Politics Trumping Reason In Stimulus Debate
Politics transforms a reasoned system into a tool for control.
Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman is "perturbed by the state of debate over fiscal stimulus. ... This has not been one of the profession’s finest hours."
There are certainly legitimate arguments against spending-based fiscal stimulus. You can worry about the burden of debt; you can argue that the government will spend money so badly that the jobs created are not worth having; and I’m sure there are other arguments worth taking seriously.
What’s been disturbing, however, is the parade of first-rate economists making totally non-serious arguments against fiscal expansion.
Everyone he lists in his post is politically conservative, to which he says...
That’s their right: economists are citizens too. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that all of them have decided on political grounds that they don’t want a spending-based fiscal stimulus — and that these political considerations have led them to drop their usual quality-control standards when it comes to economic analysis.
Think back to the time between 9/11 and the Mission Accomplished press conference, when anyone who disagreed with President Bush was deemed, at best, a partisan opponent and, at worst, a traitor. Reasoned, honest debate was squashed as disingenuous political maneuvering.
Those were challenging, uncertain times, but the scale of that threat is dwarfed into absurdity by the systemic economic collapse continuing around us today.
When met with a crisis, we look to detached, objective experts to provide leadership and to create a path to safety. Economists who, thanks to their past, excellent work, have emerged as experts and leaders are brought front and center under the spotlight of societal need.
To revel in the spotlight and masquerade political plays as reasoned opinion is an abuse of trust and tarnishes the reputation of these experts. While the personal harm may be great, even worse is the harm to society. Krugman left the gloves on for that post, but should the posturing continue, I hope he ignores restraint and unleashes fury.
I expect that Obama and his team will have the confidence and security to cut to the truth. The real question is how will Congress respond? The last, Democratically-led Congress was weak. Hopefully now the leadership will be hitting their stride and will similarly be able to work for the public good. If, instead, politics trumps objectivity, we're all in trouble.
[Image by Warren Noronha, used under a Creative Commons license.]
Frost, Nixon, Cheney and McNamara
Caught Frost/Nixon yesterday. It's the most entertaining film about the making of an interview that you're likely to see.* Yes, the interview is important, but director Ron Howard made the issues around funding, preparation and distribution as close to a suspense-filled story as is reasonably possible.
The key moment of the 1977 interview, and the key to this film, is Nixon's response to questions about Watergate. The only time he answered direct questions about Watergate, Nixon stated that he made mistakes, likely broke laws, tarnished the office of the President specifically and our system of democracy generally, but still believed that anything a President does to serve his country is legal.
I'm interested in seeing how the movie's portrayal stacks up to the real interviews, released on DVD earlier this month. I also want to check out Charlie Rose's interviews about the movie with Ron Howard and Frank Langella, the actor portraying Nixon in the dramatization.
Having just returned from watching the movie, I opened my Wind and pointed Chrome to the NY Times. One of their top stories discussed the exit interviews being given by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. While Bush at least admits that he was unprepared for war, Cheney is completely unapologetic.
Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture.
“I feel very good about what we did,” the vice president told The Washington Times, adding, “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
It's been said many times before, but Cheney believes that the President is above the law when serving his country. I think Cheney would say that the executive must be unfettered by the law when protecting America... but the result is the same either way. In fact, it's clear that Cheney believes Nixon didn't go far enough, that he never should have felt guilty or admitted to anything.
Today, Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history, says he has no advice for VP-elect Biden, and clearly states that he authorized torture (or, as is the official term, "enhanced interrogation") of "terror suspects." He characterizes his decision as making the hard choice, and asks us to take it on faith that his action has made America safer.
Assuming that Cheney's statement is correct, even Nixon would ask: what point is there in acting to protect America if that act undercuts the very tenents upon which the country has been built and claims to hold high for the world as its banner ideals?
* If you saw and enjoyed Frost/Nixon, you'll also enjoy Fog of War, the brilliant film by Errol Morris centering around his interviews with Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy.
[Image via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.]
Innovation Is A Must
Tom Freidman's world is flat theory (c)(TM) merged with his latest call for a green revolution in a recent article titled "While Detroit Slept." Mr. Freidman states his number one rule of business in the modern world thusly:
Whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you. Just don’t think it won’t be done. If you have an idea in Detroit or Tennessee, promise me that you’ll pursue it, because someone in Denmark or Tel Aviv will do so a second later.
To prove his point, Freidman cites to a case study about an innovative business model for green personal transportation.
The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy — such as wind and solar — as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.
Under the Better Place model, consumers can either buy or lease an electric car from the French automaker Renault or Japanese companies like Nissan (General Motors snubbed Agassi) and then buy miles on their electric car batteries from Better Place the way you now buy an Apple cellphone and the minutes from AT&T. That way Better Place, or any car company that partners with it, benefits from each mile you drive. G.M. sells cars. Better Place is selling mobility miles.
I don't know if it will work, but I love the innovation. Meanwhile, US automakers are waiting for politicians to stop posturing, and getting beaten to the punch in the race to produce a viable electric car.
On a positive note, President-elect Obama today officially named Nobelist Steven Chu as the next secretary of energy. Those pushing for support of the green economy are thrilled, but I can't help but think that Frosty the Coal Man's Christmas is ruined.
[Via Wait Wait Don't Tell Me]
North Korea's Gulags
An article in today's Washington Post tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, a man who was born in a North Korean prison camp but escaped at age 26 and now lives in South Korea.
Of all the places to be born in this world, North Korea is one of the worst.
The U.S. government and human rights groups estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 people are now being held in the North's prison camps. Many of the camps can be seen in satellite images, but North Korea denies their existence.
Shin is the author of a grimly extraordinary book, Escape to the Outside World.
It is illustrated with simple line drawings of his mother's hanging, the amputation of his finger, his torture by fire. There are black-and-white photographs of his scars, as well as drawings and a satellite photo of Camp No. 14. It is located in Kaechon, about 55 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
The book grew out of a diary he kept in the Seoul hospital while he was recovering from the nightmares and screaming bouts that were part of his adjustment.
It begins with the story of his birth in Camp No. 14 to parents whose union was arranged by prison guards. As a reward for excellent work as a mechanic, his father was given the woman who became Shin's mother. Shin lived with her until he was 12, when he was taken away to work with other children.
In the book, Shin describes the "common and almost routine" savagery of the camp: the rape of his cousin by prison guards and the beating to death of a young girl found with five grains of unauthorized wheat in her pocket. He once found three kernels of corn in a pile of cow dung, he writes. He picked them out, cleaned them off on his sleeve and ate them. "As miserable as it may seem, that was my lucky day," he writes.
Reports by American news suggest that the DMZ is a key fascet of daily S. Korean life, much as The Bomb was part of American awareness in the sixties. Not so.
Shin also struggles to understand why prosperous Koreans in the South seem so uninterested in and unmoved by the suffering of tens of thousands of fellow Koreans living in torment in the North's prisons.
"I don't want to be critical of this country, but I would say that out of the total population of South Korea, only .001 percent has any real understanding of or interest in North Korea," Shin said. "Only a few decades ago, the South Koreans had their own human rights issues. But rapid growth and prosperity has made them forget."
Shin may overstate the South's lack of concern about human rights in the North, but he has a point.
When South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was elected last year, only 3 percent of voters named North Korea as a primary concern. They were overwhelmingly interested in economic growth and higher salaries.
South Koreans want reunification with the North, but not right away, polls show. They have seen the cost and messiness of German unification. They worry about political collapse in the impoverished North and are afraid that dealing with it would lower their living standards, according to government officials and independent analysts.
The reasoning for such lack of concern by the South makes sense, but that is little consolation for Shin.
He is unemployed and worries about how to pay his $300-a-month rent. His defector stipend of $800 a month, which he had received from the South Korean government since arriving in Seoul 2 1/2 years ago, ended in August.
Making money. Saving money. Dating. Loving another human being. These are all strange concepts that Shin has struggled -- and largely failed -- to understand.
"I never heard the word 'love' in the camp," he said. "I want to have a girlfriend, but I don't know how to get one. Two months ago, I found myself without any money. It suddenly occurred to me that I had to go out and support myself."
Unfortunately, the book has not been a success and no English translation is planned. To learn more about North Korea and its prison camps, I highly recommend reading Aquariums of Pyongyang and Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty. The former is the memoir of a man who lived for ten years in a gulag before escaping. The latter is a detailed, readable history of North Korea and the Kim Dynasty.
Hopefully the atrocities being committed in North Korea will begin to enter the awareness of the rest of the world. Until that happens, those of us unlucky enough to be born in North Korea will be born into slavery. Without outside aid, those people will never have a chance.
[Image by Shepard Fairey]
Favorite Brand Names On The Wire
One of my favorite things about The Wire is how it's tied in so completely to contemporary Baltimore and then to the rest of the wider world. Over the course of the show's five seasons, the hoppers on the corners updated the brand name to fit with recent world events. The more ferocious the name, the more potent the drug. Just cause kids drop outta school and deal doesn't mean they're dumb. My favorites:
- WMD
- Pandemic
- Bird Flu
- Greenhouse Gas
- Mistletoe
- Sheed Wallace
- Brokeback
- Bin Laden
For more, read a discussion about Blue Tops at The Wire's forums. Even better, dealers in Philly have a brand of heroin called The Wire.
Did I miss any good ones? Let me know...
Web 2.0 & China Channel
Very cool exhibit in Hong Kong showing the difference between free access to the Internet, on the one hand, and the Chinese experience behind the Great Firewall on the other.
Web 2.0 is a gallery installation consisting of two internet enabled computers, a hacked mouse and keyboard, and a custom plugin for the popular (and free) Fire Fox web browser. Two computers are connected to a single keyboard and mouse allowing visitors to control both identical machines at the same time while using just a single input device. The only difference between the two internet terminals is their network connection; one machine is connected to the less restricted internet in Hong Kong, while the other is connected to the internet through a connection point in the mainland of China.
The Golden Shield Project (sometimes referred to as the the Great Fire Wall of China), censors content primarily by blocking IP addresses. The Internet police in China is estimated to contain over 30,000 workers, and is responsible for blocking content such as Tibetan independence, Taiwan independence, police brutality, the Tienanmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, religion, and some international news.
The browser plugin used in the Web 2.0 installation will soon be available for public download on the web. Unlike many tools which enable Chinese people to freely surf the web via connections to computers outside of China, this plugin routes all internet traffic to computers on the inside of the Chinese firewall, allowing web surfers to experience an Internet identical to that of Chinese.
(Via ni9e)
Chronobuilder — A New Tool For Attorneys
My friend Jim is helping launch a new tool intended to make data entry and document management as painless and as accessible as possible. Though aimed primarily at litigators, the tool seems like it might also be useful for managing contract and licensing transactions. From their site:
Every screen of this program was designed by attorneys with one goal in mind: to enable high volume, fast-paced data entry and analysis of facts and evidence.
Chronobuilder was designed so that you can immediately start entering evidence. It is very similar to how you enter facts on the web when you buy products, how you enter information to online tax programs, or how you buy movie tickets online. You do not need to think about objects, lists, or start trying to make linkages. Just grab your first piece of evidence or think of the first fact you want to enter, and go to the Single Evidence Entry Screen. We like to call the Single Evidence Entry screen “S.E.E.” or “SEE”. (You can remember this by thinking: “I use Chronobuilder to SEE my facts and evidence.”)
They're offering a 30-day free trial, and offer a discount to 2L Summer Associates and recent Law School grads. No risk, so give it a spin, kick the tires, and see if Chronobuilder can remove some of the complexity from your practice.
Obama Will Lower Taxes; $250K = Rich
Tax plans drawn to scale.
I've gotten into a few debates recently with friends who oppose Obama's tax plan for two main reasons: (1) they feel that raising the capital gains tax will hurt the national economy by discouraging investment and removing liquidity from the market; and (2) taxes are going up for those households making over $250,000 per year. That's not much money, they argue -- a good chunk of my friends have advanced degrees (with associated debt) and live in S.F. and NYC. If they want to even dream of owning their own apartment in a decent neighborhood, making that kind of money is a necessity.
If you agree with point number two, first take a look at the chart above, which shows how the tax plans of McCain and Obama will directly impact different segments of the population.*
Clear? Good. Welcome back. Next, Daniel Gross takes apart the second argument in his Slate article "The deluded Obama critics who think $250,000 is a middle-class salary."
Barack Obama's tax plan, . . . promises to improve the nation's fiscal standing by scaling back tax cuts for people making more than $250,000. Since then, the business pundit class has been griping that people who make $250,000 a year aren't really wealthy, especially if they live in and around New York; San Francisco; or Washington, D.C. . . . On Wednesday afternoon, CNBC's unscientific online poll found that (surprise!) only 35 percent of respondents believed an income of $250,000 qualified a household for elite rich status.
I have two pieces of bad news for the over-$250,000 crowd. First, the reversal of some of the temporary Bush tax cuts is probably inevitable, given the Republican fiscal clown show of the past eight years. Second, I regret to inform you that you are indeed rich. . . . [I]ncome data can surely tell us something. And they tell us that $250,000 puts you in pretty fancy company. The Census Bureau earlier this week reported that the median household income was $50,223 in 2007—up slightly from the last year but still below the 1999 peak. So a household that earned $250,000 made five times the median. In fact, as this chart shows, only 2.245 million U.S. households, the top 1.9 percent, had income greater than $250,000 in 2007. (About 20 percent of households make more than $100,000.)
In dealing with aggregate nationwide numbers, we should of course take account of the significant differences in the cost of living from state to state. . . . But even in wealthy states, $250,000 ain't bad—it's nearly four times the median income in wealthy states like Maryland and Connecticut. And even if you look at the wealthiest metropolitan areas—Washington, D.C. ($83,200); San Francisco ($73,851); Boston ($68,142); and New York ($61,554)—$250,000 a year dwarfs the median income.
Still feel that $250,000 isn't much money? Let me know why -- I'd love to discuss.
[Update -- According to this 1997 paper put out by the Fed [pdf], 1% of the population owns 82% of the stock market.]
* Looking at tax policy alone can be misleading, especially because of the radical differences in proposed health care plans.
What A Rough Week
Apocalypse Now
In more-or-less chronological order, here's a list of some of the ridiculous and troubling events that happened last week...
- Fannie May and Freddie Mac are bailed out by the Federal government. $500 billion dollars to take control of these quasi-governmental institutions, ruined in the "mortgage crisis." As an astute poster on digg.com mentions, why is it that there's no money for universal healthcare, yet the government can scrape together half a trillion dollars in no time flat to bail out financial institutions?
- United Airline's stock dropped from nearly $12.50 a share to $3 a share... for no good reason. Here's what happened: Google News' software found an old article in the Chicago Tribune about a 2002 United bankruptcy-court filing. As the old article wasn't properly dated, it was posted by Google News as though it were new news. Software used by stock traders to automatically buy and sell stock found the article and started to sell. And sell. And sell. This automated sell-off, combined with the Tribune article and pre-existing fears about the weakness of United's stock amid ongoing trouble in the airline industry caused the rumor to spread like wildfire. When the dust cleared later in the day, trading of United stock had been frozen at $3. The price went back up to $10.60 a share, but the damage had been done. $1.14 billion had been lost -- gone, evaporated, *poof*.
- McCain caught Obama in the polls. Sure, the RNC provided a bump, but the larger cause for the bump is most troubling. All Palin, all the time. She has minimal experience, her primary interaction with the public was a well-delivered speech written before her nomination, and until a Thursday interview with ABC, she refused to answer questions (for good reason; the VP should probably know what the Bush Doctrine is, at least well enough to BS an answer). Yet because she's a pretty woman selling herself as a religious frontier-mom, she's polling through the roof. McCain v. Obama? The actual contest? Who cares. In the popularity contest that is the Presidential election for much of America, Palin's revisiting her role as Prom Queen. Issues and experience be damned.
- David Foster Wallace hanged himself at home in Claremont, CA. I've read some of his essays, and had just started his masterwork, Infinite Jest. Only twenty pages in, I was already wondering how anyone could walk through life with such thoughts rattling around in one's head. It seems that over time, not even he could handle it. The greatest young author of the last hundred years is gone, dead at 46. Some who knew him offer tribute.
- A freight train and passenger train collide, head-on in California. At least 23 dead. Possible cause of the accident? One of the engineers may have been texting with teens interested in the railroad, as an education/public service task, just before the accident -- the worst of its kind in the region.
- Syria invades Lebanon. (Sadly, I'm guessing you may have heard about it here first.)
- Hurricane Ike pummels the Texas coast.
- The financial sector continues its slide to the bottom. Can the banks fall further? Apparently yes. "Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself on Sunday to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer. . . . But even as the fates of Lehman and Merrill hung in the balance, another crisis loomed as the insurance giant American International Group appeared to teeter. Staggered by losses stemming from the credit crisis, A.I.G. sought a $40 billion lifeline from the Federal Reserve, without which the company may have only days to survive." Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chief who could have done a lot to minimize this problem by raising interest rates a touch while he was still in office, now says that the economy is in a "once-in-a-lifetime" crisis. For a better understanding of what's going on and how we got here, Paul Krugman provides insight.
- To end on a positive note, Tina Fey and Amy Pohler did a great job leading off this year's SNL season opener.
[Photo via Waxin' and Milkin']
Being There: Anne's Thoughts On GOP VP Nominee Palin
A group of international friends, most of whom are involved in politics somewhere, and I have been emailing back and forth about this campaign cycle. Copied below, with her permission, is my favorite email thus far, from my friend Anne. Enjoy!
Since you asked, and since it's therapeutic for me to unload, here are my honest opinions of Sarah Palin and her candidacy for the Heartbeat Away ministry:
Of course she's not fit for the office she seeks and everyone who had a hand in her selection knows it; McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is the most cynical and reckless machination on the part of a serious candidate for high office I have seen in my lifetime.
It remains disturbingly unclear the extent to which voters will acknowledge or punish McCain's recklessness (in part because many wise Democrats cannot figure out how to impugn his judgment without attacking her, which is, ironically, all but impossible to do b/c of her comically messy personal life).
Her biggest impact will be in bringing skeptical religious conservatives to the polls despite her personification of many things they demonize in others. McCain simply can not win without these voters, and they have no taste for him. But a bunch of them will bother to vote for her. This development more or less evens the playing field and returns the electoral map to its 2004 dimensions, putting the burden on Obama to flip a red state or two, and returning to disproportionate power and influence the so-called "independent" voters. These voters make up the little sliver of the electorate known as the "middle" on our wafer-thin political spectrum, and they usually profess to not knowing the difference between the two candidates/parties. To my horror, many of these voters are, allegedly, women. Who should just know better. No offense, guys.
However, by election day Sarah Palin's novelty will have worn off and although it pains me to say it, I believe that we women are our own worst enemies when it comes to positions of real power and influence. Ultimately, many of the so called "independent" "moms" who are said to be a key voting bloc - married suburban and small-town women with children - will betray her in the voting booth. She may be "just like them" - that's what we're hearing all the time now, how refreshing it is for women to have the validation of her serious candidacy given the resemblance of her narrative to their own. But although they'll never admit it, a lot of women are, themselves, sexist, and there surely is no shortage of sexist women among independent suburban moms. Just as Barack Obama will have to overcome some social acceptability bias - you ought to subtract four to five points from his number in any poll to account for the people who don't want to admit to survey takers that they're racists - Sarah Palin will be a victim of sexism in the voting booth, even as a candidate for the #2 job. And that sexism will come as much - or more - from women as from men. The fact that she is simply unfit for the office may even be a secondary consideration to these voters, although again, they won't admit it.
Tangentially, the same female voters who may distrust their sisters to hold positions of power may also decline to elevate someone who reminds them of the strident PTA mom in their neighborhood, or the overbearing and meddlesome parent whose kid is on their kid's little league team. Sarah Palin will end up reminding a lot of people of the bossy women they know who take over the high school sports boosters club or the girl scout troop or whatnot. All of which leads me to the conclusion that McCain gave up the all-important "middle" when he chose Sarah Palin, in exchange for a base that he despises and that despises him. Obama, then, still has a chance if he can step oh so lightly through the minefields.
But what has discouraged the hell out of me is the way Sarah Palin has dragged our public dialogue into ratholes I never thought existed. She has deliberately and gleefully shown us to be a country of haters in her own image. By her own words and deeds and by those of the campaign team that is controlling her (which I imagine is done by one of those joysticks on old-school video games), she has gotten us to cheapen our own futures, individually and collectively. She/they are striving viciously to ensure we don't ever get around to talking about real, serious, maybe life-threatening public issues. Whatever your doubts (or mine) about the extent of George Bush's command of the levers of power (as opposed to Cheney's, Ashcroft's, et al), she will raise such doubts to the level of the Broadway musical if she should ever make it to Washington. Wait, scratch that. That movie has already been made. It was called "Being There."