sophistry and klatsch

On Liberal Fascism...

2009-07-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post these two emails for a while. They represent the begining of an email conversation with Jonah Goldberg on his book Liberal Fascism and the end.

1/16/2008
Hello Jonah,
I was at your talk last night at Borders. I asked the last question about whether the way you discuss fascism drains it of its meaning and its specific interwar context. I wasn't really satisfied with your answer (though some of it was helpful), but I realize that a forum like that isn't really the place to hash these sorts of issues, so I don't hold it against you. Since you have been responding to criticism on your blog, I wonder if you would respond to a few questions.

I really do get the impression (from reading half your book and your talk) that you see the political spectrum running from classical liberalism to fascism. (And everything in between as some flavor of fascism, be it smiley fascism or not). Even if you can show that some people the in 60s etc. worshipped violence and had disdain for bourgeois values, to my mind they are extreme, and fine, talk about similarities with fascism. But it seems to me you need to do it with each case, because I don't see it as helpful to label someone like, say, Paul Krugman as a fascist. He is not fascinated with violence, does not denounce bourgeois values or any such thing, he basically thinks there should be a relatively larger welfare state (as do I) and other than that he accepts elections, believes in the rule of law, etc. I just wonder why renaming statism or collectivism or pro-welfare state ideas "fascism" is helpful? Even if you can show affinity in certain radicals in the 60s (or with the Wilson administration), renaming all of this fascism takes it out of its context and is bound to raise hackles unnecessarily--I think this relates to the criticism you have received in the blogosphere. For example, under your definitions, how do I characterize John Stewart Mill? I am a liberal and have read a good chunk of his Principles of Political Economy. I quite agree with a lot of it. But even though he is a sturdy member the Anglo tradition and by most definitions is something of liberal (just one who is willing to use the state against inequality, for example), according to your scale, as far as I can see, he is a fascist--or maybe a utilitarian fascist?

In response to my question at the talk you mentioned "classical fascism," which you also mention in the book. I still think this is problematic. If we look at the Weimar Republic, according to your way of looking at things, you had fascist communists and (classical?) fascist Nazis trying to undermine the fundamentally fascist Weimar Republic and the fascist Social Democratic Party. I hope you see why this is unhelpful.

I realize your book is an attempt to place fascism on the left. It seems a reasonable-ish argument to make for what you call "classical fascism" (i.e. fascism of the interwar era), because fascism was such a hodgepodge of ideas and socialism and anti-capitalism were without a doubt part of that mix. (Even though there I do think you wriggle out of really thinking hard about why the ideas of Action Francaise, for example, or Franco (who, I seem to recall wasn't exactly vilified by National Review) aren't at some level also "conservative"--if not Adam Smith classical liberals, but they certainly had ways of looking at an idealized traditional past invoking a Catholic ideal.) I think your argument would be stronger, however, if you weren't tempted to bring that to the present. Now, I know you don't like people like Naomi Klein calling conservatives fascist--well, neither do I--but that doesn't really excuse calling people like me or even "compassionate conservatives" some flavor of fascist. Why not just stick with libertarian definitions, if that is how you want to look at it? That is why I think you have drained fascism of useful meaning.
Best,

10/11/2008
Dear Jonah,

In your blogpost response to Michael Moynihan's review of your book you admit that he makes some good points, but dismiss at least one criticism, and, explicitly some others (though clearly, you are leaving that up to interpretation) by saying: "There are a few other spots where Michael seems to want be so even-handed he offers strawmanish criticisms of my book."

I hope you do not include this part as "strawmannish:"

"While Hillary Clinton’s 1993 attempt at a government takeover of health care was disastrous and destined to failure, why view it as a failed bit of fascism rather than a failed attempt at generically Scandinavian socialism? And if the Clinton health care plan was socialist, does that mean that it was also fascist because, after all, both Nazi Germany and fascist Italy were economically left-wing? Is statism automatically fascism?

It is here that Goldberg’s book ultimately fails to convince. A jaunt through modern Sweden, for instance, would find an economy hobbled by state intervention and government agencies that talk endlessly about the health of the community—the folkhem, a term redolent of the Nazi concept of volksgemeinschaft. But if we then broaden the meaning of fascism to include social democratic Sweden, one wonders what country in Europe wouldn’t qualify. In his attempt to reappropriate the insult from the left, Goldberg has further diluted a term that was already almost unrecognizable."

This has been my critique as well, which I wrote to you long ago, and you have never, in any form--either from me or your reviewers such as Moynihan--responded to. I waited to judge your book until I had read it; I haven't dismissed it all; but I do believe with Moynihan, it "ultimately fails to convince." You wanted to write something both popular and academically defensible, but I am afraid you have failed. It doesn't surprise me that many (conservative) people across the country are excited to learn that liberals are the real fascists. But, as Moynihan says, and I say, by making everything into fascism you have explained nothing. If modern Germany, Britain and Sweden are fascist; if the Democratic Party is fascist; if "compassionate Conservatives" are fascist; then, honestly, what good is your book anyway? Also, your insistence that these ideas are imported is pretty silly. The simple fact of the matter is that some form of social democracy can be explained and exists within the Anglo-American liberal tradition: I am thinking of J.S. Mill (see especially his book on Political Economy) and J.M. Keynes--the latter of whom you smear in your book by the way: try actually reading the (Tory!) Lord Skidelsky's wonderful biography of Keynes where he addresses your claims regarding eugenics head-on (before they even existed).

Congratulations then on making some money and influencing public dialogue; you have duly revenged yourself for all those times some ignorant leftist called you a fascist. Bravo.

Best,

The Jews? Big Fiat Money? Tango and Cash?

2009-07-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

During the 2008 primary season, I argued on numerous blogs with gold bugs--drawn to any blog post that mentioned gold, the Fed, or monetary policy like Paulites to tin-foil hats--who insisted that we naysayers would all eat our hats when Ron Paul (say, isn't he a doctor or something?) emerged victorious in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond. (He raised more money in a single day than anyone, ever! People who believe the 16th amendment was never ratified are the new silent majority!)

I've given the Paulites over a year to ponder this, and like all good conspiracy theorists--beware the Amero!--I'm sure they've identified the nefarious forces that stopped destiny's march to force a crown of Rothbard upon our heads.

I know you guys have mastered Google Alerts and thus found your way here, so...spill the beans! Who was it?!

Brooks in a nut shell

2009-05-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Let’s summarize David Brook’s insightful column.

1) Republicans over emphasize individualism and under emphasize community

2) Most people recognize that communities are an important part of their quality of life.

3) Republican pathological devotion to hyper-individualism puts them out of touch with the vast majority of the country (except rural Wyoming)

4) There are two basic visions of how to build community: top down planning, which is the “socialist” or “liberal” model and bottom up empowerment, which incidentally is what Democrats have pushed for the last 18 years.

In conclusion, if Republican’s want to win they need to become more like modern Democrats.

Economic illiterates waste the nation's time, stalling recovery

2009-02-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

Steven Pearlstein suggests that as part of the stimulus package the government should subsidize "personal economic trainers" for legislators in Washington. I agree completely--especially for the Republicans, who are taking advice from Joe the Plumber, and "moderate" Senators of both parties who supported these changes to the Senate version of the Stimulus Bill:

Under the new plan, tax credits of up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples would begin to phase out at lower income levels than first proposed, saving the government $2 billion.

The biggest cut, roughly $40 billion in aid to states, was likely to spur a fierce fight in negotiations with the House over the final bill. Many states, hit hard by the recession, face wrenching cuts in services and layoffs of public employees as they struggle to comply with laws requiring them to balance their budgets...

In addition to the large cut in state aid, the Senate agreement would cut nearly $20 billion proposed for school construction; $8 billion to refurbish federal buildings and make them more energy efficient; $1 billion for the early childhood program Head Start; and $2 billion from a plan to expand broadband data networks in rural and underserved areas.

... Ms. Collins said she believed the changes had significantly improved the measure. Mr. Specter said that while he still had reservations, he had come to accept Mr. Obama’s push to enact the economic plan by mid-February. “I believe we do have to act,” Mr. Specter said, “and under the circumstances this is the best we can do.”

An economic advisor might have explained to Sens. Collins and Specter that 1. during a recession poorer people are more likely to spend and less likely to save checks from the government and are therefore more stimulative; 2. saving the jobs of state employees is quick and easy and stimulative; 3. school construction is stimulative and an investment in the future and refurbishing federal buildings and making them more energy efficient is stimulative and saves money over the longterm. These yahoos wasted our time for these "improvements?!"

News from the Commanding Heights...

2009-01-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

From today's Financial Times:

The US financial sector’s new political masters began exerting their influence on Tuesday as Citigroup was forced to scrap the purchase of a $50m executive jet that was seen as a misuse of money at a time when the bank is reliant on public support.

Only a day earlier, Citi had insisted it would complete the acquisition of the aircraft. But it backed down after officials acting for Tim Geithner, the new Treasury secretary, expressed strong opposition to the move.

Mr Geithner’s action came as he raced against time to change public perceptions of the government’s bank rescue effort – the troubled asset relief programme inherited from the Bush administration....Some Washington officials say they are amazed bythe financial sector’s tin ear to public sentiment at a time when it is heavily reliant on government aid.

One has to love the first sentence. Now, let's hope next on the agenda is telling them to lend damn it! And stop giving bonuses to executives with public money.

North Dakota: a nest of corruption

2008-12-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

According to USA Today it is the most corrupt state in the union per-capita. Suddenly it becomes clear how our fellow blogger landed a position at UND...

Reading the WSJ

2008-11-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

We Financial Times readers don't often get stories like this. Our mornings are more likely filled with ruminations about the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, or the world economy. The Wall Street Journal does that too (though not as well I would contend; and of course its reactionary op-ed page pales next to the brilliant pink (salmon?) of the FT), but one thing it does do well is cover business. I read that story on a plane the other day, and it struck me that I wasn't sure how I as a WSJ reader (for the day) was intended to respond to this:

"Daniel A. Gunther has good reason to keep his checkout line moving at the Meijer Inc. store north of Detroit. A clock starts ticking the instant he scans a customer's first item, and it doesn't shut off until his register spits out a receipt.

To assess his efficiency, the store's computer takes into account everything from the kinds of merchandise he's bagging to how his customers are paying. Each week, he gets scored. If he falls below 95% of the baseline score too many times, the 185-store megastore chain, based in Walker, Mich., is likely to bounce him to a lower-paying job, or fire him...

Interviews with cashiers at 16 Meijer stores suggest that its system has spurred many to hurry up -- and has dialed up stress levels along the way. Mr. Gunther, who is 22 years old, says he recently told a longtime customer that he couldn't chat with her anymore during checkout because he was being timed. "I was told to get people in and out," he says. Other cashiers say they avoid eye contact with shoppers and generally hurry along older or infirm customers who might take longer to unload carts and count money....

By calculating a standard time for each task, a retailer can more closely monitor worker performance and figure out how and where to reduce labor, the single biggest controllable expense in retail. OWO says its methods can often cut labor costs by 5% to 15%.

The approach is rooted in the time-motion theories of Frederick Taylor from the early 20th century, which were used to break down tasks into units to determine the maximum work a person could do. Harold B. Maynard, the company's founder, began his career in 1924 as a time-study engineer at Westinghouse, then formed his own company. For 70 years, that company worked primarily for manufacturers.
In 2000, after demand from manufacturing industries declined, the company shifted into retail. These days, about 80% of its $20 million in annual revenue comes from retail.

"As manufacturing gets shipped overseas, many people thought that would be the end of engineered standards," says John Lund, a professor of industrial engineering at an extension program for workers at the University of Wisconsin. "In fact, we are not seeing that at all. We are seeing a renaissance of engineered standards in the retail industry."

My initial reaction was to think of all sorts of 19th and 20th century touchstones. I thought of Max Weber's iron cage and Marx the younger (alienation) and elder ("Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him." and "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.")

I can only assume that many a New York Times reader would have the same impression as I did were the article in the Times. But I can only surmise that a WSJ reader is intended to get a little thrill of discovery in a new more efficient system--even if the darker (and absurd: checkers explain how they cheat to make their times) sides are exposed within the text itself. There are practical reactions as well: Consider the CEO in a recent New Yorker profile of uber-optimist Thomas Friedman who admitted that when he read The World is Flat he started writing down names of firms in the outsourcing busines--since he figured he ought to be outsourcing too. By way of inference, I kind of assume that many WSJ readers will do the same with such an article. They figure that they ought to get their firms a state-of-the-art timing system to reduce costs (cost of labor in this case) in the service industry (or invest in firms that do etc.). And the thing is, they are right. If it makes the firms more "productive" without sacrificing too much in customer service (measured by higher profits after the "improvement" relative to what they would be without the system), then they should, and will. That is how the capitalist system works, after all: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." (Of course that will suck for both the customers and employees, but our complaints are insignificant in the face of that sort of logic.)

Palin, embodiment of Athenian democracy...

2008-10-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

I'll post this from the Corner without comment:

Stadium Star [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Palin didn't need Greek columns. People react to her because they believe she represents what the Greeks established.
10/18 11:13 AM

What is to be done?

2008-10-10T16:39:00.001-07:00

I'm about to read this. If you are interested in policy suggestions for the financial crisis, give this a read:

null - Upload a Document to Scribd

I should add, however, that there is actually no point in speculating on the origins of the crisis, since, according to the McCain camp, it is ACORN and Obama's fault--quite an accomplishment, huh? Causing a worldwide meltdown in the financial markets is quite a feat for one man and a small organization.

An opening for the Obama administration...

2008-10-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

I think this American Life broke some news yesterday. (Link to show here, to summary article here.)

After explaining why a stock-injection plan is better than the Paulson plan:

Instead of just taking toxic assets off of banks' books, the U.S. government would directly inject capital into ailing firms. In return, the government — and taxpayers — would get an ownership share in the firms equal to the amount of their investment. "The taxpayers, the government become stockholders and owners of the banks," Davidson says.
How is that better? First of all, it's simply easier, because it avoids trying to find the right price for mortgage-backed securities whose value is impossible to pin down at the moment, Davidson explains. If you give $10 billion to a bank, you get a $10 billion share.
"A lot of the economists I talk to say it's just fairer," he says. "It's a better deal for the taxpayer."With the Paulson plan, the taxpayer ends up owning toxic assets of questionable value. If the mortgages bundled into these securities default, then the taxpayer is on the hook.
"In the stock-injection plan, we would not only own stock, we would own something called 'preferred stock,'" Davidson says. That means the taxpayer would be the last one to lose money, because the non-preferred shareholders would take the first losses. Taxpayers would be more protected and less likely to lose money, he says.

They drop this bit of news, which I hadn't heard anywhere else:

So it was surprising to learn on Friday that, despite intense opposition from the powerful banking lobby, language authorizing the government to use a stock-injection plan did make it into the final version of the bailout bill. The law does not make a stock-injection plan mandatory, but it does leave it as one option that the Treasury secretary can use when bailing out a distressed bank.

Let's hope Obama's Treasury Secretary notices.

Getting back to the really important stuff...

2008-10-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

No, not paying attention to the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, according to the Post the McCain folks think the really important stuff is Obama's liberal record:

"We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of McCain's top advisers. "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."

Postmodern Palin

2008-10-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Matt Yglesias links to an interesting blog comment:

Palin seems to have a "Message: I Care" problem. She gets too meta with her answers, wanting to explain - "I’m going to talk straight to the American people and show them my etc."; "I’m the new energy" - the symbolism of herself. For the apotheosis of Republican anti-intellectualism she’s determinedly postmodern, embedding the essay about her novel into the story as she tells it.

I have been thinking about this too, and basically agree, but I would put the emphasis elsewhere. I'll give a couple more examples of what she does, before I get to the meat of my thoughts. I started thinking about this during her first interview with Katie Couric:

Couric: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

Palin: He's also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about - the need to reform government.

He is “known” as the maverick—as though his image is what he is.

Here she is in the debate doing the same thing:

Palin: …And we're going to forge ahead with putting government back on the side
of the people and making sure that our country comes first, putting obsessive partisanship aside.

That's what John McCain has been known for in all these years. He has been the maverick. He has ruffled feathers.
...
Palin:
… Also, John McCain's maverick position that he's in, that's really prompt up to and indicated by the supporters that he has. Look at Lieberman, and Giuliani, and Romney, and Lingle, and all of us who come from such a diverse background of -- of policy and of partisanship, all coming together at this time, recognizing he is the man that we need to leave -- lead in these next four years, because these are tumultuous times.

Even here she while she is giving reasons why he is a maverick, it is still superficial, these people think he is a maverick—and therefore he must be. It is not explaining, however, what he does to make him so. At bottom, of course, it begs the question of why his mavericky-ness actually matters? Why should we care that he is a maverick?

Which reminds me of a famous E.J. Dionne column decrying conservative post-modernism:

“Conservative academics have long attacked "postmodernist" philosophies for
questioning whether "truth" exists at all and claiming that what we take as
"truths" are merely "narratives" woven around some ideological predisposition.
Today's conservative activists have become the new postmodernists. They shift
attention away from the truth or falsity of specific facts and allegations --
and move the discussion to the motives of the journalists and media
organizations putting them forward. Just a modest number of failures can be used
to discredit an entire enterprise.”

I agree with this; this thinking has become a cancer in the conservative movement, eating away any serious discussion of the issues (Why discuss when you can attack?). This debate proved another example as conservative activists attacked Gwen Ifill for supposedly being biased simply because they were worried that Palin would do poorly.

Palin, however, is not just using accusations of bias and power to obscure the truth of something, but rather I think she actually thinks in image and narrative. That is to say, she wants power, "believes" what she needs to "believe" to be a conservative, and thinks in terms of soundbites and show--that is substance of her politics. Obviously we all think in narrative, but most of us construct that narrative with relation to the facts. Besides being colored by our background, religious and political views, our narrative embraces a passion for certain things, certain projects, that actually matter to us. For example, many on the left actually worry about global warming or a continuing loss of good jobs for those who like to work with their hands. (Many conservatives, too, worry about the state infringing on their freedom and therefore work towards stopping that.) For projects we care about, the focus of our efforts is to actually improve, policy say, to help those people and things we care about. The motivation is to change something, to improve something, and not (only) use those projects to further our own ends. We all have mixed motives, but in the end we want to actually effect some sort of change.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that she doesn’t care about anything. It seems to me that politics is just another walk down the runway for her. Even though we can all see a will to power in politicians, she seems totally bereft of passion for something beyond herself. (Aside from her family, I am sure she loves her family and sees their flourishing as a project of hers.) At a minimum she doesn’t care about education for its own sake, and her inability to name a source of news that she regularly reads indicates anything she does care about is not an issue that affects the public. (Because after all, if your projects were public projects, wouldn't you read the newspaper? Wouldn't you have a plausible story about your life informing yourself--one, in fact, that should please both liberal and conservative elites?)

In any case Joe Biden effectively addressed Palin's superficiality and the entire maverick image question during the debate—in a way that to my mind destroys the premise that his alleged maverick-nature mattering:

BIDEN: I'll be very brief. Can I respond to that?

Look, the maverick -- let's talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He's been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives.

He voted four out of five times for George Bush's budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he's got there.
He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against -- he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.

He's not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.
He's not been a maverick on the war. He's not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

Can we send -- can we get Mom's MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can't -- we can't make it. How are we going to heat the -- heat the house this winter?

He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter. So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.

McCain’s Economic Plan For Nation: 'Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress'

2008-10-01T11:48:00.001-07:00

McCainâ��s Economic Plan For Nation: 'Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress'

Hell hath no fury like a Letterman scorned...

2008-09-25T07:52:00.001-07:00

A sobering thought

2008-09-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

In this time, when John McCain is recklessly injecting politics into the financial crisis by "not injecting politics" into the financial crisis; in this time when John McCain wants to cancel a debate--or move it to the time slotted for the VP debate--; in this time when John McCain wants to go to Washington and pretend he's a statesman, remember, John McCain nominated this woman to succeed him should something happen to him in office:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Henry meets Sarah

2008-09-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

So anyway Henry, I said “Thanks, but no Thanks” to that Bridge to Nowhere, if we wanted a bridge we’d build it ourselves…

Today's financial crisis reading...

2008-09-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

David Leonhardt says: Issue Is Payback, Not Bailout

Martin Wolf says: Paulson’s plan was not a true solution to the crisis

I particularly liked this:

Now turn to the criteria to be used in judging the intervention. First, it would deal with the systemic threat. Second, it would minimise damage to incentives. Third, it would come at minimum cost and risk to the taxpayer. Not least, it would be consistent with ideas of social justice.

The fundamental problem with the Paulson scheme, as proposed, is then that it is neither a necessary nor an efficient solution. It is not necessary, because the Federal Reserve is able to manage illiquidity through its many lender-of-last resort operations. It is not efficient, because it can only deal with insolvency by buying bad assets at far above their true value, thereby guaranteeing big losses for taxpayers and providing an open-ended bail-out to the most irresponsible investors

In which George Will says don't elect Mad John McCain

2008-09-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

George Will, a conservative who seems to believe that stuff about character--an idea he seems to take seriously and not limit exclusively to regulation of sexual behavior--, doesn't think much of John McCain's character. This isn't really new, but it is well said, and woe unto him who pisses off George Will.

First, he quotes Alice in Wonderland:

"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."

-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Then there is the meat of the argument:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama....

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated....In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17; and the New York Times of Sept. 19.)...
Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

Enjoy!

Rethinking the financial bailout

2008-09-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

I was inclined to reluctantly support the financial bailout because the AIG and Fannie and Freddie bailouts were engineered pretty well and while taxpayer dollars were put at risk, it was still plausible that we would get a return on our investment. (We received an actual stake in the institutions.) I therefore was inclined to trust Paulson and Bernanke on this one. The details of this one, the mother of all bailouts, are starting to sound really bad and needlessly generous. Our minimun standard should be saving the economy in the cheapest manner possible.

Here is some early commentary on this.

Paul Krugman says No Deal to this deal.

Brad Delong lists some potential deal breakers.

Sebastian Mallaby, worringly, calls it A Bad Bank Rescue, and gives some plausible (cheaper) alternatives.

So, yeah, I am starting to think this could become a huge mistake. Let's hope the Democratic Congress pushes back and improves this thing.

Ouch.

2008-09-17T16:56:00.004-07:00

I could appreciate this on the metro this morning...

2008-09-17T16:56:00.003-07:00

(By Tom Toles of the Washington Post)

Earmarks, huh, what are they good for? Keeping lawmakers happy...

2008-09-17T16:56:00.002-07:00

Imagine for a moment that John McCain wins the election, and imagine that he and Sarah "I love me some earmarks as long as they are going to Alaska" Palin continue running against earmarks. Now, assuming this happened he could legitmately claim a mandate against earmarks. Unfortunately, earmarks are only (barely) one percent of spending so they won't mean anything as far as balancing the budget, which McCain is planning to bust anyway. But they will cause havoc in Congress--probably shutting down Washington and forever alienating the lawmakers McCain will need to "reform" Warshington (as McCain likes to say). In the end this would probably be a good thing since we will need a pissed-off Congress to stop McCain from leading us into endless war. Let's hope he stick to his plans then, I guess.

Matthews nails Eric Cantor

2008-09-17T16:56:00.001-07:00

You have to love Matthews sometimes. Here he presses Eric Cantor (R-from down the road in Richmond) to defend his own party's record, which he refuses to do.

Great ad...

2008-09-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

This is a nice ad. More please.

For some coverage of McCain and Obama's responses to the latest crisis you can't beat this NY Times report.

Compare and contrast

2008-09-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

Compare Barack Obama with Charlie Gibson on the Bush Doctrine and Sarah Palin with the same person on the same topic.

Dear god...

2008-09-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

Please help us. This is her economic plan? Her understanding of domestic policy? She completely avoids the question and has no clue. No clue.

Earmarks

2008-09-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

This is just outrageous. I thought she was chosen to complement McCain's "reformist" anti-earmark zeal. But here she defends that Alaska gets the highest per capita earmarks by saying it went through the proper channels (in her state, they were requests from agencies around the state). That's how earmarks work! Earmarks are rarely wasteful per se--that's why the Bridge to Nowhere was such a big deal it was an obvious example of waste--the "problem" is that they didn't get funded through the normal bureaucratic procedure. But usually they are roads or research projects or programs for kids that are quite useful.

Yes, and more please!

2008-09-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

It turns out Sarah Palin kind of likes pork:

Palin on Foreign Policy...

2008-09-11T17:15:00.001-07:00

To me, someone who does know what Charlie Gibson is talking about it is obvious the Sarah Palin is throwing out words and doesn't understand what Gibson is saying, I am skeptical, however, that the average American sees it that way.

Some part of me was expecting her to be really good, just because I am a pessimist, but this was really bad. For instance, besides not know what the Bush Doctrine is, she doesn't seem to understand that the people we are hitting in Pakistan are not threatening the US, per se, but rather destabilizing Afghanistan.

Chris Matthews browbeats McCain flack on lipstick nonsense

2008-09-10T18:10:00.000-07:00

Chart for the day...

2008-09-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

From the WSJ:

"Workers with professional degrees, such as doctors and lawyers, were the only educational group to see their inflation-adjusted earnings increase over the most recent economic expansion, adding to the concern that the economy has benefited higher-earning Americans at the expense of others.

Workers in every other educational group -- including Ph.D.s as well as high school dropouts -- earned less in 2007 than they did in 2000, adjusted for inflation, according to data from the Census Bureau. Data don't include 2008 earnings...."

In which we praise Tom Friedman (yes, it's true)

2008-09-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to Tom Friedman on Fresh Air promoting his book advocating for a green revolution and changing incentives to promote renewable energy (and even making a gas/carbon tax revenue neutral by lowering taxes that support Social Security and Medicare). Also, he is really good on insisting that a price needs to be put on carbon and not focusing (only) on the personal level--which is really important because that is the only way we can get the scale we need. His shtick is more palatable in interview rather than written form. In any case, I am glad he is out there saying all of this and am enjoying his righteous indignation aimed at Republicans and oil executives, but I'm still not going to read his book.

David Frum and inequality

2008-09-08T11:32:00.001-07:00

Ah, the tradegy of being an honest conservative analyst who sees that rising inequality and stagnating media wages are a huge problem for your party--but can't offer any solutions.

The revolutionary Post...

2008-09-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post, that is to say Fred Hiatt, believes in sticks but not carrots in the international arena. So, for example, Libya can fully cooperate in dismantling its nuclear weapons program, compensate victims of past terrorist attacks, and share intelligence on Islamist terrorism but it cannot be rewarded for doing so. Does anyone wonder why they were star cheerleaders for the Iraq war?

Joe Klein nails it...

2008-09-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

Joe Klein has been on a tear the last few months. Man he nails it.

On Sarah Palin's interesting theology...

2008-09-06T17:27:00.001-07:00

Just kidding, you didn't think someone with this background had time to study theology did you? But the New York Times, an elite media outlet, does delve into Sarah Palin's religion:

...Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.”

Because you see, God's will is that Alaska should have a pipeline unless it turns out that Alaskans' heart isn't right with God in which case God--who hadn't foreseen this?--would change his will and deny Alaska a pipeline, probably by allowing Democrats to get elected.

Video and Andrew Sullivan's take here. If you watch the video you will also notice a dude who suggests that Alaska is where God-fearing folk are going to hang out in the end times. Do Christians like mooseburgers? They better...

Sarah Palin's gonna cram...

2008-09-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently she will study for 2 weeks before being allowed to talk to the press:

Those darned media elites...

2008-09-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

As a consumer of elite media, which, I concede makes me a Democrat, unauthentic, and an America-hater, I appreciated this video.

Deregulation of renewable energy production?

2008-09-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

This FT article is fascinating. It talks about the difficulties of drilling for oil or gas in the US--especially on federal land. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that we have become too strict in that regard, though you won't ever hear me chanting "Drill, baby, drill." But this passage in the article made consider something:

...Nor does Odum think exploitation of alternative energy sources will mean an end to objections. Shell’s early forays into wind and other such energies suggest familiar battles are in the offing: Americans are resisting giant wind farms and biofuel plants near their homes. “We should anticipate some issues on that front as well,” he says.

Shell and all the other oil companies seeking to expand exploration and production in the US are keenly aware of how ruinous these battles can be....

Wouldn't it make sense to ease regulations for producing renewable energy? I'm all for creating a carbon trading scheme or taxing it to encourage renewable energy, but if merely setting up shop is so difficult perhaps making it easier to produce biofuel, wind, and solar could significantly increase their supply.

Cynicism...

2008-09-04T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin created her own narrative, she doesn't need to talk to so-called "journalists."

He's a Political Scientist!--who specializes in Political Economy

2008-09-04T09:00:00.001-07:00

Henry is peeved that the media is calling Larry Bartels an "economist." Rightly so.

Member of the Alaskan Independence Party?

2008-09-01T17:19:00.000-07:00

I wonder if McCain's people found this when they were vetting Governor Palin:

Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

Here she is greeting the Party's convention:

Rolling the dice...

2008-09-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

Several bloggers have linked to this Times article containing this quote:

At the very least, the process reflects Mr. McCain’s history of making fast,
instinctive and sometimes risky decisions. “I make them as quickly as I can,
quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser
Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For.” “Often my haste is a
mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”

The problem is, of course, if John McCain makes a risky decision to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran, for example, we will all live with the consequences--and I for one will complain. And, at a minimum, I think the American people will not be happy with 200-300 dollar a barrel oil.

Karl Rove must think Palin is unqualified too then, I guess...

2008-08-31T17:03:00.000-07:00

Heh. This is good. Via Coates.

I'm almost speechless...

2008-08-29T18:01:00.001-07:00

I admit I wasn't expecting to love whoever John McCain choose as VP. But I was expecting him to take the choice seriously. As much as he may not like to acknowledge the fact, he is 72 and something could happen to him. He needed to pick someone capable of taking office at any time. Instead he choose Sarah Palin, someone he has spoken to twice before offering her the VP slot and who was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, as little as two years ago.

The political economic aspect of the Georgian conflict

2008-08-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

In light of the Georgian crisis--which, as the FT reports, Georgia had no small hand in provoking--and in light of my having finished Power and Plenty, I plan on starting Steve Lavine's The Oil and the Glory, which is about oil in the Caspian Sea area. (Links to reviews are here.)

To get an idea of the importance of Oil to the conflict here is Edward Chow writing about these issues:

...The fighting in Georgia, which started on August 7, and the coincidental August 4 blast on the Turkish segment of the BTC pipeline (which the separatist group the Kurdish Worker’s Party [PKK] claims it attacked) showed that pipelines can be reached and breached without much difficulty. In addition, Russian forces entered the main Georgian container port of Poti, and its Black Sea fleet demonstrated its ability to blockade all Georgian ports. The transit route through Georgia previously thought to be relatively secure and reliable is now seen as vulnerable and threatened by regional hostilities.
Georgian routes have been moving over 1 million barrels of oil per day. More important, expansion of various facilities is projected to increase oil volume to around 2 million barrels per day and to transport new natural gas supply from additional oil and gas developments in Azerbaijan and across the Caspian in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. At current world oil demand of 85 million barrels per day, with forecasted demand growth and tight supply, these additional volumes out of the Caspian through Georgia will make an important contribution to the global supply balance.
Geologic potential exists to increase oil production along the Caspian in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan from currently around 2 million barrels to 3 to 5 million barrels per day—as high as major members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), except for Saudi Arabia. Some of this flow will continue to be carried on existing routes via Russia or the south Caucasus, but where will incremental volumes be directed?

Study international relations if you want to know what "lies ahead for the world economy"

2008-08-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

I am near the end of Power and Plenty, and I came across the passage in the conclusion:

The major condition for a continuation of present trends [globalization], therefore, is the avoidance of a major conflict dividing the world into competing camps. The historical record thus supports historians such as Niall Ferguson (2005) who point to such geopolitical problems as imperial overstretch, international terrorism, and nuclear proliferation as being the key factors which will determine the future of globalization as we know it today....As economists, we may have a lot to say about domestic "globalization backlashes," but international relations may in fact be a more relevant discipline for those wishing to understand what lies ahead for the world economy.

Brian and every student of international relations should be able to appreciate that sentiment.

The famous McCain BBQ

2008-08-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

Talking Points Memo found this video of the famous BBQ party John McCain threw for the press. I’ve known about the party for a long time, but seeing the pictures from it really brings my understanding to a whole new level. No wonder the press spent the summer covering for McCain. (They have gotten better recently after push-back and McCain’s recent reluctance to have press conferences or off-the-record chats.)

Anyway, watch it for yourself:

Obamanomics

2008-08-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

David Leonhardt produces the piece we have all been waiting for.

Here is the meat of the Obama's economic philosophy:

Among the policy experts and economists who make up the Democratic government-in-waiting, there is now something of a consensus. They agree that deficit reduction did an enormous amount of good. It helped usher in the 1990s boom and the only period of strong, broad-based income growth in a generation. But that boom also depended on a technology bubble and historically low oil prices. In the current decade, the economy has continued to grow at a decent pace, yet most families have seen little benefit. Instead, the benefits have flowed mostly to a small slice of workers at the very top of the income distribution. As Rubin told me, comparing the current moment with 1993, “The distributional issues are obviously more serious now.” From today’s vantage point, inequality looks likes a bigger problem than economic growth; fiscal discipline seems necessary but not sufficient.
In practical terms, the new consensus means that the policies of an Obama administration would differ from those of the Clinton administration, but not primarily because of differences between the two men. “The economy has changed in the last 15 years, and our understanding of economic policy has changed as well,” Furman says. “And that means that what was appropriate in 1993 is no longer appropriate.” Obama’s agenda starts not with raising taxes to reduce the deficit, as Clinton’s ended up doing, but with changing the tax code so that families making more than $250,000 a year pay more taxes and nearly everyone else pays less. That would begin to address inequality. Then there would be Reich-like investments in
alternative energy, physical infrastructure and such, meant both to create
middle-class jobs and to address long-term problems like global warming.

Here is Obama the political economist:

Last summer, just before a highway bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, Obama was meeting with a small group of economists. At one point, according to several people who were at the meeting, Obama said he agreed that blue-collar workers were struggling primarily because their skills weren’t as much in demand as they used to be. Technology has remade the economy, and education and retraining were the best ways for workers to keep up. But any public-policy response couldn’t be about just education; it also had to take account of the psychology of the workplace, Obama continued. Some laid-off steelworkers might indeed be able to go back to school to become health-care workers. But many of them don’t want to work in health care or any service job. Factory workers, he said, want to make something. It’s part of their identity.

From there, Obama moved the conversation toward a discussion of how the government could improve the nation’s infrastructure — its backbone of bridges, roads, tunnels, airports and the like, much of which has seen better days. Since the dawn of the Age of Reagan, the idea that government spending can be a good thing for the economy has been out of favor, even among Democrats. But it’s now making something of a comeback, particularly within Obama’s camp. His agenda calls for about $50 billion in new annual spending on various investments, including infrastructure, alternative energy and scientific research. (To put that in perspective, the cut in the payroll tax would cost about $70 billion a year.)

Here is a good policy example of Obama's thinking on Economics. (Nothing new for anyone who has taken an economics class, but it is out of the ordinary for politics precisely because it is such good policy and leaves out the opportunity to favor certain firms over others.):

...The best example of his approach, however, may be his climate policy. By last year, Democrats in Congress essentially agreed that to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the government should place a nationwide cap on these emissions and then issue tradable permits giving companies the right to produce them (thus theterm “cap and trade”). Most Congressional bills envisioned giving away many of the permits to power companies. Economists, by and large, considered this giveaway to be the worst part of the plan. It would require Congress to decide how many free permits each company should get and would set off a frenzy of corporate lobbying.

The alternative was to auction off the permits — to let the market set their value. “If you don’t auction 100 percent of the permits,” Goolsbee told me, “this could be one of the biggest pieces of corporate welfare ever.” With Congress making the decisions, the power companies with the best political connections might get the permits. With a full auction, the permits would end up with companies willing to make the highest bids. Presumably, these would be the most efficient companies, the ones able to produce the most energy (and profits) for a given amount of greenhouse-gas pollution.

The auctions would have another big advantage too. They would raise billions of dollars for the government, money that could then be returned to taxpayers to offset the higher energy prices created by the emissions cap.

It seems likely that a President Obama would sign a cap-and-trade bill even if it did give away some permits. But candidate Obama has at least moved the debate toward a more pro-market solution.

Just read the whole thing. It is worth your time, if you are interested in a deeper discussion of Obama's understanding of economics, an interesting discussion of the Democratic economic agenda and philosophy, and an excellent summary of Obama's tax plan.

The Pentagon's newest invention

2008-08-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

This is too funny not to embed. I think the Pentagon could turn this into a profit making invention: corporations, the White House, anyone who hires a "spokeman" would love this thing. Of course unemployment in the PR business would skyrocket, but I'm sure they could become journalists or something.

Pentagon's Unmanned Spokesdrone Completes First Press Conference Mission

Stuff

2008-08-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Some links for the day:

Were Bill Kristol's comments on Colin Powell an attempt to "purge" the McCain camp of realists? Steve Clemons thinks maybe.

Also, don't miss Anatol Lieven on Georgia and the Nato question in today's FT:

Finally, and most importantly, the US pushed strongly for a Nato membership action plan for Georgia at the last alliance summit and would have achieved this if France and Germany had not resisted strongly. Given all this, it was not wholly unreasonable of Mr Saakashvili to assume that if he started a war with Russia and was defeated, the US would come to his aid.
Yet all this time, Washington had not the slightest intention of defending Georgia, and knew it. Quite apart from its lack of desire to go to war with Russia over a place almost no American had heard of until last week, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it does not have an army to send to the Caucasus.
The latest conflict is humiliating for the US, but it may have saved us from a far more catastrophic future: namely an offer of Nato membership to Georgia and Ukraine provoking conflicts with Russia in which the west would be legally committed to come to these countries’ aid – and would yet again fail to do so. There must be no question of this being allowed to happen – above all because the expansion of Nato would make such conflicts much more likely.
Instead, the west should demonstrate to Moscow its real will and ability to defend those east European countries that have already been admitted into Nato, and to which it is therefore legally and morally committed – especially the Baltic states. We should say this and mean it. Under no circumstances should we extend such guarantees to more countries that we do not intend to defend. To do so would be irresponsible, unethical and above all contemptible.

Russia is looking for "regime-change"

2008-08-11T10:19:00.001-07:00

AFP is reporting that Russia controls a large portion of Georgian territory. Georgian troops are pulling back to defend the capital of Tbilisi.

Russian forces have occupied the city of Gori and Georgian forces are fortifying positions near Tbilisi to defend the capital, the secretary of Georgia's security council, Alexander Lomaia, told AFP on Monday.

"Russian forces are occupying Gori," a key city about 65 kilometres (40 miles) northwest of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, he said. "This is a total onslaught."

"Georgian armed forces received an order to leave Gori and to fortify positions near Mtskheta to defend the capital," he said, referring to a town 24 kilometres from Tbilisi.

Neo-con logic 101

2008-08-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

The first rule of neo-con logic: never let details get in the way of a good argument.

The second rule of neo-con logic: if one of your enemies does something, find a way to play the Hitler card.

Robert Kagan has a textbook example in today's Post:

The details of who did what to precipitate Russia's war against Georgia are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama....

UPDATE: Joe Klein has good post on the Neocons search for enemies.

Mmm looks like Putin is calling the shots

2008-08-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering who is in charge in Russia at the moment: (from the AFP)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday called for an investigation into alleged acts of genocide by Georgian forces during their offensive against the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Incidents described by refugees "lie beyond the framework of understanding of military actions," Putin told President Dmitry Medvedev in comments broadcast Sunday on Russian television.
"In my opinion they are already elements of some kind of genocide of the Ossetian people. I think it would be correct if you instruct the military prosecutor to document all such incidents," he said.
"Of course I will give such an order," said Medvedev, who promised to bring criminal charges against those responsible.
Putin was briefing Medvedev on a visit to South Ossetian refugees in the Russian province of North Ossetia after flying back to Moscow early Sunday, Russian news agencies reported....

McCain and the Georgia question

2008-08-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

So the long simmering conflict between Georgia and Russia has broken out into a war, and it therefore seems prudent to ask the question: What would John McCain do? Based on his past behavior of threatening to toss Russia out of the G-8 , I would say he would ratchet up tensions to the point of getting us into a conflict with Russia.

Checking his website indicates that yes, that is what he would do. This statement is aimed squarely at Russia without acknowledging that Georgia itself was an actor in escalating the tensions after August 6th--or indicating that his team understands that Russia is a regional power that simply cannot be wished away. (For something on the failings of American policy go here.) McCain's one tool--a ratchet that only goes up--in his foreign policy toolbox belies his vaunted foreign policy "expertise." Matt Duss has more here

In which we link to articles in the NY Times and Post...

2008-08-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

I was at the beach today and had the Sunday versions of the Post and Times. Since I enjoyed these articles I thought I would recommend them as well. They are: Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization in the Times and Hovering Above Poverty, Grasping for Middle Class as well as McCain's Problem Isn't His Tactics. It's GOP Ideas in the Post.

I almost forgot. This article--The Last Battle--about the coming fight between Shia factions (as well as an inside look at some counterinsurgency tactics that were tried in the south and abandoned for political reasons) is also worth reading.

It seems one can't even read the book section without stumbling over Bush Administration malfeasance...

2008-08-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

Today's book reviews in the Times and Post read like an indictment of the Bush administration. This isn't suprising of course, I expect them to do so as long as people are writing books about the subject.

The first up is a review of Jane Mayer's Dark Side:

Occasional lurid revelations of abuse — most prominent among them the appalling photographs of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, made public in 2004 — have been widely denounced throughout the world. The president has expressed outrage and has insisted that the degradation was the work of a few bad apples who would be appropriately punished. But it was only the pictures that made Abu Ghraib an aberration. The tactics the president denounced were precisely those he had authorized and encouraged in the growing network of secret prisons around the world. The detainees in these scattered sites — many of them innocent — have been held for months and years without charges, without lawyers, without notification to their families and often without respite from torture for weeks and months at a time. The Bush administration’s response to the Abu Ghraib scandal was not to stop the behavior, but to try to hide it more effectively....

The architects of this network of secret prisons and secret torture were a small but powerful group within the Bush administration. Dick Cheney stood at the center of the effort but delegated many of its operations to others. The vice president’s counsel (and later chief of staff), David Addington, was a ruthless, bullying enforcer of the strategy, effectively derailing all challenges by claiming that everything had been mandated by the president and by dismissing all legal and moral challenges as naïve and weak. John Yoo, a law professor from the University of California, Berkeley, who worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, drafted an infamous memo giving legal cover to torture by simply redefining what torture was — virtually anything short of deliberate killing. George Tenet, the eager-to-please C.I.A. director; William Haynes, the militant general counsel to the Pentagon; Alberto Gonzales, the weak and pliable White House counsel who later became attorney general: all played vital roles in the creation and protection of these covert strategies. At the urging of Cheney — or his surrogate Addington — President Bush nullified the Geneva Conventions and, without publicly stating it, suspended habeas corpus for terror suspects, thus removing two important impediments to torture. Others worked to undermine the 1984 international Convention Against Torture, which, under American leadership, had provided the first explicit definition of what torture was.
Mayer provides a particularly ghoulish description of James Mitchell, a former military psychologist, who introduced the C.I.A. to a secret military program that had been designed in the 1950s to teach high-risk personnel to withstand torture. Known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), it rested on the belief that inflicting a controlled level of pain and humiliation on those who might face it in combat would help them survive the real thing if they were captured. For the C.I.A. after 2001, SERE became not a tool for resisting torture, but a template for inflicting it — a template soon adopted by interrogators in the far-flung “black sites” where detainees were imprisoned. Mitchell dismissed the arguments of F.B.I. agents that his tactics were ineffective and that he had no experience with the Middle East or Islamic terrorism. “Science is science,” he said. At one point, the F.B.I. agents collaborating with the C.I.A. on interrogation plans were so alarmed by what they were hearing that they urged their superiors to arrest Mitchell. Soon after that, they withdrew from the program altogether. “We don’t do that,” one of the F.B.I. agents said. “It’s what our enemies do!”

Read the whole review and buy the book.

Next up, the Bush Administration's frat-boyish hawkish posture on literally everything foreign policy issue delays and, perhaps, completely screws up negotiations with North Korea:

History may not judge kindly the Bush administration's ill-fated invasion of Iraq, but in Chinoy's telling, historians may be even more critical of the administration's handling of North Korea. To be sure, North Korea's nuclear ambitions have long challenged U.S. presidents. Bill Clinton struck a deal in 1994 that froze North Korea's plutonium-based nuclear facility. George W. Bush, when he took office, was openly skeptical of that agreement. He famously snubbed South Korea's leader, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Kim Dae-jung, when Kim visited the White House early in Bush's tenure and urged the United States to continue on Clinton's path of improving relations with Pyongyang. In 2002, the Bush administration believed it had caught North Korea cheating on the Clinton agreement (by switching from plutonium production to uranium enrichment) and effectively scuttled the deal.

With the administration distracted by the looming war against Iraq, North Korea promptly restarted its Yongbyon reactor and began to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods. For a few years, the Bush administration seemed uninterested in diplomacy, until it abruptly shifted course after the North Korean nuclear test in October 2006 and made concessions that would have been unthinkable in Bush's first term. The Yongbyon reactor is now out of business again, but the North Koreans still have the plutonium, and few experts believe they will give it up....Chinoy's chronicle is the most comprehensive and readable. People who are fresh to the North Korea issue will be disheartened by what they learn, but so will specialists who thought they knew all about the administration's fierce infighting. I have long covered this issue for The Washington Post, and I devoted a chapter to North Korea policy in my biography of Condoleezza Rice, yet there are details in Meltdown that left me shaking my head in wonder.

In one outstanding chapter, Chinoy provides a careful account of a crucial meeting in Pyongyang in 2002 at which U.S. officials confronted the North Koreans over their clandestine nuclear program. The two sides have given completely different versions of the encounter, and Chinoy sorts through the disagreements andmisunderstandings to show how the United States may have missed a major opportunity. He notes that in the run-up to the meeting, hardliners in Washington placed restrictions on the U.S. delegation that virtually ensured a combative visit, even forbidding the American diplomats to host a meal or offer a toast to the North Koreans. The approved script required the U.S. side to accuse North Korea of secretly enriching uranium without
offering any specific evidence.

A senior North Korean official, Kang Sok Ju, reacted to the U.S. allegations "with bluster, accusations, harsh rhetoric, and seemingly improbable demands." But he also sent "a strong signal" that if Washington were willing to negotiate over the full range of issues separating the two countries, "the North was ready to address U.S. worries" about its nuclear program. The Americans were unprepared for anything other than stonewalling and were "in shock" over what they took as an acknowledgment of cheating; their instructions, Chinoy says, did not include how to respond to such candor. Rather than picking up on the North Korean offer, the U.S. delegation got up from the table to report back to Washington, where the news of North Korea's "admission" immeasurably strengthened those who wanted to ditch the Clinton agreement and cut off talks.

There is also a good review of two books describing a murkier situation--where even a less blustering, more thoughtful adminstration would have trouble: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

To manage our economy, focus on the household

2008-08-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

A fun reminder about what all this mess with the economy is about and the solution from Peter Bernstein:

ONE of the spookiest features of the current economic crisis is the way everything seemed to go wrong at the same time. In 2007, as if some kind of secret signal went out among them, housing prices accelerated their decline while the prices of oil and food rocketed higher....
The numbers are striking. From May 2007 to May 2008, the price of food jumped by 5.1 percent, double the annual rate from 1991 to 2006. Home prices show a similar disconnect. During the two years ended in December 2006, home prices jumped 43 percent. But in 2007, home prices fell 10 percent, and the pace of decline has accelerated this year. In the case of oil, the price at the end of 2006, at $62 a barrel, was only $3 more than it was a year earlier. Over the course of 2007, however, oil zoomed to $92 from $62; by mid-2008, it was up an additional $40.
....In fact, the timing among these price movements seems a weird coincidence, not a development linked by cause and effect. And this suggests the most unusual feature of our current problems: the primary impact of all of them has been on consumers, not on businesses. Even the credit crisis centers on the home mortgage problem — though the jolly time investors had in risk-taking en route to the edge of this abyss made a significant contribution to the distress in the banking system and other financial markets.

This combination of events explains why it is so hard to find solutions that can bring the economy back into the light....

As a result of these exceptional conditions, we have no guidelines to follow. We are in uncharted territory...
Nevertheless, the therapy must focus on the household sector, wrestling with the triple blows of high home prices, oil prices and food prices. Nothing will turn the economy around until we can restore some sense of hope and security among consumers — perhaps even as food and oil remain painfully expensive.

Today, a halt in the decline of home prices seems the necessary condition to transform the system from despair to hope and to turn the financial sector, now embattled and disorganized, back into the functioning organism the economy needs so badly. Indeed, here is where economic policy can have some influence on the outcome. (In the case of food and oil, the forces are too strong for government to intervene with any success.)

These steps would involve more effort by Washington — including financial incentives —to persuade mortgage lenders to be patient about repayments instead of foreclosing and making matters worse. After all, every participant in the mortgage business will breathe more easily when the decline in home prices comes to an end....
Until we move more decisively in this direction, other efforts are likely to be frustrating at best and counterproductive at worst. The household is the key to the puzzle.

As an interesting, but fitting, I think, aside, the word economy come from the Greek word oikonomiā, to manage a household.

The economic philosophies of the candidates

2008-08-02T07:17:00.001-07:00

The differences between Obamanomics vs. McCainomics according to Robert Reich.

If you know what's best for you, you'll vote against your interests...

2008-08-01T08:09:00.001-07:00

Wal-Mart warns employees of the dangers of electing Democrats--they might allow them to unionize! (Which means that it would be harder to follow this strategy.)

The WSJ: (See also Ezra's analysis)

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

The actions by Wal-Mart -- the nation's largest private employer -- reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership. That could lead to higher payroll and health costs for companies already being hurt by rising fuel and commodities costs and the tough economic climate.

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said....

McCain "reacts emotionally, therefore unpredictably"

2008-08-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

So today's Washington Post has a long article on the "Curious mind of John McCain." It follows in the wake of a much better analysis in the New Republic of McCain's Id (or Ich) Mark Salter, so I would recommend reading the TNR piece. But the Post did report this, which is well-worth reading:

McCain's harsh self-criticism suggests the emotionalism that colleagues and friends say is typical of him. This was described recently by Gary Hart, the former senator from Colorado and a presidential candidate himself in 1984 and 1988. Hart befriended McCain in the late 1970s, when McCain was the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate. "He's a guy's guy, fun to be with," Hart said. When McCain married Cindy Lou Hensley in 1980 (his second marriage), Hart was a groomsman.

"I think his mind is visceral," Hart said, "driven less by thought and more by feelings. This doesn't mean he's totally reactive or without logic or thought processes; it just means he's a fighter pilot. He reacts to circumstances."

A senior official in the Clinton administration who worked with McCain on Bosnia and Kosovo, where McCain defied most of his Republican colleagues to support strong U.S. action against Serbia, agreed. "In the many, many years that I've been in Washington," this former official said, insisting on anonymity to avoid upsetting McCain, "John McCain is far and away the most emotional politician I have ever met."

"McCain is all emotion," the former official continued. "People don't understand that, so they keep talking about his temperament, his temper. He reacts emotionally, therefore unpredictably."

McCain can be impatient with complicated answers to questions he considers straightforward, with gray when he sees black and white. For example, he sees no gray outcome possible in Iraq: "In war," he has said, "there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose." But he has not defined victory in Iraq, and many wars have ended ambiguously.

Bauhaus not fascism...

2008-07-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

John Holbo, "being a sensible and knowledgeable sort of person, as opposed to some sort of crazed wingnut," sees this poster and thinks Bauhaus.

Crazed wingnuts, being crazed wingnuts, see Nazis.

The media discover McCain doesn't really know that much about foreign policy

2008-07-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a good week in Washington: the media (finally!) seem to have noticed that John McCain really doesn’t know that much about foreign policy. Gideon Rachman practically endorses Obama, Fred Kaplan questions John McCain’s foreign policy knowledge, the Politico lists his frequent foreign-policy-related gaffes, Joe Klein drops knowledge and KO’s McCain, and, yes, even David Broder seems to notice that Obama’s visit abroad is going spectacularly. What's the secret to Obama's success? Well I am with M.J. Rosenberg: he knows what the hell he is talking about.

Cohen: I can't be bothered to actually write a column

2008-07-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Although it is only Tuesday, Richard Cohen seems to have written the worst column of the week. Here is my summary:

Tatoos are really ugly, and I don't like them. They are permanent--just like. Er, permanence, ah yes: What happened to saving? Why are we in debt? Social security is in crisis! We are bipartisanly fiscally irresponsible! Did you know George Shultz had a tatoo? Well it was the custom at Princeton when he went there. (I hope Einstein didn't have one)...okay, I have woken up from my nap. As I seem to be nearing the end of this column, I am going talk about tatoos again (bringing things around) as well as old hairstyles I have had and funny outfits I wore. (Did I wear those things? Jesus.) There I have written my conclusion. Whew. Now I going to finish that nap. It ain't easy being a Washington Post columnist.

Go read the whole thing. It's hilarious.

Journalists: morons or just trapped in their roles?

2008-07-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

So I have been watching the coverage of Obama's press conference in Jordan. Obama had to answer several questions about whether he would listen to the commanders on the ground regarding his 16-month drawdown plan. He says that he would listen to them and put their advice into the larger strategic context; as commander-in-chief he has to take the broad view and balance many priorities; and that in General Petraeus' shoes he would also ask for as much flexibility as possible.

To me this is as clear as can be. Petraeus is not running for President, he is a General. I cannot conceive of a situation where a President doesn't do exactly what Obama said, listen to his advisors, and as commander-in-chief listen to the military which he commands, and make decisions based on the national interest and international and domestic goals. Yet, Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC managed to take from Obama's answers that he wouldn't listen to his commanders on the ground. Now, she isn't stupid, so the best explanation of why she would act this way that I can think of is that she and other journalists want to remain critical and skeptical--a noble ideal. But since political journalists rarely know much about the substance of what they are covering they have to pretend they are stupid. (Otherwise they could show their criticism by asking some hard-headed questions about the specifics of Obama's policy, for instance.) In other words, Obama has to say in twelve different ways that as President he will have to make decisions like a President and not follow General Petraeus' orders. I guess having this skeptical posture makes you a big-league journalist: you can show that you are serving the public interest by keeping your distance. Of course, ultimately, it means you think you are serving the public interest by pretending you are stupid.

Liberal Socialism

2008-07-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted at l'Action historique)

John McCain recently told the Kansas City Star that Barack Obama's voting record in the Senate "is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” When asked if he thought Obama was a socialist, McCain replied, “I don’t know. All I know is his voting record, and that’s what people usually judge their elected representatives by.” (This is a funny comment from a man who takes credit for bills after voting against them.) The indispensable Rachel Maddow wondered, on her radio show, what the uproar would be if Senator Obama had said that he didn't know whether McCain was a right-wing extremist or a fascist. Well, I speculate that a certain serious scholar would post a few emails on the subject and then point out that, as a socialist, Bernie Sanders is the real fascist anyway.

Worse than Bush?

2008-07-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

Up until now, Democrats have promoted the message that McCain would produce a third Bush term. The McCain camp has struggled to distance itself from this claim, see South Carolina governor and McCain surrogate Mark Sanford’s loss for words.

But in trying to argue that McCain = Bush, Democrats may have aimed too low. It appears that even the Bush administration has the ability to change policy. Over the last couple weeks there have been three foreign policy developments that have moved the country in the direction that Obama has been calling for. First, the Bush has begun to engage with Iran. Second, Bush has begun to shift troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. Third, the Bush administration finally accepted that a time table for withdrawal from Iraq does not mean defeat.

All of this must be very frustrating for the McCain campaign. They have the choice of 1) changing position on these issues and ceding the supposed strength of McCain to his rival, or 2) holding firm. My money is on holding firm. If McCain refuses to shift his position, I suggest the Democrats roll out a new line of attack: McCain is worse than Bush.

The things that made the Bush administration disastrous would make a McCain administration even worse. McCain is even more inflexible than Bush. McCain is even less willing to acknowledge facts on the ground. So, Governor Sanford, next time someone asks, you will know how to answer. . .

The Post does an adequate job...

2008-07-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

One has to count ones blessings, at least the Post admitted that Gramm is an economics advisor of McCain's, and, that, while McCain was saying that Gramm "doesn't speak for" him, Gramm was in fact speaking for him to the WSJ editorial board:

Sen. John McCain ventured to an auto-parts supplier in this hard-hit Detroit suburb to express sympathy for those affected by Michigan's economic malaise and to talk up his ideas for creating jobs in the region.

But a day after a top McCain economic adviser dismissed the nation's struggles as a "mental recession," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's message landed with a thud, as workers sat in stony silence.

McCain was already running into a stiff headwind because of an ailing economy, and his task only became tougher after former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) suggested that the United States has "become a nation of whiners."

Gramm, who has helped shape McCain's presidential campaign and is a close friend of the candidate, expressed no regret on Thursday for the comments he made in an interview with the Washington Times, saying: "I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true." But the McCain campaign quickly shifted into damage-control mode, distancing the candidate from his friend's assessment.

Gramm "does not speak for me. I speak for me. I strongly disagree," McCain said during a press availability here, which took place at the same time Gramm was wrapping up a discussion with the Wall Street Journal editorial board about the candidate's economic program....

Considering that McCain has suggested that Gramm would play a role, like Sec. of the Treasury, in his administration we can only hope that this statement from McCain is Straight Talk and not "Straight Talk:" "....Asked whether Gramm would play a significant role in shaping economic policy in a McCain administration, the senator joked: "I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus, although I'm not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that."

Experiencing the subjunctive...

2008-07-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

So at the little parade we have on Capitol Hill every year for Independence Day, I saw a sign that said, "God bless our troops." For some reason I reacted to it as though I had seen the sign for the first time (even though we all have seen it many times) and before my passive knowledge of grammar could kick-in I thought: I wonder what that means? Is that supposed to be an injunction? Hey God, bless the troops? It wasn't, after all, a statement of fact, because we don't know whether God blesses the troops or not (and in any case it would have to be "God blesses the troops.")

That was a millisecond's worth of thought--and then my knowledge of German brought me back to the English subjunctive. Gott erhalte or Gott segne is the same as God keep or God bless or, the more famous,--and something always taught as an example--God Save the Queen is in the subjunctive. Meaning we are expressing a wish: (May) God bless our troops.

American Blood

2008-07-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

I encountered this on NPR's American Roots. The release version has a bit more of a bitter hard edge. It is the first time I have gotten worked up about the Iraq war in quite a long time. . .

The Gated Community...

2008-07-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

A little social commentary from the Veggie Tales:

The barbershop quartett was the perfect genre for their gated unity.

Notes from Pressburg

2008-07-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Were I a Christian, my temperament would lead me to the Roman Catholic Church. That said, the world would surely be a meaner place without the Anglican Communion and its embattled Archibishop. One need only to compare the President of the United States in his original role as a Yankee WASP with his current incarnation as a Methodist cowhand, or, more seriously, consider the Archibishop's thoughtful approach to multi-culturalism, gay marriage and other social issues, to know that the Church of England (or, yes, the Church of Ireland, or the Church in Wales, or the Episcopal Church) is great and good.

Good video, but what about social justice?

2008-06-14T17:19:00.000-07:00

So this video is pretty clever and gets at a lot of differences between Republicans and Democrats--on the whole I really like it.

On the other hand, I don't think it really talks about inequality and stagnating median wages in a convincing way. To be sure, one guys mentions healthcare and another mentions billionaires in Texas, but to my mind it just isn't as convincing on this topic as civil rights for gay people and African Americans, for example.

Part of me thinks that the people who made it are democrats for those reasons (and environmentalism--and they don't like Wal-Mart). I haven't yet read UNEQUAL DEMOCRACY: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age by Larry M. Bartels, but I will soon, and this review gets at the heart of the issue:

Bartels acknowledges that there can be many explanations for growing income inequality, from globalization and structural changes in the U.S. economy to technological and demographic shifts. But he argues that it is wrong to assume there is no cause-and-effect relationship between government policies and income distribution. In fact, he asserts, "economic inequality is, in substantial part, a political phenomenon."

Bartels comes to this conclusion by examining what happened to income inequality from President Truman to President George W. Bush. "Under Democratic presidents," he writes, "poor families did slightly better than richer families (at least in proportional terms), producing a modest net decrease in income inequality; under Republican presidents, rich families did vastly better than poorer families, producing a considerable net increase in income inequality."

...No political party or administration can be held responsible for the global economic changes that affect income inequality, Bartels acknowledges. But, he goes on to say, "It certainly seems fair -- and perhaps even useful -- to hold political parties accountable for the profound impact of their policies on the way those structural changes shape the economic fortunes of wealthy, middle-class and poor American families."

Still I am hopeful. As Pew has argued: "Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway."

And more recently Pew has studied youth trends: "The current generation of young voters, who came of age during the George W. Bush years, is leading the way in giving the Democrats a wide advantage in party identification, just as the previous generation of young people who grew up in the Reagan years -- Generation X -- fueled the Republican surge of the mid-1990's."

McCain argues with himself

2008-06-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

Here is John McCain running for George Bush's third term:

Make that not running for George Bush't third term and never having been running for it either. How dishonorable of you to suggest otherwise!

Il Papa and the President

2008-06-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

"..Nice place you have here Ben..."

McCain hearts Gitmo, hates ‘unaccountable judges’

2008-06-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

He blasts the Supreme Court decision granting Habeas Corpus to the detainees.

It is a logical next step after he decided that torture was okay.

The Greeks and American Tragedy

2008-06-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

Erica and I are almost done with Season Two of the Wire and were discussing the role of fate in the show--and how institutions (economic and social) are what determine that fate. Erica also insisted that there was a supernatural-like element to how fate works in the show. I was thus highly interested in FT interview with David Simon, who talks about the role of fate and his copying from the Greek Tragedies. (Read the whole discussion.)

Simon knows of what he speaks: it was his experience as a crime reporter on the
Baltimore Sun that informed his scripts, first on Homicide, then The Corner
(both books that were turned into TV series) and The Wire. He parted company
with the Sun because, he says, of the unwillingness of the paper (and journalism
generally) to deal with the difficult issues.

“I had an idealised view of acquiring a true story, delivering it, and the more complicated it was, the better. But what I valued was not valued by the newspaper’s management, and what they valued I did not. It was time for a divorce.” Much of the bitterness surrounding Simon’s disillusionment with the written press naturally found itself on the show.

I ask him if that divorce was when he first thought that truth-telling was more effectively and eloquently done through drama rather than reporting. “Not at all. I saw myself growing old with the Baltimore Sun, writing a book every couple of years, but always coming back to reporting.” But his scripts were highly acclaimed, and the lure of television proved too tempting. I say the first time I watched The Wire, it reminded me of Shakespeare. Simon is not in the least cowed by the grandiose comparison, but corrects it.

“We stole from the earlier dramatic tradition of the Greeks. Shakespeare began the process by which thinking men and women exerted some degree of control over their actions, markedly changing their ends. Hamlet and Macbeth are concerned with the interior psychological construction of their characters. They are more Tony Soprano than The Wire.

“The Wire transposed the idea of Greek tragedy by using institutions in place of the
Olympian gods. And those institutions are our political and economic constructs.

“Now some people don’t want to watch that, to be told that the game is
rigged. It is disturbing news. But those that do watch it will respond to the
profound pessimism of the show. The people who watched Antigone or Medea were
comfortable with that degree of pessimism. That was the ancient view of the
world. And I’m not so sure it is so wrong in the 21st century.” Simon found
himself immersed in the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides as the
series’ first season unwound. “We stole big,” he confesses. “If you steal, steal
big.”

This is fascinating of course, and I have some more thoughts on it, but I'll wait until another post to explain.

In which we dismantle bad Cold War history

2008-05-22T20:31:00.001-07:00

The recent New York Times op-ed piece by Nathan Thrall and Jesse James Wilkins is problematic in a number of ways. Here is the basic thrust of the argument: Obama, seeking to engage with the adversaries of the US, is foolish and naive. After all, when Kennedy rushed his meeting with Khrushchev, it didn’t go very well.

Now I’m willing to grant that Kennedy’s meeting could have been done better, but Thrall and Wilkins are more than a bit dishonest in how they present the events that follow that meeting.

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

So based on this presentation, we are led to believe that Kennedy appeared weak for his willingness to negotiate and the Soviets took full advantage, including sneaking missiles into Cuba. Thrall and Wilkins are not "exaggerating" because it was only one of many reasons for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but they never seem to mention those other reasons. So, given their presentation, it is difficult to judge the relative importance of the Vienna meeting. Intellectually dishonest.

Furthermore, there is an underlying assumption that the actions of communists are necessarily motivated by a desire for global domination. From this perspective the Soviet Union couldn't possibly have legitimate strategic concerns that motivate action. I would have thought that that sloppy intellectual thinking died when Nixon went to China, but I guess not. To illustrate why this view of the Cold War is so flimsy, let's start with the Berlin crisis.

West Berlin was the leak in the Communist damn. Germans were defecting daily from the Soviet sphere and it just didn’t look good. After all, if the USSR was building a worker’s paradise in Eastern Germany, why were so many Germans fleeing to the west? Building the wall was not an act of aggression by the USSR it was an act of desperation. Furthermore, Kennedy didn’t give anything up by “allowing” the wall to be built. East Germany and Eastern Berlin were part of the World War II legacy. These were the facts on the ground that Kennedy inherited. And for the record, having the Soviets build a wall to solve the problem is a hell of a lot better than having the red army storm into West Berlin.

Second, let’s look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thrall and Wilkins try to paint the Cuban missile crisis as an aggressive move made by the Soviet Union to take advantage of a weak America. This is wrong in two ways. First, in strategic terms the missiles in Cuba changed the calculus of nuclear war with the Soviet Union not one tiny bit. From the perspective of the US, Soviet missiles in Cuba were symbolic but not particularly threatening. Second, if you look at Khrushchev’s stated motives for introducing missiles into Cuba (both during and after the crisis) he framed the act as a defensive act on behalf of an ally. Cuba was in the Soviet camp. The United States didn’t (and doesn’t) like that fact. One of Kennedy’s first foreign policy acts as president was to try to topple Castro by launching the Bay of Pigs invasion. Putting Soviet missiles in Cuba would serve as a deterrent against future acts of aggression against Cuba.

When the Cuban Missile crisis hit, virtually everyone in the ExCom was pushing the United States toward a nuclear war. Kennedy said no. He quietly but carefully negotiated a deal to get Soviet missiles out of Cuba and did so in a way that allowed both sides to save face. In doing so, he averted a nuclear confrontation.

Thrall and Wilkins conclude by saying:

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.

A more honest way to end this would be:

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes when you negotiate with cranky people, they remain cranky. But, when you are in a tough spot, negotiation might be the best way to avoid the kind of cataclysmic disaster that would end life on earth.

But that wouldn’t make a very good op-ed.

McCain's narrative "more powerful than mere facts"...

2008-05-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

Michael Tomansky has a great piece in the New York Review of Books on John McCain. There is a lot in here worth mentioning (and I may post again from it), but this is nice:

But here was the first piece of luck, for his split from Carol enabled him to romance Cindy Hensley, an Arizonan seventeen years his junior...

They married in May 1980, and from this union tumbled other fortuities. That she lived in Arizona meant that McCain would be moving to a state—with which he'd had even less association than Hillary Clinton had had with New York in 1999—whose growing population would gain it an extra congressional seat after the 1980 census, a circumstance on which his eye was keenly fixed. Her background—her father, Jim, ran the country's largest Anheuser-Busch distributorship—meant he would have the money and connections to launch the political career he had been coveting since he started meeting those famous pols. McCain hardly knew a soul in Arizona, but already he was telling friends in 1981 that he would swoop into the new seat in 1982 and then succeed Barry Goldwater in the Senate when Goldwater retired.

Then, one piece of bad luck: the new district would be cut in Tucson, not Phoenix. But this was soon followed by the greatest fortuity of all. John Rhodes, the Phoenix Republican who was the House minority leader, unexpectedly announced his retirement. The McCains lived just outside the Rhodes district, but Cindy's money ensured that they were able to buy a house in it and move in immediately. During a primary campaign against three other Republicans, he was, inevitably, branded a carpetbagger and opportunist. Confronted with these allegations at a candidates' forum, he delivered a riposte that would win him the seat and would foreshadow the kind of rhetorical agility that has so impressed reporters. The point of his zinger of a last sentence was not lost on his audience even then:

Listen, pal. I spent twenty-two years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.
As Matt Welch notes in McCain, this wasn't exactly true; but invoking northern Virginia, where he had actually lived for a combined decade or more, would hardly have put across the desired point. As McCain's career has shown, sometimes the narrative is far more powerful than mere facts.

He hasn't changed a bit has he? He still brings up Woodstock to joke that he wasn't there because he was "tied up." And he is the scourge of lobbyists--presumably he hates them so much that he needs to hire as many as he can to better keep his eye on them.

Brooks at his Best

2008-05-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

David Brooks’s recent column “Talking vs. Doing” is a classic example of what David Brooks does best: take an academic argument, distill it, misapply it, and then draw some conservative conclusion. Lets work through it, shall we.

Brooks references Mancur Olson’s classic work on collective action as well as his follow up book, The Rise and Decline of Nations. Brooks correctly renders Olson’s argument, which states that over time interest groups gain influence over stable political systems and in the end make them less efficient in economic terms. Brooks then applies this to the recent agriculture bill. He incorrectly concludes that to stop interest groups we should support John McCain over Barack Obama.

He pulls off this bait and switch by conflating an argument about institutions with one about personalities. Mancur Olson’s argument stresses that small groups are better able to coordinate action than big, diverse, unorganized groups. Thus, big oil companies can lobby to get special subsidies but car owners cannot. He argues that as long as a state’s political boundaries remain “unchanged” this problem will only get worse. Olson further argues that there is a tension between politicians with parochial interests (those who represent a state or a congressional district) and those who focus on the big picture (the president of the United States). Members of congress try to bring home the pork for their states, while the president tries to cut this back in the name of overall efficiency.

Olson’s argument is an institutional argument. The president will try to veto the Agriculture bill because of the institutional incentives. Members of congress will log roll, loading the bill up with pet projects, because of the institutional incentives. This narrative has nothing to do with individual preferences or the moral superiority of McCain over Obama. It has everything to do with incentives defined by their constitutional role. Based on Olson’s argument, Obama voted for the Ag bill and McCain did not because Illinois has agricultural interests while Arizona is a desert state. Similarly, there is no reason, given Olson’s argument, to think that a president Obama would respond to a pork laden bill any differently than a president McCain.

So given Olson’s argument, how can Brooks claim that McCain would be better at responding to this situation? Olson identifies two basic ways in which special interests can be undone. The first mechanism, which he explicitly discusses in his book, involves changes to the “political boundaries” of a state through either a totalitarian revolution or through invasion. Olson argues that the reason why post war Europe (France and Germany) had such amazing growth is because they were able to clear the old interest groups that dominated the pre-WWII regimes. Similarly the USSR and Nazi Germany were able to achieve amazing growth because the totalitarian governments fundamentally re-ordered society, sweeping away the old bramble that choked off growth.

Is Brooks implying that a President McCain would launch a totalitarian revolution? Probably not, though I can’t really say for sure.

Olson’s second possibility for limiting the impact of special interests is less explicit. In fact you have to read between the lines to find it. Olson argues that it can be very hard for politician’s with a big picture view to re-write policy to make the economy more efficient, because politicians have incomplete information. This is a fancy way of saying they don’t really know what needs to be done and thus cast about blindly. While leaders cast about searching for a better policy, they are overwhelmed by special interest groups that know exactly what they want and can act in a coordinated way to get it. Thus, nothing changes.

If Brooks is not calling for John McCain to usher in a totalitarian revolution, then this must be what he is advocating. . . but he’s not. First, I think it is pretty clear that McCain is as much in hock to lobbyists as any politician in Washington. Second, if we apply Olson’s argument to the current situation we discover that politicians aren’t nearly as confused about what to do as Olson suggests.

The US has a number of problems. We also know how to fix those problems The US just experienced a financial melt down. We can either let things work themselves out (McCain’s approach) or restructure the rules governing the financial industry to bring stability, accountability, and transparency to the industry (Obama’s approach). We face a crisis in health care. We can either let the private sector insurance industry continue to bilk people in the name of free markets (McCain’s approach) or we can create a single integrated system for providing health care that overcomes the perverse incentives that come with a market driven model (Obama’s Approach). There are specific policies that would make the US economy more efficient. We know what they are and we are on the brink of having a ruling coalition that could implement them.

The lovable John McCain

2008-05-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Man John McCain does not like it when journalists ask tough questions. Here he basically snarls back. (Notice too the idiot pack of hyenas in the background laughing at his dumb joke.):

I love his reaction when the journalist drops knowledge and mentions the Supreme Leader's role in foreign policy. You can see that McCain recognizes that is correct, but has been so used to talking to neo-cons who ignore that fact and ignorant fawning campaign journalists who don't ask questions like that. It's also amusing that at the last second he decides to proclaim average Americans the final arbiters of the nuances of Iranian politics. Nice touch.

See also Joe Klein on the incident.

Will McCain have anyone left on his staff?

2008-05-19T06:12:00.000-07:00

It's true, I am Schadenfroh. Apparently, according to the Washington Post, a fifth top aide to McCain resigns:

Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, resigned yesterday because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said.
He is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern over whether lobbyists have too great an influence over the Republican nominee. Last week, campaign manager Rick Davis issued a new policy that requires all campaign personnel to either resign or sever ties with lobbying firms or outside political groups.
...Until recently, his top political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., was the head of a Washington lobbying firm. Black retired in March from BKSH & Associates, the firm he helped found, to stay with the campaign. Davis ran a lobbying firm for several years but has said he is on leave from it.
Black, in particular, remains in the cross hairs of McCain's critics. Campaign Money Watch, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, yesterday praised Loeffler's departure but renewed its call for Black's departure. The group has launched a Web site, http://www.firethelobbyists.com, to urge McCain to rid his campaign of their influence. Loeffler's lobbying for Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments was revealed over the weekend.
...The pressure on McCain has intensified amid concerns about people connected to the campaign lobbying on behalf of Burma's military government, and the involvement with outside political groups that are not supposed to coordinate with a nominee's official campaign.
Regional campaign manager Doug Davenport and Republican convention chief Doug Goodyear departed after acknowledging having represented Burma. Eric Burgeson, who lobbies the federal government on energy issues, left Thursday. GOP consultant Craig Shirley parted ways with the campaign because of his ties to http://www.stophernow.com, a site created to target Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) that is now aimed at Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Yup, it's funny. One can only hope it convinces the media that McCain is not a saint--I am not optimistic though.

Inequality a concern around the world...

2008-05-19T05:40:00.000-07:00

The Financial Times has a new international poll on income inequality. Here are some of the results:

Public opinion across Europe, Asia and the US is strikingly consistent in considering that the gap between rich and poor is too wide and that the wealthy should pay more taxes...
According to the latest FT/Harris poll, strong majorities in five European countries - ranging from 76 per cent in Spain to 87 per cent in Germany - consider that income inequality is too great.
But 78 per cent of respondents in the US, traditionally seen as more tolerant of income inequality, also think the gap is too wide.
...Clear majorities in all countries agree that taxes should be raised on the rich and lowered on the poor. In Britain, 74 per cent of respondents think that those on low incomes should be taxed less, helping to explain the furore that surrounded the Labour government's decision to abolish the 10p income tax rate.
...US respondents were the most resistant to the idea of lowering taxes on the poor, with 27 per cent agreeing with the proposition that taxes should be kept at current levels.

The article also showed that most people don't think anything will change in the future--which is probably not wrong on the international scene, but implementing universal healthcare, increasing the EITC, and making the tax-code more progressive would ameliorate the worst excesses in the in US.

The belief in a just world...

2008-05-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting explanation for the lack of empathy for people losing their homes in the sub-prime mortgage mess and, obviously, has broader implications:

...But instead of having sympathy for these homeowners, many people blame them for their predicaments. That isn’t surprising. It’s an example of a general tendency that was documented by social psychologists decades ago.

In his 1980 book, “The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion,” Melvin Lerner, a social psychologist, argued that people want to believe in the inherent justice of the economic system in which they live, and want to believe that people who appear to be suffering are in fact responsible for their own situations. He provided empirical evidence, derived from experiments, that after an initial pang of sympathy, people tend to develop negative views toward others who are suffering. That negative tendency seems to be at work today.

Charlie Black, lobbyist for thugs and murderers...

2008-05-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is pretty awesome:

McCain hearts Hamas

2008-05-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

Boy, it sure is a good thing James Rubin isn't a journalist on the Straight Talk Express, otherwise he would sure get an earful of Straight Talk for calling St. John McCain a hypocrite.

McCain, meanwhile, is guilty of hypocrisy....

...Two years ago, just after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News's "World News Tonight" program. Here is the crucial part of our exchange:

I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

Dani Rodrik's defense of Larry Summers

2008-05-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Rodrik, a friend and ally of Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian (see this post for more explanation) defends Larry Summers:

I think there was a third element in the liberal economic order of the postwar period, which is the essence of its success. And that is the idea that international economic arrangements would leave enough room for nation states and governments to strike their own particular domestic economic and social bargains. This is the compromise of "embedded liberalism," as my colleague John Ruggie has called it. This compromise lay at the root of the phenomenal success of the Bretton Woods regime, and its piecemeal abandonment is the chief cause of the troubles of globalization today. I see Summers' argument as a recognition of this fact.

Yup. Well said.

In which we mock Tom Friedman...

2008-05-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

A spectre is haunting the Middle East, well actually it is a Cold War/Pax Iranica or something...Yes Tom Friedman is at it again, writing nonsense in the New York Times. Let's make fun of his opening sentence before making mock his inability to admit his own complicity in "Team America's" being "dumb and weak" in the region.

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.

Yup. That's ridiculous, as Fareed Zakaria has written, "Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?" Indeed.

But it gets better. (Friedman again)

The Bush team, by contrast, in eight years has managed to put America in the unique position in the Middle East where it is “not liked, not feared and not respected,” writes Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast negotiator under both Republican and Democratic administrations, in his provocative new book on the peace process, titled “The Much Too Promised Land.”
“We stumbled for eight years under Bill Clinton over how to make peace in the Middle East, and then we stumbled for eight years under George Bush over how to make war there,” said Mr. Miller, and the result is “an America that is trapped in a region which it cannot fix and it cannot abandon.”
Look at the last few months, he said: President Bush went to the Middle East in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went in February, Vice President Dick Cheney went in March, the secretary of state went again in April, and the president is there again this week. After all that, oil prices are as high as ever and peace prospects as low as ever. As Mr. Miller puts it, America right now “cannot defeat, co-opt or contain” any of the key players in the region.
...
When you have leverage, talk. When you don’t have leverage, get some — by creating economic, diplomatic or military incentives and pressures that the other side finds too tempting or frightening to ignore. That is where the Bush team has been so incompetent vis-à-vis Iran. [Italics mine]

Does Tom Friedman really not see that the great crusade to invade Iraq, in which he played lead "liberal" cheerleader, is a major factor in our current "Cold War" with Iran? Surely he must see that Iran could not have asked for a bigger favor from the United States than to invade Afghanistan and take out the Iran-unfriendly Taliban and then, the ultimate gift, to invade Iran's mortal enemy Iraq--which happened to be full of Shia and which we wanted to democratize. (The Iranian leadership must have woken up each morning the past few years hardly able to fathom their good fortune.) Mmmm, maybe a certain columnist should have thought about the geopolitical implications before we attacked, instead of how we needed to invade Iraq to show the Arab world how manly we are.

Whither globalization? and To whom do we owe solidarity?

2008-05-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

An interesting debate has broken out on the pages of the Financial Times. Larry Summers has written two columns saying more than hey, if we want to save globalization we need to help those at the bottom. The typical argument (with which I agree) that we will need more compensating of the "losers" of that process--maybe even a little redistribution and definitely implementing universal healthcare--as well as more education etc. He also says, let's get rid of tax-havens and create a cooperative economic framework to stop a race to the bottom in taxation and regulation.

The first part of his argument is on trade:

...First, the sceptic regarding trade deals or other internationalist policies is educated around the many benefits of trade, not just for exporters but also for consumers and the economy more generally.
Second, the sceptic is assured that the trade agreement in question is not just good classical economics that reaps the gains available from comparative advantage – it is also good mercantilism.... because the US already has low trade barriers....
Third, the sceptic is also told that most of the observed increases in income inequality in the American economy are due to new technology rather than increased trade...
Fourth, it is acknowledged that while trade agreements are good for the economy overall, not everyone wins. And so it is increasingly recognised that they must be complemented by more ambitious efforts to reduce income inequality and income insecurity.

Then he switches gear:

...When other countries develop, American producers benefit from having larger markets to sell into but are challenged by more formidable competition. Which effect predominates cannot be judged a priori. But there are reasons to think that economic success abroad will be more problematic for American workers in the future.
First, developing countries increasingly export goods such as computers that the US produces on a significant scale, putting pressure on wages. At the same time, rising global prosperity increases the rewards accruing to the already highly paid producers of intellectual property goods such as films, where the US has a comparative advantage. Second, the growth of countries such as China raises competition for energy and environmental resources, raising the price for Americans.
Third and most fundamentally, growth in the global economy encourages the development of stateless elites whose allegiance is to global economic success and their own prosperity rather than the interests of the nation where they are headquartered. As one prominent chief executive put it in Davos this year: “We will be fine however America does but I hope for its sake that it will cut taxes and reduce regulation and put more pressure on young people to study in the ways that are necessary for it to be able to keep competing successfully.”
The chief executive was sincere and he captured an important truth. Even as globalisation increases inequality and insecurity, it is constantly and often legitimately invoked as an argument against the viability of progressive taxation, support for labour unions, strong regulation and substantial production of public goods that mitigate its adverse impacts.
In a world where Americans can legitimately doubt whether the success of the global economy is good for them, it will be increasingly difficult to mobilise support for economic internationalism...

In a sequel to this piece, he adds some more arguments:

...Part of the reason why US workers (or those in Europe and Japan) enjoy high wages is that they are more highly skilled than most workers in the developing world. Yet they also earn higher wages because they can be more productive - their effort is complemented by capital, broadly defined to include equipment, managerial expertise, corporate culture, infrastructure and the capacity for innovation. In a closed economy anything that promotes investment in productive capital necessarily raises workers' wages. In a closed economy, corporations have a huge stake in the quality of the national workforce and infrastructure.
The situation is very different in an open economy where investments in innovation, brands, a strong corporate culture or even in certain kinds of equipment can be combined with labour from anywhere in the world. Workers no longer have the same stake in productive investment by companies as it becomes easier for corporations to combine their capital with lower priced labour overseas. Companies, in turn, come to have less of a stake in the quality of the workforce and infrastructure in their home country when they can produce anywhere. Moreover businesses can use the threat of relocating as a lever to extract concessions regarding tax policy, regulations and specific subsidies. Inevitably the cost of these concessions is borne by labour.

And then offers some solutions:

The public policy response of withdrawing from the global economy, or reducing the pace of integration, is ultimately untenable....As Bill Clinton said in his first major international economic speech as president, "the United States must compete not retreat".
The domestic component of a strategy to promote healthy globalisation must rely on strengthening efforts to reduce inequality and insecurity. The international component must focus on the interests of working people in all countries, in addition to the current emphasis on the priorities of global -corporations.
First, the US should take the lead in promoting global co-operation in the international tax arena. There has been a race to the bottom in the taxation of corporate income as nations lower their rates to entice business to issue more debt and invest in their jurisdictions....It might be inevitable that globalisation leads to some increases in inequality; it is not necessary that it also compromise the possibility of progressive taxation.
Second, an increased focus of international economic diplomacy should be to prevent harmful regulatory competition. In many areas it is appropriate that regulations differ between countries in response to local circumstances. But there is a reason why progressives in the early part of the 20th century sought to have the federal government take over many kinds of regulatory responsibility. They were concerned that competition for business across states, and their ease of being able to move, would lead to a race to the bottom. Financial regulation is only one example of where the mantra of needing to be "internationally competitive" has been invoked too often as a reason to cut back on regulation. There has not been enough serious consideration of the alternative - global co-operation to raise standards....
To benefit the interests of US citizens and command broad political support, US international economic policy will need to focus on the issues in which the largest number of Americans have the greatest stake. A decoupling of the interests of businesses and nations may be inevitable; a decoupling of international economic policies and the interests of American workers is not.

What is new here, for a former Treasury Secretary and many neoclassical economists at any rate, is the call for institutional coordination on taxes and regulation. The problem of competition across states and jurisdictions is well known, and nicely described by Charles Lindblom in The Market As Prison. While there is good logic to this argument, a skeptic is not wrong to point out that such a policy could turn in to an excuse for special pleading and unnecessary protectionism--more about providing give-aways to industries with political clout than careful negotiation and planning for solving the problems Summers describes.

Today, three economists from India respond in this way and, more importantly, call into question whether it is legitimate to think first of the workers in your country or the workers of the world. While I do agree with Summers' argument, I really liked this response and am posting it in full:

Is a liberal international economic order losing intellectual support? Should developing economies be worried? If Larry Summers is the canary in the intellectual mine, his two columns in the Financial Times (April 28 and May 5) suggest that the answers to both questions are yes.
The liberal economic order of the last several decades was premised on two assumptions. First, that the proliferation of prosperity across countries was a good thing. Second, there would be winners and losers but, on balance, a majority of people in both developing and developed countries would benefit. Mr Summers now appears to be questioning both assumptions. He has not stated outright that the proliferation of prosperity is undesirable but his -columns do suggest that globalisation creates competition for America.
This is an obvious fact. For the first time since the 17th century the west's economic pre-eminence is being seriously challenged. But he goes on to draw the disturbing conclusion that the process of globalisation should be attenuated, precisely because it poses potential threats to the US. In doing so he, perhaps unwittingly, presents the rise of the poorer parts of the world (whose standards of living are still a fraction of US levels) more as a threat than an opportunity to the US. In effect, globalisation is justified only when it serves American interests.
This apparently nationalist argument is couched in appealing distributional terms. The losers in the process are US workers. The structure of globalisation is such that their bargaining power is considerably weakened, while mobile capital reaps all the benefits.
Mr Summers is right to worry that US workers have not benefited as much from globalisation as US capital; stagnant median wages and rising inequality are proof enough. He is also right to assert that globalisation requires democratic legitimation.
But the argument would be more persuasive if he did not privilege the demands for political legitimation within the US. The terms of what constitutes just globalisation cannot be determined unilaterally from the standpoint of the gains and losses within the US. It has to be determined co-operatively, involving discussions over the costs and benefits to all, especially those least able to defend their interests in both rich and poor countries.
The problem Mr Summers identifies, the hyper-mobility of capital, was an outcome that he and the US actively promoted. Attracting foreign capital was one of the raisons d'être of the Washington Consensus-based reforms. Developing countries were forced to change their intellectual property laws. At the US Treasury, Mr Summers was a leading proponent of capital account liberalisation by developing countries. Having swallowed those bitter pills of intellectual property protection and capital mobility as a necessary price for a better future, developing countries are now told that those medicines cause problems that need more - in this case protectionist - medication.
That globalisation needs appropriate regulation is hardly in doubt. But blaming globalisation preponderantly for the ills of American workers runs the risk of providing an alibi for the sins of omission in domestic policy that have had a much bigger impact.
It is undeniable that the best line of defence for protecting workers has to be overwhelmingly domestic - through progressive taxation, improving education, strengthening the bargaining position of labour and improving the safety nets. Since the Ronald Reagan years, the headlong embrace of market solutions has systematically undermined each of these policy responses.
One reading is that Mr Summers' angst about globalisation is motivated by desire to maintain the environment for the continuing spread of prosperity: a need to tweak the rules - through regulatory harmonisation - to bolster the fraying consensus among the US middle class in favour of globalisation.
But the manner in which his position is framed, the inconsistencies of the arguments across time, the inappropriate transferring of the burden of any response from domestic actions to international ones, and the susceptibility of the proposed remedies to protectionist misuse point to a more alarming prospect for developing countries. The ground is shifting under their feet. They would do well to take notice.

With a countenance more in sorrow than in anger...

2008-05-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

Charles Krauthammer and Michael Gerson inform us that while Obama might not actually be unpatriotic, he must be portrayed as unpatriotic because this is a successful attack.

First we have Krauthammer explaining Hillary's belated comeback:

It wasn't until late in the fourth quarter that she found the seam in Obama's defense. In fact, Obama handed her the playbook with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Michelle Obama's comments about never having been proud of America and Obama's own guns-and-God condescension toward small-town whites.

The line of attack is clear: not that Obama is himself radical or unpatriotic, just that, as a man of the academic left, he is so out of touch with everyday America that he could move so easily and untroubled in such extreme company and among such alien and elitist sentiments.
...There's only one remaining chapter in this fascinating spectacle. Negotiating the terms of Hillary's surrender. After which we will have six months of watching her enthusiastically stumping the country for Obama, denying with utter conviction Republican charges that he is the out of touch, latte-sipping elitist she warned Democrats against so urgently in the last, late leg of her doomed campaign.

Then Gerson adds an element of weirdness to a similar analysis:

In politics, a narrative -- the widely held, sometimes unfair shorthand that marks a candidate -- is difficult to shift. For Dan Quayle, it was fresh-faced intellectual vacuity. For John Kerry, it was a combination of hauteur and inconstancy.

The Obama narrative is intellectual and ideological (not social) elitism. Humble roots have never been a guarantee of intellectual humility, especially when a mind comes to flower at Columbia and Harvard. Obama's dismissal of small-town views and values as "bitterness," "fear" and "anger" -- his dismissal of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a relic of an angry generation -- comes across as, well, dismissive. His first instinct -- the academic instinct -- is to explain and analyze, which is impressive to political writers who share that particular vocation. But this approach always places the explainer in a position of superiority. The arrogance of the aristocrat is nothing compared to the arrogance of the academic.

The issue of the lapel flag pin is a good illustration. Obama's explanation for its absence -- that it had become a "substitute" for "true patriotism" in the aftermath of Sept. 11 -- is perfectly rational. For a professor at the University of Chicago. Members of the knowledge class generally find his stand against sartorial symbolism to be subtle, even courageous. Most Americans, I'm willing to bet, will find it incomprehensible after 20 additional explanations, which are bound to be required. A president is expected to be a patriotic symbol himself, not the arbiter of patriotic symbols. He is supposed to be the face-painted superfan at every home game; to wear red, white and blue boxers on special marital occasions; to get misty-eyed during the most obscure patriotic hymns.

The problem here is not that Obama is unpatriotic -- a foolish, unfair, destructive charge -- but that Obama has declared himself superior to an almost universal form of popular patriotism. And this sense of superiority, revealed in case after case, has political consequences, because the Obama narrative reinforces the Democratic narrative. It is now possible to imagine Obama at a cocktail party with Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis, sharing a laugh about gun-toting, Bible-thumping, flag-pin-wearing, small-town Americans.

And naturally, more in sorrow than in anger, Republicans will have to point out how condescending Obama is. Of course, it isn't condescending for Gerson or Krauthammer to gaze from the Olympian heights of the Washington Post and decide that while, true, Obama is not actually unpatriotic, a narrative could be constructed under which it seems that way--and to Gerson at least, this will be fair, because after all, our President is meant to be a patriotic symbol.

St. McCain helps foreign terrorists affect the election

2008-05-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

Isn't it shocking? Could it really be that a patriot--a man who loves his country, the military, and Honor--like John McCain is helping Hamas influence the American election for President? Decide for yourself:

In the clearest indication yet of how he intends to confront Senator Barack Obama on foreign policy issues in the general election, Senator John McCain on Friday again portrayed the Democratic contender as being the favorite of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, and implied that he would also be friendly with Iran, a Hamas ally.

Speaking at a news conference in New Jersey, Mr. McCain said he believed that comments made by a Hamas leader approving Mr. Obama’s candidacy were “a legitimate point of discussion,” and he went on to accuse Mr. Obama of agreeing to negotiate with the president of Iran, who on Wednesday referred to Israel as “a stinking corpse facing annihilation.” He described that as “a distinct difference between myself and Senator Obama.”

Paul Krugman defend thyself...

2008-05-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

As all three or so of you who read the blog know, I like Paul Krugman a lot. I even went to a book signing of his for his latest book and got my copy signed. I think he does an excellent job at the Times and his book is a solid effort to get some of this political economy thinking on inequality out to a less specialized audience. But, as we all know, he is really incapable of disinterested analysis when it comes to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I admire and agree with his stance on healthcare, and I trust Hillary slightly more to push that issue, even though this will have to be a Congressional issue in any case, his other commentary on Obama is completely colored by this view and his decision to support Clinton.

Check out this post on the gas tax:

I don’t have a link to the ad itself, but apparently there’s an Obama ad citing something I said about McCain’s gas tax holiday as a way to attack Hillary Clinton.
I did not say that the Clinton proposal would increase oil industry profits. If
the ad implies that I did, it should be retracted.
The Clinton proposal is financed by an excess profits tax. At worst, it sends money in a circle. In practice, it would probably reduce oil industry profits at least slightly, since the rise in the pre-tax price of gasoline probably wouldn’t wipe out all of the
tax cut.
I was very clear when I wrote about the Clinton proposal that while I didn’t think it was good policy, it was not the same as McCain’s, and relatively harmless. If the Obama people are suggesting otherwise, they’re being deliberately dishonest.

This is, quite frankly, the nicest thing anyone has said about Hillary's plan. See this and this and this for example. Krugman is upset that he might be being mischaracterized--though it is tough to tell: do we really want to just trust the Clinton campaign on this? Why isn't he reacting to this piece of work though I wonder? I would love to see him respond, though I don't expect it.

CLINTON: ...But this gas tax issue to me is very real, because I am
meeting people across Indiana and North Carolina who drive for a living, who
commute long distances, who would save money if the oil companies paid this $8
billion this summer, instead of it coming out of the pockets of consumers.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Economists say that's not going to happen. They say
this is going to go straight into the profits of the oil companies. They're not
going to actually lower their prices. And the two top leaders in the House are
against it. Nearly every editorial board and economist in the country has come
out against it. Even a supporter of yours, Paul Krugman of The New York Times,
calls it pointless and disappointing. Can you name one economist, a credible
economist who supports the suspension?

CLINTON: Well, you know, George, I think we've been for the last seven
years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically
behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard-working
Americans. From the moment I started this campaign, I've said that I am
absolutely determined that we're going to reverse the trends that have been
going on in our government and in our political system, because what I have seen
is that the rich have gotten richer. A vast majority -- I think something like
90 percent -- of the wealth gains over the last seven years have gone to the top
10 percent of wage earners in America.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But can you name an economist who thinks this makes sense?

CLINTON: Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with
economists, because I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if
we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it
in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.
Now, look, I have long-term plans too. I mean, it's a misnomer to say this is all that I'm doing. It's not. I have a comprehensive long-term energy plan that would go right at dependence on foreign oil. We've got to undermine this incredible addiction that
we have. We use more foreign oil today than we did on 9/11. That is a disaster
for America.

So is Paul Krugman part of that "elite" opinion that has been passing policies that hurt the middle class? Kind of sounds like it doesn't it?

What Herodotus says about us...

2008-05-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

It seems the release of an annotated Herodotus Commentary and a new translation have spurred both the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books to write some great essays that dwell at length about both Herodotus' and Thucydides reception--and the recent rise of Herodotus' stock .

A snippet from the New Yorker:

...And yet to us graduate students in the mid-nineteen-eighties the word “father” seemed to reflect something hopelessly parental and passé about Herodotus, and about the sepia-toned “good war” that was his subject. These were, after all, the last years of the Cold War, and the terse, skeptical manner of another Greek historian—Thucydides, who chronicled the Peloponnesian War, between Athens and Sparta, two generations later—seemed far more congenial. To be an admirer of Thucydides’ History, with its deep cynicism about political, rhetorical, and ideological hypocrisy, with its all too recognizable protagonists—a liberal yet imperialistic democracy and an authoritarian oligarchy, engaged in a war of attrition fought by proxy at the remote fringes of empire—was to advertise yourself as a hardheaded connoisseur of global Realpolitik.

And the New York Review:

Confronted by a broadminded, witty, and tolerant cosmopolitan, for whom the infinite varieties of human custom offered a source of inexhaustible fascination, Thucydides presented himself as a humorless nationalist, an intellectual given to political aphorisms and abstract generalizations. Herodotus in his Histories treated the international conflict of the Persian Wars between 490 and 479 BCE as a turning point in Greek history, in fact devoting most of his vast text to reconstructing the war itself and the events leading up to it, all prefaced by lengthy ethnographic descriptions of the numerous, and far-flung, provinces of the Persian empire that it involved...
...Thus for Thucydides, Herodotus' reconstruction of the Persian Wars posed a serious challenge: it meant demonstrating that the falling out between two local city-states, Athens and Sparta, must be shown to eclipse both the great Greco-Persian conflict and, for good measure, the Trojan War that had preceded it.

The cleverest intellectual move Thucydides made was the severe limiting of what he deemed permissible as elements of historiography, on the grounds that everything else outside this canon was not only irrelevant but unserious. Out went personal anecdotes, most foreign ethnography, and domestic or private motivation: out, above all, went anything to do with women. Religion was women's business, and mostly nonsense anyway, so that could be discarded too. The essence of history was war and politics, as conducted by men in authority. His exclusive privileging of the male political association, in its most public form, became accepted, and historians (being political males themselves) were not inclined to argue. His revisionism not only won out at the time, but established the basic principles of historiography for over two millennia.
During the past half-century, however, Thucydides' almost superhuman reputation has come under severe critical scrutiny, while Herodotus' stock has correspondingly risen—a fact to which Robert Strassler's new Landmark volume of translation and commentary bears substantial witness. The change does little more than belatedly reflect a fundamental revolution in Western cultural values that has taken place during the last two hundred years. Greece, in particular the Athenian democratic ideal, only came to be privileged over Rome^[1] after the Greek, French, and American revolutions gave imperialism a decidedly shopworn look. Thucydides' main virtue for the seventeenth-century monarchist Thomas Hobbes had been that "he made me realize how silly is democracy." (This is hardly surprising. For true democracy Thucydides had no more time than did that aristocratic intellectual Plato; he welcomed the authoritarianism implicit in Pericles' de facto rule as first citizen, and his favorite acknowledged form of government was in fact a limited oligarchy.)

Good stuff. Both are worth the read....

Obama and Wright...

2008-05-05T06:22:00.000-07:00

We haven't really blogged much on the whole Wright scandal. It is depressing, especially this latest bout. Shankar Vedantam at the Washington Post has some pretty good analysis based on psychological research on the whole matter:

Social psychologist Michelle Hebl of Rice University once conducted an interesting experiment that helps explain the phenomenon. Hebl had volunteers evaluate a mock job applicant. Some volunteers saw the applicant sitting in a waiting room next to an overweight person, while others saw the applicant in the waiting room sitting next to a person of average weight. A variety of experiments have shown that overweight people suffer from discrimination; what Hebl wanted to find out was whether strangers in the vicinity of overweight people would share in such approbation.

Remarkably, Hebl found that volunteers rated job applicants more negatively when they had been seen seated next to an overweight person than when they were seen seated next to an average weight person. The volunteers had no idea that they were showing not only a prejudice against fat people but also a bias against people who were merely in proximity to overweight people.

The experiment tells us something about the Obama-Wright controversy. The presidential candidate may have made it clear that the minister does not speak for him, but every time Wright's words are replayed on talk radio and cable TV, they automatically retrieve mental associations in many voters' minds with Obama. Hebl similarly found her volunteers unconsciously made associations even after being explicitly told there was no connection between the job applicants in the waiting room....
Obama may find it especially hard to shake the associations that white voters have formed between him and Wright because both men are black. Social psychologist David Hamilton at the University of California said this is because of a phenomenon known as the "outgroup homogeneity effect" -- on average, people tend to feel that those from other ethnic, cultural and political groups are quite similar to one another, whereas they know that people from their own groups are quite varied.

To break the mental associations that white voters have between him and Wright, in other words, Obama will probably have to work much harder than if politician and preacher were also white...
Neuberg believes that these biases arise because we often see similar people in one another's company. If you see two men in suits talking to each other and you know one of them is a lawyer, it is plausible to think the second person is a lawyer, too. Prejudice follows similar mental heuristics, or shortcuts.

Hebl argues that the more Obama can get people to think about the Wright issue in a deliberate and conscious manner, the more likely he will be able to divorce himself from Wright -- many mental associations are powerful precisely because they operate unconsciously.

It won't be easy, however -- and not just because Obama's opponents are doing everything they can to keep the association alive. "I would argue people will continue to link Wright with Obama," Hebl said. "Based on my research and based on my findings, you can't unring a bell."

Britain is too partisan...

2008-05-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

For some reason I don't particularly like Anne Applebaum. I try to like her: she writes about stuff in which I am theoretically interested. But somehow she always ends up talking about Stalin. She likes to take a stand, and hey, I too am against Stalin. But it rubs me the wrong way somehow.

Also, there is this: She is often in Europe (and is married to a Polish politician), but instead of conveying the knowledge she has gained from that experience and explaining Europe to the United States, she mostly participates in European debates on the pro-American side in the Washington Post--which I don't think is that helpful. If she were writing for the Guardian or the Sueddeutsche Zeitung or Le Monde (!), I would think she was providing a valuable American (moderatish to conservative-ish) perspective on things, as it is, she just reinforces American preconceptions of Europe. And last Tuesday, in a piece discussing the Mayoral election in London, she was just wrong [emphasis mine]:

..This is a personality contest, and a deeply unserious one at that: If the good
people of London really thought their traffic mattered that much, Boris wouldn't
be a candidate and Ken would never have been elected in the first place. But
it's a competition nevertheless worth watching. This campaign could well be a
blueprint for future elections since it is "post-modern," and post-ideological,
in the deepest sense: In a world in which "issues" are not the issue and no one
takes political parties seriously anymore, there's nothing left to talk about
except who said what to whom and whose tongue was sharper while doing so.
Usually, we don't have this problem in the United States, our politics being
too partisan and our nation too divided to allow for it. But a glimpse of what
it could be like is available in the form of the Democratic primary, which has
also deteriorated, unsurprisingly, into a particularly nasty personality clash.
Any long-drawn-out contest between two people who don't -- let's face it --
differ that much on fundamental issues will invariably turn into farce; whether
it's an amusing one, as in London, or a "bitter" one, as in Pennsylvania,
depends on the characters of the candidates involved.
So three cheers, then, for ideological politics or at least for real clashes of ideas, and let's hope our presidential election, when we get to it, includes some: At least
ideologically divisive elections make everyone talk about things that matter.
And, yes, I do hope Boris wins.

I do wonder if she has noticed that in the countries she has lived, such as Britain, Germany and Poland, have parliamentary systems? Systems wherein parties in government have to vote for the government and if a government fails to pass important legislation because it doesn't have a majority it can go into crisis and have new elections? Party discpline is crucial to maintaining such a system, and even today, party platforms are far more important in many European countries than they are here. Or has she read the newspapers in Britain that are avowedly ideological--and sometimes even partisan? So, yeah, partisanship is pretty important in a lot of European countries. Now, it may be the case that the Boris vs. Ken race doesn't have major issues at stake (although I doubt that is the case), but wouldn't that be because it is an election for mayor? Do we have no examples of non-partisan mayorial elections? Do we have no post-partisan mayors in the US--cough Bloomberg cough? More to the point, did she not experience the Bush/Gore election, a "personality contest, and a deeply unserious one at that" if I ever saw one.

This is probably just a little lazy journalism. Still, it irks. We all know since Bush and the war and all that people in the US have become more partisan and even bitter, anti-Republican even, but that shouldn't shortcircuit her knowledge of circumstances in Europe or the US for that matter.

Inequality, it's still a problem...

2008-04-09T13:10:00.001-07:00

The chart is from Pew and it breaks things down not by class, but by other factors. Still it is pretty interesting, and the whole study can be found here.

Here is the begining quote:

"Americans feel stuck in their tracks. A majority of survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven't moved forward in life (25%) or have fallen backwards (31%). This is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in nearly half a century of polling by the Pew Research Center and the Gallup organization."

Also, this is well said:

"For decades, middle-income Americans had been making absolute progress while enduring relative decline. But since 1999, they have not made economic gains."

Since we are on the subject, it seems an appropriate time to post this article from Financial Times about income inequality. Here is the begining, and the end (and some graphs!); go read the whole thing though:

"Income inequality in the US is at its highest since that most doom-laden of years: 1929. Throughout the main English-speaking economies, earnings disparities have reached extremes not seen since the age of The Great Gatsby.

Much like this decade, the 1920s were a period of strong corporate profits growth and increasing household debt. Awash with easy money, Wall Street became hooked on what the economist J.K. Galbraith in that subsequent seminal work on the period – The Great Crash – called “the magic of leverage”: the ability to increase returns through borrowing.*

Investment trusts provided the vehicle for this financial merry-go-round, in which one investment trust would “sponsor” another investment trust, which would in turn sponsor a further investment trust. This paper-shuffling multiplication of risk bears a remarkable resemblance to the slicing and dicing of risk in highly leveraged structured credit markets today.

In the 1930s, it ended with bank failures and the Great Depression. Now, after decades of “financialisation” in the US and other Anglophone economies, whereby financial services have increased their share of gross domestic product, banks are being bailed out – using public money – in an effort to ensure the same does not happen again.

From a political perspective the notable feature of the inegalitarian, free-market era that began in the 1980s is how little backlash there has been against the stagnation of ordinary people’s earnings in such a large portion of the developed world economy. Yet there are signs that the mix of policies and economic circumstances that gave a protracted laisser-passer to the rich and to business is coming to an end.

This is potentially dangerous territory. For as Bill Gross, managing director of Pimco, the world’s biggest bond fund, has argued: “When the fruits of society’s labour become maldistributed, when the rich get richer and the middle and lower classes struggle to keep their heads above water as is clearly the case today, then the system ultimately breaks down; boats do not rise equally with the tide; the centre cannot hold.”

...

Whether the markets have detected this sea change is moot. Until the English-speaking countries put their housing and financial crises behind them, it will be impossible to tell whether the change in climate is transitory or something worse. But the change is real."

G.I. Joe

2008-04-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

Damn, mild mannered Joe Klein rips into administration hacks and hangers-on (the Kagans specifically):

...On the day that John Yoo's remarkable torture memo is released, this
foolishness is a reminder that none of these people--none of the vicious,
mendacious, naive, simplistic, unapologetic, neo-colonialist ideologues who
promulgated this disaster--should have even the vaguest claim on the time or
tolerance of fair-minded people. Fred Kagan's certainty is an obscenity, his
claim to expertise a farce.

Go read the whole thing and savor it...

Reason to fear a McCain Presidency IV

2008-04-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Think Progress reports (with video):

In an interview with CNN earlier today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that he has long understood the influence of Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:
"I said he was still major player and his influence is going to have to be reduced and
gradually eliminated."
But in a report on The Situation Room today, the network noted that just two weeks ago McCain — trying to paint a rosy picture of Iraq — described Sadr very differently while speaking to CNN’s John King in Baghdad:

"His [Sadr’s] influence has been on the wane for a long time."

Yoo: The President is King, Long Live the King!

2008-04-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to read the text of John Yoo's declassified Justice Department memos on detainee treatment. (Available here (part one) and here (part two)), but I urge you to read it.

In the meantime, check out Slate's analysis, "Yoo's Utter Glib Certainty."

On page 47 of the Yoo memo, if I'm not mistaken, there's the amazing assertion that the Convention Against Torture doesn't apply whenever the president says it doesn't. "Any presidential decision to order interrogations methods that are inconsistent with CAT would amount to a suspension or termination of those treaty provisions." Doesn't this mean that whether or not a treaty has been ratified, with or without express reservations, Yoo is saying that the president can implicitly and on his own authority withdraw the United States from the treaty simply by not abiding by it? Is there precedent for such a claim? In my quick scan so far of the tortured (sorry)
reasoning here, I can't find anything other than ipso facto, because I say so,
the president says so.

While in this post's title I suggest Yoo's argument is that the president is Monarch, the Times, however, quotes a professor with another view:

“This is a monument to executive supremacy and the imperial presidency,” said
Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School and the
Washington College of Law at American University. “It’s also a road map for the
Pentagon for fending off any prosecutions.”

Perhaps Mr. Fidell is on to something:

Bush booed, military man offended...

2008-04-01T18:52:00.001-07:00

So there is quite a bit to say about this. I was planning on linking to this Think Progress explanation with footage of Bush being booed at the opening Nationals game in their new stadium. Unfortunately, the footage they linked to, which I could access 2 days ago, has been taken off of Youtube. A version with de-accentuated boos is here.

Now, the actual reason I was going to post on this was this letter to the Washington Post:

As a Navy veteran and the uncle of an Army Ranger on his third tour in
Iraq, I was disgusted by the people who booed President Bush before the start of
the Washington Nationals season-opening game ["A 'Storybook Ending,' " front
page, March 31].
Our president deserves respect, and booing him at a nationally televised game ruined the team's triumph and the beauty of the day. I felt embarrassed for the city of Washington. Shame on the fans who did this.
Booing the president was like booing me and my nephew. The president and the
troops deserve an apology.

MIKE McHUGH
El Cajon, Calif.

What to say? Perhaps we could begin with the strained analogy, booing the president was not like booing you and your nephew, it was like booing someone who was elected to serve the American people but whose successor will spend all of his or her energies cleaning up after him. To be more specific, it was like booing a president who went to war when he didn't need to, got us bogged down in a quagmire, has stuffed his cabinet with ideologues, hacks, and lobbyists (the latter to regulate the industries for which they lobbied or worked), and has proved embarassingly incompetent.

Just because you served in the military doesn't mean that you can tell everyone else that they can't express an opinion. And what better way to get through to a man who only listens to "history's" call and not the citizens whom he is actually serving than to boo him? The troops do not deserve an apology because they were not the object of the boo, and the president most certainly does not deserve an apology because he actually deserved the booing in the first place.