The Clintons and Progressives

William Greider has an interesting post in the Nation screaming bloody murder about the Clintons and Billary's presidential campaign. I wonder how much tension this campaign will create between the Clintons and the left as they ramp up their campaign against Obama. I think there is a distinct possibility, especially in the event that Clinton gets the nomination, that the Left will go from Clinton nostalgia to resentment.

Tuition

I am always bemused by politicians "solutions" to the problem of the costs of higher education. In general there seems to be two schools of thought (raise taxes or create more tax breaks/credits) as to how make college more affordable and no challenge to the underlying premises that college isn't affordable or that the sending more people to college is optimal as opposed to another vehicle for improving human capital.

With regards to the solutions my main problems with either increasing state subsidies to universities and/or creating new tax breaks for college tuition is that I think that it actually causes price escalation as opposed to mitigating it. Say Minnesota raises property taxes or some form of sin tax to increase public funding to Minnesota's institutions of higher education so that tuition can be reduced or frozen, in practice this doesn't appear to occur. Over the last 25 years increases in state subsidies and tuition increases have tracked each other. And this is entirely predictable, universities get a wad of taxpayer cash ostensibly to offset tuition but decides it would be better spent on any number of other worthy or dubious projects (new science building, updated fitness center, better mess hall, maybe even a healthier COLA for professors, new departments, or more professors), then turns around and raises tuition again shortly thereafter. My basic problem with operating through the tax code, unless it is in the form of a nonrefundable tax credit (or is it a refundable credit?), is that the benefits primarily inure to the wealthy. If I sock away a $1000 a year in a Coverdell account and my marginal tax rate is 10% then I have merely saved a hundred dollars, whereas if my marginal tax rate is 35% then I have saved $350. Those that need the assistance the least get the most. This doesn't seem to do much to spur affordability and actually can exacerbate the problem by making the wealthy even less price sensitive.

I would like to see States attempt to deal with the tuition problem in two ways, which I dub: the administrative solution and the market solution. The administrative solution is essentially wielding a big stick. Simply legislate that your state's public universities (and any private universities receiving state funds) cannot increase tuition beyond inflation. I think this while seemingly clean will be circumvented by ginning up increases in housing costs and whole myriad of new user fees (a $500 library card, maybe). The market solution would be to shift public funding away from institutions and instead have the funds follow the students. I think this would incentivize cost control.

Aerotropolis

The good folks over at GoodSpeed Update have an interesting post on a proposed development around Detroit's airport. They ask why we don't develop around airports? Good question, simple answer. Airports are loud, they have lots of fumes from jet fuels and are generally unpleasant. Would you really want plunk down a couple of c-notes for a penthouse condo that shakes every 10 minutes while you are trying to enjoy "Private Practice" (which by the way is so far superior to Grey's Anatomy as Kate Walsh is way sexier in every way then Ellen Pompeo, and for that matter Katherine Heigl)? I didn't think so either.

PeP Daily Links

Public Transportation Edition:

Ed Glaeser has an interesting article on how public transportation contributes to the concentration of poverty in urban areas. hat tip: Ryan Avent (Ryan Avent has a blog, the Bellows, that focuses on transportation and planning mostly as related to D.C. and is uniformly interesting).

The Ideas Primary, a sounding board for the DLC, has an interesting proposal on funding passenger rail (something we should do more of in my opinion at the expense of highway funding)

Ryan Avent pines for light rail in D.C. and a cross town metro line. I agree. Mandingo what say you?

Here is an interesting post on the proliferation of light rail in America over at The GoodSpeed Update.

PeP Daily Links

Fiscal Stimulus Edition:

Paul Krugman has an interesting post on how to effectively target fiscal stimuli.

Bruce Bartlett argues that fiscal stimulus delivers little bang for the buck and that we should skip the whole mess altogether. He touches on Friedman's permanent income hypothesis which Krugman also gets into in his post.

Dean Baker argues we should have a Green Stimulus Package over at TPMCafe. The thrust of his proposal is to offer tax credits/rebates to businesses for the installation of Green building stuffs or something like that.

Greg Mankiw argues, channeling Paul Krugman, that we should skip fiscal stimulus altogether or at least until the fed has demonstrated its monetary tools to be ineffective.

Jason Furman and the Brookings Institute have put out a handy dandy white paper on when and how to administer a fiscal stimulus.

Peter Orzag, CBO Director, has a couple of good posts summarizing fiscal stimulus options.

Arnold Kling offers his typically curmudgeonly perspective on fiscal stimulus (I say this as a positive). Short version: Politicians screw everything up, mainstream macro in this area is voodoo, since this is an election year politicians will really screw it up.

PeP Links

There is a really interesting forum on the economics and history of Marriage over at Cato-Unbound.

Tim Harford (aka the undercover economist) has an article over at Slate comparing Facebook and Ikea. I thought this would be business case study porn but it was underwhelming (this generally describes Tim Harford).

Somebody who is an avid Marginal Revolution reader made a webpage consisting of links to a MR recurring feature: Markets in Everything. My favorite edition of Markets in Everything: the Russian company who for a fee develops alibis for adulterers.

Daniel Gross wrote a slightly funny, heavily obnoxious column (as per his usual) imploring rich people to spend money to help the U.S. stave off a recession (probably too late).

The folks over at TPMcafe, formerly one of my favorite sites until they discontinued the TPMCafe book club, have a post on what John Edward's next act should be. Her is my suggestion, withdraw from public life. Here is my bet, campaign for president, remind people that his father worked at a mill.

Huckabee's Rhetoric

A lot of commentators and reporters look at Huckabee as if a martian had just landed. I think this stems from the fact that inside the beltway religiosity is in short display. The East Coast (really the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast) and in particular urban areas within the East Coast typically regard religion as an almost purely private matter. For a large part of the country, Huckabee's social conservatism (heavy on the God talk) and economic populism is not out of the ordinary and in fact mainstream.

Canada “Unofficial” Declares the United States Is A Country Which Utilizes Torture

The BBC has reported today that Canada has “unofficial” declared the United States as being a country where prisoners are at risk of being tortured.

The Canadian training manual lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and the blindfolding of prisoners under "definition of torture".

This is just another example of how far we have fallen in regard to policy under the Bush administration.

Tim Russert

I am thoroughly amazed at how Tim Russert is considered this enlightened and tough interviewer. I find most of his questions to be daft. A couple weeks ago I saw him interviewing Ron Paul and Russert was attempting to do one of his "gotcha" routines on Paul (this was before the Paul as a massive bigot news emerged) for engaging in the practice of earmarking appropriations. Russert was trying to highlight Ron Paul's hypocrisy for advocating a smaller government while engaging in earmarks. Russert along with much of the media has made earmarks something of a pet project. The reality is that earmarks represent a minute portion of government spending that his criticism is essentially worthless. I am not a fan of earmarks per se but I don't think they are necessarily bad either. In the scheme of things they are trivial. If Russert wants to use his pulpit to expound on the virtues of fiscal discipline he would be well advised to focus on the things that we actually spend money on: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense.

If Your State Was A Country

This map attempts to show what each state's GDP is relative to the rest of the world. Thus, if California were its own country it would have the 8th largest GDP, roughly equal to that of France. But what tickled me was that the map has pegged Norway's GDP as the equivalent of Minnesota's. Having gone to St. Olaf College (AKA University of Oslo-USA) I found it particularly appropriate.

PeP Hero of the Week: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Sen. Schumer demonstrates that he is not a total twit and calls for reducing trade imports on Ethnaol:

“Ethanol has increased the average American’s grocery bill $47 since July,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, citing figures from Iowa State University.
Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing for an immediate end to the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports as a way to increase the supply of the federally mandated fuel additive, reduce pressure on the corn market and bring down milk prices.
“Bring the cheaper ethanol in, reduce the price of corn, and then reduce the price of milk,” he said."

It's a start.

The Housing Decline to Continue

The housing Price-to-Rent ratio still looks to be significantly out of whack which would tend to indicate that the housing slump is likely to continue for the forseeable future.

Anthony Bourdain's New Blog

Anthony Bourdain, author of "Kitchen Confidential" and "A Cook's Tour", has a new blog that is eminently worthwhile if you are a foodie. Bourdain style, a mixture heavy on self-indulgence and semi-witty snark and disdain for all things bourgeois (notably for the Food Network), lends itself quite well to the blogging. This is one of the problems with his books, is they give the appearance that he did most of the editing himself, i.e. none. But they do accurately convey his personality. And frankly I can't get over his aversion to the Food Network, besides the campiness of some of the shows I think the Food Network is doing a great service in elevating the level of American cuisine. Anyhow, he does have some really insightful comments and I would suspect he provides a fairly accurate lens into the Restaurant industry. Now if you really want a good foodie book you should read Bill Buford's "Heat" which was written by writer for the New Yorker who ditched his career to basically be a glorified intern to Mario Batali. Anyhow, fascinating and the writing was great.

Rock of Love 2

Thank god for VH1. They keep coming out with some of the best television programs since Cheers and Seinfeld. Bret Michaels is a real life saver with this whole writers strike going on.

Singapore's Health Care System

Bryan Caplan has an interesting post on Singapore's health care system over at EconLog. What is particularly startling is that Singapore only spends 4% GDP compared to 15% GDP in the US and around 11% GDP in France on health care but still obtains similar outcomes (better than the US and similar to the French). Some of the features of the system:

• "There are mandatory health savings accounts: "Individuals pre-save for medical expenses through mandatory deductions from their paychecks and employer contributions... Only approved categories of medical treatment can be paid for by deducting one's Medisave account, for oneself, grandparents, parents, spouse or children: consultations with private practitioners for minor ailments must be paid from out-of-pocket cash..."
  
• "The private healthcare system competes with the public healthcare, which helps contain prices in both directions. Private medical insurance is also available."
  
• Private healthcare providers are required to publish price lists to encourage comparison shopping.
  
• The government pays for "basic healthcare services... subject to tight expenditure control." Bottom line: The government pays 80% of "basic public healthcare services."
  
• Government plays a big role with contagious disease, and adds some paternalism on top: "Preventing diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tobacco-related illnesses by ensuring good health conditions takes a high priority."
  
• The government provides optional low-cost catatrophic health insurance, plus a safety net "subject to stringent means-testing."

I wonder why Singapore's health care system isn't touted more in the media as an example. We have heard of the wonders of the French, Canadian, British and Cuban systems but this is a vastly different method of health care delivery that is equally successful in terms of outcomes but vastly superior in terms of cost effectiveness. Now, I am sure to some extent a health policy wonk like Ezra Klein would say something to the effect of "Well, Singapore is a small homogeneous nation and it is unlikely to scale", but I would think the same criticism would apply to a lot of the European countries whose systems we are told should be models for reform. Inquiring minds want to know. This tends to reinforce my broader view that health care does not correlate highly with health outcomes and the basic problem with the U.S. health care system is it encourages people to consume too many units of health care and the insulation between consumer and provider encourage excessive costs per unit.

China to Freeze Energy Prices

Here is my question, will Hu Jintao make an address wearing a cardigan?

hat tip: cato @ liberty

Mac Convert

James Fallows has another post on Vista and in turn how he has switched over to being Mac user. My experience is slightly different. As I was getting ready to enter law school I decided that it would be prudent to get a laptop. At this point all new lap tops came loaded with Vista and it was Vista's first year. I knew from all the previous rollouts of both Office and Microsoft Operating Systems that the first year or so was as if Microsoft had decided to market the beta version and then would go about in a piecemeal fashion and issue a variety of patches, sometimes for free and other times at considerable cost. Anyhow, I wanted to sidestep this process entirely and bought a Mac. I have been thorouhly pleased with it.

Something Minnesota Needs

"Keep Right Laws"- In Oklahoma police are now pulling over drivers who are driving to slowly in the left lane, aka the passing lane. Bravo.

Kerry Endorses Obama

Well you knew he wasn't going to endorse Edwards. Anyhow, check out this bizarre analysis from Politico:

"Kerry, who had contemplated another run of his own this year, remains one of the Democratic Party's most popular figures, and gives Obama a big boost as he is trying to regain his momentum after finishing second to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday."

My impression was that Kerry wasn't particularly popular within the Democratic Party. In fact, I sort of remember folks on the left telling him to shut up during the mid-term elections. I don't think this harms Obama in the least, it has to be viewed as a net positive, but not necesarily a watershed moment.

Question for Edwards

How many second and third place finishes until he final bows out of the race?

I am going to say 30.

Question for Obama

As submitted by Megan McArdle:

"Senator, you used cocaine and marijuana. Would it have been just and right for you to have been sentenced to multi-year prison terms under today's drug laws?"

My proposed answer for the Senator:

"Of course not. Today's laws regarding drug possession and consumption are batshit crazy. Seriously, the people that came up with this War on Drugs must have been higher than shit. Crackheads really. Think about it, we spend all of this money on interdiction, but the addicted are not price sensitive. They are addicted! So we drive up prices and thus make the drug trade more lucrative. In the meanwhile we send people who do not have violent histories or criminal histories save for drug addiction into a facility with a bunch of violent people and act surprised that they are even more screwed up when they leave than when they came in. If I was getting raped in the shower that would fuck me up too."

"If the objective of the War on Drugs and the attendant drug laws was to make organized crime more lucrative and to remove hundreds of thousands able bodied men from the work force while spending billions in doing so, well then, yes, yes I would say the War on Drugs has been a wild success and we should preserve the current drug laws. But I don't think that is the intent of the War on Drugs but sadly it is the result."

Krugman on Prediction Markets

Krugman seems to think the conventional wisdom that prediction markets are worthwhile is bearing out to be false:

"[P]rediction markets — which you see, again and again, touted as having some mystical power to aggregate information, know no more than the conventional wisdom."

I think Krugman's assertion both false and correct at the same time. There is a substantial body of literature that indicates that prediction markets outperform pollsters in predicting elections. However, in this election, both prediction markets and pollsters seem to be wildly off. For a market to function properly it requires information and in the case of prediction markets this has been recently hampered by restrictions on online gambling. InTrade and TradeSports (both incorporated in Ireland) will not accept any online payments originating from the U.S., now maybe the Iowa Electronic Markets are different, but this would tend to remove those with the best information about U.S. electoral politics (U.S. residents) from the betting process and thus depriving the market of information save for that which is reported in the press.

Clinton's Tearjerker

I have to echo Anti's sentiments. I find difficult to believe that anything the Clintons do on a campaign is spontaneous, genuine, and not poll tested. I think the crying was bait for Obama, except he didn't bite, Edwards did. Anyhow, the desired affect was achieved, women broke overwhelmingly for Hillary, and I think the sense that she was being ganged up on and beaten down as manifested by the tearing up and Edwards' response played a large part.

Hillary Clinton & Crying

A lot of fuss, and rightly so, has been made in the media recently concerning Hillary Clinton and how she managed to turn around the New Hampshire primary last night.

Today I received an email from a group calling on me to sign a petition that will be sent to all of the major media outlets in the country. The petition focuses on the media’s coverage, specifically an op-ed piece by Maureen Dowd in the NYT, of Hillary Clinton’s little teary-eyed spout of emotion last Sunday. Here is a portion of the petition:

Your organization's focus on punditry over journalism is perverting our democratic process. And the misogyny that was unleashed by a feeding frenzy on the video of an exhausted Clinton tearing up at a small New Hampshire roundtable of voters was just the tip of the iceberg. Whether we agree with Clinton on the issues or not, the media's (and indeed your organization's) assault on her candidacy based on gender is unacceptable. So too is biased and uninformed commentary on the minority status of other candidates (Obama's ethnicity and Romney's religion, to name just two).

I will be the first to admit that portions of Dowd’s column are crude and sexist, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that her argument, however crudely presented, is dead on correct.

Please don’t get me wrong I am all for personal emotion and compassion in politics. I think that if our politicians were more emotionally connected to the people that are actually effected by the decisions they make, instead of being connected to special interests and the accumulation of even greater power, that our country and our governmental policy would be in a much better state. I completely and whole-heartedly support honest outpourings of emotion in politics, and I think every politician could use a whole lot more emotional attachment to the issues.

I would even have felt some empathy for Hillary Clinton and her outpouring of emotion if I for one second thought it was remotely genuine, but the fact is I don’t.

At best the only genuine outpouring of emotion that was demonstrated in this small New Hampshire café last Sunday was simply a self-realizing act on the part of Hillary Clinton that her dreams of power may soon be over. Add to this a good amount of self-pity and you have all the ingredients you need for a good tearjerker accompanied with some coffee and a crowd of people.

At worst it was a calculated act on the part of the very skilled Clinton political machine.

Where was this emotion when she enabled the president to carry out an unjust and illegal war in Iraq that thus far has resulted in the deaths of 3,921 American service men and women, as well as the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians?

Where was this emotion as she vehemently defended this decision on the campaign trail?

Where was this emotion as she spouted her hawkish rhetoric towards Iran, which may lead to even greater death, destruction and heartache in the Middle East?

Where was this emotion during the summer of 2006 as she vehemently supported Israel’s right to perform whatever atrocities they wished on the Lebanese people, including the utilization of cluster munitions on women and children?

Hillary Clinton is a politician who strives on making politically calculated and convenient decisions, even when those decisions relate to such important issues as War & Peace and Life & Death. So I am sorry Hillary that I don’t buy for one minute that your little emotional breakdown was related to anything besides your own political self-interest.

By the way Hillary, since your little tearjerker on Sunday nine more U.S. service personal have died in YOUR Iraq war. Maybe next time you will show a little emotion and cry about that, just make sure that it takes place at a politically convenient time while the cameras are rolling.

Ron Paul, Not Just a Crank

Also a massive bigot:

"Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."
...In January 1995, three months before right-wing militants bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a newsletter listed "Ten Militia Commandments," describing "the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty" as "one of the most encouraging developments in America."
...A 1988 newsletter cited a doctor who believed that AIDS was created in a World Health Organization laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. In addition, Ron Paul & Associates sold a video about Waco produced by "patriotic Indiana lawyer Linda Thompson"--as one of the newsletters called her--who maintained that Waco was a conspiracy to kill ATF agents who had previously worked for President Clinton as bodyguards.
...His adversaries are often described in harsh terms: Barbara Jordan is called "Barbara Morondon," Eleanor Holmes Norton is a "black pinko," Donna Shalala is a "short lesbian," Ron Brown is a "racial victimologist," and Roberta Achtenberg, the first openly gay public official confirmed by the United States Senate, is a "far-left, normal-hating lesbian activist." Maybe such outbursts mean Ron Paul really is a straight-talker. Or maybe they just mean he is a man filled with hate."

Truer Words...

From George Will:

"The way to achieve Edwards' and Huckabee's populist goal of reducing the role of "special interests," meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money. But populists want to sharply increase that role by expanding the regulatory state's reach and enlarging its agenda of determining the distribution of wealth. Populists, who are slow learners, cannot comprehend this iron law: Concentrate power in Washington and you increase the power of interests whose representatives are concentrated there."

Random Media Notes

First off, Fox News, you are a bunch of perverts and pederasts. How can one justify excluding Ron Paul from a debate while inviting Rudy Giuliani. Last I checked Paul got more votes in Iowa than Giuliani and is leading in money. Comparatively, I would consider him viable. Now he is a crank and has some positively loony ideas, but that hardly distinguishes him from the rest of the field. Is slavish devotion to a discredited idea like the gold standard worse than embracing the fair tax (Huckabee), or advocating the invasion of half of the world (Giuliani), or the doubling of Gitmo (Romney)? Paul is being excluded because he is anti-war and this is not consonant with Fox News editorial position. I would be ok with his exclusion if Fox News simply owned up to this. Bias is inherent and the media will always have its positions and axe to grind, just own up to it. Give up the fair and balanced schtick and just say that you are an appendage of the RNC and that you are following in the great tradition of political propagandists from pamphleteers to Leni Riefenstahl.

Next rant item, NY Times has just hired Bill Kristol I gather as William Safire's permanent replacement. Now, I actually think Bill Kristol is sort of smart when it comes to political commentary although in the big picture policy world he is basically batshit crazy. This is not an anomalous result, I am sure Stalin would have been a great grassroots organizer. That said his viewpoint is essentially the same as David Brooks: "Compassionate Conservatism" or "Big Government Conservatism" or "National Greatness Conservatism" or whatever you would like to call it. A Kristol column is as if Brooks rewrote one of his own columns after frontal lobotomy was performed on him. NY Times would have served its readers much better if they had hired somebody with a small-government or libertarian orientation, or at least somebody smarter of any political persuasion. Maybe just run a dilbert comic strip right there instead? Ok that's all, I am running out of steam.

The Edwards Criticism

Anti, there is one thing that is specious about Kucinich's hypocrisy claim: according to Edwards he took the gig at Fortress to learn about financial markets and how they can alleviate poverty. Duh. Nothing to see here. keep moving.

John Edwards – Wall Street’s Candidate?

Yesterday Dennis Kucinich’s campaign sent out an email where he explained why he didn’t support John Edwards on the second ballot of the Iowa caucuses. Here is what Kucinich had to say:

In answer to your questions about why I didn't support former Senator John Edwards on the second ballot in Iowa: I have serious concerns about his connections to a Wall Street hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group. While attacking others for accepting campaign money from Washington lobbyists, he is up to his ears in money from Wall Street special interests.

He made half a million dollars in a single year for attending a few meetings for Fortress and has invested a substantial part of his own personal wealth in the hedge fund whose portfolios are responsible for sub-prime predatory lending practices, Medicare privatization, and an entire range of corporate sharp dealings that are driving the middle class into poverty.

I find the criticism to be especially interesting since Edwards is out stumping about how greedy corporate interests are ruining this country and destroying the livelihood of Americans. Apparently Edwards isn’t a member of this country because it sounds like he is doing pretty well.

Republicans & “Freedom Haters”

I watched a fair amount of the Republican presidential debate last Saturday (not so much of the Democratic debate since the Wild game was on at the same time and it is way to early in the political season to sacrifice hockey games for politics), but there was one aspect of the debate that I just couldn’t put my head around, that being the threat of terrorism.

During the debate Charlie Gibson asked Ron Paul a question regarding U.S. foreign policy, “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” To which Ron Paul gave a very succinct and intelligent reply which basically explained that simply stating that the United States is the target of terrorism because we are free and prosperous is inaccurate and wrong. Here is his response:

But the Bush doctrine of preemptive war is not a minor change; this is huge. This is the first time we, as a nation, accept as our policy that we start the wars. I don't understand this.

And that all options are on the table to go after Iran?

This is not necessary. These are Third World nations. They're not capable.

But I think it's the misunderstanding or the disagreements that we've had in this debate along the campaign trail is the nature of the threat.

I'm as concerned about the nature of the threat of terrorism as anybody, if not more so. But they don't attack us because we're free and prosperous.

And there are radicals in all elements, in all religions that will resort to violence. But if we don't understand that the reaction is, is because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, we have bases in their country -- and we haven't done it just since 9/11, but we have done that a long time.

I mean, it was the Air Force base in Saudi Arabia before 9/11 that was given as the excuse.

If we don't understand that, we can't win this war against terrorism.

Let me try to explain so you can understand this better.

Try to visualize how we would react if they did that to us, if a country, say China, came that great distance across the ocean, and they say, "We want you to live like us. We want you to have our economic system. We want bases on your land. We want to protect our oil." Even if we do that with good intentions -- even if the Chinese did that with good intentions, we would all be together and we'd be furious.

After this the rest of the candidates were given a chance to respond and all of them basically laughed at Paul’s analysis and instead responded that terrorists target the U.S. because “they hate our freedom” (here is the full transcript).

I just don’t understand how anyone could begin to believe such a simplistic explanation to a complex issue. How anyone could believe that individuals living half way across the globe would go to the extreme of coming over to the United States and kill themselves in a terrorist attack would do so for no other reason than because they “hate our freedom”.

Yet sadly it appears that, in all likelihood, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 will be a candidate who subscribes to this overly simplistic world view, and thus if elected will make foreign policy decisions on the same lines.

End The Writers Guild Strike Now!!!

If there was ever a reason for Hollywood executives to end the Writers Guild strike I witnessed it last night when I sat through the two hour premier of the new American Gladiators.

Honestly this show is beyond terrible. I will be the first to admit that I watched the original version years ago. But there is a big difference between watching a crappy syndicated Saturday morning TV program and the garbage that pretends to be primetime television these days.

So regardless of how you feel about the strike please go to this website and sign the petition to end the strike, if for no better reason then to bring some level of respectability back to the filth we watch.

Plus with the presidential campaign season officially upon us I am suffering through an extreme case of Daily Show and Colbert Report withdrawal.

Iron Chef Blogging

Mario Batali is facing off against Jamie Oliver tonight at 10pm Eastern. I fully expect Mario to destroy his British opponent. I am pulling for an exotic secret agreement like tamarind.

The Best Part Of The Iowa Caucuses

I completely forgot to note this in my post yesterday, but there was one aspect of the Iowa caucuses that regardless of party I found to be uplifting and just great news. Young people turned out in large numbers to vote.

Overall turnout for the caucuses was at about 12 percent for Iowa, but the turnout for the age group of 17 to 30 was at 17 percent. I don’t know of anyone, except maybe a few crotchety old people, who aren’t excited to see that young people are getting involved in the political process.

And what makes this even more amazing is the fact that since the caucuses were held so early this year the large turnout meant that a number of college age students made the effort to get out and vote while on their winter breaks.

Pundits beware

Here's some wisdom - a cautionary tale - from Bob Dylan, for those who are quick to opine about the significance of the Presidential race under way:

"Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen...don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin, and there's no tellin' who that it's namin'. For the loser now will be later to win."

Thoughts On The Iowa Caucuses

I have to give credit where credit is due. In my post a couple of days ago I underestimated Iowa Democrats and was pleasantly surprised by the Democratic caucus results last night. I guess I should have never doubted our friends to the south. I mean, aside from the fact that they don’t know the first thing about hockey, all of the Iowans I know are very smart and pleasant people.

With that said I couldn’t be happier with Hillary Clinton’s third place finish, and it is rather amazing/historic that a state which is 95% white voted for a black man to be America’s next president.

The results also help to solidify my (and I guess Xtra’s) hypothesis that the Republican base is demoralized and unengaged in this election, which means that Democrats in no way have to settle for a sub-par candidate like Hillary Clinton. Just look at the caucus turnout 239,000 people came out for the Democratic caucuses, an increase of 93% over 2004, and only 115,000 people came out for the Republican caucuses.

I guess Democrats do not want to lose the 2008 presidential election, but then again we will see what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

Regardless Of What Candidate Is Chosen U.S. Foreign Policy Won’t Change pt. 2

Yesterday I wrote about who is advising the leading Democratic presidential candidates regarding their foreign policy. Don’t worry I didn’t forget about the Republicans, their foreign policy advisors are no peaches either.

Here is yet another brief list of who is advising the candidates and some of the human rights atrocities they are responsible for.

Rudy Giuliani:

• Daniel Pipes – he has been leading the charge against “Islamofascism” on college campuses and has put out his Campus Watch, in terms of going after professors that he deems are not pro-Israel enough.
• Norman Podhoretz – in his new book “World War IV”, he says bomb the Iranians. And he’s not just talking about pinpoint Iranian nuclear installations; he’s saying bomb the Iranians.
• Ex-Senator Robert Kasten – he is formerly a major backer of the Pakistani military dictatorships and the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia.
• A Super Trooper team of neoconservative war hawks from numerous conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Hoover, and the Hudson. Some of these advisors include Martin Kramer, Stephen Rosen, and Peter Berkowitz. All of these people are supporters of the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war in the name of fighting “terror” or as Rudy likes to call it “Islamofascism”.

John McCain:

• General Alexander Haig – he oversaw the US policy of mass terror killings of civilians in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, when American nuns and religious workers were abducted, raped and murdered by the Salvadoran National Guard.
• Max Boot – he points to El Salvador, where 70,000 civilians were killed by American-backed death squads, as a model counterinsurgency for what the US should be doing today.
• Henry Kissinger – he was responsible for mass deaths in Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile, and countless other places (and I personally think he should be tried as a war criminal).
• Bud McFarlane – during the Reagan administration he was a key backer of the Contras.
• Brent Scowcroft – he was the one who, during the Bush 1 administration, went to China right after the Tiananmen Square massacre and reassured the Chinese leadership, “Don’t worry about it, we’re still behind you.”

Mitt Romney:

• Cofer Black – he is a longtime CIA operative and was one of the key people behind the invasion of Afghanistan. He is also the one who organized Detachment 88 in Indonesia just recently, the supposed antiterrorist outfit that went after a Papuan human rights lawyer.
• Mark Falcoff – he was a key figure in backing the old US policy of terror in Central America during the Regan administration.
• Roger Noriega – another key figure in backing the old US policy of terror in Central America during the Regan administration.
• Dan Senor – a major supporter of the early invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Mike Huckabee:

• Huckabee is kind of like Edwards in the sense that he doesn’t really have any big name foreign policy advisors and not much is really known about who is advising him.

Let The Fear Mongering Begin

So today I received a forwarded email discussing the church that Barack Obama belongs to, the email is below. Here is what I find interesting about the premise of the email. Basically the author is alarmed by the fact that Obama is a “racist” and justifies this stance through closeted racist comments and overtly hostile and discriminatory comments about Muslims.

I guess you have to love fear mongering evangelical American politics.

Obama mentioned his church during his appearance with Oprah. It's the Trinity Church of Christ. I found this interesting.

Please read and go to this church's website and read what is written there. It is very alarming. Barack Obama is a member of this church and is running for President of the U.S. If you look at the first page of their website, you will learn that this congregation has a non-negotiable commitment to Africa. No where is AMERICA even mentioned.

Notice too, what color you will need to be if you should want to join Obama's church... B-L-A-C-K!!! Doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) Muslim upbringing. Are you aware that Obama's middle name is Mohammed?

Strip away his nice looks, the big smile and smooth talk and what do you get? Certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! And possibly a covert worshiper of the Muslim faith, even today.

This guy desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa! I cannot believe this has not been all over the TV and newspapers. This is why it is so important to pass this message along to all of our family & friends. To think that Obama has even the slightest chance in the run for the presidency, is really scary. Click on the link below: This is the web page for the church Barack Obama belongs to: www.tucc.org/about.htm

Biden and the Primaries

Biden has dropped out of the race but I still think he has the potential to have an impact in the primaries with his endorsement. I tend to think he will endorse Obama because Biden wants to be the next Secretary of State. Clinton is likely to pick Richard Holbrooke in the event that she is nominated (a scenario I don't envision though still plausible). Thus, I don't see Biden endorsing Clinton if for no other reason that it would subvert his own professional ambitions.

Brooks on Iowa

David Brooks has a very good column over at the NY Times about the Caucus results. I think he does a good job at fleshing out Huckabee's rise:

"Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has."

I don't think Huckabee will win the nomination. The party establishment will be against him but more interestingly, I think the evangelical policy leaders such as James Dobson and Richard Land will seek to torpedo his candidacy.

Obama Projeted to Win

I think we are looking at a general election match up between McCain and Obama.

Huckabee Wins

I think that means the end of Romney.

Regardless Of What Candidate Is Chosen Tonight U.S. Foreign Policy Won’t Change

As the Democratic candidates go back and forth trying to convince Iowans and the rest of the country that they are the best candidate to reshape U.S. foreign policy in a post Bush White House, all you really have to do is look at who is advising the candidates to see that if elected, regardless of candidate, not much is going to change.

There was a great article published in The American Conservative about this back in October. Here is a brief look at who is advising the candidates:

Hillary Clinton:

• Madeleine Albright - she was the main force behind the Iraq sanctions that killed more than 400,000 Iraqi civilians.
• General Wesley Clark - he was the one who ran the bombing of Serbia in the former Yugoslavia, he came out and publicly said that he was going after civilian targets, like electrical plants and the TV station there (which by the way is a war crime under international law).
• Richard Holbrooke - in the Carter administration he was the one who oversaw the shipment of weapons to the Indonesian military as they were illegally invading East Timor and killing a third of the East Timor population, and he was the one who kept the UN Security Council from enforcing its resolution against that invasion.
• Strobe Talbott - during the Clinton administration he oversaw Russian policy and a backing of Yeltsin, which resulted in turning over the national wealth to the oligarchs and a drop in life expectancy in much of Russia of about fifteen years.
• General Jack Keane - backer of the Iraq invasion and occupation.
• Michael O’Hanlon - backer of the Iraq invasion and occupation.

Barack Obama:

• Zbigniew Brzezinski – he gave an interview to the French press a number of years ago where he boasted about the fact that it was he who created the Afghan jihadi movement, the movement that produced Osama bin Laden. And he was asked by the interviewer, “Well, don’t you think this might have had some bad consequences?” to which Brzezinski responded “What’s a few riled-up Muslims?” Apparently 9-11 answered that question.
• Anthony Lake - he was the main force behind the US invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years during which they brought back Aristide essentially in political chains, pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the economy, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians and set the stage for the current ongoing political disaster in Haiti.
• General Merrill McPeak – shortly after the Indonesian Dili massacre in East Timor in 1991 he oversaw the delivery of US fighter planes to Indonesia.
• Dennis Ross – he was an advisor to both the Clinton and Bush 2 White House. He oversaw US policy toward Israel/Palestine and pushed the principle that the legal rights of the Palestinians, the rights recognized under international law, must be subordinated to the needs of the Israeli government. Ross also recently led an assault on Jimmy Carter, because regarding Palestine, Carter was so bold as to agree with Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa that what Israel was doing in the Occupied Territories was tantamount to apartheid.
• Sarah Sewall - she wrote the introduction to General Petraeus’s Marine Corps/Army counterinsurgency handbook, the handbook that is now being used worldwide by US troops in various killing operations.

John Edwards:

• He doesn’t really have any big name advisors but the Edward’s campaign names that are out there mainly come from the Army and the Air Force and the Navy Material Command. Those are the portions of the Pentagon that do the Defense contracts, that do the deals with the big companies like Raytheon and Boeing, etc. One of those listed on the Edwards team is the lobbyist for the big military contractor EADS. So, although Edwards talks about going after lobbyists, if he tries to go after the military lobbyists, he may get a little blowback from his own advisers.

Xtra's Midwestern Holiday Trip

Your loyal correspondent recently returned from a brief trip to Minneapolis and Iowa, mainly Iowa. Before I get into some of the finer policy discussions held and other observations I must first issue a public service announcement for Minnesota drivers:

MOVE OVER, THE LEFT LANE IS A PASSING LANE.

Outside of the passive driving of Minnesotans (who by the way are always polite drivers even if they are obscenely slow) I had a wonderful stay in the heartland. It was tremendous to be in Iowa so close to the caucuses. I spent much of the time attempting to shame Iowans into caucasing and stalking my future father-in-law to dissuade anybody he tried to convince to caucus for John Edwards from doing so. Barack Obama, yes; Hillary Clinton, maybe; John Edwards, HELL NO!

While in Iowa I had the good fortune to meet up the PeP founder himself, Piedpieper. We had a very engaging discussion of pensions and health care, though mostly pensions. In some degree our conversation was illustrative of our conservative and liberal priors. Pied, prefers defined benefit to some degree, I prefer defined contribution. While our conclusions differed our assessment of the underlying facts was near identical. Our assessment of the pros and cons of each defined benefit (traditional pension plans) and defined contribution (401-k, IRA, TSP) is as follows:

1. A well managed defined benefit plan will get better returns for the common worker than they would likely manage on their own

2. Workers are not terribly good at managing their own investments, key example, they keep company's matching stock contributions in company stock (see Enron for the risks of doing so) or entirely to passive (i.e. invest in cash or bonds at excessive ratios)

3. A defined benefit plan is not well adapted to the modern economy where a worker jumps from job to job, company to company

4. Companies that have defined benefit plans (and for that matter governments, especially governments) have been rather poor in meeting their end of the bargain (Auto, Steel, Aviation, Muncipal and State Governments)

5. People don't necessarily invest at all in a defined contribution system as it is optional, whereas a defined benefit is not

6. Defined benefit plans have reinsurance in the form of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Coropration (PBGC)

7. the PBGC is bleeding money and headed towards insolvency


Coming away from the conversation we were in total agreement about the underlying facts of both defined contribution and defined benefit pensions. Pied still favored a defined benefit program even as he conceded it was ill suited to today's economy and I still favored the defined contribution in spite of its inefficiencies. I think some of the defects of a defined contribution plan can be remedied through regulation such as prohibiting the employer match in the form of stocks, increasing diversification ratios, and decreasing the vesting period. However, a defined benefit program will always hold the worker hostage on two levels: 1. if the worker leaves he loses his pension; 2. there is no guarantee that the employer will fully meet his end of the bargain (and in fact across many industries the employer is failing to do so and egregiously so). Anyhow, this conversation occurred at a party and we bored the shit out of everybody in a five mile radius.

Later in the week I had the good fortune to see Bill Clinton in the flesh. He was stumping for Hillary at a local gymnasium. Iowans are truly spoiled. The venue could hold maybe 200 people. I was in the last row and was maybe 30 feet away. Anyhow, he was as charismatic, charming, self-aggrandizing and as slippery as ever.

My favorite moment was a particularly disingenous praise he heaped on ethanol. I mean it was truly remarkable. He goes on to explain in the span of a paragraph how great ethanol is because since it can't be transported in pipelines a bunch of factories will have to be built to process the stuff and this will create jobs in processing and the supply chain and then because of its positive impact on global warming that there will be less illegal immigration. Now, in fact the truer version would follow something like this: Ethanol is so damn inefficient that we will have to build a crap load of factories to process it in small batches so it could never be competitive on price save for generous subsidies, which in turn will drive up the price of corn thus putting more land into production which will require more illegal immigration, all the while having a negligible to negative impact on global warming while making us all poorer in the process. A great policy indeed. Sadly, while ethanol is horrible policy it makes for great retail politics. Iowans, truly lovely folks, I doubt there are nicer folks in the union, they love them some ethanol, or more specifically the federal monies that come along with it. I really struggle to think of two aspects of our domestic policy that are more pernicious and perverse than ethanol and agriculture subsidies (and I don't mean the structure but their very existence), however, to be viable in Iowa you have to throw yourself to the altar of Agri/Energy subsidies.

One other bit from the Bill Clinton speech that I found absolutely appalling was his discussion of education. I admire the Clintons for their intellect, which is formidable. However, I was really surprised at how little attention he gave to education in his speech and how paltry the content was. He did the standard ditty on why NCLB is bad. I think NCLB has things positively ass backwards. The feds should be coming up with a standard test and the states should figure out how best to meet the content not the other way around and then the tests should track students in a longitudinal fashion instead of taking annual snapshots of each class to assess progress. Anyhow, his basic policy prescription was for the Department of Education to come up with best practices and make sure they are uniformly applied across the country. Totally underwhelming not to mention stupid as well. In a nation as diverse and large as ours the challenges from state to state and within each state, nay, within each county are so varied. It is doubtful indeed that any one practice or pedagogy will adequately meet the needs of our students.

And this is one area, education policy, that always confuses me. One of the benefits of federalism is that it allows states to adapt policies to the needs of their population but also it allows for experimation which can be adopted at the federal level (such as how the Wisconsin Works program became the basis for Welfare reform). We never discuss Iowa in the context of education. Iowa excels at education, though, you would never think it would. It is by no means a rich state. Why don't we look to Iowa for some tricks as to improve our educational system. Now it may very well be that there isn't much to translate, strong communities and strong families make for good schools. That might be hard to replicate in Anacostia or East LA. Anyhow, that's all for the moment. Stay Classy Iowa.

Do Democrats Want To Lose the 2008 Presidential Election?

As it is the day before the Iowa caucuses and the “official” start of the 2008 presidential campaign I thought I would ask a simple question, do Democrats want to lose the 2008 election? If Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire coronate Hillary to be the Democratic nominee for president then I will be convinced that they do.

As Xtra pointed out earlier it seems like, at least until this past month, that Democrats are planning to settle for Hillary Clinton even though she isn’t the most ideal candidate. From my conversations with Clinton supporters the rational for backing Clinton comes down to two main reasons:

1. She is the candidate with the greatest chance of winning the general election.


2. Unlike in 2000 (the whole Democrats are still blaming Nader thing) all progressives need to unite around a candidate and Hillary is as good as any to achieve that unity.

Now, policy differences between candidates aside, let me explain why putting Hillary on the Democratic ticket is the worst idea Democrats could possible have for trying to win the general election.

Let’s take a look at the Republican side. To quote Xtra, “this election cycle I think just about anybody with a -D besides their name will win. Most of the Republican candidates have major problems with the base, the base is clearly disengaged at this point, and the Republican Party is not exactly popular right now.” With that said there is, however, one sure fire way to promptly and quickly get the Republican base fully engaged in this election, give them a chance to vote against Hillary.

Whether it is fair or not Hillary Clinton is one of the most polarizing figures in American politics, as far as polarization goes she is the ying to George Bush’s yang. People either love Hillary or despise her. So I really wish someone would explain to me the logic of potentially nominating a candidate who doesn’t do much in regards to engaging the Democratic base, but will cause massive voter turn out for the Republican base, it just makes no sense to me.

Furthermore, who has been the most loyal voting base for the Democratic Party since the 1960s? African-Americans, on average Democrats receive about 90% of the total African-American vote. Instead of selecting a candidate, like Hillary, who has the potential to cause a historic voter turn out for her opponents, it would seem to make much more sense to select a Democratic candidate who at least has the potential to do the opposite and galvanize a massive turn out for African-American voters.

But alas I don’t have the greatest amount of confidence in Democratic voters to strategically consider all of the options, instead they will bring up how Nader lost the election for them in 2000 and if we don’t all unite around a sub-par candidate that it will happen again, completely losing sight of the fact that Democratic caucusers and primary voters have the chance to select a candidate that can both unite the Democratic Party and end eight years of polarizing politics.

Libertarians and Abortion

Ezra Klein muses on the appeal of Ron Paul amongst Libertarians:

"it's a bit hard to square the immense affection Ron Paul receives from putative civil libertarians with his intensely restrictive attitude towards such issues as whether a woman will be forced to use her body as a vessel for childbearing."

Klein is asserting that libertarianism and restrictions on abortion are at odds. I disagree. While libertarians view government as having a limited role, they do accept that it has a role, such as to provide for a legal system, policing, military, all of which at some level have the function of preventing one party from infringing upon the liberties of others. At some point that clump of cells in a woman's body is a life. Now, if one insists that it is not a life till it exits the womb, well, then sure, Mr. Klein's comments are correct, and I am guessing that that is his presumption. However, to the extent one describes a fetus as being more than a clump of cells and actually ascribing life or the qualities of a person to the fetus, it follows necessarily that it has negative liberties, which an abortion would infringe upon (or terminate). If you equate a fetus with life than preventing its termination would be a proper role for the state even in the eyes of a libertarian.

Suck It Detroit!

Last week Sports Illustrated published an article concerning Detroit being known as “Hockeytown U.S.A.” and how deserving Detroit is of this title. Sports Illustrated concludes that “in Detroit in 2007 the Hockeytown moniker seems as appropriate as, well, dipping a beef taco in a glass of milk.” And guess what city they named as the city that should be known as Hockeytown U.S.A…none other than Saint Paul, Minnesota.

For those of us living in the Twin Cities this should come as no surprise considering that the Minnesota Wild, in my opinion, is the best run professional sports organization in the country and between all of the Division I hockey and High School hockey statewide we basically live and breath hockey here. However, it is nice to get a little national recognition every now and then.

Luckily the Wikipedia entry for Hockeytown has already been updated.

Bold Christmas Gift Prediction

The worst gift you can make is anything involving HD-DVD or BluRay. I consider this so for several reasons:

1. you may very well be buying an obsolete format
2. In the event you bet on the right format, by the time the format war is settled there is very likely to be a shift towards download services for High Definition products, in fact this is already underway on a small scale with Vudu and Netflix.

And last but not least, don't give your friend or loved one a gift certificate, give them cash, the most efficient gift there is.

Note: My track record as to predictions is piss poor. I stated unequivocally that the SmartCar would be a terrible failure which prompted a commenter to inform me that there were already 20k preorders for the SmartCar at the time of my post.

National Review Endorses Mitt Romney

Another example of their consistent hackery. A bunch of pederasts.

Anti's Big Come Back...Coming Soon

Come Thursday night my finals will be done and my long awaited return to the blog will finally be complete. Until then, however, I thought I would post a quick video and dedicate it to our founding father the Pied Piper himself...you know why Piper.

CBO Blog

The Congressional Budget Office now has a directors blog (Peter Orzag is the CBO Director). Ooops. Something just happened in my pants. This is super duper cool for those of us who are policy geeks.

McCain

He is currently being left for dead but I actually think he has a decent shot at winning the Republican nomination. If Romney fails to win in Iowa I think his campaign will be perceived as cratering. McCain doesn't bear any burden of high expectations in Iowa, quite the opposite. I don't really envision Huckabee doing all that well in New Hampshire. That leaves Giuliani and Thompson. Thompson's campaign cratered before it even started in full and Giuliani has also been losing ground of late. This is not to say that McCain has been doing particularly well in the polls, but against this crowd anybody has a shot.

Coke World - Part 1

While I was in Atlanta, GA over Thanksgiving, I visited the "NEW World of Coca-Cola" facility. Tens of thousands of visitors are herded through this place every day. Here is how the facility is described on the Coke World website:

How will the NEW World of Coca­Cola be different? Approximately twice the size of the previous World of Coca­Cola, the facility will feature more than 1,200 artifacts from around the world that have never been displayed to the public before. In fact, only about 50 artifacts from the previous World of Coca­Cola will be showcased at the NEW World of Coca­Cola. You can also expect to see great new interactive exhibits such as a thrilling 4-D movie and a gallery dedicated to Coke and pop culture. And of course, a World of Coca­Cola favorite—the tasting experience—will provide visitors with a refreshing opportunity to sample up to 70 different products from around the world. All this and much more make the NEW World of Coca­Cola a unique and must-see Atlanta experience!

Exhibits. Artifacts. Sounds like a museum. On one display in the "Milestones of Refreshment" gallery, it actually says that the advertisements are for "historical and educational purposes." Bah! Coke World is not a museum--it's a big advertisement for Coke. Despite the claim of Coke world to bring the history of Coca-Cola to life through displays of artifacts (mostly old advertisements), visitors learn virtually nothing about the history of Coke.

Instead, one learns about Coke's self-image and the image they want to sell to the world. The main message of the entire experience is that Coke tastes great, and it is the taste that has made the company such a global success. If you want to learn about the process by which Coke grew from a small experiment to a global icon, don't go to Coke World. There, Coke's history is construed as a natural, almost magical process: the formula for Coke was concocted, the name invented, and the famous Coca-Cola script put down on paper, and voila! the great taste of Coke naturally conquered the world. No mention of the use of cocaine in the early days. No mention of the failed attempt to sell New Coke. No mention of Pepsi. And so on. This is not history. It's propaganda.

The real story behind the Real Thing does not lie in its taste--after all, New Coke tasted better than original Coke in blind taste tests. No, the real story is about advertising and marketing, a story which I'll write about in Part 2.

Washington D.C.

Craig Newmark of Newmark's Door comments that "Washington is for people who can't let go of high school." Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to this.

How to Reduce Carbon Emissions: EuroStyle

"The cost of the average used car in Europe is now cheaper than the cost of gasoline to drive it for a year."

The carbon taxes in Europe are vastly higher than they are here.

hat tip: Tim Harford

BMW

BMW is introducing the 1 series here in the States. The bizarre thing is, if this report is accurate, they will be slotting it above the 3 series which is a larger (and more attractive) car. The base price will be north of $35k and it is not being billed as a roadster but rather a plain old compact car. I think BMW's have gotten to be hideously ugly.

The War on Christmas

I think the whole thing is without any basis. I could care less if department stores put up kwanzaa trees (fake holiday created by a FBI snitch by the way) or opts to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. What I find patently absurd is this business of putting up Christmas decorations so damn early. The mall by my work had a massive tree up the first week of November. When I was a kid (some would argue I still qualify as such) trees and decorations didn't go up till the first day of advent (after Thanksgiving). It just makes the holiday that much more crass. If I have to hear John Gibson or Bill O'Reilly harrumphing about the secular Nazis among us trying to subvert Christians in their celebrations of Christmas, ostensibly by using the wrong greeting, I will vomit. If those mental pygmies would like to do some good they would be well advised to go to their local macy's and browbeat them into taking down their decorations and not replacing them till advent. Curmudgeonly rant over!

Edwards Ad: Bursting the Beltway Bubble

Howard Kurtz and other beltway buffoons are bitching and moaning about John Edwards new ad. John Edwards campaign schtick is one part sacharine vomit coupled with about three parts dimwitted populism. Though, I find him utterly noxious and pray that he does not get the nomination I think his most recent political stunt is quite shrewd. If elected, he is threatening to take away Congress members' health care if they are unable to pass universal health care legislation. Pundits scoff at this tactic as the President can't actually take away Congress members' health care, the best he or probably she can do is submit legislation to the Congress for them to enact which would have such an effect. So this is a bit of political theatre. Inside the beltway people are likely to know this, but inside the beltway is not real America. Most real folks eat this type of populism up with a spoon. The notion of stripping Congress of some of its perks is quite appealing to the average voter. It doesn't matter if such a proposal doesn't make the light of day.

Muji

Muji is like a Japanese Ikea (a little more upscale). I think it will spawn yuppygasms galore, if not at the same level as the iPhone.

Hillary Hijinx

Apparently Hillary has been planting questioners at her events. Of course we are assured that this is an isolated incident. Sort of sounds like something the President would do.

The Utah Voucher Vote

VoluntaryXchange has a really interesting post on some of the dynamics behind the Utah voucher vote (which failed).

Morbidity at The Margins

Tyler Cowen has a morbid post on political assasinations in general and muses on Garry Kasparov in particular.

Disaster Response

The Freakanomics Blog hosted a "Disaster Response Quorom" and I found this bit from Lee Parrow particularly trenchant:

"What we need to do is reduce our vulnerabilities by downsizing the targets that have catastrophic potential. At one third of its pre-Katrina size, New Orleans could be protected from hurricanes and still serve its vital economic functions as a major port and oil and gas facility. By removing federal subsidies for wind and water insurance, and insisting upon appropriate building standards and land use policies (for example, those as good as Holland’s, which is mostly below sea level), huge cities in vulnerable areas such as Miami, Tampa, or Galveston would slowly shrink to manageable sizes. If we don’t limit their size, hurricanes such as Katrina will do it for us, and at enormous costs to human lives and property."

I think this is spot on. The FEMA flood insurance is a complete racket from a distributional sense but it also creates some horrible incentives. You have to step back and actually think of what it means to qualify for FEMA flood insurance. You are moving into an area that a private insurer has decided is uninsurable or to the extent that they offer an insurance policy, it is obscenely expensive. Are these folks really strong claimants for federal assistance? But beyond the merits of their claim, there is the question of incentives. To the extent you provide subsidized insurance you incentivize a tremendous exposure to risk, one that compounds as you are also incentivizing further development which is likely to harm the natural resources in place to mitigate the impact of a natural disaster (think of the wetlands surrounding New Orleans).

From a political perspective, my preferred policy is entirely unpalatable. I think it is morally unconscionable to build up this type of dependence, but once it's there, what do you do? We find the same situation with regards to our farm policy which harvests dependence at home and poverty abroad all the while making us fatter and spoiling nature. The best you can hope for is to slowly ease people off the dependence. But the question is how, I think in the case of people living in Disaster areas you could start to means test flood and wind insurance and then freeze reimbursement levels but index premiums.

Grammar: The economy may increase or grow down, but you don't "grow the economy"

I'm not usually a traditionalist when it comes to grammar, but I've had enough with the expression "to grow the economy." It doesn't signal the end of the world, but it's bad.
Take note of this passage in Paul Brians' Common Errors in English Usage:

We used to grow our hair long or grow tomatoes in the yard, but now we are being urged to "grow the economy" or "grow your investments." Business and government speakers have extended this usage widely, but it irritates traditionalists. Use "build," "increase," "expand," "develop," or "cause to grow" instead in formal writing.

Comments On Hillary and Obama's Energy Plans

First off I must give credit where it is due. I was surprised to see both Hillary and Obama propose a cap and trade whereby permits are auctioned off instead of allocated. As such they have both offered substantive climate change proposals. Frankly, I am surprised the press hasn't given this part of their proposals more publicity.

Now, on to my disappointment. Both Hillary and Obama have already gestured towards having one massive pork orgy with the proceeds from permit auction. It seems biofuels and liquified coal will be getting lots of handouts, not to mention other various and sundry renewable energies. I would have much preferred a revenue neutral proposal which dedicated revenues towards relieving lower income folks of their payroll tax burden (thus mitigating the impact of higher energy prices caused by a cap and trade and taxing something bad-consumption- instead of something-good- work). Further, once you have priced in the externalities caused by carbon emissions, whether by cap and trade or a carbon tax, the claim for subsidizing other energy forms is not compelling. In a sense other forms of energy are already receiving a subsidy in the form of not being subject to the carbon tax or cap on emissions.

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Where would you rather be sick?

Mankiw shows a table courtesy of the Carpe Diem blog that adjusts life expectancy for things like homicide and automobile accidents. He goes on to speculate what the chart would look like if one normalized for Body Mass Index. All of this may be true but it does not function as an endorsement of the US health care system but rather reinforces the fact that health care has only so much of an impact in influencing health outcomes.

How to Square the Robertson-Giuliani Circle

As I mentioned earlier today, Super Duper Uber-Wingnut Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani. This unfortunately is something of a coup in Republican primary politicking and I found it to be a surprise. Giuliani's biggest liability, besides being a megalomaniac (great mayor though), was his social liberalism. Thus, it was surprising when a man that attributed 9/11 to America's sins (I forget whether it was homosexuality or abortion or both). But James Joyner has figured it all out.

"God ordered the 9/11 attacks.
The 9/11 attacks helped revive Rudy Guilani’s stalled political career. _________________________________________________________

∴ God wants Rudy Guiliani to be president."

hat tip: Stephen Bainbridge

Taxation of Carried Interest Again

I posted awhile back on this subject. Hedge Fund managers earn a commission as part of their compensation, astronomical compensation. This income is treated as a capital gain instead of income, thus, their considerable earnings are taxed at 15% instead of 35%. There was talk about closing this loophole but Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY and chair of the Finance committee and Democratic Senate Campaign Committee) has nixed such legislation. Professor Bainbridge has a very astute observation about the politics of this situation:

"I continue to predict that the Democrats will not pass hedge fund tax increases this term. It’s not just that the hedge fund industry has bought off key players. Instead, as I explained the other day: We normally think of interest group politics in terms of the interest group using campaign contributions to purchase some result. Where the interest group is fixed on avoiding a change in the status quo, however, the balance of power shifts to the politicos who can use threats to the status quo as a way of extracting funds from the threatened group on an ongoing basis. You don’t let the goose that gives golden eggs go after just it gives you just one egg, after all. Instead you turn it into, so to speak, the gift that keeps on giving."

No to Mukasey

Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee to replace Fredo, er, Alberto Gonzales, has been fairly weasely with regards to torture. He has stated that he does not believe that the US should conduct torture as a policy but at the same time there should be no formal prohibition from the President issuing such direction. Additionally, he was evasive on the issue of whether waterboarding constitutes torture. Initially he responded that he does not know what waterboarding is, hardly a responsible answer for somebody that is about to serve as Attorney General. Since he has refused to declare it illegal. I think it is clear that he should not be confirmed.

MAJOR DEVELOPMENT

Pat Robertson is endorsing Giuliani. He also remains insistent that hurricane katrina was God's wrath for our condoning of homosexuality.

At Least We're Better than Powerline

Powerline's John Hinderaker, aka Hinderocket, has won the Golden Wingnut Award for this post, here is a brief excerpt:

"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile."

Note: I hasten to add while as an intern at the Center of the American Experiment I did actually meet Mr. Hinderaker and he was eminently personable and quite nice. He even seemed rather intelligent, I just think that he drank too much of the kool-aid, as the above illustrates.

Bernie, We Hardly Knew Ya

Bernie Kerik, briefly the nominee to serve as DHS Secretary, is about to be indicted for tax evasion and bribery. Classy Guy.

Coolest Thing EVER!

I don't know how this got past my attention because it is the most important development since the printing press or velcro: a unrinal based video game. In the game, it's a driving game, there is a tv above the urinal and you direct the car with your pee. That is simply brilliant. I am inspired.

Moment of Sadness

Stephen Colbert has dropped his bid to run for president.

Greg Mankiw on Health Care

Greg Mankiw has an Op-Ed on health care over at the NY Times. The thrust of his piece is that we need to take a breath before we rush into health care reform because things aren't as bad as they seem. I disagree with the general thrust of the piece if not the particulars. He takes issue with three different aspects of the health care debate.

The first issue is the tendency of health care wonks to point out the higher life expectancy of other OECD countries and attribute this to health care delivery. Mankiw says that this is actually explained by higher automobile and crime fatalities.

The second issue Mankiw addresses is the number of Americans that are uninsured. The number that is constantly cited is 47 million. Now, he complains that this is misleading, which it is, for a variety of reasons. This includes folks that are eligible for medicaid (for whom enrollment is retroactive from an injury or illness), illegal immigrants, and those who make over $50,000 (i.e. who are in the top half of income distribution). Again, all of this is correct and if we look at those that are chronically uninsured, it is a significantly smaller number. I guess the bigger issue is to analyze why this group is chronically insured, my guess is they make enough not to be eligible for medicaid but have pre-existing conditions which make them unisurable risks. The liberal solution is to impose community ratings, I would much prefer federal catastrophic re-insurance program which would make this group insurable.

The third issue Mankiw addresses is the complaint that health care is consuming and will consume an ever greater portion of GDP. He rightly says that as we are more prosperous the consumption of health as opposed to things will increase. I agree with this but he is a bit glib in his dismissal of this criticism. It is one thing to accept that health care will and should rise as a percentage of GDP, but another to fail to recognize the inherent waste in the modern system of health care finance and delivery. Our system encourages the consumption of care regardless of its effectiveness (both in terms of cost and health outcome). This is where other countries exceed us. They exceed us because they have a mechanism to say no to the patient- the government. I am extremely doubtful that our government would be able to similarly serve this function, and thus far insurers have failed in this capacity as well. I think the only way to do this is to push more responsibility on the consumer himself by treating employer provided health care as income.

It's Official

I am an old fart. I just had my first gray hair sighting.

Bill Clinton: Most Influential Person of the Left

Anyhow, the Telegraph seems to think so. I disagree. Right now, I think Al Gore is. He is the preferred candidate of the grassroots. He essentially engineered two of the major policy positions for the Democratic Party, two that really seem to motivate the party: the Iraq War and Climate Change. He has won the Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar, and an Emmy in the last year making him a bonafide celebrity. At this point he has captured the Democratic Party's Mind and Soul, all he is lacking is its purse and that is because he has not entered the ring.

I’m Not Quite Lost Yet

Thank you for your concern Xtra, you will be glad to know that I am still around. I did however very recently spend four days in the lovely state of North Carolina. Here are a few observations that I found to be interesting.

• Driving in North Carolina is TERRIBLE. No one seems to understand what the little thing on the left side of your steering wheel is for and thus no one signals their turns. I don’t know if I can count how many times I was stuck behind someone at a stoplight or stop sign thinking there was something in front of them that was impeding their ability to go straight…frustrating to say the least.

• Nothing and I mean nothing in North Carolina moves quickly. People walk slow, people talk slow, people drive slow, basically if something can be done slowly in North Carolina it is. I was in a Subway getting a late dinner at 9:30 pm on a Thursday, the only two people in the place were me and the guy behind the counter, yet it still took the guy about 5 minutes to make my one six inch sandwich.

• I am not to sure if this next observation is indicative of the entire state or just the area I was in, but in Durham, NC I am pretty sure that the panhandlers are required to register with the city. While driving down the street in Durham I noticed that all of the guys standing on the corners with signs asking for money were wearing neon construction vests with picture ID cards on the front of them. This just struck me as odd.
  

So there you go some random observations from my trip well below the Mason-Dixon Line.

A Part of Why We Are Fat

hat tip: Ezra Klein

The Silence is Deafening

Anti, have we lost you?

Archduke Comments, Xtra Offers Tepid Response

Archduke has engaged in a long and thoughtful comment on why he thinks vouchers are crap. I disagree with him that they are crap but thus far I don’t think the evidence bears out that vouchers are a silver bullet. So let me go ahead and address some of his points (he was commenting on a post by Megan McArdle that I linked to).

"First, she doesn't give, nor does she link to, any conclusive study that says that vouchers work. She gives no evidence other than that she says that they do, so we should believe her."

I guess this goes with the medium which is informal and immediate but here is one study from GAO on the Cleveland and Milwaukee programs (which I believe are the longest running publicly funded programs). Their finding are that the difference of achievement of students who take the vouchers is from negligible to a modest improvement. Not much there and to the extent that I have looked at other studies, consistent with the literature. That said, this finding should be put in context, the vouchers provided are always less than the per capita expenditure per student and often significantly less. Thus, less money= same result. I would say this is a good alternative to more money= same result. But maybe that’s just me.


"Second, and this may just be from my own experience, but the reason that private school costs less per student than public school has a lot to do with the fact that, unless it's an elite private school, the teachers don't make jack shit. My college roommate went to a private school where two different pairs of married teachers were living in the same house, sharing the same car, because they couldn't afford their own."

This is interesting point, not so much as it is an effective rebuttal, which it is not, but it does present a question of scalability. The reason that I am glib on its merits is that it doesn’t address the central question, which is how to educate our kids? (really, the lower income kids that are trapped in crappy urban school districts). If teacher A is willing to teach for 25k at a private school and ends up achieving the same outcome as teacher B who gets 10k more, is that bad? Well, for teacher A but not for the taxpayer. I think where it is problematic is the question of scale, can vouchers scale to a massive program. Maybe, maybe not. I have my doubts, but the status quo is certainly not tenable.

"Why do these teachers do it, if it's so crappy financially? I'm playing a guessing game here, but I think it's the quality of the students. Private schools are allowed to select whoever they want and deny whoever they want. Public schools, of course, are forced to take anyone within their district, no matter how much trouble they cause or how far behind their grade level they are."

Ah, the creaming theory. This one has always seemed so counterintuitive to me and I would refer you to the GAO study because it is also untrue. Just think of it in real terms. What does a parent say when their child is excelling in school, probably one of two things : "Johnny is a fricking genius, I need to send him to Brainiac and World Beaters Prep." or "Johnny is doing really well at School, we are happy with the status quo". I think most parents opt for the latter. I have always thought the more plausible scenario is “Johnny is failing, he needs a different school”.

"If vouchers become commonplace, either the public schools will become even worse--since only the unacceptable students will go there--or the private schools will start taking crappy students. Teachers, of course, will hate this and start demanding more money, which will lead to a raise in teachers' salaries, which will in turn cause a rise in tuition, which will price out the smart, good, poor kids whose parents can't afford to go above and beyone the vouchers, which will lead us back to where we were in the first place."

First, let’s restate where we are in the first place. Lower income inner city kids are receiving absolutely piss poor educations and can’t exit the system except for on the heroic efforts on the parts of parents and the community and charity from private schools. So where we are now sucks. The question is, will public schools become worse necessarily because students exit the system. Possibly, but they could also improve, by actually being, what’s the word I am looking for…Competitive. As it stands now, public schools have a monopoly and they deliver piss poor service. I do however think you could have a good deal of screening for students occur if it were a full blown program and this has in fact occurred in Chile where they do have a full blown voucher program.

"Another problem, irrespective of the ones I've outlined above, is that unless the vouchers are for full tuition price, there's no way lower middle-class parents could afford them. Even if my parents wanted my siblings and I to go to private school, they wouldn't have been able to afford even 1000/year per student. When you're running a deficit and only catch up in the summer, it's pretty unlikely that you'll be able to afford to apportion enough money for kids to go to school. Living paycheck-to-paycheck (which a significant portion of the middle-class does, even though their income is in the 40-50 K range) isn't conducive to paying school tuition when your kids can get educated for free at the public school."

This seems like a self-defeating argument as to the extent that vouchers have been implemented they have been means-tested (typically between 175-200% of the poverty line and below). Somehow people are doing it. And we have to remember, not every private school is an Exeter or Andover. Most private schools are parochial schools that do a pretty good job on a shoestring budget.

I don’t think Vouchers are the solution, but I think they are part of the solution, along with Charters, and decentralizing school administrations, accountability that makes sense unlike NCLB, and paying teachers more so that eventually teaching becomes a prestigious profession and attracts brighter bulbs (there are some really good teachers and their efforts are heroic but we can’t build a system on the basis of the expectation of heroism).

Random Question

Are there any Democrats (or for that matter Republicans) who have spoken out in favor of means testing Medicare and Social Security?

Larry Summers

Has an interesting interview over at International Economy.