too much about nothing

As most law school students/graduates know, the career services department always highlights networking as the key to getting a job. That has probably been true for every job I’ve gotten, but that doesn’t make me like it any better. Regardless, networking is understood to be the way you get a job. So imagine my surprise when, after submitting my resumé to Large-Ass Firm through a friend who has a neighbor that is a partner in Mergers & Acquisitions, I get an email courteously thanking me for my submission (no openings, etc.), but not very subtly chastising me for going outside the normal HR channels of their job board (please just watch the job board and don’t do this again). Too funny.

I have remained jobless (lawyerly speaking), for those keeping tabs, close to a year and a half out of law school. So, I’m taking the plunge and going solo. I really have no other option at this point. We’ll see how that works out, but I actually have met a number of attorneys here in town, so maybe they’ll throw me some business every now and then. God knows I need the money.

I’ll keep applying for the few meager positions I see (and I got a letter for a job I applied for that suggested I passed through the first screening), but as I’ve remained jobless, the ranks of unemployed attorneys in Seattle with more experience than me has grown. And that probably doesn’t help my odds any.

When Bush won reelection in 2004, he declared that the American people had given him a mandate for whatever the fuck he wanted to do. Of course, he was wrong, as he had the slimmest margin (percentage-wise) in a reelection for any sitting president since Woodrow Wilson.

So what happens if Obama’s victory is in the same range as he is currently polling, absolutely crushing the 2004 Bush margin of victory? Will we see any discussion about the American people’s mandate for Obama’s policies? Somehow I doubt that (just look at the current Republican insanity surrounding voter registration and ACORN). The traditional media bought into the Bush mandate spin, but I’m not sure they will with Obama, even if Dems win huge majorities in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. We’ll see.

Update: just ran across this at Yglesias’ place. Funny how things tend to come up at the same time. I agree with Yglesias that the idea of mandates are fairly stupid, but he makes a point I didn’t think about: Congress as independent actor. Of course, I was thinking in terms of the monolithic party actor. Regardless, my curiosity is more along the lines of, will Obama be viewed as having a mandate for anything if he wins with, for example, 400 electoral votes and 60+% of the popular vote? My assumption is no way.

Ezra Klein, who I think is generally a fantastic read, has a post up about tipping. The main perspective is that tipping is stupid, and we should just pay more for stuff so that people get a livable wage. The really relevant passage is this:

Rather than simply paying a price that reflects a fair wage for their work, I’m instead laying down a voluntary sum and hoping others do the same. It’s a wage model that’s reliant on charitable donations enforced through social pressure, and in that way, a little demeaning. I think I’d feel less guilty about the interaction if I knew they were being paid fairly, and it wasn’t part of their job, in theory, to vary their performance to my whim so that I might leave an extra dollar. Now, most folks in tipped professions don’t seem to vary their service to ensure the tip, and I don’t seem to vary my tip to reward service, and so we’ve hit some rough equilibrium, with the byproduct being I have to pull out my tip calculator at the close of each meal.

I had a pretty long post worked up over this whole thing, but I realized I don’t need to spin the wheels so much (brevity is something I’m working on). I work in coffee, so my perspective is based on that. Basically, to eliminate tipping and pay a barista what they make in tips and base pay, drink prices would have to be raised by around 40 to 50 cents per drink, and that assumes the same sales volume, which given the size of the price increase necessary is a pretty bad assumption. The article Klein references from the NY Times Magazine mostly discusses a restaurant that eliminated tipping, but added a standard 18% service charge to orders. That is no different than allowing people to tip, it simply changes the how the tip is made.

The real cost of eating out, or drinking out, or doing anything out in a place where you are being served, is disguised by the practice of tipping. I think of tipping as less a commentary on social norms than as a psychological mechanism relied upon by owners and managers to avoid paying service employees real, livable wages. That’s part of the problem: at least where high-volume, low-cost enterprises are concerned. At places like, say, Denny’s or Chilis or Starbucks, the point is that the low-cost, non-artisan level food service relies on mostly unskilled workers that are easily replaceable. It doesn’t matter to Chilis if one of their waiters refuses to wear the appropriate flair and they have to be fired, there’s someone clamoring to work for the crap wage and the high tip volume. The job sucks, though, that’s for sure.

However, nicer restaurants and nicer coffee houses pay their employees better relative to the rest of the industry (I should probably find some statistic about this, but I’m fairly certain it’s a fairly accurate thing to say. I think it’s true in part because of my actual work experiences, but also because owners of high-end places are more discriminating in who they hire, which leads to the need to attract the right people, which leads to higher pay to get those employees). That means, of course, that the true cost of the food or beverage is not as hidden — although it still must be to some extent.

The correct analogy here can be found in Michael Pollan’s recent article in the NY Times Magazine, which is an open letter to the next president. In it, he argues that food policy must be a major concern. Pollan’s argument (and it’s not so much argument as obvious truth) is that the industrialized agricultural system has hidden the true cost of food, much as tipping hides the true cost of labor. In the case of industrial agriculture, we have to deal, in part, with the subsidies that make corn and soybean so cheap to sell, when, in fact, they cost much more. There is much more in Pollan’s article, and I highly recommend you read it.

I was a bit disappointed that last night Obama didn’t bring up the new McCain tune on how he’s going to pay for his health insurance tax credit. Obama stuck by the whole taxing health care costs as under the payroll tax. However, yesterday, some new information came out regarding that, from the New Republic:

First McCain said he would elimine the entire tax deduction for health insurance, in order to pay for his new tax credit. This would have paid for itself, but it would have done so by raising taxes on a lot of people.

Then McCain decided he was keeping part of the deduction after all. While he would be raising taxes on a very few people, he’d be lowering them for most. Of course, that would also have meant running much bigger deficits.

Now McCain is saying, no, no, he’s not going to increase the deficit with his health care plan. Instead, he’s going to pay for it by cutting Medicare and Medicaid–which, at the levels he’s discussing, might seriously weaken the program.

The level of cuts?

According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, it would add $1.3 trillion to the deficit over ten years.

Emphasis mine. Seriously, cut Medicare and Medicaid by $1.3 trillion over 10 years? I think that pretty much guts those programs. So, effectively, McCain will destroy health care as we know it, and pay for it by destroying Medicare and Medicaid as we know it. Good plan.

Of course, that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for someone like McCain (taken from the Rolling Stone cover story on McCain):

In congress, Rep. John McCain quickly positioned himself as a GOP hard-liner. He voted against honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday in 1983 — a stance he held through 1989. He backed Reagan on tax cuts for the wealthy, abortion and support for the Nicaraguan contras. He sought to slash federal spending on social programs, and he voted twice against campaign-finance reform. He cites as his “biggest” legislative victory of that era a 1989 bill that abolished catastrophic health insurance for seniors, a move he still cheers as the first-ever repeal of a federal entitlement program.

Emphasis mine.

One thing that McCain talked about that I did find intriguing was his discussion about using the Treasury to buy underwater mortgages and renegotiating the deal with the homeowner for the current actual value of the home. I think that’s pretty much a good idea. The particulars of that would be very interesting. I’m also curious if that’s a new plan that McCain has, or if it was just some random spouting.

I do recall hearing Obama say in response that the Secretary of the Treasury already had the power to do renegotiate mortgages (or something like that), and that we needed to make sure we install a Secretary that effectively exercises the current powers of the Treasury — implying that Bernanke, er Paulson (I’m an idiot), didn’t give a shit. That particular exchange went way outside my knowledge base, so I’m curious about it.

UPDATE: This is mentioned in some bullet points in a post by dday over at Digby’s place. It is indeed a discretionary power that was given to the Secretary of the Treasury in the bailout that was just passed. McCain now looks more like he doesn’t know what’s going on.

I watched the Obama/McCain townhall debate in decidedly pro-Obama company tonight. I can’t say that I’m an unbiased observer, but whatevs. My basic reaction is this: McCain is a condescending prick. Saying that a questioner, or most Americans, have probably never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac? Making constant statements that people don’t know about something, or had never heard of it? Sorry, but it made him sound like a total fucktard, and turned me off of anything he said.

Second, McCain’s deliver, his tone and timbre of voice, all of it sounds like this dude that my step-dad used to hang out with. This guy was a total fucking wastoid — both he and my dad had smoked way too much weed, and drunk way too much alcohol, to ever be of service to anyone in life — and he used to tell me the simplest things as if he were passing along some secret and amazing nugget of purest wisdom. That’s what McCain reminds me of. My friends, telling me that “you don’t say you’re going to invade Pakibajian before you do it, because that’s not how strategy works,” as if it was the wisdom of the ages is not the way to communicate to anyone.

The biggest lesson for me, at least for McCain, is to watch Obama’s approach. It’s clear that Obama’s time teaching law school has affected his presentation skills. Teaching is a rarified skill. It’s hard to increase the knowledge base of your audience while not talking down to them as if they’re idiots. For someone like McCain, who’s spent his entire adult life either in the military, where he probably learned to treat people like they were morons, or in Congress, where he was basically a big dog, there’s been no impetus for McCain to improve in how he deals with people. For someone that has taught, that has an intellect that is interested in making a subject come alive for a class (I assume this point is true of Obama — you don’t spend 10 years teaching without some interest in helping people learn), you learn from how you teach, and you learn how to guide students into discovering a subject. Tax policy, entitlement programs, foreign policy: they are complicated. They should be, frankly, because our world — our society — is not simple.* Rather than talk as if he’s explaining, Obama, to me, sounds as if he’s communicating to equals; he’s explaining to the extent that he probably needs to, but he does so without obviously dumbing down the topics. It seems to me that Obama engages his audience rather than lecture to them.

* Frankly, it always drove me nuts when Steve Fucking Forbes kept talking about his flat tax plan, and how it would fit on one piece of paper.

The conventional wisdom, at least according to sites like Daily Kos, is that a VP debate won’t affect the polls. While I can’t generally disagree, I do think there is one instance in which a VP debate could push public opinion: where a big issue is the judgment of the presidential candidate in picking that VP candidate. If that VP candidate just reinforces the idea that the choice showed bad judgment, then I see a debate having an effect. I could see it happening this time out, but I certainly don’t have any empirical evidence for it. Probably the only thing I could point to are the snap polls post-debate, but the data doesn’t necessarily say anything to me in terms of shifting voters one way or t’other.

Edit: added some links and made some minor edits when I got back to my computer (I posted from my phone).

I just saw this on dailykos, and wanted to highlight something: my impeccably bad timing. I graduated from college in 2000 and from law school in 2007. Note the employment growth rates at those times in the graph below:

Listening to the VP debate (I was at work), something Biden said really jumped out at me, as it’s something I’ve wanted to see happen: He wants to empower bankruptcy judges to modify the principle owed in a mortgage. I’m glad to hear it brought up in that particular forum.

Dexter woke me up this morning by saying (whispering), “Poppa!”, bringing me a ball as a present, and then making kissing noises at me while pressing his face on mine. Picture a 15 month old saying, “mmmmmm-ah”, and dropping a slobbery mouth onto yours (no kissing movements with his lips — we’re working on that still). Yeah, he’s pretty awesome.