1970 was a year of contrasts for me. The early winter/spring was the end of my middle year (sophomore year) at Taft School where I suffered through some bullying and medical ailments including a bad case of bronchitis at the end of the school year. The second half of the year was quite different. I had a great summer (worked for my dad’s investment counseling firm as a messenger) and then returned to Taft for my junior year with my best roommate at Taft (Eric Kitchen) and discovered a new passion (bridge playing) and of course, rock music.
The Beatles Before and After
When it came to rock music in 1970, the year was also divided into two parts-Pre and Post Beatles breakup. Though John Lennon privately informed the other Beatles in the fall of 1969 that he would be leaving the group, the official break-up occurred on April 10th, 1970 when Paul McCartney publicly announced his departure. Shortly thereafter in May, the Let It Be album was released , but strangely most of the album was actually recorded in early 1969 , BEFORE the Beatles recorded “Abbey Road” . ( This of course probably meant that it was not a coincidence that the last full musical track on Abbey Road was called “The End”) . “Let it Be” was originally produced by Glyn Johns but the Beatles were unhappy with the result and shelved the project in Mid-1969. Eventually in the winter of 1969-70, Phil Spector was hired to complete the album with its release in 1970. The album was only mediocre by Beatles standards ( and many critics panned it at the time) , but even a mediocre Beatle record is still very good by other artists standards!
The strengths of the album include the singles “Let it Be” (released in March 1970 but recorded in early 1969) and “Get Back” released in early 1969, which were among the best recordings the Beatles ever made. Other very good songs from the album include Lennon’s “Across the Universe” and McCartney’s simple, childlike but beautiful “Two of Us”. Unfortunately, an excellent tune “The Long and Winding Road” was diminished on the album, ironically by Spector’s overproduction. Other tracks largely credited to Lennon and Harrison on the album ( “I Dig a Pony”, “One after 909” “I Me Mine” and “For You Blue” ) paled in comparison to their contributions on “Abbey Road” (e.g. “Come Together” “I Want You” “Sun King” “Something” and the outstanding “Here Comes the Sun”) . Nonetheless, it didn’t stop me from running out and buying the album and playing it constantly when I finished my middle year at Taft in late May.
By the second half of 1970, the post-Beatles era had begun. All four Beatles released their first solo albums starting with “McCartney” in May. (Yes, even Ringo released TWO! albums in 1970, and while they were OK efforts, I bought neither so won’t have anything to say about them). Though critically panned at the time, “McCartney” was a respectable first effort and including some good songs “That Would Be Something”, “Every Night” “Junk”, and “Teddy Boy”, as well as in my opinion Paul’s best post-Beatles song EVER “Maybe I’m Amazed”. McCartney played ALL the instruments on the album and fortunately Linda only joined as a backup singer in a few of the songs. The album was less rock-oriented and more soft rock than anything the Beatles had ever done, or for that matter many of Paul’s recent Beatles songs. Further, the album definitely suffered from the unfinished nature of many of the tracks. In fact, this under production was quite intentional as Paul was reacting to his intense displeasure with Phil Spector’s overproduction of the “Let it Be” album and particularly the song “The Long and Winding Road”.
John Lennon released his first album “Plastic Ono Band” which contrasted sharply with “McCartney”. This was John Lennon engaging in “primal scream” therapy, dealing with all of his inner emotions such as his rift with McCartney, his feelings about his fame as a Beatle – “Working Class Hero”, his relationship with Yoko – “God”, or his childhood anger of losing his mother at an early age – “Mother”. It is a brilliant album with great lyrics and fitting music and vocals. However, while I bought it eventually, I had trouble playing it a lot , perhaps because it was very dark and depressing. In contrast, Lennon also had an excellent rousing and far more upbeat single, “Instant Karma” released in early 1970 under the Plastic Ono Band. He also had an interesting single “Cold Turkey” which is the only one I can remember that said “PLAY LOUD” and featured sharp and yes LOUD guitar work from Eric Clapton.
Last but not least, George Harrison released “All Things Must Pass” at the end of 1970, an ambitious triple album. This was actually Harrison’s second solo album ( he released an experimental , instrumental-only album in 1968 called “Wonderwall Music”) and it benefits greatly from George’s pent up supply of songs that he wrote but the Beatles did not record during the 1967-70 period. However, like most triple albums (let alone double albums), the album would have been much better (and less expensive ) if it had been a double album. Nonetheless, it contains a number of songs that rank as George’s best of his solo career, including “My Sweet Lord” (despite the unintentional plagiarism of the Chiffon’s “He’s So Fine”) and “Isn’t it a Pity”, the wonderful guitar playing of “Wah Wah” and “What is Life”, the two excellent collaborations with Dylan “If Not for You” and “I’d Have You Anytime”, and the brilliant finality of “All Things Must Pass”.
Simon And Garfunkel and Folk-Rock/ Soft Rock Movement
Early 1970 also marked the release of the last studio album by Simon and Garfunkel – “Bridge Over Troubled Water” . The title song was arguably their best song ever and quickly went to the top of the US charts. But the album had much more including the beautiful 1969 single “The Boxer”, the cheery and funny “Cecilia”, the classical sounding “El Condor Paso”, the upbeat and rousing “Baby Driver” and “Keep the Customer Satisfied” , and last but not least, a great live remake of the Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love”. While the group was to not split officially until 1971, the album was their last real collaboration. Fortunately for us, it was arguably the best album of 1970 and certainly the group’s most acclaimed (with the album and title song winning multiple Grammy’s in 1971). It naturally was another of my immediate buys when I got home in late May of 1970.
In addition to the Beatles solo contributions and Simon and Garfunkel final album, 1970 rock was decidedly folk-rock oriented. With no new studio material from the Rolling Stones or the Who, no popular songs from the Doors (though still some excellent recordings such as the album “Morrison Hotel”), and the fading fortunes of Steppenwolf and Deep Purple, there was a dearth of hard rock songs, so folk-rock and softer rock was king. My favorite albums and songs followed this pattern in 1970.
Crosby, Stills and Nash followed up with their huge success in 1969, by adding former Stills band mate Neil Young to the mix and releasing CSNY’s first album “Deja Vu” in March 1970. This included three excellent hit singles “Woodstock” ( a rock cover of the Joni Mitchell folk ballad of the concert), “Teach Your Children” and “Our House” (the latter two Graham Nash compositions), and even better contributions from Stills “Carry On” and Neil Young “Helpless” and “Country Girl”. In fact, this is one of those rare albums where all the songs were very good. By the end of the year, despite the rousing success of their collaboration and their subsequent summer tour the group had imploded. In fact, all four came out with solo albums during late 1970/early 1971. I bought both the “Steven Stills” solo album and Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush”. However, I barely listened to the Stills album other than the first song on Side 1 – the very catchy hit single “Love the One Your With” (which is why and probably everyone else bought the album) as well as the first track on Side 2 “Sit Yourself Down”. In contrast, “After the Gold Rush” included some of Young’s best songs ever such as “Southern Man” “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, “Tell Me Why” and “When You Dance”. Neil Young also penned one of the best songs of the year “Ohio” which CSNY quickly recorded after the Kent State shootings.
Folk rock came from a new direction with the release of James Taylor’s second album “Sweet Baby James” which was his first commercial success. My sister Bonnie bought the album in mid-1970 after hearing Taylor at her first Brown spring weekend as a freshman and during the summer months I started playing the album more than she did. It is without question Taylor’s best album including the beautiful hit song “Fire and Rain” and some excellent folk tunes such as “Sunny Skies” “Blossom” and “Sweet Baby James”, though my favorite song was “Country Road” which I couldn’t help but hum/sing when I was “walking on a country road”.
Several other soft rock/pop groups included the new group Bread that began a string of top ten hits with two solid entries “Make it With You” and my favorite by them “It Don’t Matter Me” in the fall of 1970. Neil Diamond had two good songs with “Solitary Man” and “Cracklin’ Rosie” though the latter suffered from overexposure on top-40 radio. Even Ray Stevens took time away from his horrid, novelty-song career (which was only to get worse with “The Streak” a few years later) and charted the very successful and beautiful pop tune “Everything is Beautiful”. Meanwhile, Three Dog Night had great commercial success with conventional rock songs “Mama Told Me” early in the year and “One Man Band” late in the year, two reasonably good efforts. But it was the softer rock sound of “Celebrate” and the acoustic “Out in the C0untry” that remain my two favorites by the group. The Hollies had their first hit single in about three years with the irresistible “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” another favorite of mine.
Meanwhile, the summer of 1970 was when I discovered the Moody Blues. Working as a messenger on Wall Street I would hear the song “Question” playing on radios in stores and buildings and in the street. I found the song very catchy and soon bought the album ” A Question of Balance” and absolutely loved it. Songs such as “It’s Up to You” “Dawning is the Day” “As the Tide Rushes In” were beautiful ballads and “Bet you feel small” and ‘The Tortoise and the Hare” were pure fun rock songs. Were the Moody Blues “pretentious”? Sure, songs like “The Balance” which included drummer Graeme Edge’s voiceover were a bit ridiculous. BUT to all those critics who dislike the Moodies, (and have kept them out of the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) I say they have forgotten what rock music was all about which was good music , good singing and simple pure fun. And that the Moodies had plenty of!
Another discovery for me in 1970 was the group “Chicago” and their superb hit singles “Make Me Smile” and “25 or 6 to 4” which featured a new brass, rock and jazz fusion sound that was both unique and irresistible. I liked “Make Me Smile” when it came out in the Spring of 1970 but really loved “25 or 6 to 4” which had both a catchy guitar and brass riff, as well as an excellent guitar solo from Terry Kath and certainly qualified as one of the best rock songs of the year. I eventually bought the album “Chicago” which was actually Chicago’s second album and one of many double albums for the group. And though it was a good double album it would have been an outstanding single album!
I found myself listening almost exclusively to Sides 2 and 3 which featured several excellent songs written by keyboardist Robert Lamm- “Fancy Colours” “Wake Up Sunshine” and “25 or 6 to 4” as well as the outstanding 13 minute “Ballet of a Girl from Buchanan” written by trombonist James Pankow. This latter composition was actually a compendium of 7 songs that flowed smoothly together –“Make Me Smile” “So Much to Say, So Much to Give”; Two instrumentals -“West Virginia Fantasies”, “Anxiety’s Moment”, “Colour My World” (later to become a hit single), To Be Free (another short instrumental), and the finale “Now more than ever” which was the last verse of the single version of “Make Me Smile”. Chicago, which I have since seen live in concert three times (twice in a fairly intimate night club setting in Vegas), did a wonderful job playing the “Ballet of a Girl from Buchanan” to open one of these concerts.
In October, Chicago released “Does Anybody Know What Time it is?” which was from the first album “Chicago Transit Authority” released in 1969. Another great Chicago song this was to become their third top 10 song of 1970. More about “Chicago Transit Authority” when I cover 1971 next year.
Hard Rock is NOT dead
The more conventional, hard rock sound that had ruled the airwaves in the late 1960s was by no means “dead” though it was evolving. In the U.S. , Creedence Clearwater Revival remained dominant in 1970 and continued their pattern of releasing successful two-sided hits beginning with “Travelling Band/ Who’ll Stop the Rain (Jan 1970); “Up Around The Bend/ Run Thru the Jungle” (April 1970) ; and finally “Looking Out My Back Door/ Long as I Can See the Light” (July 1970). “Cosmo’s Factory” also released in July was the groups best and most successful album and in addition to the six double-sided hit songs of 1970 included a great 11 minute cover of “I Heard it Thru the Grapevine”. My two favorites CCR songs of the year were the outstanding “Who’ll Stop the Rain” (John Fogerty’s recollections of Woodstock, but a song that resonates with anyone who is tired of the rain) and the musically and lyrically fun “Looking Out My Back Door” which displays Fogerty’s often underrated guitar playing front and center.
Santana released “Abraxas” which highlighted the group’s unique fusion of blues, jazz, latin and rock music and most notably Carlos Santana’s distinctive and superb guitar playing. The album included two outstanding song/jams “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” and “Oyo Como Va” and three excellent instrumental songs most notably “Samba Pa Ti”. But the album cover actually resulted in one fellow student being expelled from Taft, as he plagiarized, for his “original” poetry project, quotations on the back of the album from Herman Hesse’s “Demian”. This might be the dumbest expulsion story ever, since our English teacher had used “Demian” in his course the previous year and owned the Abraxas album!
Several other excellent rock songs were released in 1970 by relatively new American groups. This included “Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image, another very catchy song I remember hearing as I was delivering messages on Wall Street. (Lyrically, this song raised many questions as to what it was really about. At the time, I heard the theory that it was about the USS Pueblo which was monitoring North Korean military communications in 1968 just off the shore of North Korea, and was captured by the North Koreans. Other have speculated it was about Jerry Garcia. However, the song writer has never really answered the question.). Grand Funk Railroad released the album “Closer to Home” highlighted by the 10 minute song “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)”. The second half of the song became a single in the fall of 1970, though the whole song was played constantly on FM progressive radio and eventually ranked as one of the top 100 rock songs by several major progressive radio stations. I loved the whole song particularly the bass playing that linked the two parts of the song, and definitely bought the album in 1971 because of it. (In fact, it was probably the only song that Grand Funk ever recorded that I really liked).
Other very good rock songs included Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” (a stark contrast to John Lennon’s anti-religious “God”), “All Right Now” by Free (with a great guitar “hook”) which later was to become the Stanford University marching band’s theme song at football games (much to my delight when I attended games in 1978-79). Canadian group Guess Who had the excellent “No Time” and the outstanding double-sided hit “American Woman/Undun”. “American Woman” had the highly recognizable guitar riff that Randy Bachman developed quite by accident while messing around after a concert playing guitar variations of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. Notably, the group’s output suffered after Randy Bachman parted ways with the group eventually to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
From across the pond, Eric Clapton was without a group in 1970, but still had a good solo rock composition “After Midnight” . Meanwhile, Joe Cocker fresh off his new founded success at Woodstock, hit it big with three excellent rock remakes “She Came in Thru the Bathroom Window” “Cry Me A River”, and “The Letter”. Though I wasn’t yet a big fan of Led Zeppelin’s music, it was hard not to enjoy the ultimate hard rocker “The Immigrant Song” from Led Zeppelin III.
Last but certainly not least, the Kinks had two excellent songs in 1970 with late 1970’s “Apeman” (which was Ray Davies first “environmental” song) and the totally unique and brilliant “Lola”. Lyrics such as “Well, I’m not dumb but I can’t understand why she walks like a woman and talks like a man” and “girls will boys and boys will be girls, it’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world” certainly cemented Davies’ reputation as an extraordinary rock lyricist willing to even take on transvestite issues. Musically, the song was equally brilliant with excellent guitar work and a great tune. Further the song had wonderful pacing which changed from simple acoustic guitar and solo singing in the innocent portion of the song, to louder rock vocals and electric guitar as Lola’s true nature is revealed.
Motown, Soul and R&B
It was a solid year for soul music led per usual by Motown . The Temptations emerged as the top Motown group (with the Supremes having lost Diana Ross) and continued their success with two great singles “Psychedelic Shack” and “Ball of Confusion”. I particularly like the latter song, as it combined wonderful vocals from the Temps, a driving beat, an excellent tune and the first Temptations song with overtly social and political message:
“Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon
Politicians say more taxes will solve everything
And the band played on”
“Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors
Mod clothes in demand, population out of hand, suicide, too many bills
Hippies moving to the hills, people all over the world are shouting
‘End the war’ and the band played on”
Diana Ross, having recently left the Supremes, had a great cover of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Meanwhile, the Supremes with new lead singer Jean Terrell had two top ten hits with “Up the Ladder to the Roof” and the infectious “Stoned Love”. Smoky Robinson and the Miracles had the excellent #1 smash “Tears of a Clown” with lyrics by Smokey and music co-written by Stevie Wonder. But perhaps the biggest Motown song of the year was from relatively unheralded Edwin Starr (who had only one previous hit “Twenty Five Miles”) with his outstanding vocal on “War”. The record has stood the test of time, being part of a gag on a Seinfeld episode more than 20 years later when Elaine tried to convince an aspiring Russian author that the original title of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” was actually “War What is it Good For.. (ABSOLUTELY NOTHING)”.
The Jackson 5 dominated the charts with three #1 hits in 1970 “ABC”, “The Love You Save”, “I’ll be There”. I will admit that I didn’t like the juvenile sound of the group and particularly could not tolerate Michael’s vocal in the massively overplayed “I’ll Be There”, but in retrospect, Jackson 5 songs such as “The Love You Save” were very good records. Stevie Wonder had begun writing or co-writing his own songs and also produced his first record “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” in 1970, an excellent soul/rocker. Stevie also produced the Spinners first big hit “It’s a Shame” another personal favorite of mine in 1970. Rare Earth, Motown’s only white group and one of its few rock groups, had considerable success during the year with two Temptation rock song remakes “Get Ready” and “I Know I’m Losing You”.
Outside of Motown, Soul/R&B and funk music was led by San Fransisco’s Sly and the Family Stone with its excellent hit “Thank You“(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and the almost equally good b-side “Everybody is a Star”. Other good R&B songs included “Gimme Just a Little More Time” by the Chairman of the Board, “Love on a Two Way Street” by the Moments, “Love or Let Me Be Lonely” by Friends of Distinction, and another of my personal favorites “Didn’t I Blow Your Mind” by the Delfonics.
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1970 wasn’t all good. There were two huge hits by the Carpenters, the no. 1 hit “Close to You” and the no. 2 hit “We’ve Only Just Begun” which drove me crazy due to their saccharin sweetness, their incessant air play and their “wah wah” and “la la” choruses. (In retrospect, I will note that Karen Carpenter has a gorgeous voice and the songs were good, so perhaps if they had toned down the overproduction, I might have had a different opinion). Similarly, Tony Orlando and Dawn two big hits “Candida” and “Knock Three Times” were just horrid. And there was the silly, cloying inanity of the Partridge Family’s “I think I love you”, and the Poppy Family (Terry and Susan Jacks) doing “Which Way are you going Billy?”. And last but certainly not least, there was the simply awful Bobby Sherman doing “Julie, Julie, Do You Love Me?” and though not his last big hit, perhaps his most prescient “Easy Come, Easy Go”.
1970 also was a year that saw us lose two major groups, The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, and a year where the Supremes saw their last major successes. But by year-end, I was beginning to enjoy school and life much more. Analogously, there were many new artists or artists that were hitting their peak by 1970 (who I would enjoy for many years to come) such as Chicago, the Moody Blues, James Taylor, The Spinners and the Delfonics as well as the individual Beatles as solo artists. And 1971 was around the corner, with the return of the Rolling Stones and the Who and some of their best material by far. It was the beginning of “sunny days, I thought would never end”.
Our soggy last weekend in Columbus reminded me of California and its severe drought. Naturally, being an economist and policy analyst at heart, I believe the solution to the crisis is a surprisingly simple market-based one. However, California being among the most heavily regulated (and taxed) states and having generally anti-market politics and sentiments will avoid solutions that involve markets and worse still “evil profit seeking traders”. After all, Hollywood’s idea of traders was portrayed in the ” Wolf of Wall Street” which does not exactly portray the protagonists in a flattering light.
However, if I were California’s water czar and could design a new water usage system from scratch, I would heavily employ the markets and market pricing using trade-able market water rights. I would set this up in several steps:
- I would determine a minimum level of consumption that would be “free” which would only be for drinking water, bathing, cooking and toilets. (i.e. minimum residential and commercial use). Notably, this would probably only amount to be 10% or less of California’s current consumption of water for economic purposes (e.g. used by residences, business, industrial or agriculture) since agriculture alone uses about 80% of California’s currently available water supplies.
- The exact details as to how much and how to distribute these “free” water rights does not particularly matter for the efficient functioning of the water market. My own preference would be for a system where residences and businesses would get a certain amount of “free” water that would correspond to basic drinking water, cooking , bathing and toilet needs assuming a very efficient use of water. ( “free” water means that they would only pay a low nominal rate per cf of water consumed covering the regulated annual operating costs of the water utility serving them. Very similar to what California charges now for ALL water use.)
- These free water rights would be allocated directly to the water utility serving these customers and the water utility and per above would charge a regulated rate commensurate with the costs of operating the water system.
- Next, an additional amount of water rights would be sold in the market (perhaps initially thru a periodic auction) which would correspond to the amount of available additional supply in a ‘normal’ rainfall year. ( with ” normal” being defined as the LOWER of a long run average rainfall or the previous year’s rainfall.) Additional water rights also could be sold from additional supplies to the extent new aquifers, new supplies from desalination or recycled water become available.
- However, agriculture, industrial or other business uses would NOT get “free” water rights. Nor would residential/ commercial usage ABOVE the minimum “free” usage. As noted, this would amount to about 90 percent or more of California’s usage. They instead would pay the market price for additional water usage or the price of the additional water rights.
- Finally and most importantly, ALL these water rights could be bought and sold in the market.
This last point is the most important. As farmers begin to have to pay fairly high prices for water, they might, for example, stop growing the very thirsty, alfalfa crop in California and substitute lower water-using crops. They would also start using water much more efficiently in all their crops. This in turn would free up water rights to be used for other purposes. Further, the higher prices would also induce more supply to be brought on into the market as it becomes cost-effective, including the greater use of reclaimed or recycled water, or even desalination. Though less important overall in the market, the price of water for water utilities serving residences and businesses, will provide the utilities and the consumers with key incentives to stop wasting water or using it for non-essential needs such as watering lawns. It would also induce consumers (and the water utilities) to install water saving devices such as low flow shower heads, or low water usage toilets.
To be sure there are many other issues that California needs to wrestle with to make such a system fully workable and to end drought problems permanently in the state. First, it has to deal with the current water rights structure which has allocated water to various uses for decades typically based on land ownership. This is a hugely political issue of the haves and the have-nots. One way would be to transition to a fully market based system by starting with current water allotments (as “free”) which are then given a haircut consistent with truly available supply. (As I understand it, actual water rights in California currently exceed available supplies. Directionally, the recent announcement of an agreement with some major California agribusinesses to cut back these allotments by 25% is a good start.) Importantly, ALL these rights would be immediately trade-able resulting in a true market price for water, and the positive impacts and incentives noted above. Then over time, the existing “free” water rights would be gradually reduced thru new state legislation.
Lastly, California needs to make more appropriate trade offs when it comes to water use and needs of the environment. There are a wide variety of estimates that suggest that a significant amount (perhaps on the order of 20-30%) of water that could be available for economic uses in California is set aside for the “environment” ranging from rivers/streams that are allowed to run out to the sea (and protect wild salmon and other wild habitats), or are not dammed up to protect the snail darter or are used to keep existing wetlands intact. To be sure, these purposes have their own value to the environment that should not be ignored and remain protected, BUT perhaps not EVERY environmental instance should take precedence over the broader water resource needs of the state.
Overall, a market-based water system would be surprisingly simple to implement, would result in the most efficient use of water in the state and virtually end the drought problems we have seen in California in recent years. I have worked on markets for various externalities (most notably air pollution credits or allowances) for almost 35 years now and currently am chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association, so I know a quite a bit about this topic. My experience is that tradable emission or resource rights have ended up being the lowest cost, most efficient, and most equitable way to allocate public goods (such as water) or externalities (such as limitations on air pollution). Markets do an excellent job of allocating scarce resources, driving out inefficient uses and incentivizing efficient uses. Market prices would almost certainly signal to farmers that some crops simply don’t make any sense in California given the true cost of water, and that other crops would require more efficient use of scarce water resources. They would also signal to consumers that water saving devices in the home are well worth the investment.
Of course, California could just continue on its current path of rationing of supplies along with voluntary exhortations of better water usage which typically don’t work well and of course are subject to the whims of politics. Such a system will most assuredly result in worsening of the current drought situation unless California gets a flood of rainfall this fall/winter. OR it could finally realize that markets and yes, “capitalism” can be a powerful ally in ending the drought in the most equitable and economically efficient way. Otherwise, it will be sad and more than ironic if the Beach Boys refrain in the song California , “Water, water, get yourself in the clear cool water” begins to ring empty.
It’s Springtime! This past week has been beautiful in Columbus (FINALLY!) and I thought I would celebrate with an entry about all the great songs about Spring. Though not specifically a Spring song, I often think of “Ventura Highway” as a song about Spring or at least the happy feeling we get as Spring finally arrives. (“Cause there’s a free wind blowing thru your hair and the days surround your daylight there….alligator lizards in the air”). However, as I gave it some more thought, then scanned my list of about 9000 popular songs on my iTunes account (mostly from the 60s, 70s and 80s of course), I realized that there was a dearth of material about the Spring. In fact, there were virtually no popular songs specifically about Spring at all!
Late March of 2014, I posted about the snowfall in Columbus in a post called “April Come She Will”: a very good Spring song by Simon and Garfunkel from their second album “Sounds of Silence”. Of course, the Beatles/George Harrison have probably the best spring song ever with “Here Comes the Sun” which, though it never mentions Spring or a Spring month, is clearly about Springtime with the sun emerging after one of England’s long cloudy winters. “Little darling, it seems like years since its been here…..”. Some also include the Rolling Stones “Dandelion” on their lists of Spring songs. I guess the theory is a song about a flower is also about Spring because it is when most flowers bloom. That seems a bit of stretch to me (though at least dandelions specifically bloom on lawns in the Spring). But excluding flower songs, what other popular Spring songs have there been?
- The BeeGees recorded a song in 1969 called in “First of May”. It was not particularly good song. In fact, the decision to make it the a-side of the single when it was released resulted in Robin Gibb departing the group and not returning until late 1970.
- Pat Boone released a song called “April Love” in 1957. With apologies to all those Pat Boone lovers out there, but thankfully I don’t own it.
- “April in Paris” was recorded by Count Basie in 1956 but was originally written in 1932. I am sure it is a fine song, but as much as I like oldies, I refuse to include anything that was popular BEFORE WWII on my list.
- “When the Lilac’s Bloom Again” by Billy Vaughn and his orchestra was recorded in 1956 but written in 1928. DITTO
Clearly, there is a paucity of Spring songs ( particularly when you exclude songs that don’t mention Spring or a Spring month in the song). It is also strange that other seasons such as Winter and Summer have many songs about them. But these seasons are not nearly as pleasant as Spring. So why such a paltry list of popular songs?
I believe it’s because the uniqueness of Summer and Winter makes them great fodder for songwriters. Summer is the season of vacations: of going to the beach, hiking in the mountains, or just “lazing on a sunny afternoon in the summertime”. Winter is the season of grayness, darkness, cold, snow…”all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray”. It is also about Christmas and New Year’s , a perfect time for songwriters to write about such manic-depressive topics like Holiday Cheer and Post-Holiday Blues.
Spring is nice too, but it’s not too hot or too cold, not too light or too dark. In fact with the exception of Spring flowers and Spring tornado season in the middle of the country, it is totally ordinary in every way.
Despite all of this, Spring does have several excellent show tunes such as “June is Busting Out All Over” from Oklahoma or “The Lusty Month of May” from Camelot. However, my favorite is the theme song from the faux-musical in the Mel Brooks classic movie “The Producers” . That theme song was none other than “Springtime for Hitler and Germany” which was a lyrical, musical and choreographic (if you have seen the movie you would agree!) masterpiece:
“And now it’s…
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We’re marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Rhineland’s a fine land once more!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Watch out, Europe
We’re going on tour!”
“Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!” (Mel Brooks line)
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Now that song was VERY unique , just like America singing about “alligator lizards in the air”.
Its opening day on Monday! (Sorry I refuse to recognize the Sunday night start for the Cards and Cubs as “opening day’). This is a time of year where every baseball fan has some hope for his team (though some can truly have more hope than others). Baseball was the first sport that I watched AND played. Baseball was also the only sport that I have followed almost continually since I was 7. In that year, my mother explained the basic rules to me when she set me in front of the TV to watch a Yankees game circa early April 1962. (“That’s the pitcher and the catcher and the batter and you can see second base on the top of the screen. Now you can’t see first base, that would be over here on the right, or third base that would be over here on the left”).
After that, I was hooked. I watched (when I was allowed to watch TV on the weekends) and/or listened to on the radio virtually every game of the season in 1962. For many years after, I saw, watched or listened to most Yankee games. I knew all the Yankee players, kept track of their batting averages, ERAs , was elated by every Yankee win and literally had a temper tantrum when they lost (which fortunately for my family was infrequent during 1962-64 when the Yankees won the pennant in the American League). By 1966, I had also started playing Strat-O-Matic Baseball, a highly realistic baseball board game that simulated the previous season stats for every player. I started my own league. So when I wasn’t watching real baseball during the summer, I was playing Strat-O-Matic (often with my brother or my friends). I calculated batting averages, ERAs, and kept track of all of the other stats for all of the AL players in my league. (I am fairly convinced that one of the reasons I did well in math in school was my calculating “by hand” batting averages and ERAs for EVERY player in my annual Strat-O-Matic league). During my teen years, I started going to games more frequently, often taking my younger brother or going with friends. We would buy upper deck grandstand seats for $1.50 in the late 1960s, then during the game as other fans inevitably left early (as the Yankees invariably would be losing in the late 1960s) we would move down into the more “expensive” upper deck seats which I remember cost about $3.
Baseball is not the same obsession for me today as it was then. It started to fade a bit when I went away to college and then when I moved to California to go to graduate school. I also haven’t lived in NYC since 1978. However, I still get the Direct TV baseball package so I can watch Yankees games, and do end up watching at least part of a lot of games each year as a result. But every year in early April, I stop and remember what it felt like when I was a kid, and there was the promise and excitement of a new season in front of me.
I thought I would end this post with George Carlin’s famous comedy bit on baseball and football. In addition to being very funny, it also explains how baseball was able to captivate this 7-year-old back in 1962. I got to see George Carlin live a few years before he passed away and I am glad I got a chance to see him do this routine. Enjoy!
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Baseball and Football by George Carlin
Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he’s out; sometimes unintentionally, he’s out. Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring. In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you’d ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you’d know the reason for this custom.
Now, I’ve mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values. I enjoy comparing baseball and football:
- Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
- Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
- Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.
- In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap.
- Football is concerned with downs – what down is it? Baseball is concerned with ups – who’s up?
- In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error.
- In football the specialist comes in to kick. In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
- Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has the sacrifice.
- Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog… In baseball, if it rains, we don’t go out to play.
- Baseball has the seventh inning stretch. Football has the two minute warning.
- Baseball has no time limit: we don’t know when it’s gonna end – might have extra innings. Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we’ve got to go to sudden death.
- In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there’s not too much unpleasantness. In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you’re capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.
- And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different: In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.
- In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! – I hope I’ll be safe at home!
The financial crisis of 2008 has been the source of post-mortem by the popular media, politicians, and academics among others. But for the first time, I have read a book that gets beyond the politics and looks at the actual data and facts around the subprime/housing meltdown that clearly drove the crisis. Peter Wallison’s Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again published in January delves into and analyzes the numbers in detail (and finally gets at the “real” numbers of non-conforming and subprime mortgages that were being underwritten, that even the Fed was unaware of as recently as 2010). Wallison also evaluates the various theories regarding its cause. I highly recommend the book to all those who are interested in the topic. It turns on its head the conventional wisdom that the crisis was caused by Wall Street greed, risk taking and insufficient regulation. Instead, Wallison carefully analyzes what actually happened in terms of the growth in subprime and non-conforming mortgages, the substantial growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, commercial lending practices, and the changes in government regulations and housing policies during the 15-year lead up to the crisis. His conclusion based on the factual evidence: federal government housing and mortgage policies were the primary cause (or the “sine qua non” ) of the 2008 financial crisis.
Wallison notes that the seeds of the crisis were planted in 1992 when Congress enacted “affordable housing” goals for the two giant governments-sponsored-enterprises (GSE)- the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA or Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC or Freddie Mac). The GSEs were private entities BUT were chartered by Congress (so there was an assumption by most market participants that they would be backed by the Feds if they were to get in trouble). They were not allowed to make loans to individuals buying homes but served an important role in “underwriting” the loans (i.e. acquiring the loans from the banks that originated them, freeing the banks up to make further loans). Because the GSEs were considered to be implicitly backed by the US government, their borrowing costs were low (only slightly above Treasuries). With these low-cost funds, Fannie and Freddie effectively drove all competition in the secondary mortgage market for the middle class. In fact, between 1991 and 2003 , the GSE market share of the total US housing market rose from 28.5 to 46.3 percent.
The 1992 affordable housing goals required the two GSEs to meet a quota of loans to low and moderate income (LMI) borrowers and after the law, they were subject to oversight by HUD (Housing and Urban Development). HUD also served as the GSE “mission regulator” with power to assure that they were performing the role that the government had assigned to them. In other words, except for their “for-profit” status, the GSEs were increasingly serving as agents for government policy, if not acting as outright government agencies. The LMI quotas started out at 30 percent in 1992. (at least 30 percent of the new mortgage loans that Fannie and Freddie acquired must be made to LMI) but then were ramped up substantially by HUD to 42 percent in 1997, 50 percent in 2001 and 56 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, HUD also required “base goals” for low and very low-income borrowers and residents of minority areas described as “underserved”. HUD increased these goals between 1996 and 2008 at an even faster rate than the LMI goals.
The effect of the quotas was to fundamentally alter what had been the GSEs’ underwriting standards for borrowers for decades and what constituted “prime” mortgages which prior to the 1990s were the only mortgages that the GSEs would buy. Prime mortgages required significant down payments (generally 10-20 percent of the loan amount), good borrower credit histories and low debt-to-income ratios for the borrowers. These principles of underwriting had yielded low default rates even during recessions. However, during the 1990s and particularly the early 2000s, in order to attract more LMI borrowers, “subprime” or non-traditional mortgages (NTM) became increasingly the norm which offered very low or even zero down payments, interest-only loans, and allowed borrowers to have low credit ratings and high debt-to-income ratios. Mortgage lending is a competitive business and many borrowers who could have afforded prime mortgages sought out the better terms now being underwritten by Fannie and Freddie and other GSEs. This effectively allowed buyers who could have afforded a 20% down payment on a $200,000 house to buy a bigger $400,000 house with a 10% down payment.
As a result of all this, there was an explosion in mortgage demand which helped fuel the housing bubble of 1997-2007 during which housing prices soared. (Historically, housing prices had moved in up roughly in line with general inflation, but during this period, U.S. average real prices DOUBLED relative to inflation, according to economist Robert Schiller in his seminal work Irrational Exuberance). The housing bubble was further inflated by cuts in prime interest rates (due to Fed’s loose monetary policy) during 2000-2004 when rates dropped from 9.5 percent to 4.0 percent. This meant that the same monthly payments on a standard 30 year fixed rate loan in early 2000 would allow for the purchase of almost twice as an expensive home in 2004.
Housing bubbles are highly “procyclical”. In other words, as the bubble grows, it creates conditions that encourage further growth. For one, higher prices are inversely proportional to default rates, or put another way, rising prices suppress defaults because there is more equity in existing loans and more expensive loans can be refinanced more cheaply. As HUD thru the GSEs pressed on with its policy of reducing down payments and allowing for more highly leveraged loans, this had the effect of increasing mortgage loan demand, and created more demand for more expensive homes pushing home prices up further.
However, the effect of greater leverage is also procyclical when prices are falling and the bubble is deflating. This is because homeowners with low or zero down payments are extraordinarily vulnerable to loss when housing prices decline. For example, an owner of a $100,000 home with a 3% down payment ( very common in the early 2000s), would encounter major downside if prices fall only 5%. He will be unable to refinance without putting in more equity into the home and won’t be able to move to find a better job without paying off the bank the difference between the mortgage and the loan amount. In many instances, the situation became so dire that the homeowner simply defaulted on his loan and walked away from their home, which of course increased home inventories and pushed prices down further , leading to even more defaults.
Wallison describes another serious problem that emerged during the bubble and exacerbated the financial crisis in 2008 in his aptly named Chapter 10 “Flying Blind into the Storm”. After 1992, Fanny and Freddie began to misclassify many mortgage loans as “prime” even though they were subprime and non-traditional mortgages (NTMs) (i.e. much riskier loans) by their characteristics. The GSEs continued to use the definition of subprime that had existed BEFORE 1992, when the GSEs seldom acquired these loans and subprime mortgages were generally only made by specialized lenders. In short, the GSE only classified loans as subprime or non-prime if they (1) bought the loan from one of these specialty subprime lenders OR (2) the loan had been sold to them “labelled” as a subprime mortgage. Moreover, when lenders reported their loans to organizations such as Loan Performance (now CoreLogic) and other data aggregators and housing publishers, they generally reported their loans as “prime” and the data aggregators, who were not in the business of classifying loans, simply assumed that if they were sold to the GSEs they should carry them as prime. In fact, the total federal government exposure (through the GSEs) to subprime/NTM mortgages had grown enormously. By mid-2008, the GSEs had 24 million of such loans on their books with an unpaid principal balance of $3.4 trillion, which was at least 76 percent of the total NCM/subprime loans!
As a result, many respected academics, government media, professional commentators and even the Fed had no idea that the number of NTMs was far higher than reported in 2008 and the number of prime loans was far lower. (Wallison notes that they “still do not” understand this even today). This meant that the Fed and Treasury were making predictions that the default losses would not spread to other economic sectors during 2007 based on this very faulty data. This also meant that banks and investment banks did not understand the risk of mortgage-back securities (such as credit default swaps) and did not sell many of these disastrously risky securities which would have distributed the losses more widely throughout the global system where there was more capital to absorb them. Instead , the losses concentrated in a few of the largest financial institutions in the US and Europe, creating a financial crisis when these firms were so weakened that they could not continue to supply liquidity to the financial system.
In addition to making an iron clad case as to what caused the crisis, Wallison also spends a considerable amount of the book debunking the popular/political theories of why we had the crisis. Per usual, he bases this entirely on the actual facts and sound economic analysis, something that in the rush to judgement of the media and the politicians in 2008-09 was largely lacking in the popular and now conventional wisdom claims of what caused the crisis. I won’t detail the evidence here, but I found his evidence and analysis very persuasive.
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While the book is lengthy and gets even more technical than I have described above, it makes a very convincing case based strictly on the facts and the data regarding the primary causes of the financial crisis. The bottom line is that the root cause of the 2008 financial crisis was federal government housing policy and specifically the rapidly increasing quotas for LMI and underserved borrowers required by HUD during the 1990s and early 2000s. These quotas directly resulted in a significant reduction in Fannie and Freddie underwriting standards and given their market dominance, this resulted in mortgage loan quality being reduced across the entire market. The lower standards fueled a huge increase in first time and trade up housing buyers, which in turn directly led to the housing bubble (which was also inflated by the Feds loose interest rate policy during 2000-2004 period.). To make matters worse, the low quality and the high risks of the bulk of Fannie and Freddie’s secondary mortgages was not understood at all at the time of the crisis due to the mislabeling of many such mortgages as “prime” rather than subprime/NTMs.
To be sure there was plenty of bad behavior on the part of politicians in both parties (while the Dems were the main instigators during the Clinton administration and beyond, the Bush administration was actively pushing “an ownership society” during the 2004 campaign and was doing nothing to reverse the large HUD quotas). Some of the private sector excesses have been well documented such as the Countrywide Financial “liar loans” where income and other borrower information was fabricated in order to sell the loans. But the important point and the lesson that we SHOULD learn from the crisis is that it was OVERregulation by the Federal Government and Congress that pushed for the legislative changes that led to the crisis, NOT deregulation which was the more popular, political reaction in 2009 and beyond.
Unfortunately, this lesson has NOT been learned by Congress who has pursued greater regulation of banks with its onerous Dodd-Frank regulations passed in 2009 as the primary knee jerk reaction to the crisis. At the same time, Wallison points out that Congress has slipped back into old habits ignoring the high default rates of NCMs (and why Fannie and Freddie effectively went bankrupt) in order to provide greater credit availability and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau instituting a QM (a minimum qualifying mortgage) and eventually a QRM (supposedly a high quality mortgage required under Dodd-Frank) that required no down payment or minimum credit score for the borrower. In the last paragraph of the book, Wallison soberly notes “Unless at some point the narrative about the financial crisis is supplanted by an account of what really caused the financial crisis, it is only a matter of time before the ideas that produced the FHFA strategic plan, the QM/QRM rule and the Johnson-Crapo bill will carry the day. If that happens, we can be sure that another financial crisis awaits us in the future”. My less sanguine view is that Congress or the federal government as a whole will NEVER accept the factual narrative that it was government policy and regulation that caused the crisis (though at least Barney Frank now accepts this explanation). Unfortunately, Congress is very good at blaming others for their own incompetence.
While many British hits dominated US music in 1965, American music was also excellent in 1965 led by two important trends: (1) a new fusion sound called folk-rock and (2) ascendancy of Motown music as well as other soul and R&B artists. In other words, there were two more reasons why 1965 is still my favorite year for rock and popular music.
The folk/rock sound was led by Bob Dylan but it was other artists that covered many of his songs that led to the great popularity of folk-rock in 1965. Dylan started the trend with his Bringing it all Back Home album released in March which had its entire first side backed by an electric rock ‘n roll band (a first for Dylan) including Dylan’s classic songs “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm”. Side 2 was more conventional (for Dylan) with mostly acoustic guitar and harmonica but featured two other classics: “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding”. By the Summer of 1965, Dylan had released another album Highway 61 Revisited which included the ultimate electric, folk-rock song “Like a Rolling Stone” which is far and away my favorite Dylan song and is widely considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time. The last track on the album was one of the longest, yet most interesting, folk songs (over 10 minutes) “Desolation Row”. By the end of the year, Dylan released another great folk-rock single “Positively 4th Street” which had the biting lyrics “You’ve got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend….you always seem to be on the side that’s winning”.
While Dylan technically started the folk-rock sound with his first 1965 album, it was the Byrds who popularized it with their first single in 1965- the electric cover of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” in June which rose to #1 in the charts. The song featured guitarist David Crosby and lead guitarist Roger McGuinn with his distinctive “jangly” electric Rickenbacker guitar sound. Gene Clark played electric bass guitar. All three were excellent lead vocalists and sang great harmonies given their experience as solo folk musicians and in folk groups (McGuinn from the Chad Mitchell Trio and Gene Clark from the New Christy Minstrels). In August, the group released another Dylan cover “All I Really Want to Do” which featured great guitar and vocal harmonies. (though the not-as-good Cher version of the song did better on the charts).
The Mr. Tambourine Man album released in mid-summer was arguably the first complete folk-rock album and was by far the best individual album the Byrds ever recorded. In addition to “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “All I Really Want to Do”, it also included another Dylan song, the beautifully harmonic “Chimes of Freedom” and a great cover of folk singer’s Pete Seeger’s composition “Bells of Rhymney”. However, the album also featured original Byrds compositions, most notably vocalist Gene Clark’s ” I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” another great folk-rock composition. A testament to the strength of this first Byrds album is that all five of these songs constituted almost the entire first side of the Byrds greatest hits album released two years later, which not surprisingly was one of the first “greatest hits” albums I ever bought. The one exception was the single “Turn, Turn, Turn” which was released in October and reached the top of the charts by the end of December. This time, instead of a Dylan song, the Byrds used another Pete Seeger composition which drew its lyrics from the Bible. “Turn, Turn, Turn” is by far my favorite song by the Byrds–its melody, vocal harmonies and electric guitar playing are superb– and it deservedly was the most popular song the Byrds ever released.
Following the Byrds successes in mid-1965, another new group The Lovin Spoonful led by singer/songwriter John Sebastian had their first hit in September the wonderfully upbeat “Do You Believe in Magic” followed by the excellent love song “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” in December. Meanwhile in August, Barry McGuire took folk-rock in the opposite direction with #1 hit “Eve of Destruction” in August. This was the folk-rock movement’ s ultimate anti-war song which even was banned in Scotland and restricted in England due to its lyrics about violence and war….”the Eastern world it is exploding, violence flaring, bullets loading, you’re old enough kill but not for votin’, you don’t believe in war but what’s that gun you’re toting , and even the Jordan River’s got bodies floating …..”.
Michael Stewart, brother of John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, formed the group We Five and recorded the folk-rock “You Were on My Mind” in 1965. The song’s catchy melody and vocals resulting it becoming one of the biggest hits of 1965. And another new group, the Turtles had their first hit with a good folk-rock cover of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe”. After a few years of limited popular success , ( no top 10 hits since 1961’s “Hats off to Larry” ), Del Shannon scored with the excellent “Keep Searchin’ (I’ll Follow the Sun)” one of my favorites of the year and certainly influenced by folk-rock. The Vogues had their first two hits in 1965 with two folk influenced songs “You’re the One” and “Five O’clock World”, both favorites of mine. And after several years of limited commercial success, Simon and Garfunkel emerged onto the scene with the December release of the classic folk-rock hit “Sounds of Silence”. (More about Simon and Garfunkel when I write about 1966 next year).
The folk-rock movement also influenced music outside the US. The Seekers from Australia and featuring the beautiful voice of Judith Durham had their first hit “I’ll Never Find Another You” which was a superb folk song. Donovan, a new British artist, was heavily influenced by Dylan in particular and his first single “Catch the Wind” was a beautiful and serene folk song that was a great commercial success in the UK , and a top 40 hit in the US.
As exciting as folk-rock was in 1965, it was soul and R&B music that probably best characterized American popular music with its greatest year to date. In particular, the Motown Sound dominated the year, led by the Supremes. The Supremes completed their record of five #1 releases in a row with three excellent songs that charted during 1965 “Come See About Me”, “Stop in the Name of Love” and “Back of the Arms Again” and then after missing no. 1 with “Nothing but Heartaches”, finished the year with another great tune, the #1 hit “I Hear a Symphony”. All of these Supremes hits were written by the extraordinary song writing team of Holland-Dozier-Holland.
The Four Tops emerged as the second most important Motown group of 1965 and my personal favorite. I loved all four of their singles in 1965. My favorite was the top ten “Its the Same Old Song” though the number one smash ” I Can’t Help Myself” was almost as infectious and was the Tops first number 1 hit . The less popular ” Something About You” was an excellent song as well and ” Ask the Lonely” showed that lead singer Levi Stubbs could belt out a slow ballad with the best of them. With the exception of “Ask the Lonely”, the songs were all written by the same Holland-Dozier-Holland team.
The Temptations had four hits in 1965, but it was their first song penned by Smoky Robinson and fellow Miracles member Ronnie White that became their biggest hit to date. “My Girl” was to go to #1 in March and remains the most famous and critically acclaimed Temptations song and my favorite Motown slow ballad. Interestingly, it was also David Ruffin’s first lead vocal which was followed by three other singles by the Temps with Ruffin also in the lead in 1965 – “It’s Growing”, “Since I Lost My Baby” and “My Baby” – which were all solid Temptations songs. This trend would continue during the next two and a half years (with Ruffin the lead or co-lead singer on virtually all of the Temps hit songs) until in mid-1968 Ruffin was “fired” from the group owing to problems from his swelling ego, and his drug usage. Meanwhile, Smoky Robinson and the Miracles were having a successful year with several hit singles “Ooh, Baby, Baby” (later covered successfully by Linda Ronstadt), “My Girl is Gone” and their best single to date the beautiful “Tracks of My Tears”. At the end of the year, the Miracles released their most upbeat single and my second favorite by them “Going to a Go-Go” which had a great drum opening and rhythm section throughout.
In addition to the four super Motown groups, there were several other notable soul and R&B hits that I enjoyed. Motown solo artist, Marvin Gaye had three top tens , “I’ll be Doggone”, “Ain’t that Peculiar” and my favorite “How Sweet it is” which was later covered by James Taylor. The Godfather of Soul, James Brown had his two most popular hits “I Got You (I Feel Good), and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” which were both outstanding R&B songs. Wilson Pickett released the iconic “In the Midnight Hour” which though it only made #21, is one of the most memorable songs which many groups later covered. In fact, it seemed that at every junior high school dance I went to at the time, the local rock band would play it. Jr. Walker and the All Stars had the rousing “Shotgun”, their first and best hit. Lead singer Curtis Mayfield of the Impressions penned the beautiful, soulful and religious “People Get Ready” which was inspired by Dr. King’s Civil Rights March on Washington in 1964. Finally, Otis Redding had his first top 40 hit with “I’ve Been Loving You too Long” and then the single “Respect”. Both are considered among the greatest soul and R&B songs of all time , though in the latter case, it was Aretha’s more famous version in 1967 that most people remember.
There were also several artists that didn’t fit into the new dominant trends of folk-rock or soul/R&B in the US in 1965 but were excellent in 1965. This included most notably the Beach Boys who had an excellent year starting with their great remake of “Do You Wanna Dance”, “Help Me Rhonda” which reached #1, and “California Girls” which hit #3, the last song being a personal favorite of mine (and my Californian wife). While all three songs followed the surf sound that the Beach Boys had popularized in 1963 and 1964 (and which was the dominant US rock sound in those years), “California Girls” marked a change in the Beach Boys music, with its lengthy instrumental introduction, and a change in tempo to a slower pace than the typical Beach Boys hit. It was to presage the superb Beach Boys album Pet Sounds in 1966 which marked the end of the beach music era. The Righteous Brothers also dominated the pop charts with “Unchained Melody” (later featured in the 1990 movie “Ghost”) and their greatest song ever “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”. The Four Seasons remained a force in the pop/rock world with two big hits “Bye, Bye Baby” and one of my favorites ever by them “Let’s Hang On”. While a brand new pop/rock group, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, had a very successful 1965 with five major hits, the best of the lot being “This Diamond Ring” and “Everybody Loves a Clown”.
Several individual US hits were also stand outs in 1965. Jay and the Americans had one of their biggest hits with “Cara Mia” which featured Jay Black’s outstanding voice and was easily my favorite song by the group. Roger Miller had the country hit of the year with the catchy “King of the Road”. The Ramsey Lewis Trio had the best instrumental of the year with the jazzy “The In Crowd”. Jackie DeShannon had the best US female solo performance in 1965 with her recording of the Bacharach/David tune “What the World Needs Now is Love”. The best pure US rock song from the US in 1965 was the McCoys “Hang on Sloopy” which later became the official rock song of Ohio in 1985 (The McCoys were from the Dayton area) and the OSU Buckeyes to boot. In a similar vein, I also liked the garage rock “She’s About a Mover” by Sir Douglas Quintet. And for pure fun, there was the simple but catchy “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (which found its way into skits on New York’s Sonny Becker Show which was for kids), and one of the biggest hits of the year “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher.
No doubt I have missed some other good songs , but that’s the way it was during 1965 when the music always gave you “sunshine on a cloudy day”.
Fifty years ago, rock and popular music had a magical year. I say this despite the fact that I was only 10 years old and really didn’t listen to music yet on the radio (as I started to do in early 1966). In fact, I was still much more enamoured with following the New York Yankees who sadly for me were to suffer their first losing season in decades in 1965 and the abrupt end of a baseball dynasty that had lasted more than four decades. Musically, 1965 was a year that I remember mostly for my first record album “Help!” that my mother allowed me to play on her old RCA Victor as well as my second record album “Rubber Soul” that I bought at the end of 1965. But it wasn’t long before (during 1966 and 1967) that I started catching up collecting singles and albums from 1965, which in my opinion is the best year for rock music ever. (But it’s not just “my” opinion, Lou Simon of Sirius XM radio “60s Satellite Survey” describes 1965 as his “favorite year” as well).
1965 was characterized by several important trends in rock/pop music. The first was the continuing dominance of the Beatles as the top group on the rock scene. The second was the continuation of the British invasion with many 1964 groups doing well in 1965 and several notable new acts emerging. Third, it was the beginning of a new US folk-rock sound. Lastly, soul and R&B was arguably better than ever, most notably the Motown sound in 1965. In this regard, 1965 was a “classic” year with the Beatles, British invasion, folk-rock and the Motown sound, newly ascendant or at or near its peak. Because of all the great music in 1965, I decided to split “1965” into two blog postings. So herewith is Pt. 1, the Beatles and the British Invasion:
1965 began and ended with the Beatles who released four albums during the year (Beatles 65, Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul), though technically Beatles 65 was released on December 15, 1964, no doubt to coincide with Christmas shopping. All four albums went immediately to no. 1 on the charts. Similarly, the year was nicely bracketed by five outstanding Beatles singles-all that went to #1 starting with “Eight Days a Week” “Ticket to Ride”, “Help”, “Yesterday” and finishing with my favorite two-sided Beatles hit “We Can Work it Out/Day Tripper” released in early December 1965. My favorite Beatles song was “Ticket to Ride” perhaps for it infectious chorus and driving guitar playing by George, and I constantly sang the chorus around our apartment during 1965. But I really loved them all, from “Day Tripper” excellent guitar riffs to the great vocals and harmonies in “Help”, “Eight Days a Week” and “We Can Work it Out” and finally the beautiful simplicity of “Yesterday”.
Of the 1965 Beatles albums, “Help” and “Rubber Soul” are my favorites, no doubt because they were the first albums I owned. (However, in retrospect, “Beatles 65” has many excellent songs as well including most notably “I’m a Loser”, “No Reply”, “I’ll Be Back” “Baby’s in Black” “I Feel Fine” (which was also a #1 single at the end of 1964/beginning of 1965), and “She’s a Woman”.
“Help” has seven outstanding songs all from the movie– Help!, Ticket to Ride, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, The Night Before, You’re Gonna Lose that Girl, Another Girl, and I Need You. All could have been hit singles if the Beatles had chosen to release them and in fact, one song “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” was turned into a hit single by another group Silkie later in the year. The only problem with the “Help” album is that it had another five tracks containing soundtrack filler from the movie which with the exception of the instrumental sitar version of a Hard Days Night theme (“Another Hard Day’s Night”) are not memorable. This soundtrack filler resulted in many scratches and skips in the album as I was constantly picking up the needle to skip these mostly forgettable, instrumental tracks.
The Beatles “Rubber Soul” album is still one of their all-time classics. Similar to “Help” it features the Beatles great songwriting, singing and harmonies. But unlike Help, it contains the beginning of the Beatles more sophisticated lyrical and musical themes particularly John’s beautiful snapshots in “Norwegian Wood” and “In My Life” as well as his complicated relationship in “Girl”. And of course Paul had two great love songs “Michelle” (which was later covered and charted by multiple other artists) as well as the up-tempo country and western style, acoustic “I’ve Just Seen a Face” which contains some fine guitar work by George. But Paul also was getting away from simple themes with his interesting and very melodic “I’m Looking Thru You”… “I thought I knew you , what did I know” and my favorite song on the album, the irresistibly catchy “You Won’t See Me” that captured Paul’s desperate mood in his tenuous relationship with Jane Asher in late 1965.
However, as much as the Beatles preeminence was an enduring characteristic of 1965, in many ways it was the emergence of the Rolling Stones as the Beatles main challenger in the rock scene that characterized the year. Though the Stones didn’t sell nearly as many singles or albums as the Beatles in 1965, they did have the most successful single of the year “Satisfaction” which is perhaps the most famous rock anthem of the 1960s and is rightfully on many lists as the greatest rock song of all time. “Satisfaction” had a catchy and unique guitar riff by Keith Richard that was played thru a fuzz box in order to roughen the sound. Early in the year, the Stones had one of their first major commercial successes in the US with “The Last Time” which features a driving guitar riff (this time played by Brian Jones) and was another Jagger/Richard original composition. Later in the year, the Stones released another great rocker “Get Off of My Cloud” which was so up tempo that they managed to squeeze in the lyric “I live on an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor of my block” all in the first musical line of the song. The full lyrics of this song along with the aforementioned “Satisfaction” and “The Last Time” cemented the Stones reputation as the bad boys of rock or the anti-Beatles, though of course the truth was more complicated. In December 1965, the Stones released its version of the very McCartney-like “As Tears Go By” that it had written earlier for Marianne Faithful in late 1964. It was a beautiful love song with the Stones arrangement including acoustic guitar and a string orchestra accompaniment very much influenced by the late 1965 success of the Beatles “Yesterday”.
Though the Dave Clark 5 had good year in 1964 ( with “Glad All Over” most notably) , 1965 was their best year, starting with their excellent cover of Chris Kenner’s I Like it Like That and then September’s very “catchy” “Catch Us if you Can” (from the DC 5 movie “Having a Wild Weekend”). “Catch Us if You Can” was unquestionably the best song they ever recorded and one of my favorites of the 60s. Finally, DC 5 ended the year with the release of “Over and Over” their most popular and only #1 hit , which is another irresistible DC 5 song.
Meanwhile, The Kinks fed off their success in 64 with two more great rock n’ roll classics. First, there was the up-tempo, guitar-infused “All of the Day and All the Night” with another unforgettable Ray Davies guitar riff and solo ( much like its predecessor in 1964 ” You Really Got Me ” ) . This was followed by the slower tempo , soulful “Tired of Waiting for You” which became the first in a long line of more introspective and lyrical Kinks songs. I love this song for Ray Davies vocal where you feel that he is truly “so tired”, something that John Lennon might have picked up on in the Beatles recording “I’m So Tired” several years later.
The Animals recorded some of their best songs in 1965 though they were all much less successful commercially than 1964’s #1 hit “House of the Rising Sun”. Their three best of the year without question were “Dont Let Me Be Misunderstood”, “We Gotta Get out of this Place” and “It’s My Life”. Each featured a great tune, a great driving bass and guitar line, Eric Burdon’s deep voice and occasionally Jagger-like vocals and some great lyrics such as “In this dirty old part of the city where the sun refuse to shine…”We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do….girl there’s a better life for me and you” and “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, oh lord, don’t let me be misunderstood”.
A new group, the Yardbirds helped to blaze the trail for future hard rock with their first hit song in the US “For Your Love” which cracked the top ten in the US. “For Your Love” is a simple rock song with a driving beat and melody but it still stands as one of the top rock songs of the 1960s. Interestingly, Eric Clapton who had been lead guitarist for the group since late 1963 left the group to join John Mayall’s Blues Breakers right after the commercial success of the single, afraid the group was becoming too “popular’ and eschewing the original group’s “blues’ roots. However, the Yardbirds barely missed a beat when they replaced Clapton with Jeff Beck and recorded the excellent and almost as successful “Heart Full of Soul” which included Beck’s experimental fuzz guitar sound.
Another new British soft rock act, Herman’s Hermits invaded America at the very end of 1964 , with their release of “I’m into Something Good” which was to be the first of their SEVEN top ten charting hits during 1965. The remaining hits included “Can’t you hear, my heartbeat”, “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter”, “Silhouettes”, “Wonderful World”, “I’m Henry the VIII”, and “Just a little bit better”. At the time I remember hearing “I’m Henry, the VIII , I am” repeatedly while in a car (no doubt because WABC played the #1 song every hour) with my friend Neil up at his parents country place in the Catskills . It was a very simple ( “second verse same as the first”) catchy song driven by Peter Noone’s excellent vocals. In retrospect, ” Mrs. Brown…” the Hermits other #1 hit was a better song with a unique opening guitar sound and nicer tune. However, my favorite of their songs in ’65 was the #2 hit “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” because as the song intones “you’re the one I love”.
Another successful “new” British act (at least on the U.S. Charts) was Petula Clark, who scored at the beginning of the year with #1 smash, and one of the top songs of 1965 “Downtown”. Petula had actually been a childhood entertainer during WWII for the British troops and a recording artist and film actress since the late 1940s. However, it took “Downtown” to make her an American singing star. The song had a great musical refrain and a wonderful musical and lyrical introduction “When you’re alone and live is bringing you down, you can always go….Downtown” led by a great piano intro and Petula’s heartfelt singing. Her follow-up “I Know a Place” reached #3 and was nearly as good “a swinging place, a cellar full of noise”. Petula had a rich and beautiful voice and finally got the song material she deserved in 1965.
Other British invasion singles that I also enjoyed included Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders “Game of Love”, Freddie and the Dreamers “I’m Telling You Now”, Gerry and the Pacemakers beautiful “Ferry Cross the Mersey”, the Zombies excellent “Tell Her No” and the Fortunes great vocal harmonies in the impossible-not-to-sing or hum-along “You’ve Got Your Troubles”. I also enjoyed the Moody Blues’ first US hit “Go Now” though Denny Laine’s tenure in the group was short-lived thereafter, with the group being transformed with the arrival of Justin Hayward and John Lodge in late 1966. And it was hard not to like Shirley Bassey’s only US chart success with her stirring rendition of “Goldfinger” in the 1965 film which began a long history of excellent James Bond movie songs.
Not all British invasion songs were good of course, with probably my least favorite being Welshman crooner Tom Jones’ two hits “What’s New Pussycat” and “It’s Not Unusual”. However, I must admit I was never a big fan of Tom Jones though I can understand his appeal to some.
But it was certainly a small quibble with an outstanding year of music from “across the pond”. In fact, these songs made it easy f0r me to “believe in yesterday”.
In celebration of my mother’s 90th birthday yesterday, in addition to a great party, we (many of her relatives) presented her with a large book of memories. From that book, I include my entry, the following “brief history” which I hope you will enjoy. I have NO idea what we will do when she hits 100!
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A Brief History of Sarah Harding (Braine-Frost) and the World She Affected
- February 15, 1925: Sarah Craft Harding is born—Anticipating Sarah’s future readership, F&R Publishing produces the first issue of the “New Yorker” magazine a week later.
- May, 1925 Sally has numerous crying fits— On a Yankee team visit to Waterville, NY, Wally Pipp, Yankee 1st baseman develops chronic headache after meeting Sally, and on Jun 1st – Lou Gehrig replaces Pipp (due to his headache) in the starting lineup (1st of record 2130 consecutive games)
- February 11, 1929 Sally’s younger sister Lolly is born. Sally is immediately jealous of her – Three days later, the St. Valentine’s Day massacre ordered by Al Capone occurs in Chicago.
- October 23, 1929 Sally and older sister Virginia have major hair pulling fight— the next day is “Black Thursday”, start of stock market crash, Dow Jones down 12.8%.
- May 28, 1937 12 year-old Sally signs peace truce with her younger sister Lolly– Neville Chamberlin becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain
- February 15, 1938 Sally officially becomes a “wild” teenager- One month later, on March 12th Nazi Germany invades Austria.
- September 1941 Sally “forced” to go off to Fox Hollow boarding school after great protests – December 1941–Three months later Japanese respond by bombing Pearl Harbor.
- May 1943 Sally graduates from Fox Hollow– Frightened by the prospect, Axis forces in North Africa surrender.
- May 1945 Sally elected president of student body at Vassar — May 8th Victory in Europe VE-day when Germany unconditionally surrenders
- June 1946 Sally graduates from Vassar in three years plans to enjoy her summer by the pool – June 3 — First bikini bathing suit ever displayed (in Paris)
- August 1946 Starting her career in the capitalist world, Sally joins secretarial program at Vicks –George Orwell publishes anti-Communist novel “Animal Farm” on August 17th .
- June 1948 Sally resigns her hated job with Vicks after being told by her future husband, Jack Braine that she was going to be fired– June 8th The last Broadway revival of the musical comedy “Sally” (an original Ziegfeld production in the 1920s) closes at Martin Beck Theater NYC after 36 performances. In the show, “Sally” is a “waif dishwasher”
- May 29th 1949 Sally and Jack marry in Utica; honeymoon during major black fly season at Elk Lake lodge in the Adirondacks.–“It Pays To Be Ignorant” game show debuts June 6th on CBS-TV
- July 1949 Sally and Jack rent their first apartment together in Peter Cooper Village in New York City— July 14th USSR explodes its 1st atom bomb
- November 28th 1951-Sally and Jack’s first child Bonnie (the “angel” baby) is born. A day later the first underground atomic explosion occurs in Nevada.
- May 20th 1954- A second child, Bruce (the “devil” baby) is born. On June 9th, Joseph Welch asks US Senator Joe McCarthy “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” during Senate-Army hearings.
- December 31st 1956 Geoff Braine is born only hours before New Year’s. Sally misses chance at having the first New Year’s baby but there is a tax deduction!—Three months later on March 10, 1957 Osama Bin Laden is born.
- August 1965- Braine family spend August in England and Scotland including viewing of new Beatles movie “Help!” in London –Buoyed by all five members of Braine family enjoying “Help”, Beatles single “Help” goes to #1 in the US on September 4th.
- July 1970- Braine family (minus Bonnie) take 2 week Mediterranean/Black Sea cruise including stops in Athens, Istanbul (where at the bazaar they hold Turkish merchants at bay by saying “Isaac Asimov”)–Following the footsteps of the Braine’s intrepid voyage, on July 12, Thor Heyerdahl (“Kon-Tiki” author) completes crossing the Atlantic on raft Ra II, arriving in Barbados.
- June 1973 – Sarah Harding Braine graduates from Bank Street College with her Master’s in Education—June 27th John W Dean tells Watergate Committee about Nixon’s “enemies list” (recently “radicalized” thru her M.E. training, Sally is on “the list”).
- June 1975 – Exhausted and at times frustrated by teaching/ disciplining young children, Sally completes second year as teaching assistant at Bank Street—Movie “Jaws” opens on June 21st.
- April 1977- Ted Frost is reacquainted with Sally on a business trip after both of their spouses passed away in 1976 — Anticipating an active dating/courtship between Ted and Sally, New York’s famed disco Studio 54 opens on April 26th .
- October 4th 1980- Ted Frost and Sally are married in Cleveland— Three weeks later, inspired by the marriage, John Lennon releases a song “(Just Like) Starting Over” in the UK on October 24th.
- Late July 1984- Bruce, Bonnie and Geoff join Sally, Ted and other Frosts on vacation at Squirrel Island, Maine —-August 4th inspired by the athletic Braine/Frost vacation, Carl Lewis wins first of four gold medals in track at the LA Summer Olympics.
- April 1991- Sarah Frost baby sits for her first grandchild, Kathleen Sarah Braine while Anne and Bruce go to Palm Beach. –April 4th “Lucifer’s Child” opens at Music Box Theater NYC.
- February 15, 2000—Sarah Frost celebrates 75th birthday! –Six weeks earlier on Jan. 1 midnight there is a worldwide “early” celebration of Sarah’s milestone birthday.
- February 15, 2015—Sarah Frost is 90!– How will the world react?
With the State of the Union Address past us, I thought I would give my own economic State of the Union assessment, but being a numbers guy, strictly by the numbers. So herewith my top 10 “numbers” to describe the true financial/economic State of the Union:
- #1 –OSU Buckeyes are No. 1!—I am NOT a OSU grad (though I have started doing some teaching at the school), but OSU is Columbus’ team so we are justifiably proud.
- $18 Trillion (and Counting)–The amount of federal debt as of today. Incredibly, it has DOUBLED since 2007 from $9 Trillion and has grown by a factor of 20 times since 1980. Most projections have it growing significantly in the future reaching $25 trillion or more by 2024. While many try to minimize the number by expressing it as a % of GDP, the sheer magnitude of this debt burden is mind-boggling by any stretch of the imagination. To put in context, consider if the debt were all in $20 bills and we asked a team of 25 accountants to count it up. Assuming they could count one bill per second and took no breaks for eating or sleeping, it would take them 1142 years to count $18 Trillion.
- $483 billion– the size of the 2014 budget deficit. This is in part good news since the deficit is now significantly lower than the $1-1.4 trillion numbers that we suffered thru during the 2008-2012 period. However, it is still higher than ANY budget deficit that we had prior to the 2008 financial crisis and recession. Given that we are getting close to the end of the current economic expansion, we should be running a surplus and paying down our debt (as we did briefly during 1999-2000) NOT incurring deficits.
- $3.5 trillion to $5.8 trillion–Increase in total federal spending from 2014 to 2024. According to the “optimistic” projections of the CBO (assumes “sequestration” will be enforced after it expires in 2021 and interest on the debt will ONLY total $0.8 trillion by 2024 ), federal spending will still grow by about 2/3 or $2.3 trillion in just 10 years. 85% of this increase will come from “mandatory” expenditures on social welfare expenditures (e.g. food stamps), Medicare, Obama care, Medicaid, federal disability, social security, VA and other government pensions and interest on debt. Interest payments will go from $271 billion to $566 billion in 2020 and to $799 billion in 2024 or a growth of $0.5 trillion in a decade. However, CBO’s estimates assume only moderate inflation and relatively small increases in interest rates, while higher inflation and much higher interest rates are a much more likely scenario (given our massive fiscal and monetary stimulus of the past 6 years). Thus, I believe interest payments ALONE could total $1 trillion as early as 2020 or more than we will spend on the entire Social Security program in 2015.
- $962 billion to $1.9 trillion– Increase in federal medical/health spending from 2014 to 2024 -Health care expenditures will more than double increasing by almost $1 trillion. Medicare will account for the largest part of the growth, growing by $435 billion (from $603 billion to $1.038 trillion) and Medicaid will grow rapidly (by 87%) from $305 billion to $570 billion. Obama care will cost $1.8 trillion over the next decade (growing from $38 to $208 billion by 2020 and to $235 billion by 2024). This reflects the combination of government subsidies for the exchanges and the significant expansion of Medicaid under the law. (So much for “cost-containment” under the “Affordable” Care Act !). The really bad news here is barring a complete scrapping/ major reform of the entire federally funded health care system, it is hard to imagine how we will rein in its costs. Unfortunately, I don’t see there being much chance of this happening in the next few years.
- $845 billion to $1.5 Trillion–Increase in Social Security program spending from 2014 to 2024 —Today’s largest single federal program area, Social Security will be growing rapidly as many baby boomers begin to reach retirement age. The good news is that this is one of the areas that actually can be “fixed” (so that spending is more aligned with revenues coming into the social security trust fund). Some combination of increasing the age eligibility for social security to 70 years or so, reducing the income thresholds where benefits are taxable, reducing the annual inflation adjustment for benefits, an increase in the income threshold for paying Social Security taxes, and some means-testing for benefits would do the trick. However, many Democrats and some Republicans have been opposed to ANY cut in benefits given their fear of the AARP lobby. Without some cuts in benefits in the future, the chances of putting Social Security on a reasonably sound financial footing is remote.
- $3.02 trillion – 2014 Tax Revenues –The good news is that the economy has started to grow more significantly so there is more tax revenue. The bad news is that the tax revenues are already at record absolute levels (about $0.55 trillion higher than just two years ago) and assuming growth to about $3.3 trillion or 18.5% of GDP as currently estimated by CBO, we will start to come close to all-time highs as a percent of GDP. (aided in large measure by extremely low-interest costs for businesses, peak of stock market prices, highest profit margins ever, plus largest absolute $ tax increases in 2013 in US history). Historically, since 1946, we have only reached 19% of GDP three times ( in 1969, 1981 and 1998-2000) and in each instance, tax revenues began to decline thereafter because we were at the peak of a recovery AND/OR the tax burden was high enough that it started to impede growth. Of course, this means that broad revenue-neutral, tax reform is sorely needed to make the tax code more efficient and expand the tax base. In other words, we have to stop collecting taxes under the current idiotic tax code and move to something much smarter and vastly simpler.
- 5.6% – Unemployment rate – The best news on the economy in the past couple of years had been more significant declines in the unemployment rate. At 5.6% in December 2014 , the unemployment rate is now lower than anytime since 2008 and for the first time has fallen below the average 1948-2014 rate of 5.8%.
- 62.7% – Labor force participation rate – While the good news of the past couple of years is the decline in the unemployment rate, the bad news is that the better economic barometer for the health of the labor force – the labor participation rate – is at record lows not seen since the late 1970s. Simply put, many working age people have simply given up looking for a job and left the labor force entirely. This rate does not reflect another problem, that many of the new jobs since the recession have been part-time rather than full-time work.
- $0.8 Trillion to $4.1 Trillion- Increase in the US Monetary Base from 2008 to 2015– The US printed about $3.3 Trillion in new money mostly during 2008-09 and 2012-2014 under its 3 QE programs (Quantitative Easing). This quintupled the US monetary base over the past 6 years. The good news is that the Fed has ended its QE programs at least for the time being. Also, we haven’t felt the large long-run inflationary effects of this unprecedented money printing (YET!). However over the past 6 years, money printing has become the crack cocaine of the world economic system. It is extraordinarily addictive since in the short run it has bolstered the US and other world stock markets and on the surface at least appears to bolster the overall economies thru ultra-low interest rates and expanded borrowing. However, it is important to note that money printing produces no tangible economic value and comes with a long-term cost, much higher inflation (and in extreme cases hyper-inflation) which typically results in economic recessions and/or depressions. We have already set the stage in the US for massive inflation, and a stock market collapse. Right now, all that is keeping this at bay is that the US looks much better relative to Europe, Japan, China and many of the emerging economies (and the dollar is strengthening which lessens inflation) and our banks have yet to loan out their trillions of $ excess cash reserves.
The biggest problem in the US and world economies is that we all desperately want robust economic growth, more jobs and better incomes for our population, and everyone wants a quick fix to get there. At best, money printing and deficit spending are imperfect short-run strategies to help enable the economies to grow. However, the US and now Europe, Japan and China (and even Canada) have moved increasingly to the point of using loose fiscal and monetary policy as the ONLY long-run strategies to grow the economies. Economic growth does not come from fiscal and monetary stimulus in the long run. Instead, the key is improving economic productivity (output per labor and capital inputs) which has generally comes thru key technological breakthroughs and inventions. (e.g. the automobile, harnessing of electricity, computer, jet, satellites to name a few major ones in the 20th century etc. ). While these advancements aren’t usually anticipated, they don’t occur by accident. Rather, they need a business climate that is conducive to technological breakthroughs. In my opinion, the answer to future long run economic growth is rooted in five principles: simple and efficient taxes, free market competition and market deregulation, much lower government spending , conservative monetary policies, and free trade. It is only in this environment will we see the type of breakthroughs we haven’t even thought of yet which will lead to future improvements in the standard of living in the US and around the world.
Enough said. But the next time anyone says everything is fine with the US economy and the management of our government, remind them of these 10 numbers that tell a very different story.
It’s that time of the year again, when I make my New Year’s resolutions for 2015 and check on how I did in 2014.
First, how did I do in 2014? About one year ago, I wrote the following:
“Resolutions for 2014”
- “I will try to post at least 20 times during next year or roughly once every 2-3 weeks”
- “I will not mock the President, the federal government and Congress for their inability to cut profligate spending, inability to deal with entitlement spending, reform the abhorrent tax code and their inability to do anything useful. (Hmm….this resolution sounds like mockery already)”
- “I promise to not totally freak out when I turn 60 in May.”
On #1, not so good. After consulting my mathematical consultant, it turns out I only made 16 posts this past year. But I had a few good excuses. I had two surgeries (one involving anesthesia, the other involving sedation) in the last three months of 2014. My mother had major surgery in late November and had a few hospitalizations during the summer and early fall. (So, in other words, when all else fails blame health and medical care!). And frankly, I wearied of decrying REALLY bad, economic public policy in the US , and it showed as only 5 of my 16 posts were on public policy issues (and really only 4 if you don’t count my tongue-in-cheek “The Taxman’s taken all of my dough” post from April).
On #2, I did pretty darn well. I really didn’t mock the President, Congress, and the government very much. (or from my vantage point far less mockery than what was deserved). My tone was much more of a pleading, whining one than a sarcastic one.
On #3, Aaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!
So having not done too well on this past year’s 3 resolutions, it is time to make my resolutions for 2015. In that spirit, with one exception, I plan to make achieving these resolutions a tad bit easier than last year.
- I will avoid all hospitalizations and surgeries during 2015–Admittedly, this is not totally in my control, though I have nothing planned or scheduled. This is in contrast to 2014, where a hernia in September, resulted in surgery in October and a nagging infected cyst on my neck required a minor surgery in late December. I refer to the latter surgery as “minor” but I suppose there is nothing too minor about having a surgeon cut into the back of your neck.
- I will make sure to visit with my friends and family often during 2015– This should be easy, since I WANT to do this, though the airlines make longer distance visits much more painful than necessary. (Speaking of airlines, does anyone else agree with me that the merger of US Air and American is a complete oxymoron? Why not just call the new airline the “United States of America”?)
- I will workout by walking 3-4 miles every day (or virtually every day) – This should be aided psychologically by my new Christmas gift the “Fitbit”, a device that dutifully tracks steps, miles, calories burned not only of your workouts but of your steps around the house, to the store , to and from the garage at work etc. (In fact, I just got up to use the Mens Room here at work, 94 steps, .05 miles WOW am I good or what?)
- I will swim almost every day and up my swim to 32 laps or about 1/2 mile – Since my neck surgery of one week ago, I haven’t been allowed by the doctor to go swimming or use the jacuzzi owing to the risk of infection. This of course makes me wonder a bit as to whether swimming in a tepid pool of germs and bacteria is really such a healthy idea after all.
- I will eat mostly vegetables, whole grains, fruits and other good for you stuff – Thanks to Anne’s wonderful cooking, we have been doing this for a while. However, I still find it frustrating and totally UNFAIR that I can gain 5 pounds over the Christmas holidays by indulging in a few (well maybe a lot ) candies, cookies, pies, cakes, desserts etc. AND then have it take months and months to lose the weight… MEMO to Kilkenny clan (my wife’s family): Please, please do NOT send “Sees Candies” for Christmas anymore. In my case, it is like throwing gasoline on a burning fire. Or if you do send the candies, send them to a neutral site where only Anne knows the address…..Alternatively, maybe I can get my fitbit wristband equipped with a powerful electric shock ( I am thinking about 50,000 volts should do it) whenever I even touch an unhealthy food.
- I really will post 20 times this year – One down, 19 to go!
Happy 2015 to all. And I hope I hear from you via comments on the blog, emails etc.
Best, Bruce
The Braine Trust 