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The Perils of Misremembering History

October 14th, 2012

Kennedy-Khrushchev

Khrushchev and Kennedy go head-to-head over Soviet missiles in Cuba

On its 50th anniversary, the Cuban Missile Crisis lives large in the American psyche as a time of pride. President Kennedy stared down the great Russian bear, who went quivering back into his cave. For 13 days the nation waited, poised on the brink of nuclear war, for Khrushchev to blink. It was an unmitigated vindication of military might and brinksmanship.

Or was it?

In light of recently unsealed records, historians now say the resolution of the standoff was really a triumph of backdoor diplomacy. The real story of what happened five decades ago was a bit more nuanced, and involved much less bravado and intimidation.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy met secretly with the Soviet ambassador Oct. 27 and conveyed an olive branch from his brother: Washington would publicly reject any invasion of Cuba, and Khrushchev would withdraw the missiles from the island. The real sweetener was that Kennedy would withdraw Jupiter nuclear missiles from U.S. installations in Turkey, near the Soviet border. It was a secret pledge known only to a handful of advisers.

The reality vs. the mythology is important in light of the political hay currently being made over Obama’s alleged “weakness” in the Middle East. The meme from the far-right says that attacks on our ambassador in Benghazi and Iran’s nuclear ambitions will only be curtailed by a Cuban Missile Crisis like standoff—that the U.S.A. needs to draw lines and dare our opponents to cross.  Only then will America get the respect it deserves, and force our enemies to slink back to their caves.

The foreign policy being advocated from conservatives is similar to their approach to domestic policy. There will be no compromise as it shows weakness. There will be no apologies and no negotiations.

In 1962, Kennedy had the luxury of getting it both ways. He got to maintain the appearance of unyielding strength and intimidation at home, while granting concessions to the Soviets in an effort to avoid a devastating war nether side wanted. It’s not remotely clear Obama (or any modern President) could maintain that level of covert deal-making in the age of the Internet and 24-hour cable news.  If a President tried and was discovered, he would be accused of conspiracy and cover-ups.

If the Cuban Missile Crisis happened today and played out exactly as it did 50 years ago, the President would be eviscerated by conservatives for negotiating with the enemy, compromising U.S. security in Europe, and positioning America as weak and unwilling to fight.

The right-wing pundits are correct that the Kennedy/Khrushchev showdown has lessons for modern foreign policy. But the lessons are in the reality of what occurred, not the mythology.

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Conservative: You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

September 15th, 2012

Inigo-Montoya-SwordWhen it comes to civil liberties and personal freedoms, I’m a self-avowed flaming liberal. Marry whom you love, worship whom you will, or don’t. Smoke dope. Paint your house neon green. Dance naked in the street. As long as your actions don’t directly infringe someone else’s freedom, have at it.

But in the realm of economics, foreign policy, commercial regulation, etc. I consider myself fairly conservative.  That’s “conservative” with a lower case “c”. It’s “conservative” in the sense of the dictionary definition. Someone who favors existing proven pragmatic methods. Someone who likes to preserve. Someone not prone to extravagant new experimental ventures. Someone who is cautiously moderate, and fiscally responsible.

This is far away from what “Conservative” with a capital “C” has come to mean in America. When you capitalize the “C”, suddenly you become someone who advocates for hawkish foreign policy, unabashed capitalism, and socially Darwinian domestic policy. Someone who favors dogmatic inflexible situationally independent rules.

The bizarre reality of being a Conservative in America is that you aren’t really very conservative at all. On the other hand, being conservative now makes you politically Liberal (with a capital “L”). It’s all so confusing. Perhaps a couple of examples would help.

Let’s take healthcare. On a per capita basis, American healthcare costs double what is spent for care in every other industrialized western country. And no, the quality of care is not better here. Health care costs are a drain on businesses and wages because providing employee healthcare is so expensive and continues to grow at multiples of the inflation rate.

The Conservative answer is basically to stay the course. There is a conservative angle here in that conservatives are resistant to change. But this is being ignorant of the larger picture. Sure, you can be resistant to policy change, but that doesn’t stop the change in healthcare costs that is eating up the economy. This is like sitting on your roof, refusing to be evacuated while the flood waters rise around you. The myopic conservative position may be to stay the course, but the safe, pragmatic, less risky position is to get in the next boat that comes by.

Looking around the world, some form of government run universal healthcare is the norm. There are any number of varieties including true socialized healthcare ala Great Britain, Medicare for all ala Canada, or even regulated and compulsory private insurance ala Switzerland.  All deliver roughly equivalent results at a fraction of the cost of the U.S. system. Further, there are so many variations of this system all succeeding, it can’t be that tricky to implement. Given, the clear choice for true conservatives should always be to solve a problem using a cost effective, proven, and time tested technique, the answer to healthcare should be clear.

In a somewhat related vein, there is a vested conservative interest in having a healthy and well-educated citizenry, who are living in a country with a solid modern infrastructure. All of these are foundational elements to the capitalistic industrial success that ultimately drives the economic prowess that makes this country great. Collapsed bridges, flooded cities, unreliable communications or power networks, or unemployable and non-productive citizens are all largely preventable problems if the society as a whole is making persistent and solid investments in its long term future. A liberal might advocate for something similar because it was the humane thing to do or because everyone deserves a chance. But a conservative should advocate for these things because they are solid practical ways to enable a productive society and minimize the collective expense.

Think of it this way. A conservative would clearly buy insurance on his home and make every effort to keep it well maintained. In this way, it’s a safe reliable shelter that should meet the needs of his family for decades to come. What could be a more conservative position than that?

When it comes to the environment, how can you be conservative and yet oppose environmental conservatism? No, I don’t think preserving every last species of minnow or song bird is vital. Species have been going extinct since the dawn of time. That’s the circle of life. But preserving and protecting the larger ecosystem we live in and depend on is about as conservative an idea as I can imagine. From deep sea oil drilling and fracking to carbon emissions, acid rain, and nuclear waste, the capital “C” Conservative position is diametrically opposed to the lower cased conservative one. I don’t get it.

On foreign policy, I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s conservative about the kick ass and take names approach to the world. There are absolutely national interests that lie outside our borders, but diplomacy and economic power are far more cost effective, with less risk to domestic lives and treasure, than military action. It’s important to carry a big stick, but that doesn’t mean you never bother to speak softly.

On economics, Conservatives have the equation completely backwards. A conservative approach would be to take on some debt when times were bad and investment was needed. But then to be responsible and pay that debt off when things were going well.  Instead, we see Conservatives opt for austerity in bad times, in essence compounding the downturn, and then claiming deficits don’t matter during prosperous times, thereby compounding the recovery. A conservative should favor a nice even economy, not one that slingshots about like a roller-coaster.

In a very real way, the current capital “C” Conservative movement has become radical. Meanwhile the Liberal movement has morphed into something downright lower case conservative. Minimally, this means that hanging your identity on a label rather than a solid ideology may lead you to a point where you are unintentionally advocating for outcomes you would very much oppose. Modern marketing means you have to be a very intelligent consumer; and not just when you are shopping for margarine, but when you are shopping for politicians.

My ideology makes me politically conservative. But the current state of politics means I align most closely with the Liberals. Clearly, in today’s world, words don’t mean what you think they mean. Vote wisely.

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One of these things is not like the other

August 8th, 2012

GOPvsDemThis week has provided for an interesting micro-study on a key difference between our two political parties.

Harry Reid proclaimed that Mitt Romney did not pay any taxes for years. Meanwhile, Romney released a new ad asserting that Obama was gutting welfare reform. These were not tit-for-tat events. They are relatively unrelated. But the parties’ and pundits respective reactions to each are instructive.

First, a recap of the facts: Reid’s claim is a baseless accusation. The public has no knowledge of whether or not it’s actually true, and little reason to believe Reid actually knows. It’s a distasteful attempt to put a political opponent on the defensive. To make him guilty until he proves himself innocent.  Romney’s claim is different. While it is also intended to put his opponent on the defensive, it is flat-out, demonstrably, unquestionably, factually false.

How were these two events reported? The New York Times is generally considered a left-leaning news source. You might presume they’d defend Reid while hanging Romney out to dry. You’d be wrong.

Compare the opening of a story on Reid:

Senator Harry Reid’s decision this week to hurl a taunting, unsubstantiated accusation at Mitt Romney is hardly out of character for the cantankerous Democratic leader of the Senate, who revels in provocative comments and once called Mr. Romney “kind of a joke.”

To the opening of a story on Romney:

Seven years ago, Mitt Romney joined other governors to urge the federal government to grant “increased waiver authority” to states to experiment with implementation of the federal welfare-to-work program.

But as he runs for president, Mr. Romney and his Republican allies are now accusing President Obama of “gutting” the welfare program by saying it will consider waivers to states.

These are not cherry picked stories, nor is the NYT unique in this regard. The major media outlets and pundits are pulling no punches in calling Reid out on his baseless accusation.  Meanwhile, Romney’s lie is treated as a topic of reasonable debate.

My initial reaction to this was that the “mainstream media” was now so in fear of being labeled as having a liberal bias, they had become afraid to expose even outright falsehoods on the conservative side. And I do think this is at least part of it.  The right’s efforts to play up their victimization by a lefty lamestream media have assuredly had an effect on the way news gets reported.

Yet I think that’s not the whole story. I think a part of the media reaction also relates to how far the parties get from their behavioral norms. The GOP has key figures claiming Obama’s birth certificate was faked, and that there is a Muslim conspiracy brewing in the State department. In the greater scheme of outrageous claims, “Obama guts welfare reform” barely nudges the needle. On the Democratic side, unsubstantiated claims of filing perfectly legal tax returns that play the IRS for every penny are treated as scandalous.

There’s a lesson here. Both sides may “play the game”, but not to the same degree. It’s kind of like claiming the USA and Tunisia were both playing Olympic basketball the other night. While technically true, they weren’t playing in the same league.

Still, I know many of you out there are completely frustrated with the whole thing. You claim to hate what both sides do, and that’s more than fair. There are no angels in politics.Some of you are determined to check out of the political process by not voting, or you intend to make a statement by voting for a 3rd party candidate.

But the simple reality is this. Come 2013, one of these two parties will take the White House. And one of these two parties will control each of the houses of Congress. With four short months to go until the election, no other party has a remote chance in hell of altering that reality.

One of these things is not like the other. As the Templar Knight told Indiana Jones, “Choose wisely.” And as the band Rush reminds us in their song Freewill, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

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The GOP Needs to Be Born Again

June 5th, 2012

The Republican need to go down in flames so they can remake themselves by rising from their own ashes.

Yesterday’s post elicited a response reading in part:

If we gave the Democrats power next year, you know what they would have? A mandate. That’s all we would hear about until the next election, which they would lose, because they thought they had a mandate. It’s like watching a tennis match and rooting for the guy without the ball.
Maybe the Republicans made it tough on Obama. Maybe Obama wasn’t leader enough to overcome it. Did the GOP fail to vote in Obama’s FOMC appointee’s? Yes. Did Obama make recess appointments which were within his power? No. Obama is not a victim, he’s the president. If the other guys played the system better to get what they want, than well played.
Ezra says that this is the logical conclusion of a system biased toward gridlock. The system is broken. Let’s fix the system instead of kickin the can down the road.

I certainly agree the system is broken.  My preference would be to fix that. However, we have repeatedly failed to fix those problems. It would be great to see substantive campaign finance reform, have the Fed refocused on NGDP goals, revise Senate rules so that a super-majority isn’t required for everything, institute lobbying controls so legislation wasn’t ghost-written by special interests… I could go on.  But the likelihood of any of those being addressed this year is vanishingly small.  Not that we should give up on those reforms, but that there remain practical short term things we can fix in the meanwhile.

I’m also an independent. I’ve voted for Republicans in the past, and I’d like to do so again. But the current incarnation of the party has gone beyond the pale, and until they find their way back to sanity, I will not vote on the GOP line. They have not only lost any willingness to compromise, they have lost the ability to agree to their own positions when the other side agrees with them.  They lost the election in ’08, and have yet to acknowledge the legitimacy of the people we elected.  Win or lose, there’s still a country to run. And they are refusing unless they are put back into power.

I’m not claiming Obama is the greatest, or that the Democrats are above playing politics or fighting for their policy positions.  But they have not engaged in the extreme intransigence of the GOP.  If given full control of the government, would they eventually yield to the same sort of behavior the GOP is showing? Very probably. But that won’t happen overnight. Policy-wise, Obama is far closer to Reagan than Romney. There is almost no chance the Democrats would take a mandate and run to the extreme left. It’s much more likely they will stick to their current centrist proposals.  Meanwhile, the GOP gets to go lick its wounds, expunge its extremists, and return to the center-right position of its roots. Hopefully, to again balance the system out in 2014 or 2016; before the pendulum swings too far the other way.

I don’t want a permanent Democratic majority. I want a functional two-party system with give and take from both sides resulting in actual governance that works in aggregate for the betterment of the citizenry.  We do not have that now. And we don’t because one party has checked out of the game. The notion that “both sides do it” is a false equivalence. The Republican party has abdicated its responsibility to govern or even functionally participate in any government it does not control.  It has pretty much given up on appealing to (or even tolerating) anyone other than white Christian males.  It needs to remake itself or yield to a new party that will fill the void it leaves behind.  The only way it will get that message is if it is resoundingly defeated.  And not just at the Presidential level.  If the GOP does okay at the federal and state level excepting Romney, it will read that as a failure to go with somebody more radical like Santorum. It only gets the message if it goes down in flames. And to be clear, the only reason I want it to go down in flames is so its old moderate reasonable self rises from the ashes.

I want the Republican party back.  I don’t know what the hell that thing is hiding behind the elephant right now. But I’m not voting for it.

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The GOP Hostage Situation

June 4th, 2012

Mitt_Romney,_2006

Photo by Parachutegurl, cropped by Gridge

Ezra Klein makes the somewhat disturbing argument that even if you disagree with every one of Mitt Romney’s policies, there’s a chance he’s still the best candidate to lift the economy in 2013.

The essential thesis is that what Romney will do in the short term isn’t much different than what Obama has already proposed.  However, Obama is being stonewalled by the GOP controlled House, and it is unlikely the Democrats will retake the House even if Obama is reelected.  Meanwhile, it’s very likely that a Romney win will be accompanied by Republicans retaining the House and very possibly getting a Senate majority to boot.  The reasonable bet is that the GOP would rally around policies offered by a Republican President, while they would continue the blockade against substantively those same policies when offered by Obama.

What Klein seems to be trying hard not to say is that the GOP is holding the economy hostage right now.  Elect Romney and they’ll let it live.  Reelect Obama, and they’ll let it fall off the looming fiscal cliff.

What’s disturbing is, I don’t think Klein is wrong.  Still the notion of rewarding the GOP for this sort of behavior remains unthinkable.  As much as I want the economy to recover, I cannot and will not support the sort of politics that says either I’m winning or I will exist to destroy you.  The Republicans need to be taught a lesson here.  They need to know that there are times they will be in the majority and times they will not be.  But in all those cases, we the people expect them to do their goddamned jobs and work in our best interests.

The only way that lesson is learned is if the GOP gets severely spanked in 2012 at the state and federal levels.  Yes, the time may come some years down the road when the Dems need to be similarly spanked, but that is not the case now.  All things are not equal. Yes, there is still too much special interest money in politics. Yes, there are problems with the Fed, the banking industry, the filibuster, and other intractable issues.  But none of that changes the elemental reality that one of the parties is currently holding the system hostage until it is put back in power.  This is something we can fix. Now. And easily.

And just maybe, should we succeed in giving the Democrats control of the government, they can enact the same economy saving short term policies without rewarding the GOP for putting a gun to our heads.  Wouldn’t that be just a little satisfying?

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Dear GOP, Drill This

March 3rd, 2012

Either unregulated free markets work, or they don’t.  Either a thing is the President’s responsibility, or it isn’t.  You can’t have it both ways unless you’re inventing your own reality… Oh yeah, never mind.

US Oil ProductionOkay, maybe we should mind a little… The GOP’s message is that Obama is responsible for high gas prices and he should do something about that.  And that something is to “drill, baby, drill“.  Unfortunately, those damned liberally biased facts stand in stark opposition to the GOP’s message.  As the chart on the right shows, oil production under Obama has risen at a substantial rate, and contrasts markedly with the steady decline of production under George Bush.  In fact, the number of oil rigs in production in the U.S. has reached a 24-year high, according to oil field services company Baker Hughes. In 2005, domestic production was 1.89 billion barrels. This year, experts say, production is expected to surpass 2 billion barrels.

drilling_gas_prices_chartFurther, there’s no correlation between domestic oil production and gas prices.  The chart on the left shows instead that the two numbers seem to roughly track.  If we assume (moronically) that correlation is the same as causation, the obvious policy would be to stop domestic production in an effort to bring prices at the pump down.

Another nail in the coffin of the failure to drill position is the U.S. Energy Information Administration report that the U.S. exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline than it imported for the month of September. This is an historic change, because we’ve been a net importer of gasoline, mostly from Europe, since the 1960s. We are not domestically constrained on gasoline supply.

Another inconvenient truth is U.S. net petroleum imports have fallen to about 47% of the nation’s consumption, down from a record 60.3% in 2005, Energy Information Administration statistics show. It’s been 15 years since the nation’s reliance on foreign oil has been this low.

So does Obama deserve all the credit for this?  No, absolutely not.  While he’s called for ending the $40B in annual subsidies to big oil, so far the money flows unabated.  While there was a brief moratorium on deep water drilling after the BP oil spill, that was long ago lifted.  Obama subsequently opened up drilling in the Arctic to the howl of environmentalists, and also agreed to open leases for drilling off the eastern seaboard, despite his reputation on the right for shutting down oil exploration.  Obama may not be responsible for the boom in production, but it’s not at all clear how you can claim he’s a hindrance to it.  There might be a claim that he could do more to spur drilling, but there’s no evidence he’s done anything yet to impede drilling.  If anything, his policies lean the other way.

Meanwhile, in reality, the major reasons for increases in domestic oil production lie with recent advances in geologic imaging allowing accurate identification of underground oil deposits, as well as the development of new extraction techniques making previously unprofitable wells productive.

oil -- u.s. oil efficiency improvingThe impact of energy efficiency should also not be underestimated. Not only are our homes, cars, and appliances cleaner and greener, but advances in technology have reduced the need for travel. More of us are telecommuting to work, or using GoToMeeting instead of jumping on a plane.

Hmmm… domestic production is up, domestic use is down, and gas prices are still rising.  That doesn’t sound like the supply & demand model we learned about in school!  But wait, I’ve heard rumors that the US is not the only country on the planet.  Maybe there are other players here influencing the market.

It turns out that growing industrialized counties like China and India are consuming an ever larger portion of the global oil supply.  In aggregate, the global demand is expected to barely keep pace with global production.  So there’s minimal excess capacity in the market, and that helps keep prices high.  Granted, additional production will definitely help this problem.  However, if China and India continue growing at their current rate and eventually consume oil at rates approaching what we do in the U.S., the need will far outstrip the supply of oil on the entire globe.  So long term, most of us have to find an energy alternative to oil anyway.  The only way “Drill, Baby, Drill” solves this problem is if the US becomes entirely oil self-sufficient, and then detaches itself from the global oil markets.  And that flies directly in the face of the GOP position on open, free, and unregulated markets.  Can you imagine the cries when the law is passed that prevents Exxon from exporting?

And speaking of free markets, oil speculators are in no small part responsible for the current price spike.  Almost 70% of the current oil commodities market is driven by speculators.  Why is speculation driving prices up?  Primarily, the speculation that there is an imminent military intervention in Iran that will dramatically impact the delivery of Mid-East oil.  Meaning, the increased saber-rattling toward Iran is helping drive prices up by driving speculation of a coming supply crunch.  Keep in mind that while Obama has offered stern warnings to Iran, the current GOP Presidential contenders (excluding Ron Paul) have all promised to attack Iran if they don’t fall in line to U.S. demands.  Commodities speculation is fairly unregulated, and it seems highly unlikely the GOP would support such financial regulation.  Meanwhile, their militaristic approach to foreign policy exacerbates fears that are driving the free market in the direction they claim to not want it to go.

Mitt Romney is on record saying that rather than bail out the auto industry, the market should just have been allowed to run its natural course.  That’s what’s best for the markets and ultimately best for America. Why then, is it not best for the markets and best for America to let gas hit $5/gallon if that is the natural course of things?  Why should the government intervene on gas prices?

If your mantra is, shut up and take your medicine while the markets sort it out, then shut up and take your medicine.

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The GOP is Running Out of People to Alienate

February 18th, 2012

Danger Man CaveThere was a time when party politics was about appealing to the majority of voters.  Minimally, this meant getting people to feel like the party had their back in some way or another.  However, for many groups the GOP increasingly seems to be asserting they not only don’t have their back, but they find the members of the group to be somehow unsuitable as members of society.

If you are part of, relate to, or support one of the groups below, you should know how the GOP feels about you or your loved ones:

  • Women – unscrupulous homicidal baby incubators who left unregulated and controlled would be hurling infants off seaside cliffs in hormonal rages.
  • Gays/Lesbians – an affront to God, family, and good clean living; they won’t rest until they’ve turned everyone gay and destroyed the institutions of marriage and parenthood.
  • Immigrants – the illegal ones are job-stealing leeches on the underbelly of society that should be deported just as soon as the crops are in; the legal ones are sketchy too—they talk funny.
  • Scientists – a cabal of liberal tree-hugging geeks in white lab coats bent on corrupting children, destroying religion, and crimping oil industry profits; except the ones working on smartphone technology—they’re okay.
  • Atheists – an evil, amoral, hedonistic scourge sent by Satan to lead the weak of faith straight to Hell and plunge America into darkness… which would be bad, unless it’s the End Times.
  • Poor People – lazy, shiftless, unmotivated, drug-addled drains on society; they need to get off their asses and out in the fields for sub-poverty wages so we can send all the damned illegals back home.
  • African Americans – entitled and lazy, they will resort to crime and drugs if they don’t get their food stamps and welfare checks; except pro athletes—they’re valuable.
  • Muslims – terrorists… all of them; this is America dammit, and we do not sit idly by while some freedom hating loonies with exploding underwear try to rob us of our religious freedom.
  • Hispanics – see Illegal Immigrants; and even those that are legal are only hear to try and figure out how to sneak all their friends and relatives over the border.
  • Future Seniors – current seniors are good to go; future seniors had better cinch up their Depends because this notion that you should have health care and a government pension is unsustainable; but don’t worry, if you do it right during your working years, then you’ll be rich enough to enjoy retirement; if you didn’t… well, try to die unobtrusively.

…and I’m sure I missed a few groups, or maybe the GOP just hasn’t gotten around to them yet.

I can’t fathom how alienating all these groups will help the GOP in the election as these groups represent some significant portions of the population.  Their only election day salvation would seem to be  keeping all these undesirables from the polls.  Oh yeah, that’s already under way.

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May I have that aspirin between your knees?

February 17th, 2012

Bayer Aspirin

Use as directed (by doddering old men)

The overreaction by the left is giving me a headache. Sure, Foster Friess made a stupid remark when he said,

“This contraception thing, my gosh, it’s so inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

He says it was a joke, and I believe him.  Apparently I’m the only one who remembers hearing this joke some 40 years ago.  It was a play off of what was then a new form of birth control called “the pill”.  People would joke back then that the only way the pill would be 100% effective is if you held it between your knees.  And I remember hearing the aspirin variant as well.

This certainly doesn’t excuse the reality that this was not the time or the venue to make such a lighthearted remark.  So, Friess rightly gets a dope slap for that.  But MS-NBC, the Huffington Post, and other liberal leaning outlets have been beating the poor guy to death over this.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully support contraceptives being included in everyone’s health coverage.  I live in one many states that already have such rules in place.  It’s sheer lunacy that we have national politicians arguing that contraceptives are harmful to women or that anyone can opt out of providing any form of health coverage as long as they site their moral conviction as the reason.

Further, Friess is the single key monetary backer of Rick Santorum’s Super-Pac, which already calls his sanity into question.  And if you watch his post-remark explanation from last night, he seems more than a little bewildered, not only about why he’s on TV, but also about the positions of the candidate he supports.  It’s not clear he’s firing on all cylinders, but he has a big-ass checkbook and a Supreme Court ruling that says he can use it—which is a whole different messed up thing.

However, at its core Friess was simply advocating for abstinence.  After all, that’s the point of the aspirin between the knees, right?.  Keep your legs closed ladies.  Because everyone (who’s never had much sex) knows that you can’t have sex if your knees are touching.

All these same reporters and pundits who are apoplectic over Friess’ remark, are the same folks who for decades have listened with a straight face as politicians and advocacy groups pushed abstinence based programs in this country.  Despite mountains of evidence that abstinence is a failed strategy, it still gets the courtesy of consideration from news media on the left and the right alike.

Why go off the rails now, and against a 72-year old man who has a cute way of saying he thinks we should be teaching abstinence instead of providing contraception?  Sure, that’s a dumb idea.  But it’s been a dumb idea for a long long time.  It’s a little late to get your shocked face out now.

The left often (and properly IMHO) chastises right-wing media for blowing small issues out of proportion.  For taking a minor incident and playing it and replaying it until it becomes a thing.  But in this case, the left is guilty of the same behavior.  Lead by example. There is a big story here on women’s health and healthcare in general.  Foster Friess is not the story.  Cut the old guy some slack.

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The American War on Sex

February 11th, 2012

NoSexOur culture has a curious relationship with sex.  Judging by our television programming, Internet habits, and even news coverage, it would seem we are obsessed with it.  Yet judging by our politics, we are terrified anyone is actually doing it.

Reruns of Two and a Half Men run almost constantly, and the content is almost entirely sexual.  ABC’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager was wildly popular amongst teen girls, and dealt almost non-stop with teen girls having sex.  The E! network is awash in pixelated boobs.  And what self-respecting primetime crime drama wouldn’t feature sexual depravity and violence as a major theme?

Meanwhile, Janet Jackson’s “accidental” exposure of a nipple for 8 seconds on TV warranted the attention of the Supreme Court.

The hot-button issues emerging in the 2012 election are turning out to be topics like contraception, gay marriage, and defunding Planned Parenthood.  In the 21st century, we are still committed to teaching abstinence to kids.  The same kids to whom we market an unending stream of sexualized clothing, music, and media are then being told by politicians that sex is just for making babies within the context of a marriage.  Is it any wonder kids think politicians are out of touch?

Ironically, the Muslim countries have this right.  If you’re really committed as a culture to sexual repression, then drape your women in burkas, censor the Internet, and restrict TV broadcasts to G-rated content.  At least it’s a consistent policy

Alternatively, maybe it’s time to embrace sex as a natural human function rather than some weird necessary ritual that must be performed 2.2 times in order to produce the requisite number of children.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places sex at the same level as breathing, food, water, and sleep.  We are hard-wired for sex at very fundamental and physiological level.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for hedonism.  Just because you enjoy eating doesn’t mean you’re into gluttony or dumpster diving. And just as the government plays a role in the food you eat, it has a role to play in sex as well.  The government works to make sure the food supply is safe.  It even encourages good nutritional habits.  But there is very little support for the government regulating what you can eat and when.  Maybe a similar approach should be taken with sex.  The government can work to ensure that sex is safe.  That might include disease prevention and control, sexual product testing, and access to sexually related health care.

But maybe people should be as resistant to the government regulating when, where, and whom you can have sex with as they are to the notion that the government will take away their soda-pop and Twinkies.

Government regulation of morality rarely goes well.

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The Angry Mob Is Rising

February 2nd, 2012

Angry Mob Fun RunAs the 2012 election approaches, all the old anti-Obama crap is recirculating.  The message is unchanged. He’s the most dangerous man in America. He’s trying to destroy us. He’s Marxist. He’s Muslim. He hangs with terrorists.  He was born on Neptune. He wears magic underwear. (Oh wait, that last one was Romney. Sorry)  But you get the point.

I was recently the recipient of one such email screed, and decided to take on the issue, as I’m wont to do from time to time.  Yes, I’m sure I was just tilting at windmills, but the email chain was widely circulated, and I’m making that a little wider by publishing it here.  Who knows, maybe someone reading it will at least reexamine their position before picking up their pitchfork. If so, it’s worth it. The complete chain is included below.

The original email:

EVERYONE SHOULD READ AND PAY ATTENTION TO THIS, and pass it forward.

HOW DO WE GET EVERY AMERICAN TO UNDERSTAND AND VOTE TO CURE THIS BLIGHT?

Subject: Wake up!
WHEN – he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan, Muramar Kaddafi and Hugo Chavez, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary radicals, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – his voting record in the Illinois Senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he refused to wear a flag lapel pin and did so only after a public outcry, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he surrounded himself in the White House with advisors who were pro-gun control, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he said he favors sex education in kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – his personal background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – the place of his birth was called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezco – a man of questionable character and who is now in prison and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home – people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him elected, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he started appointing White House Czars that were radicals, revolutionaries, and even avowed Marxist /Communists, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he stood before the Nation and told us that his intentions were to “fundamentally transform this Nation” into something else, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed cabinet members and several advisors who were tax cheats and socialists, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed a Science Czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed Cass Sunstein as Regulatory Czar who believes in “Explicit Consent,” harvesting human organs without family consent and allowing animals to be represented in court, while banning all hunting, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual and organizer of a group called Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network as Safe School Czar and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed Mark Lloyd as Diversity Czar who believes in curtailing free speech, taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth, who supports Hugo Chavez, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – Valerie Jarrett, an avowed Socialist, was selected as Obama’s Senior White House Advisor, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher and the person she turned to most for inspiration, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed Carol Browner, a well known socialist as Global Warming Czar working on Cap and Trade as the nation’s largest tax, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar, who since had to resign when this was made known, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services Secretary could not be confirmed because he was a tax cheat, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – as President of the United States , he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he traveled around the world criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – his actions concerning the Middle East seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel , our long time ally, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States , people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he upset the Europeans by removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders said they were necessary to win, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he started spending us into a debt that was so big we could not pay it off, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions, and individuals that got him elected, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he took over insurance companies, car companies, banks, etc., people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he took away student loans from the banks and put it through the government, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he designed plans to take over the health care system and put it under government control, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he claimed he was a Christian during the election and tapes were later made public that showed Obama speaking to a Muslim group and ‘stating’ that he was raised a Muslim, was educated as a Muslim, and is still a Muslim, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he set into motion a plan to take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and Trade, people said it didn’t matter.

WHEN – he finally completed his transformation of America into a Socialist State , people woke up— but it was too late.

Add these up one by one and you get a phenomenal score that points to the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama is determined to turn America into a Marxist-Socialist society.   All of the items in the preceding paragraphs have been put into place. All can be documented very easily. Before you disavow this do an Internet search. The last paragraph alone is not yet cast in stone. You and I will write that paragraph.
Will it read as above or will it be a more happy ending for most of America ?

Don’t just belittle the opposition. Search for the truth. We all need to pull together or watch the demise of a free democratic
society. Pray for Americans to seek the truth and take action for it will keep us FREE. Our biggest enemy is not China , Russia , North Korea or Iran . Our biggest enemy is a contingent of politicians in Washington , DC . The government will not help, so we need to do it ourselves.

Question….will you delete this, or pass it on to others who don’t know about Obama’s actions and plans for the USA , so that they may know how to vote in November, 2012 and the ensuing years?

It’s your decision. I believe it does matter. How about you?

WHEN – November 2012 comes, it will matter who you vote for!

I replied:

This is America.  It is a country where everyone has a right to ignorance, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, paranoia, and all manner of conspiratorial delusion.  The author of this gem is taking full advantage of those rights.

When the things listed here are true, you should be worried.  But you should be more worried that there are people out there making decisions based on a belief that bunk like this is true.  And unlike the crap below, that is happening now.

There are ample reasons to vote against Obama based on a disagreement with his policies and positions.  However, the points below reflect only ad hominem attacks.  They disparage the people. They take aim at the integrity and character of Obama and others, largely through innuendo and speculation.  Ideally, most people outgrow this sort of behavior in middle school.  But this is not an ideal world.

The only valid point the author makes in this whole diatribe is, “Don’t just belittle the opposition. Search for the truth.”  Do that. Just be careful not to mistake the loudest and angriest voices for those speaking truth.  Sometimes truth is just a tad more subtle than that.

Which generated this response:

I was so hoping to get a response like the last one in which you took the time to go through point by point and put it in perspective. I’m disappointed you didn’t do that this time, but did just what most Liberals do when they listen to the main stream media and can’t disprove the truth. They label those that expose the truth as racist, ignorant, paranoid etc. If, as you say, this diatribe is bunk please show me where. You might want to ”search out the truth” for yourself so you can do that.
I would also like your opinion on just how Obama has made America any better since he has been in office. Thanks!
Looking forward to hearing from you.

To which I replied:

If you want me to address your issues seriously, then you need to send me serious issues.  These were not.  This was the equivalent of the old bully’s chide, “Your mother wears Army boots.” And then having the bully demand you prove it’s not true.

It’s been six years since Obama hit the national stage.  The GOP has had control of the house for the last two, during which their explicit self-stated mission was to bring Obama down.  If any of these charges were more substantive than character smears, do you seriously think there would not have been Congressional hearings to expose all this.  Obama is a Muslim Marxist Kenyan?  Are we still seriously arguing these things?

If someone asserts the Earth is flat, the sky is green, and gravity makes things fall up, I could certainly provide research, data, and demonstrations those contentions were untrue.  But I wouldn’t.  It’s not worth my time.  Anyone who holds true such readily demonstrable falsehoods is not looking for truth.  They are looking for confirmation, either that they are right or that there is a conspiracy to keep the truth hidden.  Nothing I might say or do is going to change that.

There is an old adage that you should never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Has Obama made the country any better?  Ask the 16 million people who now have medical care.  Ask the millions of unemployed who have continued to receive benefits so they can keep their homes and feed their families. Ask the employees of GM who still have jobs and are working for a thriving company. Ask the workers who have enjoyed additional thousands in their paychecks because of tax cuts.  Ask the 1%ers who have garnered 88% of the income growth since 2009.  Ask the Wall Street bankers who didn’t go to jail for tanking the economy.  Ask the families of soldiers home from Iraq. Ask Mommar Quadaffi or Osama bin Laden.

Does any of that make this a better country?  Better for whom?  And compared to what?  That is question you must answer for yourself.

This generated yet another response:

I am truly amazed that you get to determine what questions you decide are serious enough to answer or not. The truth is all those points made regarding the President are the truth. I will grant you some of the points by themselves seem unimporant. However when you put them all together, you can get an idea of just who Obama thinks he is and why he thinks he can stomp all over the Constitution to get his policies put into effect. You say you can’t do anything about any conspiracy to keep the truth hidden. I disagree. You could start by seriously checking out sources other than the main stream media for your information. Our freedom and our rights are slowly and oh so cleverly being stolen out from under us and it is people like you who seem to be so blinded to the the truth of what is happening to our country that they are getting away with it. You have no idea of the evil that is permeating this land.
Just a couple of more things, Tim and then I think we should agree to disagree.
No one seems to be able to answer just why Obama didn’t pass the things he wanted to when he had control of both the House and the Senate. Any ideas? (I am being very serious).
Your answer as to how Obama has made America better on the surface looks ok. My question is at what cost? Obama has put us more in debt than any other president combined. The health care billed was passed even though 60% of the people didn’t want it. It was passed unread by anyone (even the President.) It was passed after meetings being held behind closed doors where who knows what happened. (so much for the promised transparency), and by bribing congressmen and senators for their votes, (both Republicans and Democrats.) Now that we know what is in it (some parts considered unconstitutional) more of our rights are threatened, and is putting us further into debt.
Who knows what the effect of cutting benefits from Seniors to pay for this will be. There are enough sources out there to check on that.
You say millions of unemployed are receiving benefits so they can keep their homes and feed their children and that is wonderful for them. My question is what is being done for the millions who have lost their homes with no hope of getting them back? What plans are in the works for putting the millions of unemployed back to work? Obama had the chance to do something about it with the Keystone pipeline construction, but chose to appease the environmental wackos for their votes in the upcoming election. Because of the stimulus money bailouts, the Federal Government now controls the auto industry, the banking industry and the Green Energy businesses that he supported are now going bankrupt. Can you guess who is being paid back first? It is not the American taxpayers.
I could go on, but you get the idea, Tim. I’m not saying all of this is all Obama’s fault. It is my opinion the whole Governmental system is corrupt, and if we (Republicans, Democrats, Independents, the Tea Party, Christians, Jews, Atheists,) in short, Americans just stand by and let it happen, we deserve what we get. Everyone should be checking both sides of the issues and speaking up to questionable issues from both sides that, if passed, could change life as we know it.
Serious? You bet it is!!!!

Which finally resulted in this:

You are apparently easily amazed. I’m pretty sure I’d get fairly wide agreement that I absolutely get to decide what questions are important enough for me to spend my time addressing.  Further, you then go on to completely justify why I chose correctly to not waste my time.  You already believe you know the truth, and any notion that you’re seeking dialog, answers, and/or explanations is disingenuous at best.

And yes, we will clearly continue to disagree, but maybe not about quite what you think we disagree about.

You see malice, conspiracy, and evil.  I don’t..  Obama is not evil or part of an evil plot, nor is he some sort of political Messiah. He’s a guy, doing a very tough job, in an environment pretty much designed to keep him from getting anything done.  (So is every President for that matter.)  It wasn’t that many years ago that even disagreeing with a wartime President was viewed as treasonous–ironically, by the same folks who now position Obama as an evil incarnate bent on the destruction of America.  Doesn’t that make you wonder just a little about the cognitive dissonance of folks you’re following?  Doesn’t it make you suspect that maybe they are really angling for something a little different than what’s claimed on the surface?

Where we disagree is that you believe you are privy to some hidden truth, and it’s your mission to wake others up. While I believe you are being manipulated by a political machine that masquerades as a persecuted grassroots movement, and that machine is using you to further its own ends, not to help you and those like you.

The Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) was formed in New York in 1937. Its findings are considered seminal in the field and are still widely quoted in propaganda texts.   The IPA outlined 7 critical techniques for effective propaganda.  If you want to get a group of people fired up and headed off in the direction of your choosing, these are the things you need to do.

  • Name calling – Apply emotion-laden labels to individuals who provide a face and a focus for either the idea being pushed, or its opposition.
  • Glittering generalities – We believe in, fight for, live by, or other virtue words about which we have deep-set ideas. Such words include civilization, Christianity, good, proper, right, democracy, patriotism, motherhood, fatherhood, marriage, morality, etc..
  • Transfer – A device by which the message carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect such as “church” or “nation” to an idea we might otherwise reject.
  • Testimonial – ‘Bill O’Reilly said,’ ‘The Governor said’, ‘My doctor said,’ ‘Our minister said’; basically lending the weight of others you respect to the argument. Can also be used in reverse by lending the weight of those you despise (e.g. Bill Ayers, Hugo Chavez) to tear down the opposition.
  • Plain folks – Binding your idea to children, small town America, hockey moms, real Americans, etc. Can also be used in reverse by labeling the opposition as not plain folks (e.g. elites, intellectuals)
  • Card stacking – Employing all the arts of deception to win support for an idea. Stacking the cards against the truth through distortion, careful omission, half-truths, and false testimony, raising new issues to divert attention from a failing argument.
  • Bandwagon – Hire a hall, use radio/TV stations, fill a stadium, march a lot of people in a parade. Employ symbols, colors, music, movement, all the dramatic arts. Get people to write emails and blog, and/or to contribute to the cause. Make them feel part of a group that’s connected to the message.

Does this sound familiar?  Granted, politicians have employed these techniques to varying degrees since the dawn of time, but this basically is the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News playbook.  They are unmitigated masters of this.

I’m certain you don’t think you’re being played. One rarely does while they are in the midst of it.  But if you harbor a shred of true inquisitiveness, re-read the initial email you sent.  The one you assert is all true.  Can you see that it employs these techniques?  Read whatever it is you read as your source of daily information, and weigh it against these techniques.  Are you getting news or propaganda?

Granted, just because something is propaganda doesn’t mean it’s false.  But it does pretty much mean that the author is is up to something.  Something that can’t be sold on the facts and logical reasoning alone.  Otherwise, it’s a lot of work to go through to make a point that shouldn’t get much disagreement.

My original point was essentially that the email you sent was propaganda. It contained no plan, no useful policy ideas, no arguments to weigh or counter.  It was fear-mongering.  It was a storm the castle pitch.  That can’t be usefully countered by a point by point analysis.  It could be offset by counter-propaganda, but I will not stoop to that.  As a people, I’d like us to be more than pawns in a political marketing tug-of-war.

I’m not going to argue that the world is all sunshine and roses.  It’s not.  We absolutely have problems.  But they are not the making of any one man or one event, nor will one man or one event be their undoing.  Being angry, afraid, and contemptuous is understandable.  But it’s not helpful.  We are where we are. The question remains, how do we move forward and up?  Pitchforks and torches rarely foment progress.

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Wait, the Mormons Posthumously Baptize People?

January 28th, 2012

mormon-baptism

Typical Mormon Baptism

Ann Romney’s father was an adamant atheist—a reality that apparently did not sit well with her predominantly Mormon family. So 14 months after he died, she took care of that by having him baptized posthumously.

I was unaware of this, but it seems this is not an uncommon practice in Mormonism.  They have gone so far as to baptize tens of thousands of Jewish holocaust victims.  You know… just in case.

Let me be clear, I don’t think this is a political issue or liability for Romney.  Nor am I trying to make the point that Mormons are strange.  Every group has its rituals, customs, and practices that will seem strange to outsiders.  I have no doubt the church and the Romneys had nothing but good intentions here.

Still, my initial reaction was sympathy for the father who’s life had somehow been betrayed in death.  Once he was no longer in a position to choose, his “faith” was chosen for him by those who felt they knew what was best for him.  I would be more than a little pissed-off if this were to happen to me, but then I’d be rather dead at that point, so I guess I wouldn’t really know.

But in thinking further, it occurs to me that we do this sort of thing all the time.  Religious funeral ceremonies for irreligious people because it’s important to the family aren’t all that uncommon.  What’s more, there are lots of babies baptized in this culture, and they aren’t in any more of a position to choose than the dead.  Although I can’t help but feel that choosing a starting point for someone (a baby) that has never made a choice, and has a lifetime to re-choose, is a much more innocent gesture than reversing the choice of someone who has made a pretty clear choice and has no opportunity to re-choose.  Which is maybe why I can’t shake the feeling of revulsion here.

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There’s no Tea in Sanity

September 7th, 2011

Tea-Party-MeetingBrad Plumer writes that the GOP party-wide rush to denounce climate change is being driven by a small minority of fervent Tea Party types.  While it’s an interesting read in its own right, there’s a larger subtext I find downright frightening.  There’s no reason to suppose these findings are limited to their climate fantasies.

Two points struck me:

Researchers on cognitive social networks at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently found that “when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.”

 

Tea Partiers are also by far the most confident in their beliefs — more likely to say they are “very well informed” and that they “do not need any more information about global warming.” Note that this dovetails with earlier research finding that when you give those dismissive of global warming more information, it only serves to harden their doubts.

Self-identified Tea Party types make up just 12 percent of the population.  But that’s apparently enough to give them and their warped reality sway over public opinion and policy.  And there’s apparently little the rest of us can do to induce any sanity on them either.  The more we dump rational arguments and data on them, the further convinced they are about their delusions.

Are we doomed to the anti-science Christian theocracy they envision?  A world where our money is tied to gold, the government is apathetic to your plight, education is relegated to kitchen tables and churches, corporations are free to pollute their way to profits, unions don’t exist, and medical care will only be available to those with enough chickens to trade for it?

I’m certainly not expecting the GOP debate tonight to dissuade my fears.

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What 2013 Brings…

September 4th, 2011

2013It seems pretty clear that nothing much useful will happen in Washington until the 2012 elections are over.  As Senate Leader Mitch McConnell put it so succinctly, Job 1 for the GOP is to make sure Obama is a one-term President.  All legislative actions or inactions up to the elections are dedicated to that goal, irrespective of the implications to the economy or the well-being of the country.  If you think that’s not how it’s playing out, then… well… you just aren’t paying attention.

But what about after the elections?  What happens then?  On the Congressional side, probably pretty little.  It’s highly unlikely either party will take both a House majority and a Senate super majority such that they hold dominion over the whole of Congress.  This means that in any scenario, the GOP may at least continue to be the party of “no” if they so choose.

So it all basically comes down to the race for the White House.  Come 2013, either Obama will be a second-term President, or we will experience the administration of Republican President [insert name here].  Clearly, if [insert name here] is elected, then the Congressional GOP will be all about getting things done.  But should it be Obama again, will the GOP lessen it’s determination to play for politics rather than in the interest of the country?  History would suggest they won’t.

Even though Obama would not be eligible for a third term, a successful second Obama term could reflect well on whatever Democrat runs in 2016.  And the GOP will be ever more committed to taking the White House back in 2016.  That will be their new Job 1.  Recall that the GOP witch hunt against Clinton did not let up during his second term.  Hell, they impeached him in the middle of that term.

For all intents and purposes, since the Clinton administration the GOP acts as if they do not acknowledge the legitimacy of a Democratic President.  Under Obama, they have taken it to new levels.  Rather than simply attacking the man, which was the primary Clinton-era strategy, they now attack the country.  The GOP correctly recognizes that the President is held responsible for the well-being of the country, be it good or bad, and they use that to their advantage.  They have demonstrated repeatedly they are willing to take the country hostage for political gain.

The 2012 elections will be more of the same.  Essentially the message is that we can elect Republicans or we can suffer for four more years, and they will see to that.

This is not an assertion that Democratic policies are good and Republican policies are bad.  Nor is this an assertion that Democrats are pure and chaste while Republicans are corrupt and evil.

We operate in a society governed essentially by the cooperation of two parties who compete, but play amicably with each other.  In many ways the game is the thing.  For the fans, it’s not about who wins or loses, but that the game goes on.  Everyone likes to see their team win, but there is still value to the game even in a loss, and there is always the prospect of the next game.  But if one team starts playing outside the conventional rules to rig the outcome. If one team starts saying that if they don’t win, then they’ll take their ball and go home.  Then the game loses its value… and we all suffer as a result.

We have reached a point where as fans we need to force the teams to start playing by the conventional rules.  We must demand that while we expect them to play their hearts out, we ultimately expect them to play for the love of the sport, not simply for victory.  Or the alternative may be we need to just dump this sport altogether and start playing a new one.

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Printing money is not as crazy as it may sound

August 21st, 2011

MacroeconomicsI am not an economist.  However, for reasons I dare not delve into too deeply, my lady finds discussions of economics a turn-on.  The downside is that now I not only have to compete with George Clooney and Toby Keith, but also with the likes of Ezra Klein and Brad DeLong.  If one of them ever develops tech skills, I’m toast.  In the meantime, “Get in line boys.”

As I’ve written in this space before, one of the damnable things about macroeconomics is that it is so blastedly non-intuitive.  Most of us are schooled or experienced in microeconomics (open systems), whether that be managing a household budget or running a business.  Macro, or closed systems like the U.S. economy, work on a very different set of rules and have a very different set of control levers to work with.  It’s abstruse stuff, and my hope is that maybe I can do a bit of the heavy lifting here, so some elements of macroeconomics make a little more sense.

Presidential hopeful Rick Perry made headlines this week for his statement that if the Fed decides to print more money, it should be seen as a treasonous act. Perry’s not alone here.  While most politicians are distancing themselves from claiming it’s treasonous, many are advocating that the Fed should not take further actions like “Quantitative Easing” to increase the money supply.

So what does all that mean?  Printing money out of thin air sure sounds like a dumb solution.  Doesn’t that just make my hard-earned money worth less? How would that help the economy?  These are all reasonable questions.  Questions which I’ve been struggling to get my own non-economist head around by reading what actual economists are saying.  The trouble is, folks like Matt Yglesias and Scott Sumner often write for an audience of fellow economic geeks.  And it’s often damn hard to wade through the jargon to figure out the underlying principles at work.  But I think I have a handle on it, and want to share my translation and understanding.

First, “printing money” is a euphemism.  No actual currency gets produced.  Rather, the Federal Reserve has a number of levers by which it can alter the supply of money.  Think of the U.S economy as the proverbial pie.  Each slice of pie represents a unit of money, like a dollar.  Increasing the money supply doesn’t change the size of the pie, but it does change the size of the dollar (slice).  If you carve the pie into more slices, then each slice has less in it.  “Quantitative Easing” is one of the levers the Fed can use to increase the size of the money supply.  And yes, the effect of this is to lessen the value of the dollar.

A weaker dollar seems like a bad thing.  It offends the American sensibilities to think of anything about us as weak.  But in cold economic terms, there are pluses and minuses to a devalued dollar.  A weak dollar doesn’t translate to a weak economy.  In fact, in our present situation, it could translate to a stronger one.  But first, a word about… inflation.

Another term for devaluation is inflation, a word that also sounds bad.  Inflation is especially troubling to those of us that lived through the 70′s and early 80′s where double-digit inflation was rampant.  We also saw the economic collapse of Argentina, Zimbabwe, and other countries because of hyperinflation.   But we need to remember that inflation is a lot like oxygen.  Too little can be just as deadly as too much.  Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990′s was a period marked by very low inflation, economic recession, low productivity, and high unemployment.  Sound familiar?

Inflation in America has been at historic lows for the last couple of years.  The key is to find the sweet spot of around 3% and hold that.  In many respects, this is what the Fed’s job is.  It tries to maintain that small positive healthy inflation rate.  It’s a balancing act.  And an over-correction could send inflation spiraling in either direction.  This is primarily what conservative fear at the moment.  That an attempt to nudge inflation up will start a cascade reaction that will send us back to the 70′s.  No one wants that.  (Unless you’re invested long in polyester and hairspray commodities.)

But why is some inflation good, and why would a little extra be good right now?

In terms of the flow of money in an economy, the net effects of inflation in absolute dollars are a rise in the cost of goods, a rise in the cost of labor (wages), and a rise in value of assets (homes, stocks).  Granted, these don’t always rise uniformly.  Prices tend to rise ahead of wages, causing short term pain.  But wages do follow suit, eventually making the inflation kind of a wash.  Remember back in the early 80′s when getting a 10-15% annual raise was common?

What doesn’t change in a good way with inflation is cash.  In other words, if you’re sitting on a lot of liquid assets, those assets become worth less.   Who’s sitting on cash?  Well, big corporations are sitting on over a $1 trillion, and of course banks have a lot of fixed cash assets, not the least of which are all the mortgages out there.  If you’ve loaned out $100k at 4% for 30 years and inflation suddenly hits 5%, you’re losing money.

On the flip side, inflation would be great for consumers who are currently sitting on near record household debt.  As an example, many people are currently underwater on their mortgages.  Let’s say you owe $200k on a $175k house.  Inflation doesn’t change the amount you owe, but it does increase the value of the property.  So now you’re not underwater anymore.  Further, if you have a low-interest home loan, a higher inflation rate suddenly makes that nearly free money.  It doesn’t decrease your absolute debt, but it does decrease your relative debt, especially as your wages start to rise.

Finally, inflation also punishes people who are sitting on cash.  As almost everyone has said since the economy went south in 2008, we need cash to flow to stimulate the economy.  Think of money like the blood of the economy.  To the body as a whole, it’s less important exactly how much blood you have, than that the blood you have is circulating vigorously through your system.  The U.S. has an ample blood supply, but it’s currently pooled.  We need to get it pumping, and inflation helps that.

There are also advantages to America relative to the world.  A weaker dollar makes our goods cheaper to sell to other countries, and imported goods more expensive here.  This is an immediate boon to exporting companies.  However, given that we import a ridiculous portion of the goods bought in this country, it will drive the cost of those goods higher.  The good news is that there will be less incentive to design, manufacture, and service goods overseas, and that would mean more jobs for Americans as jobs start to come back onshore.  But again, that’s a short term pain for long term gain bargain.

Hopefully by now, you’re starting to think that maybe this whole printing money thing doesn’t sound quite so treasonous. Maybe you’re thinking it’s even worth a shot, or at least that it’s a perfectly reasonable tool to use.  Ironically, Rick Perry himself believes it will have a positive effect on the economy.

Perry said the central bank’s leader would be committing a “treasonous” act if he decided to “print more money to boost the economy.” Such action, the governor told a crowd in Iowa, would amount to a political maneuver aimed at helping Obama win re-election.

Perry is explicitly saying that increasing the money supply would boost the economy.  What he finds treasonous is only that he knows a better economy would help re-elect Obama.  All of which brings us to why increasing the money supply is politically unpopular.

  • It aids Obama’s re-election, so Republicans are opposed
  • It hurts banks so they are opposed
  • It hurts companies who have moved all their operations offshore, so they are opposed.
  • It raises prices ahead of wages and new jobs, so in the short term, voters will be opposed.
  • Voter anger and the resultant news cycles and Gallup polls will crucify incumbents, so they are opposed.

None of these reasons make increasing the money supply bad policy.  They simply mean that this is a situation where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  Unfortunately, the few are largely in charge of the policy.  However, the beauty of the money supply is that changing it does not require Congressional approval.  The Fed has the authority to act on its own.  Although the Fed is largely populated with people from the financial industries who appear to be way more scared of large inflation than lack of it.  But still, there is less of a barrier to action here than almost any other plan available.

Anything we do to fix the economy is going to cause some pain somewhere.  Increasing the money supply is perhaps the most actionable thing we can try.  It may be insufficient, and there are some risks involved.  But dammit, let’s at least do something.  I’m tired of our strategy being all hope and no change.

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Headbangers Ball: The GOP is Rockin’ to the Beat

August 19th, 2011

HeadbangerThe blogs are perpetually alight with the gaffs, lies, misstatements, and factually challenged utterances of the GOP Presidential candidates field.  Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are so reality challenged it isn’t even fun to pick on them anymore.  (Well, almost…)  Poor Rick Santorum, no stranger to wacky rhetoric, can’t get a sound-bite in edgewise.  Why are people remotely listening to these whackjobs other than for the sheer entertainment value?

Then, I heard former GOP Chairman Michael Steel speak this morning.  He was being asked about Perry’s latest claims about Creationism being taught in Texas.  Steel noted that it’s only August, 2011.  At this point, candidates are not yet speaking to wide audiences.  You have to take what they say in the context of who was listening in the audience.  And what Perry said resonated with the crowd he was speaking to.  Hmmmm.

On a completely different vector, earlier today I was included on the distribution of an email touting the horrors of HR 4646.  The essence being that Obama is trying to take all your money and ruin the country.  (Insert audible sigh here.)  I readily debunked it, but I’m still responding to people defending the initial email, regardless of the facts.

What occurs to me is that politicians, pundits, and emails thundering about God and country, warning of apocalyptic conspiracies, and shouting from their ideological towers are the political equivalent of a musician standing on a stage before a crowd of half intoxicated college students and screaming, “Are you ready to rock?”

Hell yeah.  Where’s my lighter cell phone?  You’re in the moment.  You feel the beat.  You don’t really give a rat’s ass what the lyrics are.  It feels good.  It feels right.  And if you’re not at the concert, you just don’t get it.

The difference is that the morning after a concert, the lyrics really don’t matter.  But the morning after an election, they matter a great deal.

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