Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

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You Can’t Get There From Here

February 26th, 2013

Tight BudgetKudos to David Brooks for writing a second column on the Sequester, and opening with a sincere apology for the first one. Brooks initially and erroneously claimed that Obama had no plan on the table to avoid the imminent Sequester, but then corrected himself to admit that, rather, he simply didn’t like the plan Obama had. That’s never an easy haul for anyone.

But then he goes on to lay out his 3-point plan that he would like to see Obama push to resolve the current impasse.

  1. Take entitlement spending that currently goes to the affluent elderly and redirect it to invest in the young and the struggling.
  2. Enact a value-added tax, use money from that tax to finance an income tax exemption.
  3. Talk obsessively about family structure and social repair to restitch the social fabric.

None of these are bad ideas, but none of them remotely address the current threat of Sequestration. Number 1 simply redirects funds, and so has a net neutral budget impact. Number 2 is not only budget-neutral, but requires a substantial retooling of the tax code. The details of this sort of reform take years to work out. There’s no way this would have any impact on the budget crisis du jour. And number 3 has no direct budget impact at all.

This also doesn’t address the unfortunate reality that the GOP base simply isn’t interested in solving this problem.  As Ezra Klien points out, the available deal is a far bigger gain for the Republican agenda than Sequestration. The White House is willing to cut the deficit, cut entitlements, protect defense spending, and eliminate tax loopholes as part of a settlement plan. While this does nothing to lower tax rates, it still rings the bell on 4 of the 5 major budget policy objectives on the right.

Doing nothing only cuts the deficit, and then by not as much as Obama’s current proposal. It does nothing about entitlements, tax loopholes, or tax rates. Not to mention, it significantly cuts defense. So what does the GOP win by standing firm on their plan to sit idly by?

Obviously they don’t win on achieving their stated policy agenda. They don’t win on popularity either. A plurality (49%) of Americans say the Sequester will be Republicans’ fault if it happens, while only 31% will blame Obama.

The only possible win here is personal and political. Each of the obstinate Congressmen and Senators will be able to return home and claim they denied Obama everything he ever wanted, and refused to budge even an inch in compromise. And while I’m forced to accept that there exist districts where this message plays well, I worry about the state of our society that it does.

Nonetheless, it further dooms Brooks’ plan. As a pundit on the right, he surely must realize that getting the GOP base to support something, and having the President advocate for something, are pretty much mutually exclusive.

Two things are clear. First, the Sequester is exactly what the GOP base wants to happen. Second, no deal Obama could put on the table would change that. Food for thought as you decide who gets the blame. Yet small comfort as you settle in for the Sequester induced economic recession.

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A Drone to a Kill

February 8th, 2013

DroneStrikeThere’s been a lot of buzz lately about the Obama administration memo justifying the killing of pretty much anyone overseas who is plotting against us, including U.S. citizens.  And the new weapon of choice for carrying out such assassinations is the armed aerial drone.

This is creating conflicting feelings on the part of many. No one wants to let the bad guys carry out their nefarious plots, or put American lives at risk unnecessarily to keep them from doing so.  But it also conjures up images of a man in a darkened room adding names to his enemy kill list, and dispatching his robot minions to carryout his lethal whims.

I think it’s helpful to realize we are actually struggling with two different conundrums here. The ethics of covert government assassination, and the ethics of automated warfare. More importantly, neither of these are new. There’s lessons to be learned in the history, and maybe in that light, the seemingly intractable issues become a bit easier to chew.

Let’s start with automated warfare. Drones are not something new as much as they are the next step in a long line of military technical advances. When guns were first introduced, there was concern that you could now kill an enemy without looking him in the eye. Was their honor in that? Was it making it too easy to kill? The advent of tanks, artillery, aerial bombing runs, and missiles all heralded the same concerns about whether or not killing was becoming too easy and too impersonal. Drones are no different. The goal of warfare is simple. Inflict maximum damage on your enemy while incurring minimal damage to yourself. Weapons are developed with this in mind, and that trend is going to continue.

There’s really no point in worrying about drones per se, or even military applications of technology. As a society, we are not going to give up the benefits of technology, and as long as the need to wage war exists, technology will also be applied to that end. The key being the existence of the need to wage war.  But that issue is ageless, and the nature of man is such that it’s likely your great-grandchildren will still be struggling with it in the next century. There’s no reason it should be keeping you up tonight.

In a similar vein, covert assassinations have been going on since the dawn of governments. From the ancient halls of the Roman Senate to the castles of medieval royals, to the lairs of banana republic dictators, come shadowy tales of the handiwork of spies, assassins, and “special operations” units. Fictional tales of the exploits of Seal teams, Delta Force, MI6, the CIA, and other covert groups working for the good guys are wildly popular.  Think about it. Did your family ever follow-up a Saturday night viewing of Jim Phelps and his Impossible Missions team with a discussion of whether or not the mission was ethical?  Did the bad guy get due process?

All except the most ardent pacifist are pretty comfortable with the notion that the bad guys get what’s coming to them, and few lose any sleep over whether or not they were tried by a jury of their peers. Did you really have any angst that Osama bin Laden was shot rather than tried? The difference is that in bin Laden’s case, and in the case of most James Bond stories, you know to a certainty the bad guys had it coming.

In the real world, the lines are much greyer. When is a guy bad enough? When is a threat imminent enough?  And we are haunted by real world examples from the USSR, Cambodia, Germany, and other countries where state enemy lists were abused to as a way to control and oppress the populace.

The upshot on covert assassinations is that by and large we have no ethical issue with bad guys not getting due process. We have a trust issue with the people making decisions about who the bad guys are. And while there’s a new memo out indicating Obama’s lawyers may be doing some unprecedented legal butt covering, it’s naive to think Obama is the first President with the power to sanction a covert assassination. They all have had such power. Those self-destructing Mission Impossible tapes didn’t record themselves. So it all comes down to deciding if there’s something particularly untrustworthy about Obama or his administration that would make him more likely to abuse that power than his predecessors. That seems a more answerable question, or at least a less anxiety inducing one.

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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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Obama’s Alleged Snub of Israel

September 18th, 2012

Israel SnubThe photo message to the left has been making the rounds on Facebook and other sources. As of this writing, it had over 20k shares and over 130k likes.

It’s the latest right-wing outrage over a seemingly small Obama maneuver. According to Reuters:

(Reuters) – The White House has rejected a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet President Barack Obama in the United States this month, an Israeli official said on Tuesday, after a row erupted between the allies over Iran’s nuclear programme.

An Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Netanyahu’s aides had asked for a meeting when he visits the United Nations this month, and “the White House has got back to us and said it appears a meeting is not possible. It said that the president’s schedule will not permit that”.

Netanyahu has met with Obama on all the Israeli leader’s U.S. trips since 2009.

The White House has not confirmed the snub. But even assuming it’s an accurate recounting, I fail to see the rationale for reactions best summed up by the comment appearing on my Facebook news feed saying, “I think it is totally disgraceful!”

Granted, a meeting commits us to nothing, but neither does a refusal to meet mean a complete breakdown of a relationship. This is a standard negotiating tactic. By refusing the meet, the US is asserting its position of power and control in the situation. Basically indicating that Netanyahu needs to soften his stance and take a more conciliatory posture. That hardly seems an untenable position for the US political right-wing who are typically more than a little hawkish in their foreign policy, and often tout that America should assert its position as the global superpower.

The problem here is that Netanyahu clearly wants the US to draw “red lines” with the intent of forcing the US into military action with Iran. He’s been quite open about that, and about his ire that Obama won’t commit to irrevocable terms under which he will bomb Iran. He has also openly taken sides in our election, becoming almost the Israeli wing of the Republican party. This is something our allies rarely do, partly out of respect, but also out of the recognition that they ultimately have to deal with the next President, regardless of how the election comes out. If he wants the respectful attention of our President, and ultimately wants us to do him a significant favor, he’s got a funny way of going about it.

Forgetting this involves Obama for a minute, what is the right advocating for here? That the President is obliged to accept a visit from any foreign head of state on demand? I would think not. The President should meet when there is value to the US in doing so. In this case, Netanyahu wants something the US isn’t prepared to give (commitment to military action in Iran), nor is it clear the Israeli people are prepared for that. Their own defense minister cautions against Netanyahu’s plan. Further, Netanyahu’s reputation with pretty much every world leader is that of a petulant child, prone to tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. Moreover, his historical record is that he leaks details of confidential meetings where he doesn’t get his way to the press, spun to his own advantage. Where is the potential upside for the President, or for the country in taking this meeting? Presumably, you want a President who’s tough, and sometimes that means saying no. That clearly doesn’t mean the President is saying they will never meet. They’ve had numerous meetings in the past, and spoke on the phone just last week. We are the most powerful nation on the planet. You earn a meeting, you don’t demand one.

I also wonder if we would even be having this discussion if the Prime Minister of Spain was demanding to be seen? It seems to me that Israel gets treated differently than any other foreign nation. Are they in a precarious geographic situation? Sure. so is South Korea. But in the end, Israel is still a foreign country and how we treat them should be based on what’s in our national interest. We are not obligated to treat them like a teenage child who has moved out of the house, but still needs Daddy to protect them.

And yes, I do recognize Israel’s exulted position among the religious right as the Holy Land and the location of many of the End Times prophecies.  But that is not a basis for making national policy. If their church’s would like to form their own militias and deploy them to the West Bank that’s fine by me. But the US federal government should not be making foreign policy decisions based on bible stories.

In another vein, during the ’08 election, many of the same folks who are apoplectic over snubbing Netanyahu now, were abhorred that Obama said that under the right conditions he’d meet with Iran or other hostile governments. The claim was that even meeting with Ahmadinejad showed weakness and meant we’d give in to them. Why are the rules different now? Why would this meeting not show weakness and a willingness to concede?

And as long as I’m on a roll here, let’s talk about Obama’s “terrible” support for Israel. So far he has provided full financing and technical assistance for Israel’s Iron Dome short-range anti-rocket defense system. In July, he provided an additional $70 million to extend the Iron Dome system across southern Israel. That’s in addition to the $3 billion in annual military assistance to Israel that the president requests and that Congress routinely approves. He has increased aid to Israel and given it access to the most advanced military equipment, including the latest fighter aircraft. Obama has given close coordination by intelligence agencies — including the deployment of cyberweapons — to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said last year, “I can hardly remember a better period of American support and backing, and Israeli cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us than what we have right now.”

Obama persuaded Russia and China to support harsh sanctions on Iran, including an arms embargo and the cancellation of a Russian sale of advanced antiaircraft missiles that would have severely complicated any military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obama secured European support for what even Ahmadinejad, called “the most severe and strictest sanctions ever imposed on a country.”

Obama has been steadfast against efforts to delegitimize Israel in international forums. He has blocked Palestinian attempts to bypass negotiations and achieve United Nations recognition as a member state, a move that would have opened the way to efforts by Israel’s foes to sanction and criminalize its policies. As a sign of its support, the Obama administration even vetoed a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.

In light of all this, it may be fair to say that Obama has an issue with Netanyahu, as does almost anyone who’s ever met him. But it’s pretty hard to claim he doesn’t care about or support Israel.

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Babbling in the Mirror – Obama Supporter Interviews Future Self

July 31st, 2012

I received a link to a YouTube video today. The video is a mock up of someone from 2008 interviewing their current selves and dealing with all the crushing disappointments of the Obama Administration.

The link came with a request:

“Please, please, somebody tell me where she is wrong. I really want to know!”

I’ll try to suspend my skepticism that anyone circulating this sort of propaganda is truly interested in facts, or even willing to accept them, but I’m up for the challenge anyway.

The video contains a scarcity of actual data, but there are a lot of general claims.  A few are fairly accurate, many are directionally incorrect, and a few are outright false. In the opening, the 2008 woman is going on about the utopia that would surely result from 4 years under Obama.  Granted, there was a lot of optimism from his supporters upon his election, but anyone who believes any President can effect a utopian transformation of the country is delusional. If you think it can be done in the midst of the second largest economic downfall in the last century, you’re just plain nuts.  It’s unfair to compare Obama to some vision of Nirvana. Rather, the accurate comparison is to the alternative, a McCain administration. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what that might have been. Maybe it would be better, maybe worse, but we can be pretty sure, based on the previous 30 years of mostly Republican administrations, that it wouldn’t quite be utopia.

Obama Supporter - Self InterviewThe initial substantive claim is that the 2012 woman’s father died because his asthma medication was outlawed. This is flat out false.  No asthma medications have been outlawed.  Starting this year, CFC based inhalers were banned. Keep in mind that CFC propellants have been banned since the 70s in everything else in an effort to save the ozone layer. Civilization survived. Further, HFA inhalers are available as an alternative. Same medication, same dose, different delivery mechanism.

Next is a general lament about high unemployment. There’s no doubt that unemployment remains unacceptably high. However, looking at the data, private sector employment bottomed out in early 2010 and continues to climb steadily upward.  But public sector employment is plummeting at a rate the private sector in a minimally expanding economy can’t ameliorate. Look at a comparison of Bush’s first term compared to Obama’s. Bush responded to the economic downturn in 2000 with stimulus by expanding government payroll.  Obama responded by slashing government jobs in favor of private sector stimulus. Hmmm…

But Obama had a super-majority! Why didn’t he fix everything? Obama’s super-majority in Congress hinged on one man, Ted Kennedy. A man who had the gall to be suffering terminal brain cancer upon Obama’s election, and who died in August of that first year.  Kennedy made special and heroic returns to the Senate floor to cast votes on the stimulus and on Obamacare, but otherwise was incapacitated. After his death, Scott Brown was elected and the Obama super-majority vanished.

Oh, the executive orders! There’s no specific complaint over any specific executive orders, but the implication is that Obama is issuing them all over the place.  The data from the National Archives would disagree. Obama has issued 129 EOs so far.  Pro-rating that for his entire first term puts him on pace to issue 147 by January.  G.W. Bush averaged 145/term. Clinton averaged 181, Bush Sr. did 165, and Reagan comes in at 190.  So Obama’s on the low end of recent history.

Why didn’t the stimulus fix everything as promised? First, we have to accept the 2008 woman somehow magically knowing about the 2009 stimulus package, but I’m nit-picking. Most stimulus proponents now agree the stimulus package was not up to the task. The enormity of the economic hole was much larger than anticipated and the level of stimulus was insufficient to achieve the desired results.  However, it probably was the largest package that would have been politically do-able.  But even then, did it have a positive effect? There is arguably legitimate debate here, although the consensus is that the stimulus did improve things. But even if it didn’t, there’s no one claiming it did any harm excepting a brief blip in the debt curve.

Next up is the assertion that all of Obama’s investments in green energy have gone bankrupt. One company, Solyndra, went bankrupt.  That’s not quite all.  There’s ample room for debate on whether the government should be subsidizing commercial energy companies, but the fact remains that the vast majority of the loans have not defaulted. Further, the $535M Solyndra debacle is a relative drop in the $34B DOE loan bucket. So minimally, this claim is blowing things out of proportion.

There’s a healthcare mandate, she says with a voice dripping in desperation. Yes there is. And unless we’re content with 30-50 million Americans going without medical care or getting it by indirectly increasing the costs of those of us who do get it, there should be.  Even Mitt Romney (the unwitting father of Obamacare), was recently praising the Israeli heathcare system as being cost effective—apparently unaware that it achieves those results through government controlled universal coverage. If there’s a workable alternative solution, someone should put it on the table.  Otherwise…

There’s a middle class tax hike, she says.  No, there isn’t. Taxes are at historic lows.  That is, unless you count the Obamacare individual mandate as a tax increase, in which case they are still at historic lows.  But viewing the mandate as a tax increase is a spurious argument that also requires you to acknowledge the effective tax cut the rest of get for not having to pay for the care of those without insurance through our insurance rates, paycheck deductions, and co-pays.

Obama promised transparency! Yes, he did. And the record so far is abysmal by pretty much any measure. Transparency seems to decrease year after year regardless of who’s in office.  This may be a result of the 24×7 instant news culture we live in.  Be that as it may, this is still our government and we have a right to know what’s going on in there.

There are loads of lobbyists in the Administration. Yes, there are, and Obama promised there wouldn’t be.  This is more than a little disappointing. It may be the reality of modern government. It may be that other administrations have done much the same thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a fundamental campaign promise on which Obama has failed badly.

African American suffer the highest unemployment rates.  Well, yes. But historically that’s always been true. That doesn’t make it a good thing, but it’s hardly a remarkable thing.

Internationally we’ve never been more hated. This is simply pants-on-fire false.

But I thought the Muslim world would follow our lead to democracy? Well, yes and no. The Arab Spring has certainly been a profound and recent movement toward democracy in much of the Muslim world. However, in many cases it has resulted in the democratic election of parties and leaders that are not so very friendly toward the USA. The unfortunate reality of letting people choose is that you may not like their choices.  Nonetheless, to say they followed our path is a little ludicrous. Further, Obama didn’t promise to bring democracy to the world. That was G.W. Bush.

Instead, we’re following Europe’s lead into debt.  Yes and no, but mostly no. First, we aren’t following Europe. We aren’t racking up debt because they are or because we view them as some sort of economic mentor. Second, not all of Europe is debt ridden. Greece, Italy, and Spain are at particular risk. This crises was created because of the European Economic Union, which joins all the countries’ currencies without linking their economies. This is not the situation in the USA. we are not going the way of Europe. We may still get sucked down by them, but that’s not a function of debt, just a reality of global economies.  Yes, the debt in the US is unsustainable. However, current debt levels are not a result of runaway spending. Spending increases are growing slower than at any time since the 50s. Instead, what we have is an unprecedented loss of revenue as a result of tax cuts, high unemployment, and a sluggish economy. Further, the US government is currently considered the most stable financial bet on the planet. At present, the Treasury is able to sell debt at negative yields. That means people are paying the US government to keep their money safe. This is beyond free money.  Yes, we can’t rack up debt forever. When the economy recovers, we absolutely need to pay it down rather than giving ourselves tax cuts like we did in 2001. But there is no evidence that debt is an emergent risk to our economy.

I recognize this has been long, and I’m flattered if you muddled through to the end. If you have any energy left, I strongly encourage you to click through and read the reference material, or dig up your own. But please, dig up facts and not emotional appeals and sound bites. The video is a cute concept, but it is a message largely without substance.

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The Real Obamacare “Tax”

June 29th, 2012

Ackbar

“It’s a TAX!”

I was watching Fox News yesterday as the SCOTUS ruling upholding Obamacare’s individual mandate came to light.  Commentary was all over the map for the first 30 minutes, but then began to rapidly zero-in on the accusation that this was now a tax on the middle-class. They had found their message, and from then on sang out in perfect harmony. It was kind of amazing.

“(Americans will) like it even less when they understand it’s a tax,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told Fox News.

One curious element is that nothing related to the mandate is different today than it was last week—excepting the label. The notion that people’s view of the mandate will change as a result of a renaming is a blatant play to the ignorance of the audience.

Still, even if we accept the new label of “tax”, is it really a new financial burden on the middle class as conservatives are saying?

For those who are currently uninsured and financially able to afford healthcare, Obamacare will impose a new financial drain. Although, in return they get health insurance. We can call that a tax if you like.

But on the flip side, those who are currently insured are presently picking up the tab for the uninsured through higher insurance premiums and medical costs. Getting the uninsured into the pool lowers policy rates for the rest of us. This is even more true as other popular provisions of Obamacare, such as preventing coverage denial for pre-existing conditions, comes into force. The net result of this is a lowering of the financial burden on the currently insured, which is a significant majority of citizens.

If forcing the uninsured into the pool is a tax increase, then it only seems fair the reduced costs to the insured be considered a tax cut.  At worst, this is a wash. At best, the tax cuts for the majority will significantly outweigh the tax increase to the minority.

Will there be individuals who will pay more as a result of Obamacare? Sure. But many more of us will pay less. So it’s pretty hard to argue in aggregate that this is a tax increase on the middle class.

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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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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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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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The GOP may be running out of feet to shoot

June 4th, 2011

National Lampoon Cover

Don't make us resort to drowning kittens!

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to stand by his claim that Job 1 for Congressional Republicans is to defeat Obama in 2012.  Yet the question looms, how far are they willing to go to make that happen?  Recent history suggests, pretty damn far.

To understand what’s going on, you have to first recognize that the GOP is beholden to two major groups.  On the one hand they are funded by big business and the wealthy businessmen created therein.  The interests of this group define the overall agenda and goals for the party.

On the other hand, the foot soldiers at the polls are largely made up of blue-collars, religious fundamentalists, and seniors.  This group is necessary because, come November, you have to have lots of bodies show up to vote for you.  But they are ultimately fodder as far as the policy agenda goes.  They get tossed a rousing speech, a few sound bites, and an occasional red meat issue and it keeps them fired up and loyal. I’m somewhat reminded of Dennis Hooper’s line from Waterworld where he launches into a motivational tirade for his crew and they all storm off below decks to row their hearts out.  He’s asked, “So which way we rowin’?” And he replies, “I don’t have a goddamn clue. Don’t worry, they’ll row for a month before they figure out I’m fakin’ it.”

Now consider, the GOP won handily in 2012 on their promise of jobs, jobs, jobs.  Then, once in office, immediately focused on Obamacare and abortion.  Why?  For starters, creating jobs is hard. Especially when the economy is in a demand slump and the interest rates are bumping the zero-bound. The only solution is federal deficit spending, and they sure as hell weren’t going there.  After all, deficits are bad.  Not for the reasons often touted, but because ultimately deficits have to get repaid through taxes—something their corporate benefactors are not fond of—especially when corporate profits and CEO salaries are soaring.  Which brings us to the second point.  Among their fodder constituents, abortion and Obamacare are both reviled.  So the strategy was essentially to distract one group while appeasing the other.

Next up is the Paul Ryan budget.  No one in the GOP thought the plan had a snowflake’s chances in hell of passing, yet they lined up behind it in droves.  Why?  Two reasons.  First, the plan was a message to the corporate benefactors.  This was a wish list for the privatization of government programs and tax cuts that all serve to line the pockets of the folks who in turn fund the Republicans.  By standing behind it, they were assuring the benefactors they had their backs.  Secondly, the plan was political.  Actually passing a plan means you can be evaluated down the road for its efficacy.  Proposing a plan that can’t pass puts you in a position down the road to say that things suck because nobody listened to your ideas.  Politically this was a much more powerful position to be in.

However, the GOP underestimated their fodder constituents.  You’d think they’d have learned from Bush’s crash and burn on Social Security privatization, but not so much. They tried to couch the language, but the public saw through that.  The result being that Ryan’s budget is now enormously unpopular because it is recognized to fundamentally change Medicare.  It turns out that when fodder folks talk about support for smaller government and less spending, they don’t mean to include programs from which they benefit directly.  The message sent to Republicans in NY’s 26th District special election was overwhelmingly, mess with Medicare and we will vote your ass out.  This was the GOP’s first shot to its own foot.  It’s limping, and looking for a path back to hale and healthy. (Gee, I hope they can afford medical insurance.)

Still, the scary specter on the horizon is the debt ceiling.  If the Ryan budget was a pistol shot to the left foot, the debt ceiling is a hacksaw poised above the right knee.  All the sane people (which is not all of the people) on both sides of the aisle agree the ceiling must be raised.  To not do so would be economically disastrous with long-term consequences.  Even Wall Street is saying this has to happen. Both sides also recognize the Republicans are simply taking an opportunistic hostage to gain political advantage.  This is a dog they clearly don’t want to shoot, but if you think they just might be crazyenough, maybe you’ll buy the magazine anyway.

Again, why are they playing it this way?  And again, there are a couple of forces at work here.  On the one hand, the debt ceiling is enormously unpopular.  In fairness, understanding the nuances of the impact of the debt ceiling on the macroeconomic health of the U.S. economy is hard to capture in a sound bite, and most people lack the interest or the time to delve into the details.  Besides, the GOP has already established with the fodder constituents that deficits are bad. So selling a refusal to move on the debt ceiling is duck soup.  Besides, if they can get major concessions from Democrats, they will be in the politically favorable position of being able to crow about their accomplishments.  But there are more subtle and insidious forces at work here.

Everyone acknowledges that Obama’s reelection hopes hinge on the economy.  The last thing the GOP wants is for the economy to make any demonstrable progress, especially in the area of jobs, wages, or anything felt directly by their fodder constituents, prior to 2012.  Obama’s demise (Job 1) is directly contingent on the majority of Americans feeling substantive economic pain going in to the election booth.  The GOP is talking about needing $2 trillion dollars in cuts as ransom to get them to release the debt ceiling.  Those cuts cannot be achieved without significant job losses (both government and downstream private sector jobs as well) in addition to major entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.  This exacerbates the demand slump the economy is in, and pretty much guarantees pain for middle America, and what will border on inhumanity to the poor, disabled, and unemployed.

The gambit here is that Republicans can successfully hang the 2012 economic conditions on Obama—that their fodder constituents will blame their plight on “Obama’s wild spending spree” rather than on Republicans draconian budget cuts.  And you can bet there will be additional tax cuts for corporations and the rich included in any debt ceiling as well, which will seal the love of the GOP benefactors.  This is arguably the sweet spot for the GOP going in to the elections.

However, the downside is they are playing chicken with investors by holding the debt ceiling hostage.  Wall Street and foreign investors alike certainly recognize individually that raising the U.S. debt ceiling is a matter of when, not if.  But what the investors realize is that the market behaves like a herd of buffalo rather than as a single rational actor.  Everyone may realize that long term there’s no danger, but if one animal spooks and heads out, the herd will react and follow, trampling all of us in its wake.  This means the benefactor constituents are justifiably nervous about this brinksmanship.  They can’t control all the buffalo, so everyone is tip-toeing about hoping to keep everyone else calm.  Should someone spook, the results will be disastrous.  But the devastation will not be just to our economy.  The benefactors will doubtless bail on the GOP, who’s political ploy just cost them billions.  If this happens, the Republicans will have effectively lopped off their right leg.

This is high stakes poker.  The GOP may win at the polls.  The corporate benefactors may win, lose, or break even.  The rest of us will lose.  The only path here on which we win would be if Democrats refused to bargain, called the Republicans bluff, and got them to fold.  It’s pretty clear that won’t happen.

Is this view overly cynical?  Perhaps.  Maybe the GOP is not behaving with this much premeditation.  Perhaps they are instead just ignorant and reckless or opportunistically sociopathic.  But any way you slice it, unless you’re in the GOP’s corporate benefactor class, you voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders.

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This is why we can’t have nice things

April 20th, 2011

Grandma Party

Democrats are pandering to the senior crowd

The Obama administration announced it was kicking in $6.7 billion to head off cuts to Medicare Advantage—cuts put in place by Obamacare.

These were some of the cuts put in place to reduce the excessive spending on health care.  They were a key part of the package Democrats fought tooth and nail to get passed last year.  They are essential for the new health care reform bill to achieve its projected savings.  And now they are flip-flopping on them.

Why would these cuts be restored?  Well, no one is saying for sure, but given the popularity of Medicare Advantage with seniors and the impending election season, this is pretty clearly just blatant pandering to the elder voting bloc.

The Republicans ruled the 2010 elections largely on the back of seniors they scared by pointing out that Obamacare included cuts to Medicare Advantage, so maybe Democratic strategists are merely trying to avoid a repeat in 2012.  However, House Republicans are now on record as supporting the Ryan plan which not only contains those cuts, but goes on to dismantle traditional Medicare as well.  It seems seniors worried about Medicare should be far more scared of the GOP proposed budget than Obamacare, even without this restoration of benefits.

Medicare Advantage is more expensive than traditional Medicare.  While it makes sense to allow seniors to opt for private insurance over public coverage, it doesn’t make sense for us to pay extra for it.  These cuts should be among the easiest to make.  If politicians can’t stick to even this sort of spending cut back out of fear of losing votes, will they ever be able to make any really hard economic choices?

The Magic 8-Ball says… “Outlook not so good”

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FDA study results in concerns about government food Nazis

April 1st, 2011

Calvin thumb on nose

You realize it is April 1st, right?

An FDA advisory committee is evaluating the strength of the evidence surrounding a link between food dyes and behavior changes in children.  Scientists and academics are accusing the dyes of exacerbating hyperactivity in children and are advocating for a ban on the eight dyes they claim are dangerous.

Sarah Palin was quick to dismiss the finding saying:

Those ivory tower elites just think they know everything.  How dare they accuse our Froot Loops of exacerbating? There’s no call for that sort of language. I think maybe, you know, they’re the ones doing that, and if they don’t cut it out they’ll go blind.

Glenn Beck was also on the defensive as he accused the FDA of kowtowing to First Lady Michele Obama’s food Nazi agenda. He asserted that Skittles were the last line of defense against the rising tide of socialist Muslim oppressors intent on taking our freedoms away.  Beck then waxed poetical, paraphrasing Pastor Martin Niemoller.

First they came for the saccharine,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a coffee drinker.

Then they came for the trans-fats,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a McDonald’s customer.

Then they came for the red dye 40,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Pop-Tart eater.

Then they came for my high fructose corn syrup
and there was nothing left to eat.

Beck then went on to note that this country was founded on corn.  Our founding fathers recognized corn was God’s gift to them.  It was fuel, food, oil, sugar, and vegetable.  John Addams called corn “American manna.”  Beck reminded that the Indians didn’t want us to have corn and tried to confuse our ancestors by calling it maize.  He said, this is why we make corn mazes every fall, to honor the confusion and disorientation the pioneers suffered at the hands of the cruel Indians.  Beck concluded, “And you know who else hated corn?  Hitler!”

Politicians were also quick to rise up against the outrageous actions of the FDA.  Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) introduced yet another rider to the 2011 budget prohibiting the FDA from using federal funds to restrict food additives whose primary purpose was aesthetic.  Pence claimed America has the single greatest looking snack foods God ever gave man on this Earth, and he would not sit idly by and let our Twinkies take a back shelf to Chinese knock-offs.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office also released a statement that he was backing a no-bid contract with Haliburton to lease America’s Ritalin riddled children as part of the GOP’s green energy plan.  The press release said this is not the time to be thinking about reducing the hyperactivity of our youth. We cannot possibly cut our addiction to Middle Eastern oil on hamster power alone.  Experiments at powering wheels with seniors in exchange for Medicare coverage didn’t pan out.  It turns out, arthritic men with heart conditions simply can’t sustain the velocity needed for reliable electricity production.  Cantor emphasized, “Children are our future.”

Christine O’Donnell added, “It’s just food coloring people, not witchcraft.”

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Boehner defends rights of Americans to be ill-informed

February 14th, 2011

Speaker John Boehner

Boehner is eager to do the will of the ignorant

On NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend, Speaker John Boehner was pressed by host David Gregory to repudiate the baseless allegations of Obama being a Muslim and having not been born in the USA.  Boehner declined.  In the process, he said, “David, it’s not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people.”

On the face of it, Boehner is merely restating what has become a tired mantra of many politicians—they are listening to the American people.  Yet the larger implications of his statement on a whole, especially in the context it was stated, are particularly troubling.

The Speaker told Gregory that people have a right to their beliefs and it wasn’t his job to tell them what to think.  However, as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.”  Where the President was born and what religion he practices are not matters of belief or opinion.  This is evidential information.  Boehner himself says he accepts Obama’s Hawaiian birth and Christianity as “facts as he understands them”.

Not only is Boehner saying he considers the views of the ignorant and misinformed to be equally as valid as everyone else, but he strongly feels that as a leader he has no obligation to lead.  He will just follow blithely where the unwitting wish.

This would merely be a comical interlude except that studies show that Fox News viewers are already the most misinformed citizens, and a Fox News insider has revealed a news culture where “facts” are routinely just made up to suit the desired narrative.  Boehner is making it all the more clear that misinformed constituents are now part of the Republican strategy.

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