NPRd

I happened to be listening to NPR this morning, while waiting for my daughter and her friend to get ready to go out. They're both in a dance class that's part of the summer routine for color guard. I don't know what it is, exactly, they do there, but they were both pleased that they did not have to get pink leotards this year -- apparently, the instructor last year was big on that. This year, black is the new pink. And they didn't need new dance shoes, either.

Anyway, I heard a couple of interesting items, only one of which had to do with Obama. I'm not swearing off The Big O, more like swearing off news entirely until I don't routinely see articles about fuel (not there yet, not by a long shot). But I was there, it was there, and so... Apparently, the Russians are having some problems with their military. This is always something that delights me, though I am sure that the mature approach would be to understand that their response to problems might not be what we would like, and might actually be substantially in the other direction. I didn't hear the entire article, but what I gathered was that the Russians, at Putin's direction, have spent a great deal of money beefing up their military, only to find that a substantial amount of that money has disappeared due to flaws in the system, not to mention, outright egregious corruption. The only things they have to show for the money put into the Air Force, for example, are some new fighters; quite nice, but not nearly enough of them. Similarly, their nuclear submarine fleet has gotten expanded, but the missiles which are their primary (though not sole) reason for existence don't work correctly. I don't know if that means that launching might sink the ship, or whether, in aiming for New York, they hit Omaha, or what, but whatever, it isn't good. The end result is that a lot of people, many of them opposed to the steps, are now stepping up to say how silly it was, and my gosh, what are we going to do now. Not a whole bunch of them, because Putin is still around, still in power, but still: some. I remember reading about this buildup when it was starting, and thinking that while I didn't like the idea from a national standpoint, still it did imply that the Russians were doing okay in their economy if they could divert funds to it. I suppose this is why I am not a prognosticator for a living.

I also heard some competing speeches between McCain and Obama about economics, the gist of which seemed to be that either a) whats needed is more of what we've been doing, cutting taxes for the wealthy, cutting taxes on businesses, while still being sensitive to the needs of the not-so-well-off, or b) whats needed is to increase taxes on the wealthy, elimination or reduction of taxes on the low end. It seems to come down (I know this is a gross simplification, but its the way I think) to whether you believe trickle - down economics works - that being the idea that if you keep the top of the economic ecosystem happy, it'll feed the lower branches. I don't agree with that. Without getting mystical, I think you have to be sensitive to all parts of that ecosystem. Damage to one part can be ameliorated by nourishment of another, and you can actually do damage to one part by nourishing another recklessly. I think McCain's stretching the truth when he talks -- for example, he said that lots of people would be affected by Obama's plan to increase taxes, which is true, but it skips over the part that the people affected are only those who own stocks (still, thats a lot) and that the bulk of the increased taxes would go on the people with the biggest amount of stock. While nobody likes taxes, I think thats fair. I understand why McCain wants to make it sound as grim as possible (kind of the economic version of the NRA shouting that the gummint will kick in your door at 3AM and steal all your guns). Not to say that Obama is blameless, but I think in this case, he's more correct than McCain. Lets see what others think.