Hmm, this Reuters story about a new survey suggests that rich Americans aren't buying into the line that Obama will make America so much more socialist that they will all lay around in their pajamas rather than go make more money...

Despite plans to boost tax rates for the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, Sen. Barack Obama is making the deepest inroads into wealthy voters in more than a decade for any Democratic presidential nominee, suggesting the November 4 election could mark a fundamental shift in voting patterns.

...McCain had 40 percent of the "affluent and wealth vote," compared with 33 percent for Obama, and given the recent stock market slide Taylor says he would be surprised if Obama's support hadn't risen further in the past few weeks.
In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, in contrast, about 80 percent of the wealthy supported the Republican nominee, Taylor said.

.... Some rich Americans expect taxes to rise regardless of who wins the White House race, and some expect it even if the foundering U.S. economy tips into recession.

"Everybody believes that taxes are going up ... no matter who gets elected," said Timothy Vaill, chairman and chief executive of the wealth management arm of Boston Private Financial Holdings, a money-management firm.

Some wealthy foreign investors with big investments in the United States are unnerved by McCain's running-mate, Alaska governor and self-described 'hockey mom' Sarah Palin, said Charles Lowenhaupt, chairman of St. Louis-based Lowenhaupt Global Advisors, which advises ultra-high-net-worth families.

In the face of this economic crisis all of McCain's pain pales in comparison with his Palin problem. Yes, she's done her job and energized the base--and brought out some pretty base emotions from both sides. But she throws out of serious consideration McCain's most precious asset: His, till now, credible claim that he always puts country first and ahead of being elected.

His campaign has become a pep rally of preaching to the angry choir of the social conservatives. He cannot get the middle and undecided voters with this red meat negative approach. He needs to add to his pre-existing foreign policy bona fides (deserved or not is another issue). This election would belong to him were Mitt Romney his VP. McCain's final chance is for Sarah Palin to drop out--for any number of really good reasons: Plan her daughter's wedding, deal with the troopers at the gate or fight her crippling winking disorder. This would then be the moment for Romney to come in.

This is the time for people who know something, have a nuanced understanding of economics and finance and project calm assurance. Sarah may excite, but she is not a calm, steady hand on the tiller and even economic conservatives quake at the thought of her becoming president.

McCain needs a Mitt to catch his falling campaign.

The sky is falling. The market is tanking. The banks are failing. The global system of finance has lost the faith of the people. No. No. All is well. The international community has saved the day. Welcome to panic in the year 2008.

I know it's easy to be cynical about Kippling's famous line, "If you can keep your head while all about you people are losing theirs, then you're a man." Aside from the sexism from the old colonialist, in this case it's a good observation. The best indicator of when the pros sell is when the market, any market, gets pumped up by amateurs who believe that they can only make money and no special knowledge, talent or research is necessary. When you see people identifying themselves as day traders and earning their living churning their own portfolios, when you see ads for playing the futures market, trading in commodities and foreign currency, you know to rush for the exits because the bubble is about to burst. The pros will make money as the bubble inflates and short the market on the way down. The late entries, the smart kids, the amateurs will get slaughtered.

The pros buy when the market hits bottom--or as close to the bottom as they can guess. Well, guess isn't really the right word. They actually know stuff and so while facts don't always determine the outcome, they are pretty handy to have at one's disposal--before the market, any market, disposes of you. You see, at some point, most companies or commodities have an intrinsic worth.

Think about your house. It may have had a price at a million and a half. Its appraisal may have fallen to a million or even 750, 000. But at some point, it has some value. Now when it was 1.5 million, you were not rich. You didn't make money if you didn't sell it. When it falls in value, you won't lose money if you don't sell it. Everyone is panicked by being upside down in their houses, that is having the loan being greater than the value. Oh horrors. Oh uncharted situation. Really?

Anyone who buys a new car is upside down the moment you drive off the lot. Your new car, that you just paid say 50k for, is now, by dint of having been registered to you, a used car. You are upside down by about 15k. Yet you're still paying the monthlies. There is no problem unless you have to sell. Then you're in trouble. But you are neither rich when prices go up, nor poor when they fall--if you do not sell.

You see the pros study what things are actually worth--not simply what they sell for today. Bubbles are sometimes obvious. The most famous is the tulip bubble when bunches of people bid up tulip bulbs. When push came to shove and the fad faded, the bubble burst. The Dotcom bubble of the 90s was another predictable disaster. Certainly some companies would find a path to profitability, but most wouldn't, and there was no intrinsic value to most Dotcoms. Every successful high tech company knows it is one innovation away from irrelevancy and therefore bankruptcy. This is why the giants are relentless in buying up or strangling in its crib any other company in its ecological niche.

Too many amateurs believed that cool ideas in cutting edge industries would inevitably succeed. Too many amateurs thought that enthusiasm was enough to hold up the value way past any rational value.

So right now, as the market climbs steeply the pros are buying companies that have good price earnings ratios. They are not buying everything. They don't know if this is a suddenly reborn Bull Market (not the way to bet) or what they call "A dead cat bounce." What they do know is that there are some bargains and that their time to buy is when the amateurs get frightened and panic sell. No market is designed for amateurs. This market has revealed too many self-proclaimed pros to be, in fact, amateurs. How do you tell the difference? The pros don't panic. Note that Warren Buffett bought in when the panic was setting in.

Sarah Palin was angry that she was being heckled today. Her predictable response was this: "I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest."

Well, they probably did. Because all they were protesting was their inability to hear her. "Louder, louder," they were saying. Sarah, a big fan of defense, got a little defensive.

Whoops. Well, who ever lost a point in the polls by saluting our veterans? And I'm sure it was Barney Frank who was messing with the sound system anyway.

At the same time, hasn't it seemed that the Republicans have lost their decades-old edge in smoothness and logistics? Dems used to be the disheveled, fly-by-the-seats-of-their-pants organization. Now they seem to get the visuals and the aurals right, and the GOP doesn't.

I've been puzzled, even stunned, to see so many people use the "S" word to criticize Obama lately: "Socialist."

Even moderate friends, even progressive vegan friends, have been using the "S" word, and not as a compliment.

When I ask others how they define socialism, they say, "heavy governmental control."

What, then, is the Bush administration's approach? See here for breaking news.

Everyone believes in heavy governmental control these days, as a practical matter. Even the GOP is trying to pin the blame on Dems for not (!!!) regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enough.

True socialism, however, is an economic approach in which there are no winners or losers, no rich and no poor. Do people really think Obama is willing or able to push through such an agenda?

...in the dictionary, and you'll see a map of Pakistan.

Now, even the Pakistani police's antiterrorism squad is getting bombed.

LA has to work to remain relevant. In an age of globalism cities cannot rest on laurels or neglect either physical or intellectual infrastructure.

The rail line that does not go to LAX was planned to service our permanent aircraft industry. Now gone. A major port is being built in Baja, movies go on location and so can studios.

As jobs dry up, the flow of immigrants--legal and not--slows, and low-end housing opens up, and rents decrease as vacancies increase. Meanwhile, as per Earl, the schools are sinking and the establishment is fighting Charters and traffic is worse than ever.

Now is the moment when our charismatic mayor confesses to political impotence. The other kind doesn't seem to be a problem.

Antonio basically delivered the "malaise" talk that Carter never actually did. However, irony of ironies, he shared his gloom here in the Valley, where, I'm sure he assumed, no one of importance would be listening. Wrong again. Antonio is like LA--glitzy, hyperactive, easily distracted and apparently easily discouraged. He should study Mayor Bloomberg, slow down and get to work.

Why would anyone be surprised that Mayor Tony would say there isn't much the city's leadership can do about hard times and the even harder times to come? After all, this is a mayor who hasn't done very much when times were good. Check the record, with much fanfare he promised to: transform the schools which are not, never should have been and shouldn't be now under his thumb, end the traffic gridlock that takes a battle plan worthy of Ike to get from point A to Point B in the city, gang cleanse the streets many of which still count more candlelight vigil flowers in tribute to murder victims than trees, jumpstart business growth in South L.A. much of which still looks like a scene out of the flick the Land that Time Forgot, and to give real teeth to neighborhood councils which are still just as toothless as ever.

Now again remember Tony made these promises to turn L.A. into a New Jerusalem when the good times supposedly rolled in the city. But you can bet your fast shriveling 401K that Mayor Tony will be a tiger in action when it comes to snatching TV face time while working the fat cat corporate and labor circuit to bank millions for his re-election bid. That's a hardship that Tony certainly knows how to avert.

LA as a future Baltimore, Rob? Like a snowball in hell. Politicians or not, apathy or not, LA is a nut magnet. It's like an expression I once heard:

"Whatever I go, whatever I do, I create a little dent in the Earth, and all the loose nuts and bolts come rolling down."

This place will never have a population implosion so long as global warming doesn't kick in too much, the sun keeps shining and there are no monsoons or major earthquakes to level the place off (though, in all honesty, it could be an improvement.) That's because LA is a land of dreams, and the Three Stooges could be running affairs, and people would still come flocking here.

...but Mayor Villaraigosa says it can pour, as Rick Orlov notes in an article on the mayor's speech in Woodland Hills. Orlov says the mayor "warned business leaders the city is in for continued hard times," and admitted there isn't much that the city's leadership feels it can do to avert hardship.

Los Angeles has promising weather and location in its favor, as well as a charismatic way that captures the imagination of the planet. But working against it is a lack of vision among the politicians of the region and the state.

Los Angeles and California become victims of their own hare-like success, unable to realize that tortoises are catching up.

Passing through the Dubai airport a short while back, I was struck by how a backwater nation used oil revenues to build physical and economic infrastructure that can sustain it as a global center for the long haul.

L.A. and California must learn to compete in the global economy. It may not look as pretty or as fair or as environmentally friendly as some would like. But, I ask my Friendly Fire colleagues: Is there any other way to ensure we don't become a Baltimore in coming years?