Morning Fog

Monopoly Money: Ticketmaster

Have you bought tickets for an "event" lately?  A local music concert, a sports event, theater during your planned trip to New York, even a dogfight two blocks down from your house...you just can't avoid "Ticketmaster," the company that seems to have a lock on the tix for every entertainment in the country -- nor its exhorbitant add-on fees.

It turns out that Ticketmaster doesn't just seem to be everywhere, it is, with a recently reported 83% market share.   According to Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post, a degree of competiton emerged about a year ago, but in short order, Ticketmaster and its rival LiveNation decided to merge; this in turn was challenged by antitrust authorities.  You can read all the details of the antitrust action in the article, but what comes through clearly to me in all of it is "monopoly." 

I don't begrudge a company a profit for services rendered, but on a typical order I made recently, Ticketmaster's fees and charges added 15% to the price of the event.  And that was before I declined the extra 4.75 they wanted just to e-mail the tickets (...wait, isn't e-mailing easier and cheaper than snail mail?  Shouldn't the e-mail be free, and the postally mailed tickets cost extra?)  Welcome to the world of monopoly pricing, prices that we unfortunately can't pay with Monopoly money.

The approval of the merger comes with some limitations aimed at benefitting consumers, but it will be interesting to see if anything really changes.  The basic fact is that - as in many other businesses in the past decade or so - you're being charged again for something that's already included.  Admission prices have always included the costs of printing, selling, tracking, and delivering the actual tickets.  It's part of the cost of doing business, so when you purchase admission to an event, you have a right to assume you don't get charged a separate fee for the receipt (which is effectively what a ticket is).

At the arena/theater/stadium box office, you don't; consumers can still normally avoid the add-on charges that way.  But if you don't want to drag yourself to the box office, or physically can't (e.g., buying tickets in advance for another city), you'll pay more.  Ticketmaster offers a degree of convenience that some people in some circumstances may value, but any website, not just Ticketmaster's, can offer the benefits of ordering across the country, or receiving your tickets quickly by e-mail.

The event venues have abdicated their responsibility to their patrons by not running their own ticket operations.  More should.  Too many of those that do will still charge you a fee for online orders (figuring, I guess, that if Ticketmaster can get away with it they can too).  That practice should cease.

Note: This piece is also being published on The Tin Lizard,  
because its subject matter is also relevant there.

State Of The Union

If any of us thought the State of the Union address Wednesday evening would create some kind of sea change in the political picture, we were mistaken. 

First, of course, it would be naive to think so.  When was the last SotU you remember that altered anything?  It hasn't happened lately.  The problem is that SotUs long ago ceased striving to inspire, and instead became a laundry-list of accomplishments, plans, projects, and (rarely) mea culpas of the President and his party.  Obama did not disappoint those who expected the bland and boring. 

Still, the tone was unusual -- a mostly unapologetic President, offering the occasional sop to populist trends, but pushing two more important themes:  He won't abandon key elements of his agenda; and the opposition's obstructionism was not in the interests of the country.  The White House had let it be known he would be feisty, and indeed he was, dashing Republican hopes that he might meekly submit to the "lesson of Massachusetts" (I told you they'd misread the meaning of Massachusetts. didn't I?)

Those who hoped that the Republican Party would abandon its negative stance on every Administration proposal were just as wrong.  This was clear from the point where Obama talked about some of his tax cuts, the magical GOP solution to every problem, yet Republicans pulled another Boehner and sat silent.  The President's cheery acknowledgment that he thought he'd get some credit on that line was perhaps the best point he scored, emphasizing the already clear message that Republicans will continue to resist any effort to carry out their responsibilities to their constituents and their country because it might be read as "giving the Democrats a victory," which might in turn create a few Democratic votes in the next election. In the day following the address, there was plenty more evidence of the same, if any were needed.

Will Obama's precedent-setting on-the-record session with Republicans today succeed in breaking the ice jam?  Doubtful, but slightly more promising than the State of the Union Address.

Things Falling Off Cliffs

There's a lot of ferment right now about what the President will say in his State of the Union address tonight, and at least some indications are available, but I would rather comment after it's given.

Meantime, it seems the country has come to a near-halt, though not near enough to force us to deal seriously with some of the problems we face.  Steven Pearlstein today has taken a look ahead to describe what the President should (but will not) say.  He captures the feeling I've had also, that our government is deadlocked in extreme partisanship that prevents it from accomplishing even its most basic tasks.  He also offers an idea for fixing that -- he professes to think that real change could be achieved by Obama's being rigid about requirements (i.e., any initiatives have to be paid for, no legislative special deals and earmarks, etc.).   Pearlstein, I think, has analyzed the problem correctly but his solution could not be effective even if Obama were to adopt it.

One reason nothing is working right now to restore momentum is the nihilism discovered in a recent survey.  People are confused, disillusioned, and most important, feeling the pinch - so they're basically critical of everything.  As writer Achenbach says, they don't like the status quo, and they don't like efforts to change it.  Go figure.  As I've noticed myself, people have resisted beneficial changes in their health care because they prefer to believe untruths than truths; they complain that the government is more interested in rescuing banks than rescuing them without realizing that they were rescued -- from a far worse fate -- by the taxpayers' support of key financial institutions.

Effective government isn't the only thing falling off a cliff.  We now have houses and other buildings on both coasts falling off cliffs too.  In California, recent storms threaten apartment buildings; in Maryland, cliffside homes are under threat for several reasons: damage done by storms earlier this year, plus the cumulative effects of natural coastal erosion; oh, and some insects, too -- the cliffs are home to the endangered Puritan tiger beetle, and local politicians are blaming the Endangered Species Act for preventing action to shore up the cliffs.  In both cases, there seems to be an expectation on the part of residents and local governments that it is (federal) government's job to try to rebuild the cliffs. 

Wrong on both counts, I think. People who build or buy homes need to realize that no cliff is forever; a cliff by definition implies ground falling away, collapsing, eroding.  If you buy such a place, you should buy a damned good - and expensive - insurance policy right along with it.  Governments might provide some disaster assistance but if they do, the principle should be that aid is conditioned on relocating, and abandoning the endangered property.  (This works for flood areas too.) 

So we have a pretty typical picture, I think, of what people expect from government:  Do nothing for the common good like rescuing banks or extending health care (that might cost me money) but help me out of a jam of my own making by saving my house (when somebody else pays me).   

Deficit Commission Is Decomissioned

Less than a month ago it seemed there was a glimmer of hope that a bipartisan effort in the Senate would produce a commission aimed at breaking the logjam that has prevented us from reining in growing deficits created by both parties.  The bipartisan commission was supposed to come up with a mixed package of steps to be taken, on which Congress would have to vote as a package -- no nitpicking this provision, or slipping in an exception for one Senator's corporate sugar daddy, or changing any of its recommendations. 

In principle, a commission shouldn't be necessary, and might even be considered anti-democratic.  It would take much of the management of our fiscal health out of the hands of elected officials whose job it really is.   Some will argue that's why the proposal was defeated in the Senate today.

In reality, though, it was because too many Senators still cling to their sense of entitlement to behave irresponsibly, their feeling that they and only they have the right to drive the government so far into debt that it can't escape, like a brontosaurus knee-deep in the La Brea Tar Pit.  

Another way of putting it is that people love government services (e.g. Medicare, or education for their kids) almost as much as they love their room-sized plasma TVs, but they will pay any price for the latter, and no price for the former.  The politician who leads the charge against that attitude knows he'll quickly become a casualty from friendly fire.

There are still some paths that might lead to a commission of some sort.  Sen. Baucus reportedly will offer a version that would allow our august legislators to alter the commission's recommendations, but that removes the one provision that might make it effective.  The President has vowed to create the commission by Executive Order and may do so, but its recommendations then won't have the force of law and would probably not be implemented. 

Our political system never seems to be able to solve a problem proactively; an intolerable situation must force itself on us by becoming a crisis we can't ignore.  Maybe when the dinosaur is neck-deep? 

Two Good Reads

I may be a little short of time today, so for now I'll just point to two good opinion columns on two issues I've blogged about lately:

See Fareed Zakaria's "Obama Should Act ... Like a President" concerning the need for a revised political framework in President Obama's interface with the public, and

See E.J. Dionne's "Supreme Court Ruling Calls for Populist Revolt" concerning the egregious Supreme Court decision that broadened the power of Corporate America to influence the political process on which it already exerts a heavy thumb.  In particular, Dionne summarizes some of the ideas being considered in Congress to attempt to limit the effects of the decision.  In addition, I'd propose that (if it doesn't already exist) there should be an annual financial disclosure statement required from each of the Justices. 

Changing The Political Approach

Nearly everyone seems to have some advice on what should be done with pending health care legislation now, in the wake of the lightning bolt delivered by a Republican victory in Massachusetts last week.   The opinions are all over the map: The effort should be abandoned; Congress should race to vote it in before Brown is seated; the House should vote to approve the Senate bill as is; everyone should go back to the drawing board and fashion a simpler plan involving just the noncontroversial elements that both parties agree on; Democrats should stick to their guns and continue to use their majority to press for their version....

It's an interesting jumble of opinion but I still think it's a bit premature.  Obama and the Democrats need to straighten out their political strategy before they can possibly decide how to proceed on health care or other touchy issues. 

The process has begun.  Obama himself has conceded that he and his team got preoccupied with the legislative program and failed to pay enough attention to undergirding their political support.  Since then, he has been playing up populist themes on the hustings.  It's a good sign that David Plouffe, who ably managed Obama's campaign, is getting back in the act as an advisor - a guy who understands politics and maybe should have been on board all along.  All these steps, taken within just a couple of days, reflect a resiliency and determination on Obama's part.  If Republicans had hoped he'd be dilatory, or would just throw in the towel, they will be disappointed.

Still, so many things remain to suss out on the political front:
- how can unity be achieved among Democrats in Congress?
- can Republicans really be expected to vote for even a stripped down health reform bill?
- if they did, would they then claim political credit for it? (they do seem mighty fond of Medicare nowadays, which they opposed tooth and nail).

Those points pale in significance next to one other, however:  How can a bunch of fear-crazed, stampeding Congresspeople of both parties be persuaded to vote for anything?  The real importance of Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts is that sitting Congressmen and Senators facing election at the end of this year have been buffaloed - they are uncertain how the "angry" voters will react to anything they do.  The Republican Party has unceasingly mongered fear in the electorate for the past year and may think this works for them - has worked in Massachusetts - but on the level of the individual Representative in the House, even Republicans now have reason to be concerned about their political base.  Unpredictable and largely irrational voters are clearly in a mood to "throw the rascals out," regardless of party, and that has the rascals very concerned. 

In this environment, it will be difficult if not impossible to get anything accomplished legislatively until the dust settles.  Politicians will be looking for clues about voter moods, and there aren't other major political events coming up to provide those clues.  Those with money to spend (like the business tycoons lately enabled by the Supreme Court) or with an audience of ready fanatics will be in a position to create their own dust. 

Supreme Court Seeks To Obsolete Itself

Here's a headline that appeared today: "Supreme Court rejects limits on Corporate Spending in Political Campaigns."  Well, of course they did.  What else could be expected from the Roberts court?  Especially when they took the unusual step of reaching out to consider this issue when nothing required them to do so? 

I won't reiterate here the reasons I think this predictable       
decision is poppycock (and I don't mean the candied   
popcorn treat by ConAgra), but you can read them here.   

The problem, of course, is that corporations, if not restrained, have so much greater financial power than any small group of citizens that they can completely dominate political discussion.  We need look no further than the public debate on health care to demonstrate this. 

Further, in giving corporations free rein to spend their money to advocate for one candidate or another, the Court effectively grants them license to infringe the free speech of two groups -- those who, through corporate spending, could be denied access to the print and electronic media, AND their own stockholders, not all of whom might condone the company's promoting a candidate whom they (stockholders) do not approve.   Stockholders might have some recourse to challenge spending by their corporation, but only to a very limited degree.)

Today's decision, which reverses a host of precedents as recent as six years ago, is a clear case of the "judicial activism" conservative jurists and politicians profess to deplore.  Realistically, though, we all know that if a decision goes in the direction you prefer, it's not "activism" but "what the framers intended."  This special effort by the Court to reverse precedent -- clearly with anticipation of what the decision would be -- further sullies the Court's already tattered reputation for wisdom and impartiality.  Ultimately, with a few more artful judicial interpretations, I suppose we'll have corporate execs making our legal decisions for us too; then we won't need the "Supremes." 

The Massachusetts Moment II - Coakley Cooked

The shocking, if not surprising, victory of Republican Scott Brown in yesterday's Senate race in ultra-Democratic Massachusetts will engender some serious rethinking in the White House and among Democrats in Congress regarding much of Obama's agenda, but first, they must address revamping their political strategy.  Democratic losses in mid-term elections were inevitable anyway, but the Massachusetts result seems likely to magnify them. 

It's not the end of the world.  Some Democrats are still saying they can pass a health care bill; but in some ways, health care becomes almost irrelevant at this point.  The voters of Massachusetts have delivered a message, but the dilemma is to assess accurately how to read it.

Health care might conceivably be passed already, if it weren't for the terrible state of the economy.  Thus the real issue for Obama's agenda is whether or not enough can be done to improve the economy - particularly on grassroots factors like jobs and mortgages - to improve people's sense of well-being before November.  And that's a tossup, since I've never seen evidence that anybody, Republican or Democrat, truly understands what measures effectively wreak economic turnaround; every case is different.

Alex Vogel, a "Republican strategist" quoted in the article linked above, is partly right in saying that "the electorate did not leave the Bush years liberalized; they left angry with bad and ineffective government."  It's not rational, but voters are willing to blame Democrats for not solving in one year the mess that Republicans took eight years to create.  The Republican Party has been surprisingly successful in insulating itself from the political fallout of anti-Bush sentiment.

That brings us the the ongoing evidence of singular political ineptitude in the Obama White House and in the Democratic leadership over the past year.  It's not that the party's agenda is untenable, unnecessary, or inherently unpalatable - but that the Republican "big lie" strategy has gone almost completely unchallenged, and now it has legs. 

Brown ran a good, smart race and may not have been stoppable under any circumstances.  It's pointless now for the Dems to worry about who "lost" Massachusetts - everybody had a hand in it, including White House staff, the state Democratic Party, Coakley herself, and, lest we forget, the party's national committee chair, Tim Kaine, who probably wasn't paying full attention to that job while still wrestling with Virginia's problems until his term ended last week.  Politically, the only course at this juncture is to find someone who doesn't currently exist - someone with a firm grasp of the political message.

Only then will it be possible to consider how to salvage the substantive agenda. 

A New Blog In The Family

I'm pleased to announce that there's a new blog in the Morning Fog family as of last week --  The Tin Lizard.  

While Morning Fog will continue (perhaps with less frequent postings) with commentary on politics, the economy, social issues, and other weighty subjects, The Tin Lizard will have lighter fare on a variety of topics, from cooking to books, from product reviews to the English language.  That may be narrowed down in future but right now I conceive it in Marxian terms (that's Groucho Marx, for those who remember him or his 1950's television quiz show, "You Bet Your Life"), i.e., dealing with whatever you might "find around the house every day."  It may not be your cup of tea, but I invite you to find out for yourself:  (www.thetinlizard.com).

 

The Massachusetts Moment

Aficionados of the political process are acutely aware of the battle in Massachusetts over the Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, which will be filled in a special election tomorrow.  The Democratic Party's anointed successor, Martha Coakley, began with a large lead in the polls but since Christmas (approximately) has been running neck and neck with the Republican candidate, Scott Brown.   No one seems certain who will win.

In November, when Virginia very predictably elected a Republican Governor after two successive Democrats, I argued that the GOP victory had little significance for the broader national picture.  The election was off-year, focused on local issues; the Democratic candidate was poorly chosen; and Virginia was, after all, only reverting to type.

Massachusetts is a different matter.  A Republican win there would be a serious wake-up call for the Democrats.  Not only would Brown's victory prematurely end the Democratic 60-vote majority in the house and endanger the long-gestated health reform bill now undergoing reconciliation between Senate and House, but it would be a deep psychological blow to Democrats because the "Kennedy seat" has been in Kennedy/Democratic hands since 1953, but Massachusetts has a national reputation as the ur-and-über-Democratic state.  And wouldn't it be sad if the seat held so long by Kennedy, the ardent champion of universal health care, turned out to be the seat that was key to its defeat?

I am only observing from a distance, and don't have a good sense of what's happening on the ground in the Bay State.  However, I suspect the media hullabaloo, which developed only in the past week or so, may be somewhat overdone.  Political prognostication in too-close-to-call races is nearly as fraught with uncertainty as weather forecasting in the mid-Atlantic region, but I'll go out on a limb and guess that, mainly for reasons stated in the last paragraph, voters will approve Coakley when all is said and done.  

If not, however, the Democrats will be scrambling to rebuild some form of electoral consensus nationally before November, with considerable expenditure of effort and money.  Much of it might have been avoided:

• The choice of a Democratic candidate was poor. Not to detract from Brown's qualities, but from what I can see of Coakley, she's a lackluster candidate who doesn't excite the voters one whit. Where is the fiery rhetoric, the engagement, that Teddy himself would have delivered?
• Why would existing Kennedys have turned down the chance to run for this seat? There was once a band called The Dead Kennedys; it's long since dissolved, but the remaining twigs of this multigenerational political dynasty might want to consider re-forming it.
• Democrats at the state level seem to have taken victory for granted, but no one - especially not voters in today's narrowly divided electorate - likes being taken for granted. If Coakley loses, I'd suggest this "show them" factor may have been just as important as any issue.

Finally, whatever the outcome, I'll still be amazed at the fickleness of many voters.  Even realizing that journalists look for the attention-grabbing quote, it's hard to fathom the thinking of the woman quoted in this Washington Post story, who says she has been scraping by for seven years and is fed up.  Her troubles began during, and continued through, six years of Republican administration, but one year of change didn't repair all the damage, so she's ready to sign on for more of the same?  The same source - a 65-year-old who, dollars to doughnuts, is on Medicare, doesn't want "the Medicare to get in."  The mind does boggle, at times.