on the plane. 1:25am rolls around. (delay #6) We start boarding. My sister and I finally get on the plane, prepare for a 10 hour flight, take our Tylenol PM and try to fall asleep. We’re woken up by the pilot announcing at 2am that we are 14th in line to take off so we will be taxiing for another 25 minutes, but he’ll try to get us up sooner. (delay #7) I woke up at 2:40am, realizing that after more than 25 minutes, we were still not airborne. (effective delay #8 ) Around then the pilot announced a mechanical problem that they couldn’t fix from the cockpit (we later learn this was just part of the A/C system) and so we’re returning to port, but couldn’t leave the plane. Nearly 30 minutes later, someone announces that we would have to leave since the broken part couldn’t be fixed at JFK and the plane would need to be flown to Atlanta for repairs. So, at 3:15am, the entire complement of staff and passengers leave the plane, bleary eyed and annoyed.

Back in the lounge again, two delta employees are there to rebook some 100+ passengers, including many small children, for a flight leaving at 3pm the next day. Unfortunately, many of the passengers were observant Jews (as were the organizers of our trip) and could not fly on the Sabbath. These people, Delta said, would be provided a flight Saturday night after sundown. At 4am(!) nearly 12 hours into our horrible night at the airport, our group, still without food, was offered 10 hotel rooms for 42 people. Great.

My sister and I left the airport at 4:30am and took a $67 taxi ride to a her apartment in Brooklyn. This morning (8/15) we called Delta and very nicely requested some sort of compensation for our trouble. The friendly and calm customer service agent offered 5000 miles to me and my sister on Delta. While neither of us would care to pay to fly Delta right now, this seemed like a fairly serious attempt at remuneration. Wrong, again. I later learned that the 5000 miles they offered were only “fake” miles and that I would have to continue flying Delta and accumulate at least 25000 miles before I could use any of them, essentially at a ratio of 5 “fake” miles to 1 real mile traveled.  After my sister called Delta’s customer service back to request serious compensation, the representative acknowledged 5000 miles to be weak compensation but that there was no way to increase the number nor was there any supervisor she could talk to.

We will try writing to the Better Business Bureau and to Delta’s CEO. But, I was hoping that the Consumerist community could pitch in a bit or offer some suggestions as to ways we could feel a bit better about being stranded in NYC for two days with no clothing, toiletries, and lost vacation days.

Thanks in advance and for the great work you do for other consumers nationwide!

Michael Donnelly

The end is not near… ¡Ojalá!

So, tonight we get the results of the Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont Primaries. Up until now, Barack Obama has won the last 10 Democratic contests and most people think that Hillary Clinton needs to win both Texas and Ohio in order to feasibly continue running for president. Right now, the political markets and pundits heavily favor Clinton in Ohio, and Obama in Texas. They’re wrong. Someone could be making a lot of money if they were putting money on Clinton winning Texas, because I think she will be able to take both tonight.

While barely winning both states won’t really be impressive in delegate counts for Clinton, I think she would be buoyed enough to want to stay in the race for another couple of weeks. Ugh. Clinton is a good candidate and would be a fine Democratic, but it’s really time for the campaigns to stop their primary work and have some down time to plan for the big general election… not to mention this is exhausting important funds that the Dems should be using against the Republicans.

Bottom Line: Don’t expect the Democratic Primary to be over tonight, but you might see Mike Huckabee drop out on Wednesday. Obama has about 45% odds to win either of the big states(probably Texas), about 15% odds of winning both Ohio and Texas and about 95% odds of winning Vermont. Hillary has a chance for a near-sweep tonight. Ugh.

New Hampshire: Obama; Nevada: Clinton?

If they were writing an SAT test today, that might be a correct response. Right now most people are expecting Hillary Clinton to carry the day in the Nevada Caucuses, but there are a lot of unknowns floating out there that may make the polls wrong once again. First, caucus type primary elections are very difficult to forecast. Second, this is the first time many Nevadans will be voting in a caucus and thus it is exceedingly hard to find the people who will actually be voting tonight. Third, Clinton’s allies lost their attempt to ban caucus sites near the casinos where many expected Obama voters will be working. (In case you didn’t hear about it the Culinary Workers’ Union endorsed Obama and since many of them will be at work on Saturday night, they’ll need a caucus site near work in order to participate.) The fourth and final reason I think Nevada will prove fascinating is that Edwards may do far worse than people think and those votes (just a guess here) may break in favor of Obama by the end of the night. In any case this should be an interesting night for the Democrats.

Oh and if Obama wins here, Clinton will need to do very well in the upcoming super-duper Tuesday, since Obama will almost certainly win South Carolina.

Can there be a recession with NO (zero) quarters of negative real GDP growth?

Answer: Yes! …but it’s not very likely.

This was a question that’s been hopping around in my head for a couple of months now, but I only got around to finding answer to it today. The most commonly-held definition for recession is: “Two quarters of negative real economic growth (meaning Gross Domestic Product or GDP or in other words all the stuff and services sold in the country.)” That’s not the definition that most economists use, for example the 2001 recession never had 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth. Economists have the handy-dandy National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to decide on recessions for them… a year or two after the fact. But wouldn’t it be nice to know right after, or better yet, before or during a recession that it’s going on? Again, the answer is yes!

So how do the fine academics at NBER (a group of very smart PhD economists) decide on business cycles, one of which being recession?

According to the NBER:

Macworld is today!

So it looks like something really cool in geekworld is going to happen today: Apple is announcing its 2008 line of products! One of which is the fabled Apple Air, which according to legend, will be almost completely wireless, as thin as a the USAToday, and slides into the new Apple Displays to become effectively an iMac. Sounds pretty cool to me. Let’s hope it’s real. (The picture is a rendering from another blog.)

Keep up with the keynote address here! It starts at 12PM Eastern.

PRIMARY UPDATE: Michigan and What it means

Michigan’s Democratic and Republican Primaries are occurring today, but the only really interesting part of it will be the Republican side.

First, a little background on the Democrats…

The Democratic National Committee started a process in 2005 to renovate the primary schedule. The thought was to make the earlier states more representative of the party as a whole and to also allow the party to select a more competitive candidate for the general election. At the beginning of the nationwide hearings, there was ambitious talk of challenging the first-in-the-nation statuses of Iowa and New Hampshire. Due to state laws in both states, the DNC gave up on this goal, but instead opted for rearranging the rest of the states in a new top-down imposed primary schedule. This is why Nevada, New York, and California have all taken on earlier time frames and thus greater significance.

But! All of the states wanted greater significance and the economic boost campaign spending and media attention would bring to their state. So, the DNC warned state governments that were they to move up their caucus or primary without permission, they would lose some or all of their delegates.