Alan Greenspan on Social Security

Toward the end of this New York Times story about the Social Security "trust fund" experiencing net withdrawals this year for the first time are a few words from former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan about the system that he helped "fix" back in the early 1980s.

Although Social Security is often said to have a “trust fund,” the term really serves as an accounting device, to track the pay-as-you-go program’s revenue and outlays over time. Its so-called balance is, in fact, a history of its vast cash flows: the sum of all of its revenue in the past, minus all of its outlays. The balance is currently about $2.5 trillion because after the early 1980s the program had surplus revenue, year after year.
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Mr. Greenspan recalled in an interview that the sour economy of the late 1970s had taken the program close to insolvency when the commission he led set to work in 1982. It had no contingency reserve then, and the group had to work quickly. He said there were only three choices: raise taxes, lower benefits or bail out the program by tapping general revenue.

The easiest choice, politically, would have been “solving the problem with the stroke of a pen, by printing the money,” Mr. Greenspan said. But one member of the commission, Claude Pepper, then a House representative, blocked that approach because he feared it would undermine Social Security, changing it from a respected, self-sustaining old-age program into welfare.

Recall that payroll taxes were raised back in 1983 and the Federal Government has been spending the Social Security surplus every year since that time, in the process making the government's annual budget look a lot better than it actually is. This no doubt helped to make the former Fed chairman quite popular with elected officials, that is, until the whole financial system melted down a couple years ago.

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CityCenter contractor to file $492 million suit

The Las Vegas Sun reports that the $8.5 billion white elephant otherwise known as MGM Mirage/Dubai World's CityCenter project will soon be the proud owner of a nearly half billion dollar "mechanics' lien" as, apparently, some bills are going unpaid.

MGM Mirage said it would dispute the claimed amount and also signaled it has counterclaims over construction defects at the Harmon Hotel part of the project, where construction has been suspended. When work resumes, it's scheduled to be completed at 28 floors, rather than the planned 49 floors.

"CityCenter believes that its actual obligation to the general contractor is substantially less than the amount claimed and that it is also entitled to significant offsets against the claimed amount. CityCenter intends to pursue all of its rights and remedies against the general contractor, including arbitration,'' MGM Mirage said in a regulatory filing.

"While CityCenter’s investigation into the general contractor’s potential liability regarding the Harmon Hotel is continuing, and there can be no assurance at this point as to the ultimate outcome of any action CityCenter may undertake, CityCenter believes that the amount of its claim against the general contractor may exceed the amount of CityCenter’s estimated remaining liability to the general contractor,'' MGM Mirage said in its filing.

There's a bit more detail at the LV Sun and in this report from Reuters - it seems this is not the first time that paying the bills has been a problem for CityCenter managers.

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The protests in Greece turn ugly

Things got a little ugly in Greece today as, according to this AP report, another strike against the government's austerity measures resulted in "hundreds of masked and hooded youths" making their way through the streets of Athens causing all sorts of mischief.

Storefront windows on more than a dozen shops were smashed and the police used teargas to disperse rioters that numbered in the tens of thousands.

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Three looks at the rise in consumer credit

Jake at EconPicData looks at last week's consumer credit report (a data release from the Federal Reserve that, for some unknown reason, comes at 3PM EST on Fridays) and wonders if the American consumer is once again in a spending mood.
Total consumer credit expanded by $5.0 billion in January, the first increase in 11 months and only the third gain in almost a year-and-half in what has otherwise been a decades-long credit and spending binge.

The longer term view of consumer credit relative to disposable income is updated in the graphic below from this follow-up item that adds some perspective, the big caveat here being that these figures do not include housing related debt such as home equity loans that reached a peak a few years ago and have been falling sharply.
Lastly, from data at the St. Louis Fed, you can easily see how life in America has changed over the last 70 years, that is, credit-wise, as the last year or so has seen a dramatic departure from the predominant trend since the Reagan administration.
Yes, the chart above looks much less menacing when a log scale is used so, that alternative view of things is provided below.

What is still significant, however, is that the recent contraction is the swiftest ever seen.
By the way, if you live in the Bay Area and know of any job openings, Jake has a favor to ask.

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More bad timing for Toyota

On the same day that company officials mounted a defense of their handling of Toyotas' acceleration problems, a Prius in San Diego has to be corralled by a California Highway Patrol officer, the driver clearly petrified and just thankful to have survived.

At about the 1:55 mark, check out that lady CHP officer with what looks like a mullet. Is that Garth from Saturday Night Live? With a few extra pounds?

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Home prices and revolving credit

This could be the most interesting chart in the updated series of charts where the Case-Shiller Home Price Index is laid up against all kinds of other economic data. Two days ago it was home prices and gasoline prices in The Hummer "sweet spot" revisited and yesterday it was the mostly unexciting home values and consumer sentiment.

Today, the relationship between the nation's housing bubble and the country's outstanding revolving credit (i.e., mostly credit cards) is examined with some surprising results.
First, you can see how consumers turned to credit cards as both the 2001 and 2008 recessions began, however, due at least in part to real estate related financial resources such as home equity lines of credit, the surge was not nearly as great in 2008 than in 2001.

Notice that as home prices started to take off in 2004, revolving credit dropped sharply, presumably because money started gushing out of the housing ATM. After turning to credit cards a few years later following the bursting of the housing bubble, it looks as though consumers have sworn off plastic for good as revolving credit continues to decline even though home prices have been staging a bit of a rebound.

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It (the IRS) pays to be a snitch

It's tax time again and, during a recession (or whatever it is we are still in at the moment) the temptation to leave out a little income or inflate a few deductions on your tax return is as strong as ever. But, those thinking of doing so should heed the warning in this CNN/Money report about how the IRS encourages snitches.

If you knew coworkers, former bosses or exes who cheated on their taxes, would you turn them in? The Internal Revenue Service can make it worth your while.

As tax season nears, we all want to get as much money back from the IRS as possible. And while taking advantage of this year's new tax breaks will put some extra money in your pocket, snitching on a tax cheat could make you rich.

In a recent poll from the IRS Oversight Board, 13% of those surveyed think cheating is acceptable, up from 9% in 2008. As the recession puts the squeeze on household finances, the lure of fudging on a tax return is even greater.

"In a down economy, the temptation to cheat on taxes is much stronger because people are in more desperate situations more often," said Bill Raabe, a tax expert at Ohio State University's business school.

More people may be just as desperate to turn in a business, rat out an ex–spouse or report a colleague to collect a reward.

For those who have fudged their taxes, it's probably not a good idea to talk about it.

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Home prices and consumer sentiment

Here's another chart from the long dormant series of charts that put the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index up against a variety of other economic indicators. In this version, home prices are shown on the same chart as consumer sentiment with an unsurprising result.
With the exception of the early-2007 period, the two track pretty well.

In fact, if you smooth the consumer sentiment curve as shown below, the two are nearly identical, save for a delayed reaction in the outlook of Americans in 2007 leading up to the fateful events of 2008.

This is a 12-month moving average that not only takes out the month-to-month volatility but reflects the average sentiment over the last year, a metric that would seem to match up better with the change in home prices over that same period.
Any way you look at it, that mid-decade high for the mood of the consumer now seems like a distant memory - about the only thing we had to worry about then was a war that was going badly and gasoline prices that were rising toward $3 a gallon.

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What's behind the rising museum attendance?

America's finest news source, The Onion, tries to answer the question that's on the minds of many people in this country regarding the rising attendance at museums.
Here's a link to the official Andrew Wyeth website and, after a quick look around, it seems that the staff at The Onion was being a bit generous in the "bleak" characterization.

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The Hummer "Sweet Spot" revisited

A note in this item from yesterday about never again commenting on the Hummer line of SUVs now that they appear to be headed to history's scrapheap was clearly ill-advised.

In going over some old charts that integrated Case-Shiller home prices with various other data, the combination below was stumbled upon and updated for the occasion.
There is little hope that we'll ever again see U.S. gasoline prices at under $2.00 a gallon for years at a time while home prices are also rising by 10 to 15 percent each and every year, but, if we do, don't be surprised if the Hummer rises from the grave.

Yes, the historians are going to have a field day with that period - from about 2003 to 2006 when home equity crazed Americans were doing things they'd regret for the next ten years and alternative media such as blogs were there to document it all. For example, this item from early in 2006 captures the mood rather well, just before the bubble burst.

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Goodbye Hummer, Goodbye Arnold

Lost in last week's news amid a bevy of horrid economic reports, heightened tension in the health care debate, and Congressional hearings on Toyota's acceleration problems, one overlooked story seems worthy of note this weekend - the demise of the Hummer.

With GM's sale of the Hummer line of gargantuan SUVs to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery now scuttled, what served as a cultural icon during the middle of the last decade will now be relegated to history's scrapheap. It is the final footnote to an era a half-decade ago when the U.S. housing bubble was at its maximum point of inflation and, not only would banks let you borrow money for virtually anything, but the government provided incentives for small businesses to purchase these monstrous vehicles.

It comes at a time of profound change for this country and there is more than a little irony in the Hummer being cast adrift in the same year that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will meet the same fate, eight years after both were embraced back in 2002 as noted in this report in today's Washington Post.

General Motors' decision last week to shut down its Hummer brand is not merely one more sour note in a car-industry chorus of bailouts and bad brakes. It also appears to be the final chapter of a star-crossed love story, an American marriage of one man and one machine that couldn't endure because of a hard truth: Even the biggest things don't stay big forever.

The man, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was responsible for bringing the machine, Hummer, to prominence.

The little-known history of the street-legal H3 is detailed in this fine story, then the phoenix like rise of both the Gubernator and the H2 are chronicled.

It's well worth reading in its entirety, below are a few choice expcerpts:

In the beginning, the marriage of Hummer and Schwarzenegger was based on love, with mutual benefits. The star's fandom helped the big new vehicle gain attention, and the vehicle's popularity demonstrated the value of Schwarzenegger's judgment. Schwarzenegger and Hummer extended their brands together.
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Schwarzenegger won the California governorship and Hummer sales grew rapidly, from about 20,000 in 2002 to more than 71,000 globally in 2006. But the pressures of political life strained the marriage.
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With gas prices soaring, global sales for all Hummer models slumped to 66,261 in 2007 and 37,573 in 2008. GM tried last year to sell the brand to a Chinese company. After the deal fell through, GM announced last week that it was killing the brand, barring an outside bid to buy it. Schwarzenegger, for his part, said through a spokesman last week that he "believes the Hummer is a great vehicle that needs to be reintroduced with a more green engine like electric or bio-diesel."

Schwarzenegger may need his own makeover. Just as Hummer lost its identity as its makers sought mainstream appeal, the governor became more political moderate than muscular star, a man of compromise in a time of partisan war. However responsible such a stance may be, there is a cost to giving up your horsepower. No one knows exactly what you stand for.

In polls in recent months, majorities of Californians see Schwarzenegger as weak and ineffective. It's unclear what, if any, political future he may have.

He will be forced from office by term limits at the end of this year, just as the last Hummers are being sold.

Of course, there is some Hummer history around this blog also as an oversupply of these SUVs was the most popular item ever to spring forth from my keyboard in the now four-and-a-half year old epic - Hummer Overfloweth.

Scroll to the bottom of that post and you'll see dozens of links and, to this day, people still leave comments.

For old times sake, here's the most famous picture, which, a year or so later turned up on Venezuealan TV as recounted here.

And, before leaving this subject, probably for good, a few more pics:




Ahhh... memories...

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60 Minutes on Ponzi schemes

From 60 Minutes yesterday comes more insight as to why Ponzi schemes will probably always be with us, that is, as long as human nature is what it is.

That's a new approach to ads for embeddable videos - first a 60-second introduction and then a 60-second commercial, a length that really pushes the limits to what people will stick around for. Fortunately, this clip is worth the wait.

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Det S. Dumb

The "get rid of debt" movement is going to be a real killer for the U.S. economy if it turns into a broader cultural movement which, when you think about it, it probably will since it's nearly impossible for millions and millions of Americans to just keep doing what they were doing.

I don't know much about Dave Ramsey, having only listened to him on the radio once or twice while driving, but his growing popularity says a lot about the changing attitudes in this country about money and debt, all of which are good for people and bad for banks.

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A bad omen for the global debt crisis

The world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa in Dubai - that just had its grand opening last month is now closed to the public due to the harrowing experience of one of the last groups of visitors to make it to the observation deck as reported in the Times Online.

Terrified passengers were left stranded between floors in the world’s tallest building after a lift broke as they were descending in the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai. Visitors queueing to descend from the observation deck on the 124th floor of the recently opened 828-metre (2,717ft) tower heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass from the lift shaft. Dust then billowed back into the room through the small gaps in the lift shaft doors.
The 15 passengers inside the lift were left stranded for 45 minutes before they were rescued by staff who dropped a ladder into the shaft and helped them to climb out to the observation deck.

Recall that the name of the building was changed from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa after Dubai World was bailed to the tune of about $10 billion back in December by United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa. The name change may now have a little different feel to it over there in Abu Dhabi as angry visitors have to reschedule trips that were planned specifically to visit the observation deck of the skyscraper.

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A few thoughts on the Great Depression

In the weeks ahead, there should be at least another item or two here on the subject of the Great Depression as I've taken to re-reading a couple of very important books on the topic after not having touched them for years.

Today, it seemed like a good idea to share a few thoughts.

Anyone with a similar interest is encouraged to have a look at these two works as they seem to cover all the essentials - the 1920s run-up to the late-1929 stock market crash and then the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Both were written decades ago, having been updated a number of times since, and there appear to be a slew of more recent offering on the subject over at Amazon, though I've not looked into any of the newer ones. Some time ago, I selected these two as being the best of the bunch:

Murray Rothbard - The Great Depression
Robert McElvaine - The Great Depression: America 1929-1941

(Note: You can read Rothbard's book online at Mises here(.pdf).)

Anyone who may also happen to crack these two open would be well advised to repeat the process that I'm about two-thirds of the way through now - start with McElvaine's book and read until you reach 1931, then switch to Rothbard's that covers the period from the early 1920s up until 1931, then switch back to McElvaine for the years after 1931.

Since McElvaine's account is more focused on the political and social details it provides a good setup for Rothbard's book that deals more with financial markets and monetary policy. In this way, you'll get the full treatment in what is mostly chronological order.

Anyway, a few thoughts that are worth sharing at this juncture:

1. The 1920s and the last 15-20 years have some shocking similarities

In reading about the 1920s, there are striking similarities between that period and the last 15 or 20 years regarding productivity gains, credit expansion, and the rise of the consumer culture - what should be looked back upon now as seminal developments that were predecessors to both the 1929 crash and the one in 2008.

Back in the 1920s, it was advances in electricity, automobiles, home appliances, and farming equipment that produced radical changes in the economy, changes that were misconstrued by the central bank as being a "green light" to err on the side of monetary policy that was "too easy".

The rapid expansion in consumer credit was another attribute that the two periods shared as the 1920s marked the first decade in which advertising became commonplace in American culture. Consumers were prodded to "buy now and pay later" for any number of new products that came with the technological advances of the time such as radios, refrigerators, washing machines, and - most importantly - automobiles.

In many ways, the changes that resulted from the widespread use of autos in the 1920s were like the changes that came from the widespread use of computers in recent decades.

This was the first economy-wide instance of credit-enabled pulling of consumer demand forward, a case of creating (what was believed to be at the time) a new era of prosperity that ultimately proved to be fleeting, as appears to be the case today.

2. The Fed's role in sowing the seeds of destruction is under-appreciated

While the Federal Reserve isn't credited with doing all that much from the time that it was founded in 1913 until after World War I, that changed in a big way in the 1920s. As recounted in great detail by Rothbard, continuous "inflationary" policies by Chairman Benjamin Strong from the early-1920s up until about 1928 played a key role in the crash.

Money and credit were simply allowed to expand too quickly - faster than ever before with the exception of periods when the nation was at war - and, when masked by productivity gains that kept consumer prices from rising, this "stimulated" other parts of the economy to inflate asset bubbles of one sort or another, like real estate in Florida or stocks in New York. Another major reason for the inflationary policies of the U.S. central bank in the 1920s was that it was helping Great Britain to get back onto the gold standard in the aftermath of the first world war.

It shouldn't come as too big of a surprise that a focus on stable consumer prices rather than the growth of money supply and credit first became popular amongst economists during this decade. Of course, to anyone looking back at the era now, the results are seen to be both unsurprising and disastrous, but, what is even more astonishing today is that most economists still view the Great Depression as almost materializing out of thin air with the October 1929 stock market crash. You'll hear a few comment on ill-advised tightening by the Fed in 1928 and early-1929, but it was the expansion that ran from 1923 to 1927 that did the real damage.

3. The role of Roosevelt continues to be misunderstood

In the nation's collective conscience, Herbert Hoover continues to be the primary culprit for the severity of the depression from 1929 to 1932 and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is often times seen as a White Knight who came in to save the day in 1933. In reading the history as told by both McElvaine and Rothbard, with few exceptions, FDR policies were simply a continuation of those that were put into place by Hoover, however, the results were much better from 1933 on for a number of reasons, the most important being that the depression had already had three years to "run its course".

It was Herbert Hoover, not FDR, that broke the mold of what had been a Laissez-fare approach by government in regards to the economy, a dramatic change from the Coolidge years when the president is said to have made little use of his office yet, to this day, is credited with fostering "Coolidge Prosperity" for most the decade.

The combination of central bank policies in the 1920s and an over-active engineer in Herbert Hoover were what fostered and prolonged, respectively, the worst economic period in American history and, while Roosevelt was much more effective in restoring confidence than his predecessor, the most important part of history was made before his arrival.

To this day, it striking to me that perhaps the greatest lessons of the Great Depression have still not yet been learned.

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Senator Brown in his first news conference

People inside and outside of Washington certainly have a lot to talk about today and it's probably a good thing that Goldman Sachs won't announce their bonuses until next week.

It will be interesting to see how things progress from here - especially the health care bill as the party in power appears to be unsure if they did too much or if they didn't do enough.

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Peter Schiff storms city hall

You've got to give Peter Schiff credit for trying to change the system, though, the Connecticut Senate race has changed rather dramatically since Chris Dodd said he wouldn't seek reelection. Peter does have some characteristics that make for a good politician, the most important of which is "a thick skin", however, there are an equal number of impediments.

Video and title by Palin Smith
One of the biggest factors that will probably hamper his chances is a clearly anti-American investment stance that many voters won't stick around long enough to hear explained. At just over the three minute mark someone asks how much money Peter has invested in America. The answer? Very little. It's a question he's likely to hear again and again.

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Consumers, they are a-changin'

Rick Newman at US News reports on seventeen ways that American consumers are changing their spendthrift ways, all of which will make an economic recovery much more difficult. The first seven are excerpted below and it seems that our household is way ahead of the curve here, adopting all of these measures five or ten years ago.

Less credit, more cash. Consumer borrowing has fallen by record amounts, as Americans pay down debt and adjust to banks lowering their credit card limits.
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The end of the monthly payer. Many consumers used to be comfortable piling up debt as long as their income could cover the monthly payments. No more.
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Greater suspicion. Banks wrecked the economy, then cut lending and raised fees. The government prevented a depression, but not before giving billions to Wall Street titans.
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More resourcefulness. If you can't count on anybody else, then you're likely to rely more on yourself.
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Less brand loyalty. Millions of consumers traded down to store brands over the past couple of years—and many plan to stick with them.
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Smaller is bigger. It goes without saying that many things are getting smaller rather than bigger, including household budgets and people's ambitions.
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A rental rebound. The "ownership society" is over. After peaking a few years ago, home ownership rates, not surprisingly, have started a long journey downward as foreclosures shake out people who couldn't afford their homes...

The good news is that, at some point in our future, we'll stop hearing business news personalities reporting the quarterly GDP numbers and blithely noting that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

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The Glenn Beck interview

Those who ignore and/or dismiss Glenn Beck do so at their own peril (and I say that not just because he used one of my graphics the other day - see That's one popular chart).

The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal carries this fascinating interview with the reformed alcoholic who is the latest Fox News ratings hit.

'Nobody's Watching Charlie Rose'
Glenn Beck on conspiracy theories, his critics on the right and left, and how he resembles Howard Beale of 'Network.'
By JAMES TARANTO

Glenn Beck didn't always believe in what he was doing. "When I was young, I used to hear people say, 'He's a golden boy. Look at that guy. Can you imagine what he's going to be like when he grows up?' Well, I unfortunately bought into that. And I hadn't even found myself. Quite honestly, I was running from myself. But I knew how to work Top 40 radio."

"Golden boy" was no exaggeration. "I was in Washington, D.C., on the morning show, by the time I was 18, programming a station by 19, No. 1 in the mornings. I think I was making, I don't know, a quarter of a million dollars by the time I was 25," he tells me in his midtown Manhattan office, a few blocks from the Fox News Channel studio where he now broadcasts his eponymous program every afternoon.

A drinking problem helped plunge Mr. Beck into personal and professional crisis: "By the time I was 30," he says, "nobody would work with me. I was friendless, I was hopeless, I was suicidal, lost my family—I mean, it was bad. Bottomed out, didn't know what I was going to do. I actually thought I was going to be a chef—go to work in a kitchen someplace."

That explains a lot... His background has always been something of a curiosity to me, though not so much so that a couple of mouse clicks to Wikipedia were summoned where there is an abundance of information along with more than a hundred references.

The entire piece is well worth reading - a couple more highlights that struck me...

His politics are libertarian. "I really kind of dig this whole freedom thing," he says. "I'd like to pass it on to the kids." But he is pessimistic about the prospects for doing so: "I'm a dad, and I no longer see a way for my kids to even inherit the money that I'm making, let alone go out there, have an idea, and create it in their own lifetime."
Mr. Beck blames a political system that he describes as corrupt and out of touch, a sentiment that is widely shared: "People in Washington . . . not all of them, but a lot of them, are not men and women of honor anymore," he says. "I just saw a poll today that said 25% of Americans now believe that their government officials will, for the most part, do the right thing. Only 25%. It's the lowest number ever recorded."
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This fall, Mr. Beck drew friendly fire on an American Enterprise Institute blog from Charles Murray, a social scientist with strong libertarian political leanings, who conceded that "Beck is spectacularly right (translation: I agree with him) on about 95 percent of the substantive issues he talks about." But Mr. Murray does not care for Mr. Beck's manner: "Our job is to engage in a debate on great issues and make converts to our point of view. The key word is converts—referring to people who didn't start out agreeing with us. We shouldn't be civil and reasonable just because we want to be nice guys. It is the only option we've got if we want to succeed instead of just posture. The Glenn Becks of the world posture, and make our work harder."

Mr. Beck answers carefully: "I'm sorry he doesn't agree with me—doesn't agree with my approach." Then he notes the irony of a think-tank intellectual criticizing a populist media star for lacking broad appeal: "How many are reading his blog, and how many are listening to my radio show, television show, reading my books, going to conventions, seeing me on stage? I mean, I think, while I respect his position and his difference in opinion on presentation, I think one of us is probably reaching more people daily."

He continues: "Look, I know a lot of people will disagree with the way I present things. I am being myself—I am a guy who is a recovering alcoholic, who lived a pretty fast life, who works hard every day, quite honestly, not to use the F-word—it used to be an art for me. I am a work in progress. But I also am a businessman that looks to get the word out to the maximum number of people."

And he rejects the implication that his is a lowbrow appeal: "You name the conservative that can do a full hour—a full hour—on Woodrow Wilson and the roots of modern liberalism—for an hour—and have high ratings with it. . . . I had like three really big eggheads on the show, and people watched it. Now, you could be Charlie Rose all you want, but nobody's watching Charlie Rose."

Love him, hate him...

My guess is that, more than anything else, he is not understood and most of that derives from people simply tuning him out as just another Fox News political commentator.

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"I Pledge" - updated for 2010

I don't know. If, instead of getting ready to turn 50, I were a teenager whose home equity withdrawal-enabled lifestyle was being yanked out from under me in a rude awakening to a different new world or, if I was still in or just out of college and the events of the last couple years were being discussed in ways that older generations just don't understand, the last 60 years of American life looking a lot better than the next 60, I'd pledge to do something to.

At about the 2:15 mark, one young man stands in front of the Federal Reserve building in Washington D.C. and pledges "not to let unelected bureaucrats run our economy" followed by another who pledges "to resist fiat currency". What's not to like about that?

This was spotted over at the Daily Bail and comes from the Young Americans for Liberty website in response to "the nauseating "I Pledge to be a servant to our President" video by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher that came out around Obama's Inauguration last year."

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