LA Times Book Festival: Saturday Part 2

Overview 2

Some additional thoughts about the LA Times Festival of Books. The weather was great on Saturday and Sunday. There were only a few minutes there where it felt like it was a bit hot.

For some reason, it felt like the LA Times was scaling back the event. (Read into this, the economy.) Royce Hall wasn’t being used, which is usually for larger celebrities like Tommy Lasorda and Julie Andrews. They also had fewer booths. In the past, booths were along the pathway between Franz Hall and the Physics & Astronomy Building. It also felt like there were fewer people waiting in line (9 a.m. line) for tickets than in past years. The panels I went to were largely filled, however. Was the attendance lower? It was hard to tell. I was in panels most of the day. I will say that I made it from panel to panel much quicker than normal so my guess would be that there were far less people than in past years.

I over-heard a small group discussing how they recognized fewer names at various panels versus prior years. One wondered if she was just not reading/listening to enough new voices or if something else was going on. Another said that he didn’t find as many interesting panels this year, but was still able to fill his panel calendar up for both days. I also over-heard one guy who said that for the first time ever he went to a panel where he hadn’t heard of any of the panelists.

Saturday, Panel 3

The third panel I attended was at 2 p.m. It was called “Poof! Our Evaporating Economy.” The moderator was Murray Fromson. The panelists were William Cohan, Robert Scheer and T.J. Stiles.

The stolen bios from the LA Times goes as follows:

Murray Fromson. Fromson, who has been in journalist and journalism education for 56 years, covered the Korean and Vietnam wars, the former Soviet Union and American politics during the Cold War. He is currently a professor of journalism at USC.

William Cohan. Cohan, formerly an award-winning investigative newspaper reporter in Raleigh, N.C., worked on Wall Street for 17 years. He is the author of the Bear Stearns expose “House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street.”

Robert Scheer. Scheer covered presidential politics for the Los Angeles Times for 30 years. He has written several books including “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.” He participates regularly on KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center.”

T.J. Stiles. Stiles is the author of “Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War,” a 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. He served as historical advisor for two films in the PBS documentary series “American Experience.” Stiles’ new book is “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.”

In my opinion this was the best of the panels for the two day period (the ones I saw, of course.) I have to admit that I’m not a fan of Robert Scheer. I almost didn’t go to this panel because of him. I just think he’s full of himself. Maybe he’s mellowed out recently. He seemed rather toned down and reasoned at this panel discussion.

Cohan started the discussion out. His book was about Bear Stearns. The basic question of course comes to why did this company fall apart. He argues that it comes down to incentives. The goal was to make as much personal money in as short a period as possible. When people are motivated by greed, they do strange things. Wall Street used to be a series of small firms where individuals shared liabilities and profits. He argued that we need to make sure that we see the distinction between people on television who make stock suggestions versus those who do Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). M&A folks create a myth about their own importance. The problem is that they do what is right only for their pocketbook. They think what they say and do smells good at all times. It is obscene that the best and brightest wanted to go to Wall Street to make quick money. He is not impressed with the individuals Obama has appointed to help with the economic recovery. He believes that Obama will need to start replacing some of these individuals. He does like Geithner; however. He attacked President Clinton for encouraging home ownership. Mortgages were given to people who couldn’t afford the homes. He personally saw loan docs filled out with inaccurate data. People claimed to have $100,000 in the bank when in reality they were on welfare. At the bottom, the documents were signed by the borrower. Don’t they have some responsibility for signing fraudulent docs?

Scheer argued that the problem with economics is that it became separated from sociology. It got too math oriented. He believes the economic crisis started with Reagan and continued under Clinton. Developing all these securities screwed up the economy. He also attacked the media for not properly covering business. He made a point that Paul Krugman is making. We only get one chance here and we need to make sure we’re not being conned. We’re spending so much money here that if all this fails, we won’t be able to borrow more money to try again. He wonders why the media doesn’t question why the people who got us into this trouble (Lawrence Summers) are now in positions of power. He said that he once thought Clinton was a great president. Now he believes that Clinton actually helped create a bubble. He was really worried about this one chance idea. He was also concerned about which Obama we are getting. Are we getting the Harvard elitist or the one who attacked deregulation? He said it was a myth that we didn’t see this mess coming.

Stiles saw similarities between our current economy and that with Vanderbilt’s time. Back then, there was rampant insider trading. They would purposely short their own stock and then attempt to manipulate the price via financial reports. The public hated this, but business people found these manipulations as shrewd business practices. Vanderbilt (even though he had his dark side) got credit for being honest. He got rid of corrupt employees. He refused a salary and only made a living off of a dividend. Stiles sees a potential cultural shift. There is now a growing belief in government regulation versus just trusting the free market. He also sees a great divide; however, where conservative economists are digging in. He thinks that we’ll need to see about Obama. He mentioned that abolitionist had issues with Lincoln, but we all think highly of Lincoln today. He warned that historical legacy often is contrary to the opinion of individuals who deal with the day-to-day events of the times. We may need someone like Obama who can compromise, but then who really knows for sure. He argued that this bubble is different from other past bubbles. We had a very bad recession in 1873, driven by a railroad bubble. When the recession ended, we at least had a railroad system. He said the problem with the housing bubble is that it was all equity, it didn’t provide any infrastructure that would expand productive capacity when the economy came back.

My comments: I really am getting this feeling that the elite are getting disillusioned with Obama. There were definitely some questioning comments made about Obama on this panel. Just to make clear, they weren’t anti-Obama. Also, while walking through UCLA, I noticed a flier (I should have taken a photo of it) which had a picture of Uncle Sam. Sam was crossed out with Bam (as in oBAMa). It questioned why Obama was sending troops to Afghanistan. I really got the sense that the “elite” opinion on Obama is slowly shifting from “he’ll make the necessary changes needed to push the progressive agenda” to “he was the best of two bad alternatives.”

I have to agree with Cohen about the individuals that Obama selected for his economics team. And I'd go even further, because I'm not all that sure about Geithner. I've gotten into discussions with a friend about how the elites got us into this problem and now they're the ones trying to fix it.

As mentioned, in the past I’ve gotten very irritated with Scheer. To me, in the past, he’d toss out a worded grenade and then wait to see what resulted. This time around, I found him reasonable. Perhaps it was driven by the fact that I somewhat agreed with him in regards to his interpretation of the past. I do believe we’ve lived in a bubble economy. He’ll argue it started with Reagan and continued on with Clinton. I’ll argue it started with Clinton and Greenspan. We can quibble about all of this, but I found myself largely agreeing with him. Now what he thinks we should do about this mess is probably something we disagree about, but I think that knowing we have the same baseline of thought probably got me interested in his opinions more. Or perhaps he’s just mellowed out over the years. He did have an issue with Cohan’s statement about individuals committing fraud on their statements. He said that this fraud hardly ranks up there with what happened on Wall Street. Perhaps, he’s right, but I also take a stand for what Cohan said. I don’t think Wall Street was the only place where people wanted to get rich quick. I think this permeated American culture over the last couple decades. I tend to agree with something that George F. Will stated, we’re all to blame for this mess.

Saturday, Panel 4

The fourth panel I attended was at 3:30 p.m. It was called “Religion: The God Question.” The moderator was Zachary Karabell. The panelists were Chris Hedges, William Lobdell and Rabbi David Wolpe.

The stolen bios are as follows:

Zachary Karabell. Karabell is the president of River Twice Research, where he analyzes economic and political trends. He is the author of several books, including “Parting the Desert” and “Peace Be Upon You.” Karabell’s next book, “In the Red” will be published in the fall.

Chris Hedges. Hedges is the author of numerous bestselling books and as a seasoned journalist was part of a team that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. His most recent book is “When Atheism Becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists.”

William Lobdell. Lobdell is an award-winning journalist, author, blogger, speaker, college lecturer and media consultant. His memoir, “Losing My Religion: How I Los My Faith Reporting on Religion in America – and Found Unexpected Peace,” was published earlier this year.

Rabbi David Wolpe. Wolpe is the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a teacher of modern Jewish religious thought at UCLA. He writes for many publications, including the Jewish Weeka dn Jerusalem Post. Rabbi Wolpe’s latest book is “Why Faith Matters.”

Hedges grew up in church. He earned a degree in religion from Harvard. Father was a minister. He finds institutional religion very cruel. His father supported gay rights and was attacked for this. He has a problem with the “New Atheist” who use scientific rationalization. He considers them like the religious right. He sees religion as an attempt to deal with the non-rational events in life. He attacked Rick Warren. Said Warren isn’t so much about charity as he is for justice. Even though Warren does AIDS work, he is still very homophobic. He considers Warren a softer version of James Dobson. He believes we must develop individual morality and not have fealty to an institution that may at times head towards moral compromise.

Lobdell doesn’t have an issue with the “New Atheist.” (Defined as Christopher Hitchens in this debate.) He thinks it allows many to question their beliefs. He sees many individuals as Cultural Christians. They don’t really believe the Bible, but still go to church. When he wrote his book, he got many e-mails from pastors who stated that they’d lost their religion. They still preach, because they need a career. They need a salary. We’re probably heading to a secular society, which is good for religion because it will get rid of the cultural believers. He told his personal story. He embraced faith in despair. He started to see flaws in organized religion. Doubts came in. He saw no difference in moral behavior between atheist and Christians. He said that yes Christians do donate, but they donate only at 3 percent versus the required 10 percent. He said the hope for Christianity is that the younger generation cares more about changing society versus worshiping in big churches.

Wolpe. The belief in God pits two ideas against each other: are we an accident or is there a greater power. You can’t blame religion for everything. We are not good by nature. Look at our playgrounds. Kids do not always get along with each other. Religion sometimes causes damage, but so does atheism. He pointed to Stalin and Hitler. People often tell him: I’m spiritual, not religious. He asks these people: How much do you give to charities? The purpose of this question is to emphasize the fact that institutions can often create something greater than individuals can. If we treat God as just an impulse than God is not important, he argued. We join institutions to help change the world. He also asked why desperate people turn to God. He said that we can’t hear the whole range of sound. He said we can’t see all that is around us. Perhaps, he argued, that out minds are also limited. Maybe during our despair, our minds open up to see something profound.

Karabell asked if people go to church just for a communal experience. He also wondered if the religious frameworks based on Western philosophy will change as we head towards a more global society, which brings different contexts to religion. Wolpe replied that he doubts that there is one path to God.

My comments: This was the second best panel discussion I went to over the two day weekend. Rabbi Wolpe is an amazing speaker.