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While there are people dancing in the streets about Madoff getting 150 years (they are now homeless, because of this cretin who stole their life savings) we haven’t yet seen one regulator nailed to the same cross. …continue reading the article 150 years for Madoff, and the SEC gets off easy When was the last time you heard the City Manager asking the City Commission a question at a Commission meeting? A real question? …continue reading the article The Clueless form of Dayton City Management. I haven’t posted anything here in awhile; summer, new smoker, learning about Twitter, reading, avoiding grading, watching Pujols, catching up with a long-lost friend: many distractions. But I popped over to Ann Coulter’s page the other day. I don’t have TV any more, and I miss her insights. I have a sneaking suspicion that there are some really good lawyers (my long-lost friend is probably one of them). I also think there are some that are evil, liars, stupid, drunk, asleep, and/or some combination of those qualities. At the same time, looking at the recent display of logic on the part of La Coultera, I think I’m starting to understand why she went into writing columns: 1) It avoids the long hours and hard work involved in doing the law correctly: you know, reasons, and evidence, and inferences, and arguments. Icky. 2) It avoids the long hours and hard work involved in doing journalism correctly: you know, reasons, and evidence, and inferences, and arguments. Also icky. So you scream and rant and rave, say the most ludicrous things, dare people to put you on TV (aren’t there videos you can already get, “Brains Gone Wild,” or something?); complain if they don’t, and complain if they do. It’s a fabulous approach for a rich spoiled kid desiring to remain rich and spoiled. Wish I’d thought of it. But let’s examine a single claim of La Coultera’s June 24 column, and see what, if any implications one can draw from it (using traditional logic, say that of Aristotle, or Frege; not her own, for, as we shall see, one of her axioms is “If P, then any fucking thing I want follows.”) The money quote:
Let’s ignore the fact that La Coultera probably doesn’t know much about Neda—famously supported by liberal bloggers all over the planet—and that much of the ricocheting that La Coultera mentions was the fault of liberals who hate America—and was, of all things, a philosophy student. Let’s just focus on the logic here. X happens. Y does Z after X occurs. Therefore Z is a response, by Y, to X. Feel free to fill in the variables. Let’s try a few.
Need I add “masterful!”? C’mon, it’s fun! Add your own. While some law schools no doubt teach “post hoc ergo propter hoc” as a traditional fallacy (well, it is about 2,500 years old, at least), maybe La Coultera missed that day. How did you respond to Neda’s tragic killing? This is my 994th post. …continue reading the article inspiration, from a dead writer, and why not? Daytonology usually doesn’t post much about partisan politics, but things are getting interesting so a brief excursion to the “paranoid style in American politics”. What is a Capital Strike? The concept of a “capital strike” comes from neo-Marxist theory. The basic concept is that capital (i.e the business community, including banks and investors) can go “on strike” if they don’t like a political regime, withholding investments and relocating work out of a country until resulting hard times forces the unpopular government to capitulate to the demands of capital or be voted out of office. The concept has maybe too much of a whiff of conspiracy theory to it, but perhaps it’s more correct as a description of a set of individual uncoordinated decisions over time by individual actors holding the same or similar values, indicating both a loss of confidence and a refusal do business in a place for various reasons. This seems to be the case in Dayton due to the lack of investment in the city and the steady drumbeat of critique. This has come to a head in recent weeks with the departure of NCR. Business Loss of Confidence in Dayton: A Soft Capital Strike? The Dayton Business-Journal has a front page story on the business community having issues with the city: Businesses Critical of City Efforts It has some prominent quotes from Raj Soin, who has his headquarters at the old IBM building 1st and Ludlow, about his difficulties with the city. Soin is not just a local businessman having problems with the city bureaucracy. He is also a heavy contributor to the Republican Party, particularly the former mayor Mike Turner. Perhaps there is also a political interest in removing the current leadership in the city? Then there was the exclusion of the city manager, mayor, and entire commission, except Joey Williams (who is part of the business community, being the local CEO for JPMorgan Chase), from the politically connected Dayton Development Coalitions’ attempt to re-direct Strickland’s’ NCR bribe money to various econ dev things. Politically connected in that leaders of the DDC were heavy donors to GOP candidates. One wonders if it’s the Dayton Development Coalition who’s meant by the unnamed “regional officials” in this excerpt from the D B-J article “Regional officials acknowledge a pervasive view exists in the business community that it is hard to work with the city. They add there also is an underlying lack of confidence in city leadership, both elected and hired, to overcome the challenges that lay before it, no matter how much effort is given”. Then there are is the Dayton Daily News commentariat, with their steady attack on mayor Rhine McLin (see previous remarks at this blog), most probably politically motivated to drive up the negatives of McLin It could be that McLin is a poor leader, but it is impossible to say due to the questionable motivations of her critics. But it is interesting that unnamed sources pretty much signaled that the business community doesn’t have confidence in the current leadership. Which might be why there is no movement on investment in the city or any private sector support of urban regeneration except from the central area planning effort privately funded by Dr Irvin (who is usually a GOP political donor, but has contributed to McLin in the past). It is noticeable that the only two large downtown private sector investments during the McLin era, Caresource and the announced renovation of the Arcade, are by outside businesses and investors without Dayton connections. Local investment in the center city is minimal. Contrast this to when a conservative Republican was mayor. During that era there was substantial involvement by the business community and other members of the local power structure in building the Shuster Center. Which proves that there are enough resources to make things happen downtown, it just required the will (and financial committment) to execute. Today, the Dayton Daily News editorial board finally agreed with a position I’ve staked out as one of the primary threats to our society: Corporate welfare. …continue reading the article Dayton Daily News finally catches on to the corporate welfare BS. The political evolution of both led to colorful, jigsaw puzzle maps of minor and major political entities intertwined with each other: Suburban Louisville:
The Holy Roman Empire (or HRE) consisted of a multitude of microstates of various types; counties, principalities, landgraviates, commanderies, free cities, lordships, abbacies, etc with only a few large enough or prosperous enough to have real power. The last survivors of this colorful mess are the principality of Lichtenstein and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Yet these microstates had the trappings of sovereignty; taxes, coinage, a small army. The situation is similar in Louisville. Suburban cities come in various “classes”, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th class, depending on population, which can be quite small. Area can be small, too, with a “city” being just a few square blocks. And these cities can levy taxes and have police. And just like the minor armies of the HRE petty states, the micro-suburbs of Louisville might have a police force of one or two police cars. The petty states had little real power. Certain legal affairs was under the Empire, adjudicated at the imperial court in Wetzlar, and a form of regional governance and representation existed via the Reichkriese (“Imperial Circles”). In Louisville infrastructure issues like water, sewer, planning and zoning, and criminal investigations were the responsibility of the county or countywide special purpose districts. The smallest micro-suburbs had little to do except keep side streets paved and collect the trash. Which is the big difference with Dayton, as Dayton suburbs are considerably more self reliant. A lot of the things that are county-wide in Louisville are the responsibility of individual suburbs in Dayton, which are large enough to generate revenue to cover the full panoply of municipal services. Thus, city/county merger here less likely than it was in Louisville. The Strathmoors: The Start of the Louisville Micro-suburb. The minor suburbs of Louisville are perhaps unique in the US since very few suburbs are this small. So a brief history. It all started in the Strathmoor area, a suburban area of the 1920s & 30s. When the city tried to annex this area after WWII, the subdivisions that made up Strathmoor decided to take advantage of the new Kentucky municipal law, and incorporated as minor cities. But they didn’t incorporate as one large suburb of “Strathmoor”, rather as smaller suburbs: Strathmoor Gardens, Strathmore Manor, Strahmoor Village, plus two other British-sounding names, Kingsley and Wellington. And some plats didn’t incorporate at all, and were annexed by Louisville.
Today there was a meeting at the Dayton Convention Center to talk about “Complete Streets”- the new urbanist approach to multi-modal transportation infrastructure. Good stuff- with about 80 in attendence. …continue reading the article The Nan Whaley way- and, oh yes, complete streets One of my father’s favorite jokes goes like this: …continue reading the article Congressman Turner admits he’s for sale The Dayton Business Journal has some extensive reportage on regionalization issue due to a recent panel discussion hosted by the D B-J. There will be another panel discussion about Southwest Ohio regional economy in July. There was also an D B-J editorial on the topic, essentially endorsing some form of regional government. The event occasioned some comment over at the Dayton Most Metero regionalism subforum, which is probably the best online place to have an informed discussion on the subject (see also the last few posts on the Akron/Chattanooga/Louisville economic development thread, also at DMM). The D B-J mentioned two previous looks at regionalization, by the Dayton Development Coalition: one in 2006 and another in 2007. Barriers identified in the 2006 study were: 1. lack of unity between the races The D B-J goes on to say that the 2007 identified some additional barriers: 1. the general perception of Dayton city It seems the barriers to conventional city/county merger form of metropolitan government are insurmountable in this area, though it is heartening to see Joey Williams and Dan Foley taking the lead on the issue (from the political side). Yet, the local business community seems to be finally getting behind the concept, if the Business-Journal interest is any indication. Still, no clear champions have surfaced from the private sector to really push the issue, which is in itself a big local weakness. Since governmental merger is a non-starter, perhaps people need to get creative and look at different approaches at regionalization. Since the big regional concern is economic development…the weak local economy, which crosses city and suburban boundaries…that should be were regional efforts should concentrate, since it is the one area were people agree something needs to be done. |
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