The Future of Israel

Israel has really gone off the deep end.  Netanyahu needs to be stopped, and anyone who supports him needs to be stopped, for the sake of the Jews. It is one thing to let a country make it’s own defense decisions, that’s a practical matter, not a matter just of morals or principles, because unless you’re willing to go to war yourself against a country, it is something you don’t have the authority or power to do anything about, but they need to be on their own for this.

We cannot be giving them money and weapons so that they can wage mass murder. I’ve resisted the term genocide because the Palestinian people aren’t genetically that different from other Arabs. But I’m getting closer to understanding how the term might apply, because It really does seem to be Netanyahu’s goal to kill so many Palestinians, so many Arabs in Gaza, that Gaza ceases to exist and the areas will be so depopulated that it will be ripe for a re-population. Is his plan to repopulate it with Jews? Will they someday admit they were wrong, only after a generation is born there? Is that his plan?

The U.S could never realistically be expected to give this land back to the Native Americans, because the ones who stole it and the ones it was stolen from are all gone and those of us who are here now have nowhere else to go. Where would I go? I was born here. And I was born here because my ancestors were driven out of other countries. I believe, in general, that the practical approach is to move forward from here, and to act, today, in a way so that no one has to apologize 30, 50, 100 years from now for something we did today. Many years from now it will be a different generation living in GAZA. It seems to me that Netanyahu is setting the stage for it to be a generation of Jews, Jews who were born there, who had no responsibility for what is happening today. Maybe they will even be better people, and maybe they will normalize relations with other countries in the region, and we will have no choice but to move on from there. Is this his plan, an extreme example of the mantra, “better to ask forgiveness than permission?”

Hamas also deserves to take responsibility for this, because this was all a part of their plan. Netanyahu is doing exactly what they expected and wanted, exactly what was spelled out in their documents. They sacrificed their people to turn the world against Israel and it is working. But that does not absolve Netanyahu and anyone who supports him of the responsibility for mass murder, for using snipers to shoot anything that moves, including children, after feigning a withdrawal from an area, for starving people to death, for herding them into one area after another and then attacking that area as well.  It is looking more and more like he is just trying to kill as many people as possible. He is a fucking madman. 

Now, Biden says, “A lot of innocent people are starving. A lot innocent people in trouble and dying. And it’s got to stop,”

I like what Biden says, but Biden needs to leave Israel to fight this on it’s own. He needs to stop funding the war, needs to stop sending them any arms. If they are going to disregard what we say and do their own thing, then they should do it without our help. We are enabling and supporting what they do, and we shouldn’t.

This war is the biggest threat to Biden’s re-election, and if Trump were to become President again that would be the absolute worst thing. I understand that Biden is between a rock and a hard place here. There are hard supporters of Israel and Palestine among his base, and no matter what he does, he’ll probably lose votes, but if you’re going to lose votes either way, then do the right thing! Do the right thing all the time, regardless of votes. At the very least, we should not be helping. And then, we should think about what kind of power or influence we can realistically muster to stop Netanyahu, and his supporters.

We should be allying ourselves with the Israelis protesting Netanyahu in the streets. We should be acting in the interests of Jews everywhere, to protect them from Netanyahu who is only adding to the anti-semitism that already exists by giving people a reason to hate Jews. If we want to stand for Jews, we need to stand against the Israeli government right now, and we have to withdraw any kind of support for this military exercise.

Addressing Roe

I’m disappointed with how i see the left framing the overturning of Roe. The issue is not as clear cut to me as voting rights, or racism or freedom of speech. Is it so hard to understand someone who sees that embryo’s potential? Are they hateful, selfish, uncaring and mean, for caring about the baby?

I know, it’s just potential. There is potential in every egg and sperm. They can’t all be babies. Maybe it was never meant to be. Maybe it was never going to be. But it is not unreasonable, to think this is no longer just spilled seed,  no longer just an egg that passed in the night.

I consider myself pro choice and anti-abortion. Is anyone actually pro-abortion? There is an opportunity here to cast a broader net to bring in more supporters of choice, regardless of their reasons. If we can acknowledge that the issue isn’t just about whether that baby is real, but about whether anti-abortion laws work, then maybe we can agree that making something illegal doesn’t always make things better. Sometimes it doesnt achieve the result we’re looking for. Sometimes it makes things worse.

Anti-abortion sentiment, doesn’t just reside with the religious right. It can come from anyone who loves kids. But they can understand that there are better ways to lower the rate of abortion, than making it a crime. And we can and should seek broader support for those solutions.

But the religious right support policies that lead to circumstances favoring abortion, and then they expect to be able to reverse all that by creating a law. They seem to forget that before abortion was legal, women still had them, felt forced by circumstance to do so, and sometimes died trying. They don’t want to support effective measures to lower abortions maybe because they’re committed to an absolute that will never come to pass, illegal or not. If anyone thinks they can ever completely eliminate abortion, they are denying reality.

The religious right is against contraception. They are against pre-marital sex. They are against welfare. They are against national healthcare, They are against free education. They are against minimum wages. They are against all of the safety nets that would make it easier for people to choose life, to make life easier in general, to actually promote family, and to top it off, they judge and ostracize women who get pregnant out of wedlock, but not typically the men who put it there, even sometimes in cases of rape. They are against family planning in general, other than abstinence – the failure of which is known, and to think otherwise is another denial of reality. 

Put simply, their policies lead to abortion, putting more women into the circumstance in which they must contemplate what has been made into an impossible choice. Should they sacrifice their own dreams, or live a life of second guessing? Because abortion is not, and this is something I wish the left would acknowledge a little more often, without it’s emotional toll on the woman who chooses it.  

And to add insult to injury, these same supporters of the political right care little about gun control, little about whether the babies already born have the right to survive elementary school.

The left, if it wants to win on all of these issues and more, needs to cast a wider net, and marginalize the extreme by including in our fight, those reasonable people who don’t like abortion, for obvious reasons. Together, we can support children, families, women. We can minimize abortion by minimizing unwanted pregnancies. Does it need to be pointed out that people don’t typically abort pregnancies they got on purpose? And we can make it easier for those on the fence to choose life by supporting people better.

We can tie all of this into the many liberal values that make life, in general, better and more civilized.  Making something you disagree with illegal isnt the answer. It’s often nothing more than symbolic. What has the drug war done other than promote crime, the creation of stronger drugs and overdose deaths?

There are better more effective ways to address these issues. Reasonable people should work together to do so.

 

What’s the Big Deal About Stock Buybacks?

When a company makes money, and in particular when a company has cash on hand (free cash flow) from its operations, there are a limited number of things that the company can and should do with that money.

They could make charitable contributions, and they could contribute to the communities in which they operate and they could find other ways to be good stewards for society, joining the fight for diversity and the health of the environment and it can pay its employees well, and contribute to their health and retirement, etc, and many companies do some of that, for the goodwill of the community, if not altruism.

But their main purpose, why they exist, why people own them (such as in their 401ks), is to make money.

And so the three main uses for their free cash are as follows: 

1. Invest in the business to grow it
2. Pay down debt, if they have it
3. Return profits to shareholders

Companies do all of those things, but in particular, a lot of focus is put on the return of profits to shareholders because that is the real reason companies exist.

And there are two ways to do that

1. Dividends
2. Stock buybacks

Stock buybacks seem to be very political lately. I am a democrat. But I don’t agree with how this issue is framed, by democrats, as if it is a way to unfairly manipulate stock value, which, to me, demonstrates a lack of understanding. Or maybe some complain, not unreasonably, that it defers tax, because it can increase the value of the stock and that increase in net worth is not taxable until stockholders sell, while dividends are taxable immediately. But it also encourages some to sell (the company buys back from someone), and if they’ve held long enough to be in a gain position, that could accelerate tax. 

The real reason that corporations do this is because there are times when it is just a more efficient way to return money to shareholders than dividends.  When? When the company thinks the stock is undervalued.  Making that determination can be complicated, and subjective, based on factors such as the value of the assets, earnings, and growth potential. They could be wrong, but the management inside the company should know the company better than anyone. Assuming it is undervalued, buying back stock makes more economic sense than paying out dividends. Here is a simple, less subjective, example of why that’s true.

Assume that a company sells a million shares of stock for $1 a share.  Now the company is holding $1,000,000 in cash, and absent any expectation of earnings and growth, the shares should be worth $1 a share, because each share represents 1 millionth of a million dollars.  

But suppose for some reason the market doesn’t recognize that value and the market price is only .50 cents, meaning that if I wanted to sell my shares I can only find people willing to pay .50 cents for it. It doesn’t have to make sense. The market doesn’t always make sense. But let’s also assume that at some point in time, a time we’ll call “true worth,” all value will be recognized by the market and the stock will be at $1 per share.

If the company decided it didn’t need $1,000,000 and it wanted to return $500,000 to its shareholders, it could pay a dividend of .50 cents per share (technically if the company hasn’t made any money yet, that’s a return of capital, not a dividend, but nevermind that).  Now, after everyone gets their dividend, there are  1,000,000 shares and $500,000 cash in the corporation, so at true worth, each share will be worth .50 cents. Owners would have paid a dollar, got .50 cents back in cash, and still have stock worth .50 cents.  They haven’t made any money, they haven’t lost any money.

Let’s assume instead that the company took that same $500,000 and decided to buy back as much stock as it could at .50 cents a share, the undervalued market price, and give whatever is left as a dividend.  And let’s assume that shareholders were willing to sell 500,000 shares at that price, and the rest wanted to hold on.  So now the company spends $250,000 to buy back 500,000 shares. The owners that sold have lost money, but they didn’t believe in the company, and maybe they think they could have lost more, that was their choice. 

Those who remain are the ones who really believe in the company, and they now, collectively, own 500,000 shares of a company that has $750,000. At true worth, each share will be worth $1.50  If the remaining $250,000 is paid out as a dividend, they get .50 cents and then they still have stock worth $1 per share, because the company has $500,000 and there are 500,000 shares.  Either way they are 50% better off, and the company hasn’t even made any money, because it took advantage of being unappreciated when it returned value to shareholders.  

This doesn’t work if the shares are overvalued. If the company paid $2 a share to buyback shares, they’d end up with 750,000 shares outstanding with $500,000 and true value would be .75 cents a share, which would have rewarded those who sold, and punished the remaining shareholders, by pushing the true value down. That ultimately hurts shareholders including executives of the company that still hold shares (and most do – even though they might sell some from time to time).

Buying back shares when the stock is undervalued also helps the market recognize the true value, because it weeds out the owners that don’t see it, buying back, by mutual agreement, their shares, and leaving the owners who are committed, which in turn also protects against an opportunistic takeover from some big money source that recognizes the bargain. What if I noticed that I could buy a company that had $1,000,000 for $500,000? I could do that, screwing all the little guys who had this stock in their 401Ks and making $500,000 for myself. And then maybe I just raid the cash and fire all the employees. Is that what we want? 

Not this democrat.

Where Should We Draw the Line?

I’m losing patience. At first, I’m like, yeah, we, the US and the rest of Europe, shouldn’t engage with Russia directly. World war III. Nukes. All that.

I thought, this is a test. Can we isolate Putin with the heaviest sanctions ever? Can we show the world that we can end war without engaging in the war, without escalating? And I’m still worried about nukes, don’t get me wrong, but does the line we’ve drawn make sense?

We are giving weapons and aid to Ukraine. Putin already complains that we are escalating by waging “economic war.” We are clear about whose side we are on. It’s no secret to Putin. Ok, Ukraine is not part of NATO, and we have no pact that binds us to consider an attack on them an attack on us, but that doesnt mean that it isnt one. Putin’s invasion is an attack on the west. There is no other way to look at it. He attacked Ukraine because they are our friends. He attacked Ukraine because he thinks he can because they are not in NATO. He attacked them because they are a democracy, like us.

We are giving them weapons, but we balk at giving them planes. They use our weapons to kill the invaders, but we try to pretend we aren’t in this fight. The only reason he might not consider that an escalation is because he might think it’s not enough to defeat him. And what if he’s right? Are we holding back because we think Ukraine can win? What if we are wrong? Even if we’re right, how many innocent lives have to be lost that might not need to be?

Why do we draw the line at direct engagement with NATO? We could draw another line. We can say that we won’t go into Russia as long as Russia doesn’t attack a NATO country, but why shouldn’t we go into Ukraine? Putin did. They’ve invited us in. He wasn’t invited

The combined forces of NATO are vastly superior to Russia. But we’re being pushed around by a weaker opponent, because he’s a bully who threatens to use nukes.

Well, I ask this, what if he wins? Then the bully who threatens nukes is still around. And what if he starts losing without us in the fight, whose to say he won’t use nukes anyway. And then what are we going to do after its over.

I’ll tell you what. We’ll have to wait for the next time. Like we did the last time. Bullies don’t stop, until you make them.

So, yes, I’m scared. But he must lose.

And I don’t really understand the logical distinction between supplying Ukrainians with weapons and firing them ourselves, where one keeps us out of it and the other doesn’t? If we engage directly with Russian troops in Ukraine, when they have no business being there, how are we the ones escalating? Who started it?

Maybe there is hope that the sanctions will work, that the Russian people will rise up. Maybe we need to give it a little more time, I don’t know. But how much time does Ukraine have?

No Right to Cheap Gas

I am for managed capitalism, that is, I do not think the free market works, without regulation. I am in support of helping those who are in need, for whatever reasons, including gas prices when their level of poverty means they need it. But I am not for ensuring that everyone can have cheap gas whether they can afford it or not.

Gas should be expensive. Here’s why:

Believe it or not, oil and gas companies don’t generally want gas to be too expensive. 

They want to make money, as much as they can, of course, and for that they certainly like prices that are high enough, but not so high that there is demand destruction. Selling less oil at a ridiculous price doesn’t necessarily make them more money than selling more oil at a reasonably high price. Once people are pushed into alternatives, whether it is by finding ways to use less, because they simply can’t afford it, or by investing in solar, wearing sweaters, driving more fuel efficient cars (or electric), some of those changes could become permanent which then brings prices down anyway, and reduces demand long term. Eventually oil companies sell less at more reasonable prices.

They don’t want that, but we do.

It’s good for the environment, and it’s good politically because we are less dependent on Autocratic societies like in Russia and the middle east and Venezuela and Iran (and the undue influence of big oil in general, even here in the US). 

Historically, oil companies could control production to avoid going too far.

Things are different right now.  During the pandemic when oil demand dropped steeply, and the price of oil actually went negative (because people had bought futures and then couldn’t take delivery and had to pay people to take it), we saw a lack of investment in new production capacity. Those investments take time to pay off. Now that prices are so high that we might expect oil companies to increase production, they can’t, not without lead time, which is exacerbated by supply chain and labor issues that linger from the pandemic. 

So, even if the prices of oil justify it, the capacity to increase production isn’t there.  That’s why the price of oil was increasing as demand was ramping up post pandemic. Add Putin to the analysis, and the desire to get off Russian oil, and we’ve got a supply problem.

Is it gauging? Why do companies have to charge so much, just because they can? Here’s why. If they don’t charge what the market will pay, then we will run out of oil, short term. There has to be some demand destruction in order to wean out those who can change their behavior, so that there will be oil for those who can’t.  Because we have a supply problem.

The silver lining in all of this is many fold.

Solar, unfortunately, can never provide the amount of energy that we get from other sources, but it can provide a bigger percentage. Imagine if you can borrow money to put solar panels on your house, and your debt payments are less than the monthly energy bills you were paying. Even if that’s because your energy costs with fossil fuels has tripled, it pays for itself immediately. Suddenly everyone is doing it.

Demand destruction and the replacement of fossil fuels with other energy sources is not in the oil industry’s interest, but their inability to ramp up production in the short run creates a perfect opportunity for us to push it. The environment will benefit. Solar will benefit. Democracy will benefit. Oil will profit in the short run, but in the long run, they lose, and we win.

I’m not rich, but I can afford the higher fuel prices. I already drive a Honda fit.  I am happy to pay for a more sustainable future, and also to support Ukraine in this conflict (and whoever is next, if we don’t stop Putin now). If you drive a big truck, I’m sorry. Maybe next time you’ll buy something more fuel efficient.

For those who can’t afford to get to their minimum wage jobs, or pay for the inflation that high gas prices infect on so many other businesses, there has to be another solution. But that is a separate issue and speaks to the general availability of a living wage, and safety nets.  For companies that suffer from higher fuel prices, and potential wage increases, that can also hurt our economy.  I would support addressing all of that selectively according to need. Keeping minimum wage low to help companies that make billions doesn’t make sense. Companies that need it, could get wage help, if it’s in the interest of society to have those businesses. But, like cheap gas, why do we feel like we have a right to cheap labor, whether we can afford it or not?

Rise up, gas. The era of cheap energy is over. Good riddance.

We Are at War

We are always at war, a war of ideas, at least.

This conflict in Ukraine isn’t isolated. It is a recurring symptom of the world we live in. We are paying more attention to it, for a variety of reasons that can be debated. We can complain about why we haven’t cared as much about other peoples in the past, or other conflicts going on right now, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about Ukraine. You have to start somewhere. It’s not the first time Putin has done just this, and if we don’t stop him this time, it won’t be the last.

The ideologies behind the conflict in Ukraine, we fight here in the US too. Our previous president became our leader with the help of Putin’s meddling, and cozied up to him, and almost became president again, using the same kinds of tactics Putin uses, subterfuge, misinformation and force. And now he and some of his followers act like they are on Putin’s side, and maybe they are.

So the fight is here too, and it always has been. We, as a nation, are not innocent and have our own sins to answer for. But that doesn’t mean that we are hypocrites. A country is never truly united, nor should it be. We are also citizens of the ideas we support, allied globally with the like-minded, good and bad wherever they are. Russians protest this war. Germans opposed Hitler and were among his first victims.

We should not blame all white Americans for slavery, or the genocide of Native Americans, or Donald Trump. We shouldn’t blame all Israelis for Israel’s wrongs, or all Jews, certainly, without regard for where they live. 

But each of us must decide what side we’re on, and advocate, in some way, for peace, and freedom, and justice everywhere.

If we, as a race (the human race), are to rise to a greatness that often seems contrary to our nature, then we must at least acknowledge that the war (this war, that war) is never over.

The struggle continues

I’d like to believe, as MLK said, that the arc of the universe, though long, bends towards justice.

I’m currently reading An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States’ and it makes me feel like the bad guys win more than the good guys. I am white. I benefit from it. I live on land that was stolen. Blood land. But I don’t see that struggle or any others before or since as white vs people of color. We each choose our side. We decide whether we will fight for, quite simply, good or evil. Those are the teams.

I hope it bends towards justice, all I know is that history repeats itself. But as Vince Lombardi would have said, as long as time hasn’t run out, then our side hasn’t lost.

An old friend of the family, a political activist her whole life, but in NYC asked me about Stacey Abrams chances, here where I live, in Georgia.

I told her that if there weren’t voter suppression, Stacey Abrams would have won the last time. More recently, we elected two democratic senators, but since then the new voter suppression law has passed and this sort of thing has been going on not just in the south but in every swing state, north or south, for decades, and not enough people have taken notice until now. I hope its not too late. So, Stacey’s chances would be good, if the election isn’t stolen which it might be. But she leads that fight, and at the very least she will shine a light on it.

I’ve thought for years that eventually we would overwhelm the suppression with enough votes and by the time we were in charge, Democrats would have a super majority. But it’s now clear that Republicans see the writing on the wall and are willing to do almost anything to maintain power, including a coup. And if they have enough support among the merciless types that have darkened much of this country’s history, it could be violent and it won’t be easy to stop.

So, it is war, I told her. A war of ideas, and hopefully not a real war, but not so different from the challenges every generation faces. If the arc is to bend towards justice, this is one of those times that we have to fight to push it there.

And (I hope), we will.

Fuck the Filibuster

Through gerrymandering and voter suppression republicans have secured super majorities in state legislatures where the actual majority of citizens support democrats. They are using that control to further suppress votes in order to limit the popular majority’s federal control to four years. And they are using the filibuster to prevent the passing of legislation that would prevent that.

I used to be for the filibuster, because I worried that if the republicans got control of everything that would be the only way to protect the country. But that’s not primarily how the filibuster was used, and now I think that the only thing we would be protecting ourselves from is finding out how bad the republican party really is. If in fact, the majority chooses unilateral republican rule, let them fail. If I’m wrong, then great. If they really screw things up, then their supporters would find out once and for all and the backlash would set things straight. There’s risk to this, but there’s more risk to actually letting them take control without a majority. If you believe that the minority rule the republicans might actually achieve is better (and you might), then you aren’t for democracy (and you might not be).

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires or ever intended to require a 60% majority to pass laws. There are checks and balances, but the filibuster wasn’t one of them. It came about as an unintended consequences of congressional rules of order, and has historically been used by the minority to hold on to and advance anti democratic and often racist causes.

Can the majority make the wrong choices? Most definitely. If you’re worried about the potential tyranny of a majority, you should be, but we have protections against that built in to the constitution. The bill of rights and later amendments are essentially anti democratic limits on the majority. They establish that even the majority are not allowed to do certain things, among them limit free speech, and enslave a minority. These limits are enforced by the supreme court, whose justices are appointed for life so that they do not have to be beholden to the majority. Yes, this protection has been weakened by the republican’s effective obstruction of Obama’s appointment, but that is one more reason not to fear a democratic monopoly on the house and executive branch. The Supreme Court won’t be liberal for awhile.

Trump’s tax returns

When I was beginning my career as a tax professional in New York, Leona Helmsley, otherwise known as “the queen of mean,” (who does that remind you of?) was on trial for tax evasion. The government was out to make an example of her. More typically an audit would conclude in a financial settlement, or judgment, and you have to pay maybe a lot of money. But, like Al Capone, they wanted to put her away.

She and her Husband, Harry Helmsley, who was dead by this time, owned the Empire State Building.

The firm I worked for was part of the defense team. Technically, I don’t think that was public, but they were working for the lawyers. I had friends on the engagement. But she still lost.

All I remember is that she deducted everything as a business expense, personal furniture, stuff like that. Just like, it appears, Donald Trump.

The New York Times’ in depth analysis of his tax returns impressed me in the way that reporting of tax issues usually doesn’t. And one revelation regards a property in Westchester County that he lists as an investment on his tax return, which allows him to deduct such business expenses as would be limited or not deductible if it were considered a personal residence.

But, in 2014 Eric Trump told Forbes that he and his brother spent many summers at that property, and at one point took up residence. “It was home base for us for a long, long time,” he said.

And the Trump Organization website describes it as “a retreat for the Trump family.” So, are they treating a personal residence as a business? Like Leona?

Even his businesses seem like hobbies, so maybe he gets confused. Is he even trying to make money? I’m sure he could if he wanted to.

Other things about Leona Helmsley that remind me of Donald Trump:

She stiffed contractors. From her Wikipedia page, “After allegations of non-payment were made by contractors hired to improve Helmsley’s Connecticut home……”

And she famously said, “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes,” just as Trump bragged that not paying taxes, “makes me smart.”

The good news is that he has a lot of debt coming due, and not a lot of cash or stock on hand that he can still sell to pay it.

I would like him to go the way of Leona Helmsley (jail). But I’ll settle for destitution.

We need to work together

When this virus first spread, I was thinking, you can’t just close the world. Economic collapse also ruins lives.

When we did start closing the economy, I was frustrated that we didn’t have an exit strategy. How long will it take? This can’t go on indefinitely.

I’m still frustrated that we don’t have an exit strategy, a plan to get where we want to be and an end date. But to those who still think that the closing of the economy is unwarranted, that we should brave the risk of Covid and keep everything open, for the sake of the economy, I have this to say.

There is no recovery of the economy without controlling the spread of Covid.

Because we can force businesses to close, or we can allow them to open, but we can’t force people to patronize them.

And as long as the virus is out of control, people won’t go to sporting events. They won’t eat inside restaurants or have business meetings face to face or take dance classes and yoga and go to the gym. They’ll even stop going to bars, and weddings (and funerals). They certainly won’t take cruises. Even if the virus wasn’t that big a deal, unless everyone knows that, a surge in cases is going to hurt business.

People don’t want to get Corona. They believe it can be serious, that there could be lasting repercussions, and that they could spread it to someone who is even more vulnerable, most likely someone they know.

Even if they’re wrong, that’s what they think. So they’ll stay home.

For a case in point, look to Sweden. Of all its Nordic neighbors, Sweden was unique in that it decided not to shut everything down. To them, it wasn’t worth the effect on the economy, and now, among their neighbors, they have the most cases and the worst economy.

Covid doesn’t scare you, I get it. I’m not that scared myself. But when you don’t wear a mask, you scare other people. And then their fears are realized with a spike, and maybe someone they know gets sick, and they change their behavior and the economy suffers. It’s not an unreasonable or unexpected reaction. It’s logical. These are smart people.

See, unfortunately (or fortunately) there are still more smart people than stupid people. So, if you care about the economy, practice behaviors that will get the smart people supporting the economy again.

We need them. Smart people serve a purpose too. We need to work with them.