Kaulapi World

News came out late Sunday evening that US special forces had shot and killed OBL in a fortified compound in Pakistan. Most noteworthy was that apparently he wasn’t hiding in some cave, he was actually in a highly residential area surrounded by relatively light personal security and had been there as early as 2006. I can’t help but think that it was one of the last places one might look for the most wanted man in the world.

For me it brought back some memories from the morning of 9/11, and all that has happened since then in the name of bringing the mastermind of the attacks to justice. The very same day while the towers were still burning, we were all told the name of the man responsible and his organization. Days later the US launched military action against countries in the middle east that we have maintained a significant presence. It serves as a reminder to what a single act or event can have on the overall perception of reality, and how it can define a generation.

I was struck by the impromptu crowds that gathered in front of the white house while the president was giving his speech, a lot of the people there seemed like college kids that must’ve been too young to really remember the events of 9/11, but news of the death of the elusive boogie man that has posed a threat to our national security was enough to get people out of their apartments late Sunday night.

But maybe the celebration is mostly symbolic. Like clockwork, the security talking heads cautioned that his discovery and death does not mean any end to the global war on terror, and many of the policies that have been put in place since then. At the end of the day, the new security apparatus that has been built of the past 10 years, complete with hundreds of thousands of security positions created, and billions in security contracts is too big to be shaken down by the death of one man, even a vary famous one.

More congressional drama this past week, including a last minute deal right before midnight to fund the government at least through September. After that we move from the battle over 2011 spending to 2012. Technically the agreement last friday at midnight was to extend the discussion by a week and then pass the longer term budget in the next few days. Technically there was still a chance of a shutdown yesterday when some of the conservatives in the republican party started voicing their disapproval of the deal that was made. Apparently the $37B in cuts were mostly illusory, programs that had already been cut, with the real savings something in the hundreds of millions.

Immediately following the budget deal the administration announced their own budget plan to cut $4T, mostly in response to the house proposal to cut $5T. Both proposals have been taking their shots along party lines, which has made me even more skeptical that any real progress is going to be made. From what I have gathered so far, it is going to come down to a combination of raising taxes, making significant cuts in government spending, and what neither party wants to talk about, entitlement reform. Going along with this debate there needs to be a fundamental discussion on what is the appropriate role of government, the reality is that we can no longer afford everything we have committed to. It will be better to make the tough choices now and gradually phase programs out instead of having them cut abruptly.

I’ve been taking this as a shot across the bow to cut down on personal expenditures, pay off even more debt, and get ready for the worst case scenario, as well as the several intermediate steps in between. In many ways its a matter of trying to stake out some degree of self reliance in face of forces that I have little or no control over. It is always good to have an exit plan, even if you never actually use it. Needless to say having a family now raises the stakes tremendously, it has opened my eyes how much more prepared I have to be.

The next battle looming is that over raising the national debt ceiling, which is closely approaching mid May or mid July, depending on how you interpret the Treasury department’s comments. Recent discussion in the news has been interesting but frustrating, from the big government folks there is talk of doomsday scenarios that could result from the US defaulting on its debt obligations. From the fiscal conservatives there is talk about drawing the line in the sand that the road back to solvency has to start somewhere. For me hopefully by the time this debate comes up I’ll have accumulated a few more months of savings.

Taking a little break from work, thought the moment was so random but memorable that it was worth an entry. The little guy has camped out under my chair while I’m logging into my work email from home. He has gotten especially mobile in the last month or so, crawling everywhere, and pulling himself up to stand on everything, chairs, tables, the bed frame, the couch, and his daddy’s shirt. He seems to enjoy picking up magazines and pieces of paper and holding them while he is lying on his back as if he is reading them. I take it he’s mimicking me since I seriously doubt he’s interested in the latest cost benefit analysis done by professors of public policy.

Its these little moments that I’ve come to appreciate the most about being a dad.

Been a little vague on the details in this journal on my current work schedule since we used up our maternity/paternity leave, but basically it boils down to me and Hana working out arrangements at our respective workplaces that allows one of us to be home to keep an eye on the little one during the day. For now I have the early morning shift which involves me catching the first train into the city, and committing to a few hours of telework in the afternoon. Hana works from home in the morning and then heads in and stays as late as her office needs her in the evenings. One of the tradeoffs has been that we don’t see each other much during the week, but I can’t even put a value on the chance to spend with the little guy.

Of course we also have both monetary benefit of opting out of daycare, but above all we’ve been appreciating the piece of mind of not having to send him off by himself for several hours a day. We’ve been very glad that our offices were willing to let us work something out, being able to do this has taken away some of the sting that has come with the pay freezes and ongoing furlough threat. It has been a grueling schedule, but so far so good.

April is here, and the most recent CR is about a week away from expiring. The current one being about 2 weeks old, which was passed in the last 24 hours before the deadline. I’ve been tracking the developments both from official and unofficial sources which has convinced me to prepare the family for a number of scenarios. Looking at various account balances and lining them up in case we have to draw down to take care of expenses without income, be it days, weeks, months, or years.

The latest budget battle is over a very small fraction of the total budget, but it contains a lot of political capital for the players. Federal employees have gotten a lot of flack, much of which is misdirected given the ridiculous amounts of money being spent elsewhere. We’ve already been affected by a freeze on COLA increases, and all hiring and promotional opportunities have been halted due to the budget uncertainty. Every other day I see a new article about proposed legislation to further limit federal retirement benefits, or some other plan to shrink the size of government. Some of these things I can’t disagree with on principle, given that Ive seen my share of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, but I can’t take anybody seriously who conveniently ignores the cost of our entitlement, defense, and bailout spending.

I read an op-ed recently that asserted a running a government by CR with the constant treat of a shutdown really is a failure to legislate. It symbolizes that those who were in power before are not willing to recognize the results of elections, and to the most part, the collective voice of the people through their representatives. This failure should be noted to all sitting members, regardless of party affiliation. I remember late in 2010 when the new vocal freshman class was voted in, there was a last minute push to get a massive omnibus budget passed, a strategy that I seriously questioned at the time. Of course it failed, the then minority clearly empowered by the election results, looking forward to the new majority status after the lame duck session. One thing I have learned is that you never underestimate ones adversary, especially when they just achieved the ability to strike back.

There are at least three more battles that are looming: on April 8th, the current CR expires, and without another CR, or a full budget for the remaining 6 months of the 2011 fiscal year, the government shuts down. Then around April 15, there will need to be a vote to increase the federal debt limit. Then later on in the summer, the 2012 budget. If the past 6 months have been any indication of how the congress is going to work on funding matters, then we’re in for another year of uncertainty.

Need to write a quick post to mention the ongoing labor battles in Madison, WI that has been in the news a lot lately. Every day there seems to be another clip of protesters occupying the state capitol, marching down state street, chanting behind the cable newscasters with creative signs. It seemed like it came all of a sudden, after watching a lot of protests in the middle east, thousands of people occupying the streets in Cairo, then there was talk about budget cuts coming to state workers in a small midwestern state that had just celebrated their banged up team go from wildcard to superbowl champs.

I’m seeing a trend that seems to omit the bigger picture. Since the financial crisis there is a lot of anger building up directed at public employees for their pensions, benefits, and job security that were the fruits of organized labor. I would normally say that this is another case of “divide and conquer” being that while there are good benefits for public employees and job security, overall salaries are much lower than the private sector. However what is more significant is that to blindly attack the public employees is to support a huge bait and switch which seems to becoming the norm in America today.

It seems strange to attack the a public school teacher’s benefits and pension while ignoring the wall street executive has their golden parachute attached to their contract regardless if they run the company to the ground and bankrupt thousands of investors. Some of which, by the way, were the major pension funds that are hurting so bad now that they need to increase required contributions or in the case of public pensions, increased funding from the state. It also seems cowardly to advocate for pay freezes of rank and file federal employees but exempt military contractors getting paid six figures to do work that a full time enlisted soldier is fully capable and willing to do. And then there is the question of where the blame for the recession, it wasn’t the public employees or even the unions that crashed the economy. Last I checked, the very ones who were responsible for getting us into this mess are still getting the VIP treatment by the media and still have enough money to influence the next election cycle, whoever ends up back in the positions of power.

Back in DC, we are bracing for a shutdown of the federal government coming this Friday. There has been talk about a short term extension deal that is being hammered out behind the scenes, but that only delays the shutdown for another two weeks. This is coming on the back of a 2 year freeze of annual cost of living adjustments that are normally designed to cancel out inflation, and additional rhetoric from congress about hiring freezes and reductions in force. The talk of a shutdown comes as a big political battle to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy and the role of government. However like much other things in DC, the devil is in the details as federal salaries, even money spent for foreign wars is nothing compared to the major entitlement programs of medicare, social security and medicaid.

Not to add to the ton of news stories and blog posts out there about the flu outbreak in Mexico, I thought I’d mention a few observations from my end.  I’ve been keeping an eye on the news reports as things come out, its looking like there’s more and more cases and suspected cases coming to light.  The recent news in the Wapo is that there are a few suspected cases in the DC metro area, kind of makes you feel icky thinking about it.  So far I haven’t seen any hospital masks on the people riding the train into work, I think tomorrow might be a different story.

The sad thing is that whats most likely is that if the government decides to start taking precautionary measures it’ll probably be backward looking, in that it will be only after the city is overrun with new confirmed cases of the flu.  I’m wondering at what point will the decision-makers think that there needs to be a shift in focus and policy.  There has been some talk about this whole thing being overblown out of proportion, given that the seasonal influenza comes through every year and sickens a large number of people and kills a bunch all over the world.  I dunno if I’m really into that analysis, after having a few bad bouts of the flu over the years, I don’t want to get anything like it, not this time, not ever.

At work I remember reading a memo announcement a while back about continuity of operations plans, essentially, setting up people with the ability to telecommute or telework instead of physically coming into work.  It sounded excessive at the time I read the memo, but lately I’ve come to appreciate the extra preparations that could and should be made just in case.  I’ve been working with an episodic telework arrangement to work around my class schedule, its been a real plus to be able to work on things remotely, it saves the hassles of commuting back and forth from class to home to work and back.  I remember going to an external training session sponsored by my workplace that had a speaker focusing on the vulnerabilities of modern society to any kind of health care epidemic.

Last day of classes today as a 4E, that is evening law student.  Kind of a numb perspective really, having gone the part-time route for close to 4 years now.  I ended up taking a lot of summer classes, which makes it almost 4 years straight with no breaks in between.  Wrapping up things for the semester mostly, I’m doing course evaluations and getting ready for my last round of review sessions and finals.  Then it’ll be off to bar prep class for about two months.  Looking forward to being pau for real come August.

Probably  due for an update since my last entry in march.  I’ve actually moved to a new place, a couple of stops along the metro line.  So far still getting used to apartment living.  Its an upgrade in many ways, much bigger space, lots of natural sunlight during the day, and a closer commute to work due to the closer walking distance from my place to the metro station.  The thing is that I still feel like I’m living in a hotel suite or something, and will have to move out in about a week.  I suppose it takes some time to get used to it.

I was able to take advantage of the zipcar fleet to move all of our stuff, used some old boy scout knowledge to pack up and tie down a cargo load in a pickup truck.  I’d say we moved everything in about 6-7 trips total, not bad at all.   Since our last place was furnished, the concept of buying furniture was completely foreign one.  We also got some pretty good deals on furniture given the slowing economy.  IKEA is pretty amazing.

Gotta love capitalism, especially gray and black markets.  Of course I’m referring to the underground market that has sprung up, mostly online for tickets to witness history in the making, the for the inauguration Barack Obama.  Craigslist is pretty busy with people with all kinds of tickets for sale, scalpers lucky enough to get their hands on some tickets will make a decent amount of change.  The prices themselves range from $100, $250 for seats along the ticketed mall viewing area, $500 for the standing area, and as much as $3500 for seated tickets.  That’s a hefty chunk of change for being a witness to history.

But what are the tickets really worth?  On the demand side there are ample numbers of potential buyers that price being part of this event as very high, in the hundreds and thousands of dollars.  Also driving the demand side is the emotional stakes that are attached to this event, I notice often that discussion goes from being a “witness” to history as to “being a part” of history.  For the faithful, saying that they were in the crowd on a cold January morning is in itself a priceless experience for which no price is too high.  On the supply side, there are a limited, finite number of tickets in various levels of grading, that is closer to the steps of the capitol.  Also these tickets are not for sale, they are in available only through the congressional offices, which each member having the full discretion to allocate them in the way that he or she sees fit.  All of these factors have all the makings of an interesting economic case study of price discrimination.

The disconnect between the relative value of the good is easily exploited by potential buyers coming from out of town that have never seen the capitol, the national mall, or the distances that are involved.  This also goes to the disconnect that people place on the value of the tickets themselves, to a certain extent, the value is more to the allure of them being a hard to come by commodity, and a symbol of the ticket holder’s savvy or connection to some high political office.  Maybe its that ultimately like any other material good, there is a certain amount of value associated with social status symbols.  That is people want to feel that they are special or elite through what they have.  Another disconnect are those that have never attended an inauguration in person either, so they don’t have any experience to gauge an appropriate price.  I really hope that in trying to get tickets, people would just calm down and save their money, especially in these tough economic times.

I went to the 2005 inauguration, and remember how far away the seats were from the actual podium, I ended up watching the whole thing on the jumbotron.  Of course I wasn’t too thrilled at the time about the results of the election, but I was more or less interested in just going for the sake of going.  This time around I’m happier about the overall results, I’m not as sold yet on the bigger picture and long term direction that the new administration is proposing.  But its still a big event, and I’m still intrigued that I’ll be in town to witness the event.  As for me, I think I’ll stick to some taking some pictures of the crowd, and collecting some commemorative metro tickets instead.  Maybe buy a T-shirt.

After a busy but tough 2008, the new year is already in full swing.  This year brings a lot of things to look forward to, a new assignment at work, a new division chief,  new semester of law school, and of course the ever present buzz around the district these days, a new administration taking on white house.

One of the good things about my work is that it allows for some flexibility on job assignments, so that if one assignment doesn’t work out for the better, either because of the subject matter, the workload, or the personalities on the team, it’s really just temporary.  Not uncommon in staff management at my agency, I’ve been going through the grueling transition period between assignments, which means that I have multiple sets of bosses and work styles to adjust to.  In the 5 years I’ve been at the agency I’ve never experienced a clean transition from one job to the next.  It really puts you at a tough spot, you want to get some closure on the old assignment, but you want to get off to a good start on the new one.  I’ve also noticed that I prefer to do short-term and periodic projects as opposed to being bogged down on one long-term project, even if it means that I have to multi-task.

My courses this semester started last week and are looking pretty good so far, and they are shaping up to be a good final set to close out at least the classroom portion of my legal education.  I have Professional Responsibility and Practice, which is basically a course on the rules of professional conduct and ethics that all lawyers are supposed to be versed in before entering practice.  My Bar prep course for the semester is Sales & Leases, basically a continuation on commercial transactions law and contracts law, looking into the application of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).  On the elective front I’ve got Debtor and Creditor Rights, a course that I think is pretty contemporaneous to the meltdown on wall street and the consumer credit markets.  My last elective course is White Collar & Business Crime, something that I think might come in handy again, given the times we are living in.

The entire DC metro is in an inauguration frenzy mode, it seems like daily we get new announcements or updates on the developing security plans, road closures, metro service outages.  I’ve gotten a kick at the uptick on the Obama merchandising and lyrical symbolism and imagry around town.  The street vendors that usually sell bottled water and FBI shirts are all decked out in Obama gear, the metro fare cards now have his smiling face printed on the card stock.  And there are the obvious corporate bandwagoners like IKEA and Pepsi. There is talk around town about who has gotten tickets to the ceremony and the balls, and whether the tickets are to THE ball that Obama and Biden are making an actual appearance at.  All in all I hope that most of the 2M+ estimated people coming to the district for the inauguration are coming with an open mind, its going to be a logistical mess out here with the crowds.

Meanwhile for the policy wonks and politicos, there is the talk about how the new administration will be replacing the old, what changes will be made, and I mean real structural change to the federal bureaucracy, not the campaign slogan, which so far is appearing more and more to me to be just that, a catchy phrase to run an election on, nothing more.  I happen to be in that category of people skeptically optimistic, but really waiting to see how if he can effective transition his administration from one that ran an effective campaign to one that can run the federal government.

One indication that this might not be the case is the decision to open this office of the president-elect, supposedly to assist with the transition period between the election and the inauguration, and to respond to the historically unprecedented challenges the nation is facing.  The fact is that the president-elect does not have any of the executive powers until he is sworn in on Jan 20, it really is dishonest to putting himself out to the American people as if he can do anything in the interim.  Presidents are human beings, they are not super humans that we make them out to be, they rely heavily on their cabinet and staff in the executive branch agencies to get their job done, that is, run the federal government.  As of November 5, 2008 when the office of the president-elect was established, there were no cabinet members confirmed by the senate, and therefore no means to do anything at all but plan for the transition.  Maybe there’s a reason why the Constitution doesn’t provide for an office of the president-elect?

The other point to consider is more of a tactical, and that is that really one of the risks of establishing the first office of the president-elect is that you automatically open yourself up to criticisms with how you and your staff conducts themselves in the interim period, perhaps even before you’ve established your system of spin doctors and public relations.  I think the whole mess with Ill. Gov and the Treasury Secretary nominee not paying taxes might not have been as prominent had the office of the president-elect been pumped up.  Almost like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t, it may have been a better idea to keep a low profile, do things behind the scenes and then take the White House by storm on Jan 20.

Turkey day come and gone, and its back to studying. I keep telling my self that this will be my last holiday season spent buried in the books, but it doesn’t really help much on the stress relief factor. This year we invested in a brine bag and some seasonings for the turkey, I think it made a big difference than in our past attempts. I also did some honing up on my carving methods and was able to clean up the turkey pretty well. Practice makes perfect I suppose.

Who knows, another middle eastern war in 2009? I’m still trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for all of this. And find the fresh troops. And prepare for the eventual blowback.