Portland Citizens Take Themselves for a Ride

Here's an idea. I propose that our local government pass a law that forces some businesses to charge a lot more for their services than their competitors, and do a worse job at the services they provide.

No, not a law that causes that to happen as a side effect. Instead, a law that does so purposely and openly, and plainly explains that the purpose is to favor some competitors over others.

And if you happen to be in one of those businesses who sells a coupon that offers a competitive price and faster service, the fines would be so large that to pay them would put you out of business.

Why do that? Well, it's because certain businesses promise us political support and/or money. You think a law like that is preposterous? You don't like the idea? Tough.

So let's stop the charade, I don't propose a law like that, I merely report it to you as fact. Such a law is being enforced in Portland Oregon against limousine and sedan services who compete with taxi cabs. As a news story in the Weekly Standard has it:

"The Portland city council two years ago put in place regulations that force limousine and sedan services to charge a $50 minimum for rides to and from the airport, and at least 35 percent more than taxis for trips to any other destination. And these transportation companies cannot pick up customers until at least an hour after the customer calls for a ride.

And it gets worse. Daily deal companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial partner with local businesses looking for new customers and offer limited-time specials that allow people to buy goods and services at a discounted price. 

But when two companies offered their chauffeur services at a cut-rate through Groupon in separate months last year, Portland responded each time by assessing fines on every Groupon sold: a total of $635,500 for Towncar.com and $259,500 for Fiesta Limousine. The firms refunded their would-be customers rather than risk going bankrupt."

 The article includes a link to a Huffington Post story that quotes the "surprisingly frank rationale" the Portland officials give for this tyranny. You can read much more about this here, if you have the stomach for it.


But before you direct your anger toward the arrogant imbeciles who made and enforce this law, always remember, the voters put these people in office. And they keep them there.

DC or Chi-town, the Scent is the Same

While visiting loved ones in Maryland earlier this year I had a chance to visit DC for the first time. Even as a person who is totally cynical about political power, I was impressed. It has some beautiful places if you love history as much as I do. And it has a "feeling" about it.

I was even a bit impressed as the Presidential motorcade came roaring down Pennsylvania Avenue while my daughter and I happened to be standing on the median strip. Just think, I was within just a few yards of President Obama!

Well, maybe I wasn't exactly as giddy as I'm making it seem about being in proximity to a car that may have had the President inside. Maybe I just liked all the sirens and motorcycle cops. After all, I have personally met hundreds of greater men after sixty- one years in this realm, and none of them sent that tingle up my leg like pretend newsman Chris Matthews got when he met our hope and change leader.

Even though I admire many people, my theory is that all people will disappoint you if you get to know them well enough. That's why I try to stick to ideas instead of personalities when I write on this blog. The concept of freedom has never disappointed me.

One of the things I remember remarking to my daughter as we strolled along in the most powerful city on earth was that, "It's easy to see why people come here with good intentions and soon become convinced that they are special." The fatal conceit is an epidemic here.

As it turns out, if you want to see how DC works, or smells, you can save the airfare and stay in Chi-town because the "Chicago Way"* has arrived in the nation's capital as the Illinois community organizer took his roadshow east. In all fairness, the corruption has always been there, it just didn't go by that name before.

In Chicago, where the last Mayor (King Richard Daley II) has stopped "mayoring" so he can cash in on all the favors he is owed by past recipients of public largess, things have always been fixed. And the money flows both ways, particularly at election time. And at contract time, and at hiring time.

The last Mayor's son was recently caught making over $700,000 on a WI-FI contract/scam at the airport. And it's all legal, at least in the corruption capital of Illinois. It's also legal to threaten to take your business and leave when your legal bribe to the new Mayor Emmanuel and the recently elected Governor Quinn failed to get you the same tax "waivers" as other big companies got. That is what the CME Group is doing.

The CME Group made a "contribution" of $90,000 to the Governor's Campaign, which apparently was not enough to get them the same deal (so far) as Sears and Caterpillar got. They also gave a whopping $200,000 (the single largest payoff) to Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's campaign even though he was a virtual lock to win the election after being part of the Daley/Obama Chi-town deal-o-rama.

CME chairman Terry Duffy said "I thought it made a lot of sense." (to make the contribution/downpayment on future favors, he is in the futures business after all) According to the Chicago Tribune he said Rahm had "Chicago roots, knowledge of Washington and a desire to raise the city's international profile." That would whittle the potential donee list down to a few hundred thousand people I guess.

I can just imagine what the conversation in that meeting sounded like when he proposed (successfully) to spend 200 grand of the company's money citing those reasons. I guess I have been in enough of those exchange meetings over my forty-two year career in the markets to have that kind of imagination. Of course it's all legal, these people aren't stupid, only immoral.

I won't waste another second talking about the legendary corruption in Chicago because anyone with a working nose can smell the stench of rotting government here even if they are upwind of this political hellhole.

But the point of all this chatter is that these deals are also being made in DC by the "change" President. I'm certain no one is surprised and many of the dimwits who vote for these people in Illinois are sure to say that this kind of thing is OK, "because that's how things work."

Now a story has been published on the web by a group named iWatch News that lays out the huge numbers of "contributors" (now called "bundlers") who have profited from helping get things changed. Apparently all they wanted changed was who was getting the plunder, not the act of plunder itself.

In iWatch's article they point out that "as a candidate, Obama spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” “We’re here today to take it back,” he said.

They go on to say "More than two years after Obama took office vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events."


I think you should read the story for yourself, it could save you a trip to DC. But if you want to know how to get there, just stick your nose out the window and follow the stench east.

*"The Chicago Way" term was coined by Tribune writer John Kass

You Don't Have To Be A Psychic To Predict The Future

The formality of the election (before the coronation) of Rahm Emanuel as boss of Chicago is scheduled for one week from today when the same people who voted for Daley, Blago, Quinn and Madigan will march to the polls and reaffirm their allegiance to "The Chicago Way."  Seeing the future in that regard, well.. it just ain't that hard.

Most of the voters in this town answer the same way when asked what candidate or policies they support by asking a question of their own, "what's in it for me?", so like everything else in a place where the fix is always in, the outcome is not in doubt.

 But that isn't my point. And predicting that a guy who sends dead fish to his political enemies will continue to act out his revenge fantasies like a Michael Corleone wannabe doesn't take a crystal ball either. But a report in the local paper today gave a peek into what being an enemy of the Rahmfather will be like as soon as the coronation is over.

I can imagine a scene similar to the wedding scene in The Godfather. But instead of Brando sitting in his office receiving people to take care of  "family business" while others celebrate at the party, Rahm will be plotting the settling of old scores from his hotel suite while the useful idiots dance the night away and drink Cook County provided food and booze in the ballroom below.

The paper report told of what Emanuel said during a debate Monday about what will happen to Alderman Ed Burke when he assumes power.

 According to the article; "Mayoral contender Rahm Emanuel suggested powerful Ald. Ed Burke will have to give up his police detail and might also lose his chairmanship of the City Council Finance Committee to move Chicago forward in the coming years. Emanuel's comments about Burke, who is supporting Gery Chico for mayor, came during a sometimes feisty debate Monday."

You won't find me throwing a pity party for Burke, a supercilious megalomaniac who knows for certain how everyone should live their lives and proposes absurd laws constantly to prove it. But he was surely singled out as a message to others who might displease the Rahmfather in the future.


You don't have to be a psychic to be sure that the smell of governance in Chicago will be the same as the dead fish he used to send once he is crowned boss of bosses in a few weeks. It's nothing if not predictable.

Forget it, Jake. It's Chi-town

© 1974 Paramount – Image courtesy mptvimages.com

Blogging about Blog-o is probably a pretty popular activity today in light of the not-so-amazing non-verdicts in the Illinois corruption trial of the disgraced buffoon and impeached  future convict/prison wife. In prison that hairstyle is sure to make him a popular date for some love-struck felon unless he can trade something to the warden to be assigned as cellmate for George Ryan. Ole George is too old to have switched sexual preferences just because he is incarcerated for similar offenses.

The whole stupid affair has ended (for the meantime) in only one conviction out of a possible twenty four, and that one was for the same goofy and probably unconstitutional "crime" of lying to the liars at the FBI. And if he doesn't go to prison for his lying, then what was the whole Martha Stewart thing all about? If he goes, it should be for the things he did which were actually wrong, not just statutorily wrong.

So just when you thought that the federal government might actually do one thing right in a thousand, they show how terribly incompetent they are by failing to convict the most guilty person since O J Simpson skated on the charge of cutting his ex-wife's head off and filleting her delivery boy in one masterful demonstration of night time knifesmanship. These are the folks who now are gearing up to make your health care decisions.

His non-acquittal semi-escape seems to have validated his judgement that there is at least one dimwit on most juries who can be convinced by dog and pony shows and inane posturing to hang a jury, instead of the guilty. And it took Blog-o just a few moments to start the jury tampering for the re-trial down in the lobby of the courthouse, this time appealing to the long suffering inner city parents who's children are being murdered faster than the gang thugs doing the firing.

It's hard to imagine anyone being shocked by this kind of outcome in Chicago, where the fix is always in and many if not most people think it's business as usual to sell anything you can to the influence buyers even if it's not yours to sell.

So you can fight the fight and get to the bottom of every corruption racket in town, just like Jake Gittes did in the movie Chinatown, but nothing ever changes in the end. And like the man said in the last line of that movie;

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.