And McCain's running mate is... Who is that again?

It sounded grand. When he started the speech I was sure he was going to make a huge announcement. And then John McCain told the nation that his running mate will be Sarah Palin. Immediately a co-worker of mine told me: "He chose her because Tootsie was not available."
His justification: she has a proven track record of fighting big oil and executive experience. OK, I do think that the Democratic ticket lacks executive experience as both nominees have only legislative seats in their resumé. But, with all due respect, being the mayor of a 9,000 strong town in Alaska and then becoming governor of a state with less than 700,000 inhabitants does not necessarily qualify as executive experience in my opinion. The mayor of Newark has more experience than her, if you stop to think about it.
The bottom-line is, why on Earth did McCain choose Palin? Sure, the obvious answer is, she is a woman so with her he can round-up all those Hillary Clinton votes who are not so sure about Barack Obama. And she is young, so he slaps back those who point at his age as a problem for him to become president.
Which, by the way, reminds me: when McCain was born Alaska was not even a state yet. In fact, its statehood completes 50 years in 2009.
Anyway, my point is, did he really choose her for those reasons alone? I mean, seriously, this woman will become president if McCain is elected and dies suddenly - something not that impossible considering he just turned 72.
I am not sure I want to have our first woman president coming from Alaska. And, more important, I am sure I do not want to have a president who chooses his deputy based on gender and electoral appeal.
As Eric Cartman would say, screw you guys, I'm going home.

She is better off as senator

I finally saw the Hillary Clinton I hoped for during the primaries. Her address to the Democratic convention on Tuesday was powerful, witty, to the point and politically savvy.
I was thrilled listening to it, something that did not happen a single time when I followed the primaries. She strongly supported Barack Obama's bid for the presidency, but discreetly brought the democrats' attention to issues he may not be addressing as directly as she would like.
She also showed bright rhetoric when she began mentioning John McCain, saying he is a friend and has served the nation with valour, just to begin pointing out what are, in her opinion, the reasons why he should not be elected. Sounded to me like she was using McCain's very weapon of heartfelt sincerity against him.
She was more confident than ever, and more powerful too. I am very happy to see that she is going to be a driving force in the Senate during the next term, regardless of who is sworn in.
It was just sad to see that she could not find her full force until she was bowing out of the election.
Oh well, I guess that is it. Hillary Clinton is just better off as a senator.

Paris Hilton's energy policy is... stupid.

I just saw this great joke a website put together with Paris Hilton. Check it out. http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d I love the idea.
Just one problem, when they tried to make Paris look smart by piecing together the energy policies touted by Barack Obama and John McCain, they looked stupid. In what seems to be a moment of genius for the blond celeb, Paris suggests allowing limited offshore oil drilling (McCain's proposal) to make-up for the fuel shortfall while investment in new fuel-saving technologies (Obama's idea) starts kicking-in. Sounds great.
Just one problem: if that were to be done, the new technologies would probably be in the market before the oil from the offshore drilling. See, oil drilling is a long-term process. If the legislation to allow for the new drilling areas were passed, it would take at least another five years before we start pumping oil from our ocean shelf. A more conservative estimate would be ten years. That is plenty of time for automakers to bring new fuel options to dealerships.
Truth is, both programs are skirting the much easier short-term solution: ethanol and natural gas. Brazil has been using both for a number of years with great success. The automakers already have full command of the technology to allow cars to run on these fuels and all it takes is commitment from gas station operators to have a pump for them everywhere.
As for the food crisis that ethanol could cause, as I have been reading over and over again, that only applies if the US is stubborn on its decision to use only its own ethanol made from (expensive and inefficient) corn.
It makes me wonder what are the true vested interests in the energy policies of both candidates. Sorry, I stand corrected, of the three candidates.

Racial profiling in Israel? Just make sure you shave.

My recent exit from Israel proved to be harder than I expected for a very simple reason: I had not shaved throughout my ten days of vacation. Despite my American name and passport, my long facial hair meant special attention when checking in at Ben Gurion airport.
I had already been surprised by their system at the checkpoint for cars entering the airport to drop-off passengers. A uniformed security guard stops the vehicle and asks one question: where are you coming from? After the answer he lets the car in or pulls it aside. I asked the person driving my car how does that work to spot potential terrorists. His answer: the guard just wants to see your accent in Hebrew.
Then came the check-in ordeal. A youngster of little more than 21 made me a battery of questions. Why are you here? How long have you been here? Do you speak Hebrew? How did you learn what you know? Is it your first time? Not to mention he asked me at least three times my name and date of birth to see if I got confused.
You have to give it to them that they are serious about security. But when the person checking my identity walked away with my passport and took almost 15 minutes to reappear, I started to get annoyed. That was when my companion called the beard issue to my attention.
I got comfort when I saw another security person grill a couple of old people who were as American as you get - yes, they were southern, were strongly built, to put it nicely, and the clear hypertension they suffered from gave their skin, and necks, a distinct red color. But then I noticed that the same couple was accompanied by a guide of sorts who looked - you guessed - Arab.
I know they have their reasons. But coming from a country in which during 25 years of dictatorship you could be interrogated by the police just for walking around in groups bigger than three people, I cannot agree with Israel's methods.
I do not mean to pretend that I can teach Israel how to maintain its security tight. But I do wish they were more scientific about their screening and stuck to bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors.
I am sorry to say, but it reminded me of the racial profiling Jews suffered during the second world war.

Israel back to a woman's hands?

Ehud Olmert has just announced his resignation. Well, kind of. He said he will resign as soon as his party, Kadima, elects a new president, and then he will pass the baton so this person can complete his term.
Once elected, this person has a month to put together a cabinet before taking the reigns.
Regardless, the matter of the fact is that Israel's helm will be given to one of the two leaders of the Kadima which are coming to a face-off on September 17.
On one side is Tzipi Livni, the cunning foreign minister who could become the first woman to hold the highest office in the country since Golda Meir.
On the other is the hawkish Shaul Mofaz, currently transports minister and formerly the defense minister.
While the secular Jews here clearly pend toward Livni - I heard one person say that she is very honest and seems to never lie -, this is not a general election. The direction this small country with big ambitions will take in the next couple of years is now in the hands of a few representatives of the ruling party.
If Livni wins, she will have followed a similar path to Meir, which was foreign minister herself before taking the higher office.
Let us just hope that Meir's fate is not repeated in a possible Livni tenure. In 1973, just before Meir's last year in office, Israel went into one of its bloodiest confrontations, the Yom Kippur war.
As Olmert said today in his address to the country, the northern border is at peace, following the Lebanon war. The peace with Jordanians seems to be holding. Livni seems to bring tidings of more peace, whereas, Mofaz indicates the opposite.
But in this country, life and death decisions often do not depend on who is at the helm.
No matter what is the outcome of the election on September 17, Israel is once more in the hands of God.

1929 revisited, or almost...

I do not think people realized how close we were to a collapse of the financial system last Friday, July 11. In all my years covering markets, it was the only time I remember that a flight to safety entailed selling Treasury bonds. Within eight hours, stocks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac swung 50% down and back.
At noon I called a bond trader to ask him how the market was. His answer: "Have you seen anybody jumping off the window yet? I am just waiting for that." It was that bad.
Wall Street's rumor factory was working at full-throttle and that same day I heard that HSBC was about to buy Lehman Brothers for a symbolic US$5 and that the US Treasury itself was at risk of being downgraded, something that would really make 1929 look like a walk in the park.
Adding injury to shame, that day the FDIC took over Indy Mac, the second biggest Alt-A mortgage lender.
I thought I would wake up Monday morning to see huge lines outside the banks. I did not. Apart from those at Indy Mac, the only lines in banks were the usual ones.
So, apparently Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke guided us through what could have been the ultimate debacle of the US financial system.
But have they really?

The oil problem is corn lobby

Oil hit another high today, just in time for one more 62,000 job loss report by the Labor Department. In short, we are headed into stagflation - in case you did not already know.
Reminds me more and more of the last oil crisis in the late 70s, early 80s. Then, what reversed the crisis eventually was new oil discoveries and less gas usage.
This time we will probably see the same. On the demand side, Americans are really switching into hybrids and smaller cars.
However, what could really make the difference would be a global switch to ethanol. Now is when I get lambasted, because, as the whole media has been saying, ethanol is raising food prices.
But that is not absolutely correct. If anything, the corn lobby in Washington is raising food prices.
Yes, McCain is right. And I hate to admit that the GOP candidate nailed it on something.
If you cut protection to corn ethanol you will have not only cheaper, but better and more plentiful ethanol. You might even help drive down our public deficit and increase economic growth in some African countries in the process.
Consider a few things.
Farm subsidies will cost us, taxpayers, $289bn in the next five years. That is enough to fund economic stimulus packages like the one put out this year, until 2011. In plain English, instead of helping farmers be less efficient every American taxpayer could get a $600 rebate every year for the next three years.
The Federal Government's insistence on producing ethanol at home - from corn - has clearly helped inflation go up. That, in turn, set-up a roadblock on the way of a new interest rate cut, which could help get the housing market out of limbo.
For those who may argue that corn subsidies are protecting US jobs, a couple of reminders. Farming here is highly advanced and employs very little labor. When it does, farmers prefer to hire immigrants - nothing against that -, as has been proven by their fierce defense of guest worker programs. The construction industry - which would benefit from a rate cut - is one of the most important employers in the US.
Then there is the purely technical - and environmental - side of it. When you make ethanol from sugar cane all you need is the plant itself. After the cane is milled for its juice, the pomace left is burned to generate the energy necessary for the rest of the chemical process. One of the biggest problems the US corn ethanol industry has faced is how to get the energy for that last production step. They have tried everything, from coal and gas to burning dry manure collected in cattle farms. Most are just settling with diesel - ironic, is it not?
Finally, just opening the doors in the US to imported sugar ethanol would benefit a lot of people in the developing world, namely Guatemala and the South African Development Community, two of the biggest sugar exporters. To be sure, the biggest beneficiary would be Brazil, the top exporter. But still, in the long run, it would be good for everyone.
My point is, it does not take much to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels - and stop financing rogue countries as Iran and Sudan in the process.
Automakers already have full control of the technology necessary to have cars run on both gas and ethanol - 95% of the new cars sold in Brazil can run with either fuel.
The only two things the US government would have to do would be stop supporting corn farmers and insure that every gas station in the country has an ethanol pump.