a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists.
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I guess there's only a few things that could have happened at this time to push my political buttons and piss me off, but one of them did: I saw some left-leaning people sneer at Gen. Wes Clark, and enforce the mysterious conventional wisdom that he's not worth taking seriously, a fit object for fun & ridicule. This reminded me of Spencer Ackerman's August piece, which as far as I know he has not recanted. The piece is not entirely a hatchet job, but does seem to be infused with a curious belief that Clark is not only wrong on certain specific issues, but ridiculous, a "Punchline". Ackerman's piece inspired this defense by Clark's son, a piece that seems to me sensible and right, while Ackerman's piece feels to me like it's written from deep within the DC bubble.

Funnily enough, Ackerman's 2003 TNR piece on Clark  seems to me *much* more sensible and accurate than his 2012 piece.

Watch these three Wes Clark videos:

Wesley K. Clark: Abandoning Values Only Brings Defeat (Aug. 2008)

Wes Clark - 192 Steps to Disaster Preparedness (2006) (transcribed by Plant)

Gen. Wes Clark on why we fought an unnecessary war in Iraq (2007)

and tell me why exactly Clark is not worth taking seriously?

You do see some hints of why Clark might have become unpopular among the DC elites: he was skeptical about the Iraq surge, but his skepticism was justified, IMO. He might have been wrong, but he was not wrong in an outlandish way.

Of all the military figures of the last 15-20 years, Clark is the one I trust the most. He is our era's closest heir to George Marshall. The fact that he's been attacked so bitterly seems to me to reflect a degeneration and a decadence in our DC ruling class, compared to the Marshall era.

Though now that I think about it, Marshall was not a popular figure, at all, during the 40's and the 50's. His fan club basically consisted of FDR, Truman, and the 40's-era Eisenhower.

Two people I saw defending Clark this summer were Susie Madrak and digby (can't find her post to link to it), good company at least.

Digby - Hullabaloo

Susie Madrak - (Suburban Guerrilla)

Asia Society - Current Realities and Future Possibilities in Burma/Myanmar

Amy Goodman interviewing Juan Cole on Petraeus in Iraq and Afghanistan

JUAN COLE: Well, you know, I think General Petraeus, in his heart, was opposed to the Iraq War and a little bit puzzled as to what in the world the Bush administration thought it was doing, because there’s that famous interview he gave early on, and when he was in Mosul, he said, "How does this end?" He couldn’t even conceive of it. And I think—you know, I saw him on television interacting with Arab families. It was set in Mosul. He went to them and said, you know, "What do you need? What can I get you?" So, I think among the generals who served in Iraq, he was one of the ones who tried to reach out to people and tried to accomplish something. 

But I think he learned the wrong lessons from Iraq. . . the Shiites ethnically cleansed the Sunnis. And it happened around the same time as the Petraeus troop escalation or surge in Iraq. And I think he took the wrong lesson from what happened in Baghdad. He kind of allied with the majority community, and so had a fairly soft landing, and then took it off and tried to replicate it in Afghanistan. That was the big error.

I'm thinking a little bit about investment income versus wage income, and I'm somewhat reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it's a more difficult and nuanced issue than I thought. I'm thinking of scenarios, and I find that there are scenarios where it's clear the tax rate on investment income should be 0, and there are other scenarios where it's clear it should be equal to the rate on normal income.

scenario 1: Somone decides to sell their WaPo stock (goodbye, Donald) to buy NYT stock (hello, Pinch). It seems preposterous and harmful that switching their stock between companies should result in any significant tax (I do support a transactions tax, but a small one).

scenario 2: someone is deciding whether to spend their time researching & investing in real estate or stocks versus getting and using an income-increasing certification, or doing non-financial R&D which might or might not pay off in increased income, or writing a book or essay. In this case, it seems preposterous and harmful that income from flipping real estate should be taxed at a lower rate than income from acquiring and utilizing a new skill.

Somewhat related to this issue, an honest question: How do you tell the difference between consumption and investment? What would prevent me from accounting for my consumption of dinner & bed today as an investment in my ability to produce output tomorrow? Yes, yes, "Because the IRS says you can't." But on what grounds does the IRS say so?

Ezra Klein (Wonkblog) - The case for raising taxes on capital gains

Matt Yglesias (Slate) - Why poor people should pay a higher tax rate than Mitt Romney

David Dayen (Firedoglake) - Mitt Romney’s Low Tax Rate a Function of How US Treats Capital Gains and Dividends

Doug Henwood (LBO News) - primary & secondary investment

Jazzbumpa (Angry Bear) - The Effect of Capital Gains Tax on Investment

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) - My Baroque Argument for Higher Capital Gains Taxes

UPDATE: Since I usually praise George Marshall, it seems worth mentioning at least one issue (there were others, as well) where he was on the wrong side of history: the recognition  of Israel in 1948. His intentions were honorable - he was trying to prevent a war - but he was wrong,  IMO. In commemoration of Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008, JCPA published an excerpt from Clark Clifford's 1991 memoir (which he wrote with Richard Holbrooke), and it makes absolutely riveting reading, especially towards the end:

Because President Truman was often annoyed by the tone and fierce­ness of the pressure exerted on him by American Zionists, he left some people with the impression he was ambivalent about the events of May 1948. This was not true: he never wavered in his belief that he had taken the right action. He felt particularly warmly toward Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President, and David Ben-Gurion, its first Prime Minister. In 1961, years after he left the White House, former President Truman met with Ben-Gurion in New York. Ben-Gurion’s memory of that meeting is revealing:

At our last meeting, after a very interesting talk, just before [the President] left me – it was in a New York hotel suite – I told him that as a foreigner I could not judge what would be his place in American history; but his helpfulness to us, his constant sympathy with our aims in Israel, his courageous decision to recognize our new state so quickly and his steadfast support since then had given him an immor­tal place in Jewish history. As I said that, tears suddenly sprang to his eyes. And his eyes were still wet when he bade me goodbye. I had rarely seen anyone so moved. I tried to hold him for a few minutes until he had become more composed, for I recalled that the hotel corridors were full of waiting journalists and photographers. He left. A little while later, I too had to go out, and a correspondent came to me to ask, “Why was President Truman in tears when he left you?”

I believe that I know. These were the tears of a man who had been subjected to calumny and vilification, who had persisted against powerful forces within his own Administration determined to defeat him. These were the tears of a man who had fought ably and honorably for a humani­tarian goal to which he was deeply committed. These were tears of thanksgiving that his God had seen fit to bless his labors with success.

I agree with Kevin Drum  that Obama's defense of Susan Rice is good news. Rice did nothing wrong, McCain & Graham's attacks on her are not valid, and they do not become more valid by either McCain or Graham becoming more vehement or angry (that said, I do respect both McCain and Graham). There can be endless compromises with Republicans on policy issues, but Democrats should not let themselves be gaslighted into apologizing for mistakes they did not make, admitting to flaws they do not have, confessing to crimes for which they're not guilty.

Question for Senator McCain: Have you ever relayed to the American people in good faith an intelligence analysis which later proved inaccurate?

MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, SCOTT SHANE and ALAIN DELAQUÉRIÈRE (NYT) - FBI agent passionate, hard-charging bulldog

Being a hard-charging bulldog is good when you're investigating real crimes like murder, rape, grand theft. It's not so good when you are investigating non-crimes, or the endless pseudo-crimes ("wire fraud", "mail fraud", etc) which the FBI seems to have invented in order to distract itself from the harder work of investigating real crimes.

Michal Vasser (Haaretz) - A message to Israel's leaders

Nir Hasson (Haaretz) - Israeli peace activist: Hamas leader Jabari killed amid talks on long-term truce

Netanyahu did not have to initiate this escalation. It was an escalation of choice, not of necessity.

Karam Nachar's twitter feed

Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time...

next post: 2/8/2013


posted by KR at 12:24 AM

 
Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - To Honor the Value of a Single Life: The First Murder

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - On the whole

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - My life and welcome to it

Sasha Said - Tax Code Insanity: Couple Living Below Poverty Line Faces Higher Tax Rate Than Romney

Diane (Cab Drollery) - Granny Bird Award: Michael McGough

Violet Socks (Reclusive Leftist) - my vote tomorrow

Digby (Hullabaloo) - Blue America Scorecard

The election euphoria fades quickly, doesn't it? It brings back a flood of memories from 2000, 2004 & 2008.

2000 actually feels like a different election, in a different country. I thought, in 2000, the Jack Welch-led NBC operation, and the Michael Kelly-led center-left establishment, had been extremely biased against Gore. One example: Russert put Perot on MTP the weekend before the election, and Perot endorsed Bush, which arguably was fine, but Perot cited a ton of scurrilous allegations against Gore (including, unbelievably, that he sold his Gulf War vote for 20 minutes of extra TV time), which was not so fine. After Florida was called early, I eagerly turned to Russert for schadenfreude reasons. Obviously, the night didn't turn out how I wanted. That election turned out to be very important for policy reasons, but 12 years later, with Kelly gone, Russert gone, Carnahan gone, Wellstone gone, Holbrooke gone, all taken too soon, the personal grudges feel ridiculous, small, and slightly obscene. 12 years later, the Jeff Immelt-led NBC operation is considerably different. In 2000, Harold Ford was supposed to be what Barack Obama became. Different election, different country. Time to bury the hatchet.

2004, OTOH, feels very similar. I was just as complacent as Republicans this cycle that Kerry would be elected in 2004, especially after Zell Miller's IMO over-the-top "Spitballs" speech. Can't remember why. What I remember policy-wise was that Iraq had a successful election in early 2005, violence was down, and that was an excellent time to get out of the country. For reasons I never understood, we stayed, and the situation got worse and worse, until the surge, the Anbar awakening, and Gen. Petraeus's reaching out to the Sunni community.

The 2008 election felt very different compared to 2012, but the election aftermath feels very similar. In particular, it seems very important to remember what ended the Obama honeymoon the last time around:

1)  Operation Cast Lead. I understand the importance of Sandy, jobs & income, and tax & spending  arithmetic. But still, I would feel *much* better about Obama's second term if he made an immediate  trip to both Israel and Pakistan, and got a much-needed earful from a broad cross-section of the Israeli, Palestinian and Pakistani people.

Nick Pinto (Village Voice) - Devastation and a Sense of Abandonment in the Rockaways

2) Drone Strikes in Pakistan. What was so infuriating about those first Obama-authorized drone strikes in 2009 was not just that they killed many people, but we were told that there were zero civilian casualties, which indicated that the national security establishment was either lying to us or lying to themselves, or both, and that war in Afghanistan under Obama would be similar to war in Iraq under Bush: technologically impressive, inspiringly brave and hard-working troops and officers, strategically clueless, hostile and indifferent to ethical questioning.

Reuters - Obama victory infuriates Pakistani drone victims

Reuters (NBC News) - 'I remember all of the pain again': Obama victory infuriates Pakistani drone victims

The 28-year-old Pakistani accuses the president of robbing him of his father, three brothers and a nephew, all killed in a U.S. drone aircraft attack a month after Obama first took office.

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - 'Every Person Is Afraid of the Drones': The Strikes' Effect on Life in Pakistan

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - The Targeted-Killing Czar's Powerful Case Against the Drone War

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - Obama Apologists Are Defending a Parallel-Universe Drone War

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - How a 17-Year-Old Changed the Politics of 'Stop and Frisk'

I have one slightly different perspective on the drone war, which is that terrorism in Kashmir, and terrorism in India more generally, does seem to have declined dramatically in recent years, and it is possible, even probable, that drone strikes are one of the reasons why. But even granting that possibility, I think the drone strikes are horrible policy, and a horrible mistake, both ethically and strategically. They provide some extremely minor tactical successes in the short term, in exchange for long-term strategic defeat and ethical nightmares.

IPT News - Senior Terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri Killed

Reuters (NBC News) - Pakistan's poor to be paid to send kids to school, officials announce on 'Malala Day'

Wikipedia - Attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi

Gretawire (Fox News) - SOS HRC - REMARKS AT THE SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND AWARDS IN HONOR OF AMBASSADOR CHRIS STEVENS

3) The insane and over-the-top vetting of Obama appointees, resulting in the unnecessary and unjustified loss of Daschle, and many other good people, as well as immense amount of wasted time and effort, and delay in filling needed jobs. I remember someone saying what was going on was not so much *vetting* of appointees as an *audit* of every aspect of every appointee's life. This is good for snoops and busybodies, and the type of golfer who makes the book of rules his best club, not so good for anyone who wants to get, quickly & efficiently and with minimum fuss, the right people in the right jobs, focused on their jobs, and doing good work for the American people.

An excellent Evan Thomas article on this topic:

Evan Thomas (Newsweek) - The Enemy Of the Good

One of the best things the Bush administration did in early 2001 was that they refused to be mau-maued into replacing Christine Todd Whitman, even though she had had SS tax problems for her nanny. Such minor tax violations are not ideal, but they are not criminal or malicious, and they should be treated like speeding tickets. Pay the back taxes, perhaps pay a fine,  and move on. The Bushies did, however, remove Linda Chavez, and IMO they should not have done so. We need to focus more on what our leaders are actually doing in their actual jobs, and have a sense of perspective, not get sidetracked by these minor, often unintentional, infractions and pseudo-scandals.

The Petraeus resignation brings back those 2008 memories. I strongly believe that Petraeus should not have had to resign, and am angrier at the FBI for snooping into Petraeus's emails than I am at Petraeus. Their justification for doing so ("possible leaks of classified information and possible security breaches") seems to me flimsy and insubstantial, using big and scary words to cover up a lack of substance. My belief is that alleged concern over leaks of classified information (and the concern is very selective) has just become an excuse for power-hungry people to scare and exert control over others. Abuse of government secrecy, and not just patriotism, has become the last refuge of a scoundrel.

The Obama administration's war on whistle blowers is a consequence of this unnecessary and unjustified reverence for classified information, it is a travesty and a disgrace, and it should end.

Kevin Gosztola (Firedoglake) - Bradley Manning Indicates He Would Accept Responsibility for Transferring Information to WikiLeaks

4) Steadfast and stubborn Republican opposition, combined with lack of policy success, possibly due to lack of policy boldness.

I think it's fair to say Democrats were obsessed in 2008-2009 with getting Republican validation and cover for their policies, so that they couldn't be held solely responsible by voters. They didn't get it. But obviously that setback was also an opportunity, because if their policies succeeded, they would get more credit. The Democrats, however, were not thinking in terms of doing whatever it took to get policy success. At every stage, they did as little as possible. The stimulus was big enough to prevent depression, but not big enough to produce prosperity. The health care bill expanded coverage, but only starting in 2014. Democratic timidity produced a weak recovery, with Obama getting a grudging re-election by the American people, despite both they and he knowing he didn't deserve it, at least on economic issues.

Economic growth can come from conservative sources (corporate tax cuts, military spending) or liberal ones (green energy, universal pre-K and early childhood education). The point is not that to succeed, you must support liberal policies. The point is that your policies, whether liberal, conservative, or moderate, must succeed. You must work out what policies you think will really work, and then you must act with with the courage of your convictions, no matter how far outside the bounds of conventional wisdom your best judgements may take you.

One possible deal: pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, in exchange for greater ability of US investors to buy Mexican & South/Central American real estate?

JILLIAN RAYFIELD (Salon) - Harry Reid: Senate will pursue filibuster reform

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Falling Into the Chasm (Oct. 2010)

This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm — but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.

Matt Stoller (Salon) - The progressive case against Obama

The key numbers mistake the Romney team seems to have made is actually quite non-ideological and understandable, and even intellectually interesting: namely, that if a conservative Republican becomes a conservative Independent, nothing important changes in terms of voter behavior, but *if* you weight your poll on the basis of party ID, your poll results will change dramatically. Hopefully, the quite subtle and fascinating intellectual error that the Romney team made will be motivation for Republicans to rediscover the delights - and, occasionally, the importance - of playful, rigorous, academic-style thinking. And perhaps, rediscover a little more affection for the academics who keep such thinking alive.

John Dickerson (Slate) - Campaign Numbers

Matthew Yglesias (Slate) - The trouble with being rich

The problem with being rich is that everyone stops telling you what they think and starts trying to get your money. You necessarily end up living your life in a fog of flattery and misinformation. And worse, because Americans genuinely admire rich people even people who aren't flattering you tend to give undue deference to your bad ideas.

My main disappointment with the Romney campaign is that they did not commission a scathing anti-Democrat reggae anthem, "Gimme Hope Obama". It seems to me that with lyrics like "For every bad move that this Obama makes he got a good explanation", and "maybe pressure can make Obama see how everybody could a live as one",  Romney would've been a shoo-in.

At the very least, Romney could have commisioned a Toby Keith song with lyrics like "it's the Republican way" and "Stays in Mexico".

I also agree with the commenter who said future candidates should seriously consider changing their name to Bronco Bama,  a name good for at least 20 electoral votes.

Not much schadenfreude here, except it is sort of grimly amusing to see so many Republicans suddenly discovering Chris Christie is fat.

There actually is one very nice lesson from the 2012 election: Every single person who convinced themselves they could just go on stage in front of tens of millions of people and wing it, no matter how talented and accomplished they were, had their ass handed to them. This includes Obama & Eastwood, of course, but it also includes James Sinegal, a man I greatly admire, but who didn't prepare for his convention speech, and it showed. Clinton did ad-lib during his speech, but he ad-libbed only after having spent weeks and weeks in preparation. There is a big difference in ad-libbing after having done full preparation, and ad-libbing as a substitute for full-preparation.

Ezra Klein (Bloomberg) - What Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get About Responsibility

Josh Barro (Bloomberg) - Six Things We’ll Never Know About Mitt Romney

Drew Westen (NYT) - America’s Leftward Tilt?

“The only way to cut the deficit is to put Americans back to work.” That message beat the toughest austerity message by over 30 points.

Dean Baker (CEPR) - the Interest Burden of the Debt Is Near a Post-War Low

Dean Baker (Guardian) - Saving the Planet or 'Fixing' the Debt

Imagine that we listen to our Campaign to Fix the Debt friends and find a way to pay down the debt while neglecting any steps to curb global warming. 

We’ll be able to tell our children and grandchildren that they don’t have to pay interest on government bonds (they also won’t be receiving interest on government bonds, but let’s not complicate matters with logic) as they evacuate their homes ahead of flood waters. Undoubtedly they will be very thankful for this great benefit that we will have bestowed on them

I think it's fair to say there's an overwhelming mandate in this election for policies that lower unemployment, and increase take-home pay. Advocates of austerity should state how much their austerity would cost in terms of jobs and take-home pay, and state why it is an acceptable cost for a very minor, nebulous benefit. The only economic reason to cut deficits are to 1) lower interest rates 2) make people feel better, and 1) interest rates are already historically low 2) As a pick-me-up, I prefer a walk to cutting Social Security.

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Floating Exchange Rates Protective Against Financial Attacks

It seems to me pretty clear that people who set up the Eurozone & the ECB were guilty of economic malpractice. My belief is that Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy should get out already, take the big financial hit, then watch their economies recover like magic in the ensuing years, but I accept that the right thing to do might be to muddle along.

The importance of floating exchange rates is also why I was somewhat appalled by Yglesias's musing that Romney's military/corporate Keynesianism might be better for the economy short-term than Obama's austerity. Maybe true, but a Romney/Ryan victory would also legitimize Austrian/gold-standard/fixed-exchange-rate ideas, increasing the chance of policy disasters like the Euro or the Argentine Currency Board.

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Soup Kitchens Caused the Great Depression

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Disasters and Politics

let me just take a moment to flag an issue others have been writing about: the weird Republican obsession with killing FEMA. . .It’s really hard to think of a public service less likely to be suitable for privatization, and given the massive inequality of impacts by state, it really really isn’t block-grantable.

AP (Herald-Tribune) - Florida election status: still counting

Ted Barlow (LIGHTBULB JOKE WAREHOUSE) - Obstructing the Voter

NOTICE: PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO VOTE NEXT WEDNESDAY. 

If you believe that you are qualified to vote, your polling station is the OLD ABANDONED RAILROAD STATION on 115th Street. 

BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO VOTE, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ALL OUTSTANDING FINES, WARRANTS, TAXES, UTILITY BILLS, OVERDUE LIBRARY BOOKS AND RENTALS, AND POTENTIAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

NO FATTYS. 

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) - A Case Study of Republicans vs. Democrats on FEMA

At a deep ideological level, Republicans believe that federal bureaucracies are inherently inept, so when Republicans occupy the White House they have no interest in making the federal bureaucracy work. And it doesn't.

I find myself less interested in issues of money, especially Wall Street issues, and more interested in issues of time, space & energy. I feel if we make good use if our time, space and energy, money matters will take care of themselves, while if we don't make good use of our real resources, no amount of budget balancing, fiscal responsibility or neatly filled out spreadsheets will be able to mask the reality on the ground.

 John C. Bogle - Don't Count On It! The Perils Of Numeracy (2002)

In terms of making good use of my time, space and energy, I feel the best thing I can do is spend less time (but not quite no time) on the Internet, so I'm planning for the next post to be a ways away. My contact info is up top, for anyone who wants to reach me before then. Let's hope things turn out as well as they can, for all of us.

next post: 2/8/2013

posted by KR at 4:39 PM

 
Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerilla) - Occupy Sandy

Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - Against Voting: "As long as we live, we shall have to live together with ourselves"

My opinion is, I believe in voting, even in non-swing states, and even though voting makes me complicit in a system which contains great evils, because I believe there is a greater chance of a good things happening, if me and people like me vote, than if we don't. Who can deny that the Indian state is an institution of great evil, or at very least an institution with great evils? Yet Gandhi did not think it a waste of time to create such an institution. Who can deny that the Jim Crow south was a system of great evil, or at least a system with great evils? Yet MLK did not think it a waste of time to try to join the system, and fight for the right to vote in such a system.

It seems to me worth pointing out that the election is very close, and could easily turn out either way. Nate Silver has an instructive analogy:

Mr. Obama is not a sure thing, by any means. It is a close race. His chances of holding onto his Electoral College lead and converting it into another term are equivalent to the chances of an N.F.L. team winning when it leads by a field goal with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter. . .

"Leading by a field goal with 3 minutes to play" does not seem to me either a cause for celebration among Democrats, or for despair among Republicans. It's a close game, and anything could happen, depending on the free choices of free individuals.

I feel a bit guilty for my somewhat gloaty, sneering "teach rich people a badly needed lesson" line in the previous post, so let me apologize for it. The urge to gloat also caused me to abandon one of my beliefs, Roublen's Iron Law of Political Mulishness, which is that any time you set out to "teach people a lesson", the lesson they learn will not be the lesson you intended to teach. "Send a message to rich people" would have been a better phrase than "Teach a lesson to rich people".

One thought on the moderate desire for an end to bitterness and polarization: There can only be an end to polarization when there is a broad agreement on the ends, and principled disagreement on the means. For example, when both sides agree all Americans should have health care (and not just emergency room care), but Democrats want government health care, and Republicans want insurance company health care, there is room for compromise, and no need for polarization. But when you are arguing whether people deserve health care at all, you can't really compromise: you have to fight it out.

Once you have accepted the right of people to have a seat at the table, and are arguing about the quality of the chairs, you can have an end to bitterness and polarization. When people are fighting for their very right to have a seat, however, the fight must go on, though we must try to to make it a clean fight, without malice, bitterness, hatred and evil.

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 1:58 PM

 
Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - Horrible

Arthur Silber (The Sacred Moment) - The Endless Wounds of War, and a Remarkable Story of Hope (2004)

TERRY KREPEL (Media Matters) - Fox's Own Experts Reject Fox Narrative That Obama Deliberately Abandoned Americans In Libya

Eric Boehlert (Huffington Post) - Benghazi

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) - Frum endorsement of Romney

"If Obama wins, congressional Republicans will go completely ape and destroy the country. They will deliberately tank the economy and then impeach the president. Therefore, we have to give into them and turf Obama out of office."

It's appalling that people are seriously making this argument. . .No country can survive with this attitude. If congressional Republicans are truly a destructive and irrational force in American politics. . .the answer is to fight them, not to surrender to them.
 

If Frum is obliged to vote for Romney in order for strong Republicans to not be angry, is he also obliged to buy into their beliefs about Obama's treasonous behavior in Benghazi?

There are many reasons to vote for Obama, but surely among the more satisfying reasons (though not the best, or most persuasive) is to teach the rich and powerful people of America and the world a badly needed lesson, that there are things money can't buy and power can't seize, and the American Presidency is one of them.

next post: 12/14/2012

posted by KR at 9:01 AM

 
Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - With Apologies for the Interruption...

Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - Paths of Resistance (I): The Refusal to Identify and Reject Evil

Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - Paths of Resistance (II): Monsters and Their Sycophants

Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - Accomplices to Murder

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerilla) - Orionid meteor shower

Sasha Said - Tax Code Insanity: Couple Living Below Poverty Line Faces Higher Tax Rate Than Romney

Andrew Sullivan (Daily Dish) - The Moral Case For Obama

The progressive critiques of Obama are definitely worth reading, but are fundamentally unconvincing in their argument that before building a new politics, you must first tear the existing politics down. I think the overwhelming lesson of human experience is that it's easy to tear down, not so easy to build, and you don't reject the existing order until you have something better to put in its place.

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Pointing Toward Prosperity?

Mr. Romney’s “plan” is a sham. It’s a list of things he claims will happen, with no description of the policies he would follow to make those things happen. . .if describing what you want to see happen without providing any specific policies to get us there constitutes a “plan,” I can easily come up with a one-point plan that trumps Mr. Romney any day. Here it is: Every American will have a good job with good wages. . .Mr. Obama may not have an exciting economic plan, but, if he is re-elected, he will get to implement a health reform that is the biggest improvement in America’s safety net since Medicare. Mr. Romney doesn’t have an economic plan at all, but he is determined not just to repeal Obamacare but to impose savage cuts in Medicaid. So never mind all those bullet points. Think instead about the 45 million Americans who either will or won’t receive essential health care, depending on who wins on Nov. 6.

Freddie (L'Hôte) - arts of the possible

Freddie (L'Hôte) - you're either with us or against us

"The number of US troops in Afghanistan is twice that of when Obama took office. And his administration has dramatically expanded the breadth of our campaign of assassination and death from above, without judicial or political review." 

"I want my country to stop killing innocent people. And the innocent people we kill the most, these days, are Muslim. And the policy of the Obama administration has expanded the zone in which we kill innocent Muslims, they have shown no interest in stopping killing innocent Muslims, and in fact their campaign constantly brags about the drone program which kills innocent Muslims." 

"Now that it is the general election, some people say "you should have primaried him!" Well, back in primary season, the idea of primarying him was seen as the ultimate in unserious posturing."

My opinion is that it's perfectly legitimate to talk about these issues now, even if it increases the chances of Obama being replaced by a policymaker worse on these issues. However, in my opinion, primary season is the best time to talk about these issues. Obama won the 2012 primary with less than 7 million votes. Even in 2008, he won the primary with less than 20 million votes. That's less than 10% of the American electorate. It's not impossible that 25% of the electorate supports a dovish position, and that if 40% of those people vote, they could vote for the more dovish candidate.

I feel strongly motivated to vote for Obama in this election. Obama opposed starting a war in Iraq, and eventually ended it. Romney supported starting a war in Iraq, and criticized Obama for ending it. Obama supports ending the war in Afghanistan in 2014, Romney does not. Romney's victory would mean a triumphant return to power of the same people who misled the American people in order to start a war in Iraq.

I agree ending drone strikes are important, as is fairness for Bradley Manning, as is protesting not ending the war sooner in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are legitimate reasons not to vote for Obama. But I do not see how not voting for Obama increases the chances of ending drone strikes, or fairness for Bradley Manning, or ending the war sooner in Afghanistan.

In Indian politics, there's something called a Common Minimum Programme, "a document outlining the minimum objectives of a coalition government in India". This, for example, is the CMP for the 2004-2009 government. What I'd be interested in is what a CMP for the American left would be, and then would be interested in getting primary candidates who support the CMP in as many elections as possible. I see little reason to believe they would win or come close to winning, but IMO it's worth a try.

One comment on the aftermath of the murders in Benghazi. Please go back and listen to broadcasts the day after 9/11. You will hear government officers saying so many things that aren't true, you won't be able to count them. Among other things: It was stated as fact that the fourth plane was headed to the White House.

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 2:34 AM

 
Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - Accomplices to Murder

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerilla) - Orionid meteor shower

Sasha Said - Tax Code Insanity: Couple Living Below Poverty Line Faces Higher Tax Rate Than Romney

Ben Carson M.D. - America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great

Carson's book is fairly conservative, and I didn't agree with a lot of it, but it is shot through with good passages. My personal favorite:

". . .If we really want to eradicate poverty, we should allocate significant resources and personnel toward providing education and opportunity for the poor. And if we are to provide assistance to our able-bodied citizens, it should be attached to a requirement for work or acquisition of education and/ or skills. Not only will this improve self-esteem, it will prepare those individuals to participate in an increasingly sophisticated workforce. Work projects could also contribute to the maintenance of our national infrastructure and beautification, if the right kinds of jobs are assigned as a requirement for benefits. 

If they have to work anyway, many people will put real effort into finding the kind of job they want as opposed to collecting unemployment benefits and being assigned to work they consider undesirable. Some conservatives would say that we should leave such people on their own to sink or swim because we cannot afford to keep supporting them, while some liberals would say that these people already have enough problems and that it would be unfair to require anything of them that would add to their stress. I reject both of those positions. . ."

There is also a powerful parable about the importance of political compromise:

"The lives of some close friends of ours were destroyed due to lack of compromise. The husband felt that he had a special gift of singing and used a great deal of the family’s resources to pay for voice lessons. The wife was in the health-care profession and worked overtime to take care of the family needs, and she strongly disagreed with the way her husband was “squandering” the money. In his opinion, however, he was “investing” in a wonderful future. They were unable to resolve their differences, and one night I was awakened by a phone call informing me that the husband, wife, and one of their children had been killed in an accident. The wife, very distraught, had been driving very fast and had plowed the car into the back of a tractor-trailer truck, killing everyone. This needless tragedy could have been avoided if all were in a better frame of mind, willing to have some reasonable give-and-take. In the same way, many of the problems facing our nation today could be resolved if only the two sides were able to reason together and compromise when necessary."

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 11:00 PM

 
A must-read post by a friend of Juan Cole in Benghazi:

"There was no request for increased security at the Benghazi consulate. There was a request for the embassy in Tripoli, but that would have had no impact at all on the attack; Tripoli and Benghazi are 400 miles apart as the crow flies, and 650 or so by road."

 Even after a decade where we went to war on behalf of WMD that did not exist, the ability of self-confident, righteously indignant people to create their own alternate reality, and to have the polite, centrist, non-partisan, establishment press play along, is still astonishing to me. It seems to me of fundamental importance that Paul Ryan must be informed there was no request for increased security at Benghazi, that by implying there was in a televised debate he misled the American people, and that he should be given a chance to undo that damage.

This is yet another thread connecting Romney/Ryan to the Bush presidency - the way they have conducted their campaign suggests that if elected, then just as in the Bush presidency, we will be governed by pseudo-facts instead of facts, truthiness instead of truth.

(via Amanda Marcotte) Greta Christina - Bad news, good news, and asking for help

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 11:22 PM

 
Sasha Said - Tax Code Insanity: Couple Living Below Poverty Line Faces Higher Tax Rate Than Romney

My main reaction to the 2nd debate? Gov. Romney needs to clarify whether he supports health care for all Americans, or not. If health care for 100% of children and 98% of adults in Massachusetts is a good thing, why doesn't he propose a similar policy for all the children and adults in America? Massachusetts was only able to afford the policy because of federal money, so any system of universal healthcare, no matter how state-driven, will require a large federal commitment. You either support the federal government commitment to universal healthcare, or you don't. Romney needs to decide where he stands.

Another biggie was immigration, and even there I don't know where Romney stands. He criticizes Obama for not passing comprehensive immigration reform, when he doesn't actually seem to support comprehensive immigration reform. It's pretty bizarro world.

However, Romney landed some solid blows on jobs, and to his credit he didn't let the issue go, even when Obama's replies were adequate. Obama survived on the jobs issue, but didn't do much more than survive. It seems to me that there is a lot of room for him to improve in this area. Mike Konczal has a must-read piece on Romney's 5-point plan.

Mike Konczal (American Prospect) - Full Employment Is the Best Social Program

Less to Romney's credit were the Libya attacks. Given the scope of government failure on national security during the Bush presidency, failures which Romney never seems to have lifted a finger to stop, and failures he has never honestly reckoned with, his harsh, opportunistic, less-than-honest attacks on Obama seemed to me to indicate a lapse of character on Romney's part. The fact that the GOP establishment never even seemed to consider the possibility of rallying around the President after 9/11/12, even given the extraordinary support President Bush received after 9/11, seems to me to not reflect very well on them.

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 9:01 PM

 
Josh Marshall (TPM) - Pin Down on Taxes

TPM is pretty damning on the difference between Debate Romney and Web Site Romney. This is what's on Romney web site, if he doesn't change it:

• Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
• Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains
• Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
• Eliminate the Death Tax
• Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
• Cut the corporate rate to 25 percent
• Strengthen and make permanent the R&D tax credit
• Switch to a territorial tax system
• Repeal the corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)

posted by KR at 12:56 PM

 
2 (small) points on the debate:

1. My initial impression was not nearly as negative on Obama as most other people's. However, I accept other people's impressions were mostly sincere, and not just spin and conformity. If the debate was on jobs, health care, public finance, private finance,  education & energy, I think Obama did fairly well on health care, public finance & education, less well on jobs, private finance & energy.

2. I find it nauseating when people say things like "Obama looked down" or "Mitt Romney talked faster", though I accept that some people do attach importance to such matters. Nevertheless, I tried to search for some (IMO), non-bullshit criticism of Obama, and here are my best tries:

• Obama's story on jobs was "we were in a ditch, we've partially dug ourselves out, we have a long way to go", but he offered no specifics about how big the ditch was, how much we've dug ourselves out, how far we have to go, or when we'll get there.
• Obama should have used Martin Wolf's arresting statistic: Private-sector borrowing in 2007 was *29%* of GDP. People have a nagging suspicion that the Bush economy was a house of cards waiting to collapse, but they should have a better understanding of why it was a house of cards, and why it collapsed.
• I would have wanted something like this from Obama: "Corporate profits and stock prices have recovered, but jobs and wages have not, partly because corporations have made their numbers more by cost-cutting than by increased sales. However, corporations have reached the limits of the cost-cutting strategy, and if we stick with the program, jobs and wages will go in the same direction as profits and stock prices have."
• I heard *nothing* in Romney's performance which differentiated him from George W. Bush at all. Romney seems to believe W. Bush was a wonderful, marvelous, ginchy President, and he will carry out the same policies, for the same reasons, as W. Bush. In terms of understanding why Bushism failed, and how to prevent similar failures in the future, my assessment of Mitt Romney was that he had learned nothing, and forgotten everything.
• Mocking failed endeavors for green energy seems to me unusually cynical and harmful. The attempts may fail, but they're still worth making, as long as the price tag is reasonable. See Arthur C. Clarke's short story, Death and the Senator.
• There's a difference between not getting bogged down in details, and just plain hiding something. "I'm going to take from the rich and give to the poor" is legitimately nonspecific. "I'm going to take from the rich and give a glossy pony with a shiny new purple bow to the poor" is illegitimately evasive, because you're being specific about the benefits, but deliberately vague about the costs. Romney is not sparing us the details, he's denying us the truth.

Not particularly relevant, but a line I really like from Samuel Brittan's review of Joe Stiglitz's book:

If you think of income or wealth as a pie to be divided up by a central authority, like a mother cutting a cake for her children, then there is indeed a presumption in favour of equality. If you believe in some version of the entitlement theory, in which what each person receives from others is a reward for services rendered, then it is redistributive measures that have to be justified. If either theory were carried to its logical conclusion, we should have a hell on earth.

also good: Bob Park's comment on the Romney tape:

I first heard the Romney calculus many years ago in Peru. A government official explained to me that: "Most of the population doesn't count; they pay no taxes and receive no government services." There was a revolution.   

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 9:23 PM

 
Arthur Silber (Once Upon a Time...) - A Note

Natasha (Suburban Guerrilla) - Why don’t you give all your money to Third World children?

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - The fine print

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - Tales of the Fed

odd man out (Suburban Guerrilla) - Republicans block jobs-for-vets bill

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - The bills keep on coming

Diane (Cab Drollery) - Welcome

Diane (Cab Drollery) - Things That Make Me Ill

Diane (Cab Drollery) - Granny Bird Award

Violet Socks (Reclusive Leftist) - Foreign policy

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NYT) - War Wounds

Lollardfish (Daily Kos) - My cousin Chris Stevens, and hope

Kate Quigley & Abigail Pesta (Daily Beast) - Sister of Former SEAL Glen Doherty Says He Always ‘Loved Adventure’

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks at transfer of remains ceremony for Americans killed in Libya (Transcript)

Anouar Majid (Informed Comment) - Fury Unbound: the Muslim Dilemma

Islam Your Islam

No one can pretend that as a living tradition, Islam does not require fundamental changes, as fundamental as the purging of the caste system (still incomplete) and widow-murder from Hinduism, as fundamental as the purging of eternal damnation (still incomplete) from Christianity, as fundamental as the repudiation of large portions of the Old Testament. The spirit we require is similar to the last paragraph of Orwell's England Your England:

. . .Nor need we fear that as the pattern changes life in England will lose its peculiar flavour. . .In whatever shape England emerges from the war it will be deeply tinged with the characteristics that I have spoken of earlier. The intellectuals who hope to see it Russianized or Germanized will be disappointed. The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies. It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture. . .England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same.

Søren Schmidt (Informed Comment) - Syria

Juan Cole (Informed Comment) - Netanyahu in 1992: Iran close to having nuclear bomb

MJ Rosenberg - The Anti-Semitic Attacks On Maureen Dowd

Andrew Sulivan (Daily Dish) - Beyond The Campaign, The Country

Andrew J. Bacevich (Daily Beast) - Bacevich: What the Arab Movie Riots Mean for U.S. Foreign Policy

Excerpts from the Barack Obama speech:

. . .We don't think the government can solve all of our problems, but we don't think the government is the source of all of our problems - any more than are welfare recipients or corporations or unions or immigrants or gays or any other group we're told to blame for our troubles because America, we understand that this democracy is ours.

We, the people recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together . . .  

. . .I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. The times have changed – and so have I.

I'm no longer just a candidate. I'm the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn't return. I've shared the pain of families who've lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who've lost their jobs. If the critics are right that I've made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them. And while I'm proud of what we've achieved together, I'm far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, "I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.". . . 

. . .I don't know what party these men and women belong to. I don't know if they'll vote for me. But I know that their spirit defines us. They remind me, in the words of Scripture, that ours is a "future filled with hope." . . . 

. . .I need you to vote this November.

America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now. Yes, our path is harder – but it leads to a better place. Yes our road is longer – but we travel it together. We don't turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up. We draw strength from our victories, and we learn from our mistakes, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, knowing that Providence is with us, and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless these United States.

I think one thing not commented on in the Obama speech was that he was careful to distinguish between 2 different things:1) his concrete, modest promises for what he knows he can achieve if granted the powers of the presidency 2) the broader aspiration to end unnecessary war, homelessness, lack of appropriate health care, and unemployment, aspirations for which we'll have a friend and partner in the White House if Obama is elected, but which are beyond the powers of a President to achieve, and can only be achieved by the American people as a whole.

 Ezra Klein (Wonkblog) - What Romney doesn’t understand about personal responsibility

Andrew Sullivan (Daily Dish) - Romney's Fatal Word: "Victims"

MoJo News Team - Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video

. . .Romney: [Laughs.] Well, I wrote a book that lays out my view for what has to happen in the country. And people who are fascinated by policy will read the book. We have a website that lays out white papers on a whole series of issues that I care about. I have to tell you, I don't think this will have a significant impact on my electability. Um, I wish it did. . .

Compare that to Bill Clinton, who for all his faults, has never been afraid to go into the details and honestly engage (on policy issues!) with the American people.

A Bit Of Fry And Laurie - The Busker and the Toff

James Fallows (Atlantic) - An Acquired Taste

. . .Neel said he hoped for something else, too. "I don't have any fears about his performance in a Bush debate. He has a first-rate group working with him. They will be very disciplined and will have everything thought out. But what I would like to see is for people to be able to look at him and -- without hearing anything specifically that he's saying -- think, 'You know, I like that guy. That guy makes me feel comfortable.'"  

I kept a straight face as Neel said this, but he had identified the major liability of Gore's mature style. I can imagine that many people would respect Gore, or fear him, based on the way he has learned to destroy opponents. It is hard for me to imagine anyone's watching his technically strongest performances -- against Gephardt, Dukakis, Perot, Kemp, Bradley -- and thinking, You know, I like that guy.  

I feel especially qualified to talk about the emotional impact of Gore's rhetorical style because of a recent concentrated exposure to it. In April, I spent several days in Nashville, at the Television News Archive at Vanderbilt University, viewing dozens of hours of Gore's speeches, press conferences, and debates in chronological order from 1987 into this year. The image that kept coming to mind was the physical transformation in the Michael Corleone character as played by Al Pacino through the three movies of the Godfather, saga: in the beginning a clear-eyed young idealist; in the end a heavy-lidded, stone-faced man of respect who has outgrown illusions and faced up to the responsibility of doing what is necessary. . . 

. . .Ours is a culture that admires unforced natural talent -- Bill Clinton rather than Bob Dole, John McEnroe rather than Ivan Lendl -- but feels reassured by the idea of steady, dutiful effort from those in prominent positions. . .

. . .In his public presentations Gore has done worst when caught by surprise -- just like most people except true naturals. (Remember that Bill Clinton ad-libbed his way through the opening section of an address to a joint session of Congress when the wrong speech showed up on the TelePrompTer. If Gore had been at the lectern, an assistant says, "that would have been a very short speech."). . .

By quoting this I don't mean to criticize Gore (who I don't think gets enough credit for giving the most effective convention speech in modern history, as well as other great speeches in concession, warning against war with Iraq, and after Abu Graibh), but to point to something I thought was really true: I don't think Gore was very good in his debates with Bush, possibly because he attached too much importance to them, and so was unable to be natural. Whatever the reason was, I found it hard to watch the debates, because I was a great admirer of Gore, yet found his performance unappealing.

Kerry, OTOH, I thought was very good in his debates with Bush, and looking back I'm not sure whether Kerry could or should have done anything differently in order to win.

I think it's fair to say that one of Bill Clinton's weaknesses was a belief, deep down, that he could work & talk himself into and out of anything. Possibly, he only gave up this belief after the 2008 primary, when it became clear that no amount of political genius could compensate for a campaign that had not paid sufficient attention to delegate logistics, was forced to explain away an Iraq war vote, and perhaps faced an inexorable tide of hope and change. But freed of this delusion of invincibility, it seems to me he's become an even better politician in the years since then, as he uses his limited, but still impressive, powers to the best of his ability.

Ta-Nehisi Coates (Atlantic) - Fear of a Black President

. . .Just beneath the humor lurked a resonant pain, the scars of history, an aching doubt rooted in the belief that “they” would never accept us. And so in our Harlems and Paradise Valleys, we invoked a black presidency the way a legion of 5-foot point guards might invoke the dunk—as evidence of some great cosmic injustice, weighty in its import, out of reach.  

And yet Spud Webb lives. . .

Charles P. Pierce (Esquire) - Life Under Romneycare

. . .His primary political necessity has been to lie about his primary political achievement. It has lodged in his campaign a fundamental dementia that has come to affect everything else. . . 

. . .That's why when he posed for his portrait, the one that now hangs in the important office where the important people can see it while they wait for their important meetings, he made sure it was the blue binder with the caduceus on it that everybody noticed. He did not see this future coming. He knew what he wanted people most to remember about his time in that office. 

"You know," says his successor as governor, Deval Patrick, with a canny old statehouse pol's twinkle, "you look at that picture and you know that somewhere in his heart, he's proud of what he did.". . .

2 videos which are worth watching a couple of times before the election, and which cannot be watched too often on the day after the election, because they indicate a bipartisan elite unwillingness to engage with the American masses, on certain issues in which the elite's opinions are indefensible.

 (via Glenn Greenwald) John Cook (Gawker) - Ask the DNC: Is Romney Ready for the Kill List?

 "Because I'm gay! Allright?. . .What the hell is the difference?"

Some people support outlawing LGBT marriages on the admittedly persuasive grounds that "It's Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve". But how come those people never support outlawing December-May marriages on the equally strong grounds that "It's Sam & Alice, not Sam & Marsha"?

A question for Scott Brown: Why is Wall Street giving you all this money? To paraphrase Don Corleone, why do they come to you? Why do you deserve this generosity?

Matthew Yglesias (Think Progress) - Mitt Romney & Abortion

. . .By the time he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, it was already well-established that conservatives are against legal abortion. And when Romney was running, there was no denying that he was in general more conservative than Shannon O’Brien. But the perception that he might be less pro-choice than O’Brien was deadly in the eyes of many otherwise Romney-friendly voters. Consequently, he found himself angrily denying that he was even slightly less pro-choice than O’Brien, and indeed offered what I think is one of the most passionate defenses of abortion rights I’ve ever heard from a male politician.

This is the question Romney is being asked to answer. He seems to have felt quite strongly about this issue in 2002, but then by 2008 claimed to feel quite strongly about it on the other side. . .

 Romney on Abortion - 2002

I honestly don't know why Romney wants to be President, other than personal ambition. Job creation would be a good answer, but it would not be a true one, since he started running for President in 2005, at the height of the housing boom.

Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) - Romney & Debt

quarkstomper (Street Prophets) - We Built That -- Dorothy L. Sayers on The Makers

Philip Bess (The Witherspoon Institute) - Toward a Renewed Culture of Building

2 issues where I disagree with Yglesias:

1) Labor and investment income

2) Crop insurance

I'm not so sure of my position on labor and investment income, but when it comes to crop insurance, I feel fairly sure that Yglesias is not addressing some basic reasons why crop insurance makes more sense than web advertising insurance.

What are they? I guess it can wait for next time.

next post: 12/14/2012


posted by KR at 6:00 PM

 
Sasha Said

Sasha Said - Being Forced Into Prostitution

Most of our bills are at least 2-3 months past due. We have less than 1/5 of the July rent saved up. And I’ve been without my bipolar meds for nearly 8 weeks. Stress makes my illness immeasurably worse, so my mental state has been steadily deteriorating.

I’m in the midst of a deep clinical depression and spend most of the day crying and pondering what will happen to our dogs when we’re evicted. Although I’m barely functional, I’ve continued to look for work. However, our job search is made near-hopeless by the fact that we’re in a rural part of Southern California with sky high unemployment and no job opportunities. Not even Walmart and McDonalds are hiring here.

Unfortunately, moving is out of the question. Even if we had the money for the move, first month’s rent, and security deposit–which we obviously don’t–no one would rent to us without proof of income. So we’re stuck here. But that’s what poverty is. Being stuck.

Went down to Social Services again and practically begged them for help. Told them we don’t want to be homeless because we have elderly dogs who will not survive the summer heat in the desert. Told them we’ll take any job. All they said was we could try applying for food stamps. Okay. But food stamps aren’t even enough to cover Balou’s cancer diet and supplements.

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - Gathering Clouds

These clouds are the personal ones, which unfortunately are never far away. I sincerely regret having to do this yet another time (both for your sakes, and for mine), but since I have no other source of income, I don't have a choice if I wish to avoid (or at least postpone) very bad consequences.

I'll have to pay July's rent in less than two weeks; I only have about half of what I need. Then there are the usual additional barebone bills: food, internet, phone, etc. And now, I have three other concerns. The first is my beloved Cyrano, the big orange fellow who has graced my life since he fit in the palm of one hand. I'm pretty sure he's basically okay, but he'll be 14 in August. He should go to the vet ("Only Dr. Mike!," says Cyrano, referring to our wonderfully gentle and sweet caregiver), just to be checked over to be sure nothing requires attention. I can't afford it at the moment. And I suspect Cyrano may have a tooth problem or two, so that may need addressing. I certainly can't afford that.

In addition to my ongoing heart problems (for which I have no means whatsoever of obtaining treatment, now or ever, given the prohibitive costs involved), I myself have two new sources of pain at present. I'd prefer not to go into details; I try not to think about any of it at all, let alone dwell on what it might mean. What's the point? I can't do anything about what the problems may be in terms of curative or preventive treatment, so it's a pointless exercise in self-inflicted psychological pain (in addition to the physical pain). But I suspect that, some time fairly soon, I may need to visit a doctor to at least get some prescription(s) for strong painkillers. As far as then getting the painkillers -- well, I can't afford that either right now. . .

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerilla) - Fund Drive

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - Colorado murders compared to drone strikes & endless, aimless war

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - Nader

One thing I never realized, is that if you blame Nader for 2000, you also have to credit Nader for 2008. More broadly, I think the people who voted for Nader in 2000 voted for him because they perceived it was in their self-interest to do so, and I'm getting increasingly tired of the argument that lefties have an obligation to act in a less self-interested manner than others, on the grounds that they should care more about the baby.

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - Health care bill

I'm willing to believe that the health care bill is a BFD. The one concern is that I only hear emotionally invested Democratic party partisans saying the bill is a BFD. I don't hear potential beneficiaries saying it.

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - Supreme Court Ruling

In 2003, George W. Bush famously said that "the end of major combat operations in Iraq" represented, possibly, "a turning of the tide". I think it's possible that the Roberts ruling, for real, might turn out to be  a turning of the tide. It's the first time I can remember, in recent (post-Nixon) history, that a member of the American elite took an action, on the the most important decision of his worldly career, which was opposed to his self-interest, simply because he thought it was the right thing to do. The only other example I can think of was Hubert Humphrey deliberately choosing not to go public with news that Richard Nixon was possibly sabotaging LBJ's Vietnam negotiations.

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - Ordinary Horrors, Everyday Murders

Arthur Silber (Power of Narrative) - The Nightmare Gathers Force

Susie Madrak - Suburban Guerilla

Violet Socks (Reclusive Leftist) - Welfare for rich people

Violet Socks (Reclusive Leftist) - Danny Boyle is no Zhang Yimou

I actually strongly disagreed with people who thought that the praise of the NHS in the opening ceremony was inappropriate. It seems to me universal health care is a great, civilization-defining accomplishment, fully worthy of praise, glory and rejoicing in a public ceremony, and as we've all seen, it's not an accomplishment that comes very easily.

Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy

Though I do think it might have been going too far to have produced a short film, "Slumdog Healthcare", where a golden-hearted foreign tourist couple showers cheap medicines and health care treatments on an American street urchin who's been slapped and kicked around by a Bob Kelso-type administrator.

Violet Socks (Reclusive Leftist) - Colorado open thread continued, amazing alternate reality edition

Martin Wolf (FT) - Accelerating Private Sector Deleveraging

Mike Konczal (Rortybomb) - The "Pain Funnel" and the Harkin Report on For-Profit Schools

Mike Konczal (Rortybomb) - Merkley plan

Mike Konczal (Rortybomb) - ". . .one set of standards to elite investors and another to struggling homeowners . . ."

Mike Konczal (Rortybomb) - IMF report on balance-sheet recessions

D. MICHAEL LINDSAY (NYT) - A C.E.O.’s Moral Stand

I am strongly in favor of fast and stigma-free bankruptcy. But even I draw the line at not replacing senior management with a new team, which is what most of the airlines have done (i.e. declared bankruptcy, without replacing senior management).

Andrew Sullivan (Daily Dish) - Obama, Warren, Political Rhetoric

The Mitt Romney gaffe, "rich people (pip-pip) have a better culture than poor people (ooga-booga)", or in a more raw form, "rich people are better than poor people", is an important issue, which gets us into fairly deep waters. If you maintain the poverty is the result of outside circumstances, you deny the poor agency, and the ability to make things better. If you maintain poverty is the result of internal choices, you put all the burden of poverty on the poor, and absolve the rich of all obligation and responsibility to make things better.

I'm not sure what the right POV to have is, but one way to look at it is we all have an obligation to do and be our best, we all fall short of the mark, no matter how rich or poor we may be, and we all have an obligation to help other people do and be their best, as well.

The Glenn Loury op-ed on slavery reparations is worth reading, as well.

Glenn C. Loury (NYT) (2000) - It's Futile to Put a Price on Slavery

as well this as this bit from David Copperfield:

. . .'I have been sitting here,' said Steerforth, glancing round the room, 'thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of our coming down, might—to judge from the present wasted air of the place—be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what harm. David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!'

'My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?'

'I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!' he exclaimed. 'I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!'

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. . .'Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us!'

'You have no best to me, Steerforth,' said I, 'and no worst. You are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.'

So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had to betray the confidence of Agnes, but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, 'God bless you, Daisy, and good night!' In my doubt, it did NOT reach them; and we shook hands, and we parted. . .

I should mention that the version of David Copperfield which got to me was not the book, but the 1974 BBC adaptation . Anthony Andrews as Steerforth is sort of magnetic, but it seems to me full of good performances & dialogues.

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) - The Great Recession is All About Leverage, Leverage, Leverage

Anthony Luzzatto Gardner (Bloomberg) - Romney’s Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses

. . .Thanks to leverage, 10 of roughly 67 major deals by Bain Capital during Romney’s watch produced about 70 percent of the firm’s profits. Four of those 10 deals, as well as others, later wound up in bankruptcy. It’s worth examining some of them to understand Romney’s investment style at Bain Capital.

In 1986, in one of its earliest deals, Bain Capital acquired Accuride Corp., a manufacturer of aluminum truck wheels. The purchase was 97.5 percent financed by debt, a high level of leverage under any circumstances. It was especially burdensome for a company that was exposed to aluminum-price volatility and cyclical automotive production.

Casino Capitalism

Forty-to-one leverage is casino capitalism that hugely magnifies gains and losses. Bain Capital wisely chose to flip the company fast . . .

The Luzzato Gardner article gives us one strong reason why Romney is the wrong man for the Presidency, at this time. The need is for a President who understands the importance of deleveraging, and will do everything possible to help Americans deleverage. But Romney's whole career has been built on leverage, leverage & more leverage. To do the things that need to be done, he would need to (implicitly) renounce and (explicitly) reverse the strategies of his class, and his career, and, needless to say, there is nothing in his policies or rhetoric to indicate such a reversal.

David Brooks (NYT) - How Change Happens

. . .The company was in terminal decline before Bain entered the picture, seeing its work force fall from 4,500 to less than 1,000. It faced closure when Romney and Bain, for some reason, saw hope for it in 1993. Bain acquired it, induced banks to loan it money and poured $100 million into modernization, according to Strassel. Bain held onto the company for eight years, hardly the pattern of a looter. Finally, after all the effort, the company, like many other old-line steel companies, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, two years after Romney had left Bain. . .

There seems to me an inaccuracy in Brooks's argument. Just because employment at GST had fallen from 4500 to 1000, does not mean that the company could not have survived indefinitely as a smaller company, if Bain had not loaded it with so much debt and extracted from it so many special dividends. Brooks produces evidence of "decline", but not "terminal decline".

Charles Davis (Glenn Greenwald) - The liberal betrayal of Bradley Manning

Sarah Kliff (Wonkblog) - ‘The world’s most important bake sale:’ One patient’s plan to pay for chemotherapy

It seems to me that if you want a private, market driven health care system which works well, you have to construct a system where the decisions of private agents are based on the marginal cost of an additional unit of health care, with some other way of reimbursing for fixed costs.

Kevin Gosztola (Firedoglake) - The Next Step in Challenging Secrecy in Bradley Manning’s Court Martial

Karam Nachar's twitter feed

Juan Cole (Informed Comment) - Syria

Kofi Annan statement on Syria (Salon)

MJ Rosenberg - On the terrorist murder of Israeli citizens

The murder of Israelis in Bulgaria was an evil act, without justification. I hope the people who planned, ordered and carried out this attack are brought to justice.

My birthday message to President Obama:

Mr. President,
I simply cannot accept the fact that Bradley Manning is being treated as if he's worse than a rapist, worse than a torturer, worse than a domestic abuser, worse than most kinds of murderers. It is a travesty of justice, and you are the one responsible. I plead to you to do something about it, to make the proposed punishment more just and merciful.
Best wishes & Happy Birthday.

How comfortable old people talk about unemployment: "10% unemployment and I can't find anyone! If unemployment was 5%, I'd never get anyone."

Somewhat related to that attitude of an old person a little bit too comfortable with the suffering of the young, my first reaction to the Colorado murders was that I really, really hate it when people adopt the attitude, "If I'm going down, I'm taking all of you down with me." The second reaction was a sense of shame at being a "quiet" person, which is what people often call me. It becomes clear that for many people, perhaps even me, quiet is not a tool to watch or listen more carefully, but a mask to hide things better not left hidden.

The main political decision for me in the past 2 months has been the request from the Democratic establishment to "match or exceed" the level of donations from 2008, as well as requests to volunteer. I've thought about it, and decided to reject the request on donations. I'm giving 1-2% of after tax-income for political donations, split 5 ways (OFA, DNC, DFA, PCCC, Blue America PAC). If that's less than 2008, then maybe I was giving too much in 2008. I feel, as Barney Frank said about Bill Clinton during impeachment, the Democratic establishment is "deserving of fairness, but not of indignation".

a critique of the Democratic establishment worth reading, for the substance, if not for the tone:

Lambert Strether (Naked Capitalism) - "We Never Had The Votes"

The other decision was whether to volunteer for phone banking/canvassing. I'm less sure about this, but have not volunteered for phone banking/canvassing, perhaps on the grounds that I don't like being phone-banked, I don't like being canvassed, and therefore am reluctant to inflict phone calls/door knocks on others. But I'm not so sure about this.

I'd never realized how impressive Michelle Obama's pre-celebrity career was. I think actually this might  have been a political problem for the Obamas, especially in dealing with unemployment, as they found it awkward to relate to people who were not as perfect as them. Even Obama's vices (smoking, cocaine) were cool-kid vices, not loser-kid vices. It seems to me that one of the most significant facts of the Obama presidency is that this President, with all his vaunted eloquence and empathy, has never given a speech specifically addressed to the unemployed, detailing how he would feel and what he would do if he were in their shoes.

Paul Krugman & Bill Clinton are perhaps as different personalities as can be imagined, but they both share one curious and under-appreciated virtue. They occasionally have the ability to explain their opponents' side more logically and more sensibly that their opponents can themselves. Can't think of a specific example for Clinton, but for Krugman I was thinking of the explanation of how to think about the Reagan deficits in Peddling Prosperity, and the explanation of expansionary austerity in End This Depression Now!.

Brad Delong writes a post which I don't understand, but looks as if it might be important, or mind-expanding:

Brad Delong (SDJ) - EQUITY RETURNS AND THE SIZE OF THE ECONOMY

(Via Brad Delong) Jonathan Chait (New York) - Why Washington Accepts Mass Unemployment

Brad Delong (SDJ) - HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES (1998): REVIEW OF DAVID S. LANDES: "THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS: WHY ARE SOME SO RICH AND OTHERS SO POOR?"

I guess the main questions I have on American politics:

1) How many Americans agree with the viewpoint "We should end homelessness, lack of appropriate health care, and unemployment in America, even if it means me personally paying more in taxes."?

2) How many Americans are emotionally invested in this race, and would feel good if their team won, and bad if their team lost? Of the Americans who are invested, what are their main reasons?

I ask partly because I'm emotionally invested, but I'm not quite sure why.

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) - Ric Locke

Ric's Rulez - Observations, some valid, by a broken-toothed redneck

It seems to me that one thing missing from the current economic debate is the notion that welfare-stabilization is a considerably different, and considerably easier in most ways, task than macroeconomic-stabilization. For macro-stabilization, it's possible that you may have to do sophisticated bubble-spotting stuff, as well as as sophisticated tinkering of people's life-cycle based investment preferences, as well as sophisticated educational/industrial policy to prevent technology shocks. But for welfare stabilization, you only need to prevent homelessness, lack of appropriate health care, and unemployment.

I guess the main point is that policymakers should not use the potential difficulty of the task of macro-stabilization as an excuse for failing at the task of welfare-stabilization.

Paul Krugman (NYT) (2000) - Reckonings; Pursuing Happiness

next post:  (Oct) 10/12/2012


posted by KR at 6:00 PM