Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Fighting The Last War
I think Steve M.'s analysis of the problems with defenses of Paterson's senate appointment are very astute. One line of argument goes that Gillibrand was a strong choice for 2010 because a more progressive candidate would have their support too localized in New York to win, so we could end up with an Al D'Amato/Pataki situation. The main problem with such arguments , as Steve points out, is that 1)Westchester, Long Island, and other NYC bedroom areas are much more liberal than they were 15 years ago, and 2)upstate has shrunk relative to the population in the NYC metro area. Basically, the old Republican competitiveness formula no longer works. Any vaguely credible Democratic candidate, including one significantly more progressive than Gillibrand, would be a massive, massive favorite in 2010 even before we get to the question of who exactly the D'Amato/Pataki figure for the GOP is supposed to be. I suppose there may be good reasons to have picked Gillibrand, but the idea that the Dems needed her to win in 2010 certainly isn't one of them.
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"The public affairs sector will be taking note"
Sez Iain Dale. And he should know.
Just in case all of this is new to you, 'Public Affairs Sector' is a euphemism for 'lobbying industry'.
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Coulter talks about Rush and Obama
CBS:
At first, it might appear conservative firebrand Ann Coulter is at odds with fellow arch-conservative Rush Limbaugh in the talk show host's verbal sparring with President Obama.You can watch the whole segment at the video in the link above. What was somewhat surprising is that the people interview Coulter actually seem to comprehend what Rush Limbaugh was saying. It really is a pretty interesting interview.
Limbaugh has said he hopes Mr. Obama will fail in his presidency, and Mr. Obama told congressional leaders at the White House Friday, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."
After a glib comment by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Limbaugh suggested Mr. Obama is more frightened of Limbaugh than he is of Republican leaders which, Limbaugh added, "doesn't say much about our party."
On The Early Show Thursday, Coulter said she actually hopes the president succeeds -- "but that means he'll govern as a conservative."
...
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Voters in poll: domestic partner benefits will be OK'd
The majority of those who voted in last week’s non-scientific poll on this site predicted that the New Mexico Legislature will approve a bill this year this year that would allow domestic partner benefits.
Of 200 voters, 105, or 53 percent, predicted that will happen, while 84, or 42 percent, said it will not. Meanwhile, 11, or 6 percent, said they don’t know.
Don’t forget to vote in this week’s poll, located at the top of the right column on this page.
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US vs. France--Cheese war
Washington Post:
This seems an unlikely spot to fight a trade war.If Obama thinks about this at all, he should recall that beef producers in the US have more votes that Roquefort producers in France. The French objection to US beef is totally protectionist and uses a flimsy excuse of nutrition supplements given the cows. Roquefort can be an interesting addition to a salad or as a topping on pizza, but it is one that most of us can live without.A village of 600 souls in a remote part of southern France, Roquefort clings precariously to the side of Combalou Rock, a promontory overlooking a deep valley where sheep graze in the shadow of limestone cliffs that were sheared off by a seismic jolt in prehistoric times.
But the primal shake also carved out aerated underground crevasses that give a unique economic value to this jagged landscape about 65 miles northwest of Montpellier. They make possible a gastronomical wonder that has delighted gourmets for centuries: Roquefort cheese. And now, in an era of globalized competition for trade, the smelly delicacy and its little home town have become ground zero for the warriors of export-import in Washington.
The United States, it turns out, has declared war on Roquefort cheese.
In its final days, the Bush administration imposed a 300 percent duty on Roquefort, in effect closing off the U.S. market. Americans, it declared, will no longer get to taste the creamy concoction that, in its authentic, most glorious form, comes with an odor of wet sheep and veins of blue mold that go perfectly with rye bread and coarse red wine.
The measure, announced Jan. 13 by U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab as she headed out the door, was designed as retaliation for a European Union ban on imports of U.S. beef containing hormones. Tit for tat, and all perfectly legal under World Trade Organization rules, U.S. officials explained.
Besides, they said, Roquefort is only one of dozens of European luxury products that were attacked with high tariffs. The list includes, among other things, French truffles, Irish oatmeal, Italian sparkling water and "fatty livers of ducks and geese," which apparently is how Washington trade bureaucrats say foie gras.
...
In that spirit, Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier recently called the tariff rate "unjustified" but said he hoped to open a new dialogue with the United States. A delegation of local elected officials went to the U.S. Embassy in Paris last week to present their case politely.
Underlying the hopes for improvement is an impression widely shared by people in France that President Obama's administration, free of baggage from the dispute over Iraq, will prove more sympathetic to France -- and in this case to the traditional cheesemakers of Roquefort. But Glandières noted that Obama has a lot to deal with. "I don't think Roquefort will be the first thing on his mind," he said.
...
The French need to open their markets to US goods for the sake of their cheese makers.
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What a difference an inauguration makes: Liberals now cheering US illegal cross-border attacks
This is the flag-waving post currently running at Delawareliberal:
I think it took Bush 18 months to do somethin [sic] about terrorism...First Post-Obama Attack in Pakistan Kills 4 Al Qaeda
PESHAWAR– At least ten people were killed in a suspected American missile attack in North Waziristan agency of Pakistan on Friday.
It was the first attack that took place after President Barack Obama’s entry in the office. Pakistani officials had expressed their hope that as president, Obama would stop the drone attacks.
It’s weird to have a president do so much in his first few days in office. As I recall, Bush was on vacation already, no?
Let's first put this attack in context before we go attributing this to the direct intervention of President Obama.
From December 22, 2008:
A US drone launched a series of missile strikes today in Pakistan’s South Waziristan Agency, killing eight and injuring an unknown number of others. The attacks hit two vehicles in separate villages in the area early in the morning. The first strike also destroyed a nearby house.
From January 1, 2009:
It was far from a happy New Year for the resident of South Waziristan’s Karikot region, after US drones fired three missiles, killing five people and sewing panic in the streets.
From January 2, 2009:
It’s the second day of the new year and the United States has launched its second attack in South Waziristan. Tribal sources had been reporting two US drones hovering over the area of Ladha Tehsil, in South Waziristan Agency, before the attack.
The two Hellfire missiles fired in the attack killed four militants and injured three other. One of the missiles struck a girls’ school run by the Pakistani government, while the other hit a nearby car apparently owned by the militants. The school, like many in the tribal areas of Pakistan, had been closed by the cash-poor government.
And here's a little more detail on today's attack:
A pair of missile strikes from American drones into Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan Agencies have killed at least 20 people, and injured an unknown number of others. This marks the first cross-border attack by US forces since President Obama took office on Tuesday.
Three missiles were fired at a house and another nearby building in Zera, North Waziristan killing 10 people and injuring many others. At least five of those killed in this incident were described by Pakistani officials as “foreign militants.”
Later, two other missiles were fired at a house in Wana, South Waziristan, also killing at least ten people. The identities of those killed was not readily apparent.
President Obama was a long time advocate of strikes into Pakistani territory, but the Pakistani government, which has publicly protested against such attacks, had expressed hope that the new administration might halt the attacks. The drone strikes have killed hundreds of people over the past several months, both militants and civilians. The United States rarely publicly admits to the attacks, part of what some in the media have dubbed a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” understanding between them and Pakistan’s civilian government.
Here's what our ally--the Pakistani government--has to say about this particular strategy:
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Thursday urged the United States to stop cross-border drone attacks inside Pakistan's territory.
Speaking at private TV channel GEO's program, Qureshi said that Pakistan had asked the United States to put a halt to drone attacks.
He said that such attacks were not in the interest of the two countries and also urged the United States to review its policy.
It has even been leaked that--despite the willingness of many senior officials to do nothing more than make token protests about the raids (which, evidence suggests, often kill civilians unaffiliated with Al Qaeda), that back in November the Pakistani Prime Minister approached the Obama team about halting such raids:
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani said today that his government is in “regular contact” with the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama, and expressed hope that they would halt the US policy of launching drone strikes inside Pakistan.
What was that line in the Inaugural Address again?
Oh, yeah:
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers -- (cheers, applause) -- our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. (Cheers, applause.) And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation, and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity. And that we are ready to lead once more. (Cheers, applause.)
Unless, of course, you had to bad luck to grow up in a small village in Waziristan.
Here's what's happening, just so neither the liberal/progressives nor the conservative warhawks get to spin it without rebuttal:
It has long been a United States doctrine that we have the right to throw munitions into other people's countries, with or without their permission, without a declaration of war or the approval of any international entity like NATO or the UN, and that if we kill their civilians along with the people we're looking for ... tough shit.
Reagan: Libya, Lebanon
Bush 41: Panama
Clinton: the Sudan (remember the aspirin factory?), Afghanistan
Dubya: Pakistan, Syria
Obama: Pakistan (and after only three days--we should be so proud)
But, see, now that it's occurring in the Obama administration (as it did in the Clinton administration), we will find apologists rushing out to explain that Obama's tough, and that Obama's keeping us safe.
Aside from this particular piece of partisan hypocrisy, there are two very real consequences of this sort of behavior:
1) It pretty much removes any moral ground for the new administration to criticize Israeli conduct in Gaza; and
2) It highlights the fact (or it would, if anybody was actually paying attention) that one very predictable result of large-scale US military intervention anywhere in the world is that the region in question becomes more de-stabilized than it was before we got there.
Think about it: Pakistan and India are dancing around yet another war in Kashmir; Pakistan has little if any real control of the Waziristan region; the US is trying to get rid of the Karzai government; Karzai, in an effort to hold power, is cozying up to India and is building a trade conduit that passes through Iran; while China expresses, almost daily, greater interest in the newly perked oil and natural gas reserves under Afghan soil.
Yeah, boy, cleaning out the Taliban and chasing Al Qaeda through the mountains has certainly made things a lot more stable on the Indian sub-continent.
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Ad hominem argument fallacy
I've been teased in another thread for an alleged use of this fallacy.
So it is with some reluctance that I link to this endorsement of the Henry Porter Movement Convention on Modern Liberty.
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The BBC and the Gaza appeal
Sunny has a good article on the BBC's mistake in the way it handled the DEC's request for an appeal on Gaza . There is a clear distinction between taking a stance on the national question in Israel/Palestine and humanitarian issues. The BBC blurred the line by thinking that running a humanitarian appeal would blunt its neutrality. The only people who would think it would are people who are probably so die-hard and unreasonable in their views that they would criticise the BBC for "anti-Israel bias" automatically as a knee-jerk response whatever it did. Such people can not be placated.
I am actually quite sympathetic with the dilemma the state of Israel faces - given that it has a lot of hostile neighbours and that it has an implacable ideological opponent in Hamas who has launched rocket attacks from territory that Israel unilaterally left. But it is also obvious that many civilians have suffered as a result of the Israeli government's bombardment of Gaza. It is the duty of charities and humanitarian agencies to assist the Gazans in such a situation - and the BBC should be prepared to allow them to advertise as they allowed them to after the Asian tsunami (and as they have allowed for Darfur).
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Obama sets himself up for failure as unilateral 'peacemaker'
Amir Taheri:
This is consistent with the arrogance that marks Democrats' beliefs in their skills at diplomacy. Obama thinks he can talk religious bigots out of being bigots and out of goals that are immersed in that bigotry.PRESIDENT Obama spent his first week in office dismantling a number of Bush policies.
Demanding reports on a faster Iraq withdrawal or closing Gitmo amount to no more than political sleight of hand. But Obama's actions on the Middle East may substantially alter US strategy.
The first such move is the appointment of ex-Sen. George Mitchell as special Middle East peace envoy, a position he held briefly in 2000.
The move has two notable implications.
First: The new president isn't interested in the so-called Quartet created by the Bush administration. This exercise in multilateral diplomacy sought a common front among the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia in Mideast peace talks. Its dismantling would give America greater control over future negotiations - but would also leave it solely responsible for any failure.
Second: By appointing Mitchell without informing (let alone consulting) the Quartet partners, Obama has in effect called for the resignation of the Quartet's peace envoy, British ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Obama clearly thinks that he can succeed in finding a solution to the Arab-Israel problem, where 10 presidents before him have failed over six decades.
Obama's second move is to appoint a special envoy to Iran. Said to be Dennis Ross, a seasoned diplomat, the envoy would open a channel to Tehran as soon as possible.
Some Obama advisers had argued that it would be better to wait until after the Iranian presidential election in June, in hopes that someone less controversial than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might emerge as their key interlocutor. But Obama dismissed that advice, partly out of concern that Tehran might use delay to speed up its nuclear program.
Unconfirmed reports say that the first informal contacts have already taken place, via two Iranian-American intermediaries in contact with Tehran's UN legation in New York.
Here, too, Obama is dismantling his predecessor's multilateral scheme. By seeking unconditional talks with Tehran, he is also setting aside three unanimous, mandatory UN Security Council resolutions.
The move also means the effective dissolution of the "5+1 Group," created three years ago to deal with Iran. Apart from America, the group includes Russia, China, Britain and France (the four other veto-holding Security Council members), plus Germany.
...
It is interesting that the French President is more realistic about dealing with Ahmadinejad than Obama is. Sarkozy has said he would not shake hands with someone who denies the holocaust.
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Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America
Paul Harvey
Following up on my post of a few days ago, about Chris Beneke's new book Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism: Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda are in the process of completing an anthology on the interplay between religious tolerance and intolerance in early America. In reviewing Beneke's book, I mentioned that I might place more emphasis on the whiteness of the eighteenth century's proto-pluralism; and he subsequently has given me these thoughts in response:
I think that you're absolutely right about the importance of looking at the meaning of religious freedom for African Americans and Native Americans. We asked Jon Sensbach and Rick Pointer, respectively, to do just that for the anthology on tolerance and intolerance that I'm editing with Christopher Grenda. . . .As for religious "pluralism," I believe that they had it in the late 18th c., but it was more of the Charles Taylor variety, than the Diana Eck variety, and that's where some of the confusion may come in.
Chris was kind enough to send along a table of contents for the anthology that he's editing, which should come out sometime in the near future with Penn. So, here it is, and looks like it's going to be a great treat:
The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Religious Intolerance in Early America
Edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda
Forthcoming from U. Pennsylvania Press
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda
Amalek and the Religious Rhetoric of Extermination
John Corrigan
Suffering Saints: Prejudice, Intolerance, and the Prosecution of Dissent in Early America
Susan Juster
Practicing Toleration in Dutch New Netherland
Joyce D. Goodfriend
Persecuting Quakers? Liberty and Toleration in Early Pennsylvania
Andrew R. Murphy
Reason, Faith, and Enlightenment: The Cultural Sources of Toleration in Early America
Christopher S. Grenda
Native Freedom?: Indians and Religious Tolerance in Early America
Richard W. Pointer
Slaves to Intolerance: African-American Christianity in Early America
Jon Sensbach
Parkman’s Paradigm: Catholics, Protestants, and the Clash of Civilizations in Early America
Owen Stanwood
Anti-semitism, Toleration, and Appreciation: The Changing Relations of Jews and Gentiles in Early America
William Pencak
The Episcopate, the British Union, and the Failure of Religious Settlement in Colonial British America
Ned Landsman
The “Catholic spirit prevailing in our country”: America’s Moderate Religious Revolution
Chris Beneke
The Boundaries of Toleration and Tolerance: Religious Infidelity in the Early American Republic
Christopher Grasso
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More on the El Salvador election
There was a mistake in the way I reported the El Salvadorean election results in the last post. Fruit and Votes explains that the actual results gave the FMLN about 43% of the vote. In terms of seats, it seems the FMLN got 35, ARENA got 32 and the Party of National Conciliation got 11. Other parties (the Christian Democrats and Democratic Change) got the remaining seats in their 84-member parliament.
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We Want Our Highways Back!
In the past, our previous Works Minister, Datuk Seri Samy Vellu will brush off suggestions by opposition politicians to take over the highway concessionaires to relieve the burden of the people by saying that it'll cost the government RM100 billion to take over all the highways in the country. It's a ridiculous figure of course, but you know how Samy Vellu is.
Hence we are thankful to the new Works Minister, Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamed for declassifying the majority of the toll concession agreements for public viewing, which will allow us at the same time to study if it's even feasible for the Government to terminate or take over these concessions. (Although I must say, only 5 persons at a time, up to 1 agreement each time for up to 2 hours is a little impractical).
I had the opportunity to have an early look at the agreement for Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong (LDP) which cuts right across my constituency, a source of complaints and dissatisfaction among my voters in Petaling Jaya, and those in Puchong to Kepong. After all, we have highlighted previously these cases of highway robberies, and the excessive profits which LDP is making.
My comments on my brief visit this morning has been reported widely in the Chinese press (including the Chinese Malaysiakini) and also The Malaysian Insider.
I'll just add here the terms as per the contract on possibility of the Government taking over the concession. Readers who are corporate lawyers would probably be better placed to add further comments:
Under Clause 25.4 on Expropriation:
Notwithstanding any provision in this Agreement, the Government may [exterminate] this Agreement by expropriation of the Concession Company or expropriation of the Concession at any time by giving (3) months written notice to the Concession Company if it considers that such expropriation is in the national interest.And in the event of expropriation, the terms of compensation is as follows under 26.3.2:
(You bet it is!!)
(a) the amount (if any) by which the Value of the Construciton Works exceeds the aggregate of the amounts paid or the liabilities and obligations assumed by the Government pursuant to Clause 26.1 and all amounts as at the date of compulsory purchase or acquisition owing to the Government by the Concession Company.In simple terms, my understanding of the above clauses is that
(b) an amount equal to:
- (i) the amount of interst which would have accrued on the moneys invested in or lent to the Concession Company by shareholders of the Concession Company as if the interest had accrued on such amounts from the relevant dates of payment to the date of payment by the Government on an accural basis of 12%; less
- (ii) any net dividends or interest received by the shareholders of the Concession Company
- the Government can at any time terminate and acquire the LDP highway concession
- the Government just have to pay for the "Value of Construction Works" which will include capitalised interest costs (which for LDP as declared in their listing prospectus is RM1.327 billion)
- the Government will also have to pay interest of 12% to any loan extended by the shareholders of the concession, net of whatever interest or dividends which have already been paid.
After all, as of 2008, the Government would have already paid toll compensation amounting to RM628 million to date to Litrak, the LDP concessionaire! What's more, the Government will continues to pay RM75 million in compensation yearly til 2016 when the toll rate is scheduled to be increased to RM3.10 (from RM2.10 currently before Government compensation).
Simple mathematics (but we should however, never overestimate the mathematical competence of the BN government) tells you that it's actually cheaper to expropriate the Highway than to continue paying compensation over the next 20 years!! And that doesn't even take into account the fact that besides the compensation received (which is RM0.50 per passing vehicle), the road users still pay an exhorbitant RM1.60 each to sit in the very congested LDP, especially during peak hours!
I've also glimpsed through the above terms for KESAS and Grand Saga highways as well, and they say exactly the same thing! (Will look at more agreements tomorrow)
So please, stop the charade about it being too expensive to take back our highways. It's even more expensive to continue paying compensation to these concessionaires!
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Alternative currencies
George Monbiot reflects on the idea of alternative currencies . Rather than using the pound, dollar and euro, economies could perhaps encourage consumer spending and stop the loss of output caused by unemployment by having local special currencies that become invalid if not spent within a certain period of time. This will stop hoarding - what Keynes saw as the 'paradox of thrift' - and encourage people to spend in their local community. It is perhaps a model worth considering in some towns which would otherwise face a sprial of sharp industrial and economic decline.
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Last Article?
by John Turner
I know rather little about Father Richard John Neuhaus, who died last week. He was, however, a seminal figure in the recent evolution of politically conservative Catholicism and an even more seminal figure in the forging of ecumenical ties between religious conservatives of various ecclesiastical stripes. Along with Charles Colson, Neuhaus was a prime mover behind Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which called for an end to proselytization between the two groups (the latter position angered a large number of evangelicals and created a backlash against some evangelical ECT signers) and created a framework for mutual public engagement. Neuhaus also gained prominence through founding of First Things, an ecumenically religious conservative periodical.
While writing a review of Jon Shields's forthcoming The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, I came across Neuhaus's review of the same. It must be one of the very last things he wrote, as the First Things website identifies it as a January 2009 publication.
Can any of our readers help assess his significance in modern American religion, the Christian Right, etc.?
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Paul Krugman's intellectually dishonest bait and switch
It becomes almost humorous (or would, if billions of dollars and the entire US economy weren't on the line), to watch the posturing the current economic gurus like Larry Summers, Robert Reich, and Paul Krugman as they pimp for the economic stimulus plan. Krugman's most recent NYT editorial is a perfect example.
Take his opening premise:
As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending.
This is cute. Krugman moves the definition of bad faith to be anyone who disagrees with a new New Deal and government activism. As long-time readers of Krugman will know, this is codespeak for labeling opponents of massive government interventionism as racist. In Krugman's view--a view apparently shared by many Bail-out supporters--the only legitimate argument left is over how to divide the spoils, not whether the government should print money it cannot back.
Leaving that aside, however, my favorite Krugman ("There is no God but Keynes, and I am His Prophet") piece of intellectual dishonesty comes here:
Next, write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.
Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens.
The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending. Meanwhile, it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts — and therefore costs less per job created (see the previous fraudulent argument) — because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved.
This suggests that public spending rather than tax cuts should be the core of any stimulus plan. But rather than accept that implication, conservatives take refuge in a nonsensical argument against public spending in general.
First, Krugman creates an obvious straw man by lampooning those who disagree as always preferring tax cuts to government spending. Given the record of the past eight years it would be hard--outside the Libertarian movement--to find any legislator, Democrat or Republican, who has consistently objected to government spending. NCLB? Medicaid Prescription Drugs? Homeland Security Grants?
Then Krugman does a neat bait-and-switch argument by equating anyone who wants tax cuts to also be advocating the elimination of, say, the air traffic control system. Really? Silly me, I thought the argument was about the effectiveness of economic stimulus, not the effectiveness of regulatory organizations. Does anyone else note here that Krugman is not merely comparing apples and oranges, but apples and screwdrivers? Unless Krugman would like to explain how increased funding for, say, the FDA would result in economic stimulus. Safer food? Possibly. But not economic stimulus. Certain functions (we can debate which ones later)are either best performed by government or are traditionally performed by government (unless you are one of my anarcho-capitalist readers), and that has (wait for it) absolutely nothing to do with the effectivess of government spending as economic stimulus.
[There is an argument to be made for government spending, a very Keynesian argument that suggests that you get $1.50 in economic stimulus for every government $1.00 spent. This argument is, however, so shopworn and fraught with variables it does not take into account that even most Keynesian economists approach it very diffidently.]
Krugman knows his argument here is pure bullshit, which is what makes him intellectually dishonest. He knows that Statists across the country will only quote his initial paragraph as holy writ, while failing to engage the non-supporting mess to follow. Krugman's advocacy is no longer about the conscience of a liberal, but about his personal ability to go down in history like Keynes or Friedman as the intellectual who reshaped the America economic scene. Unfortunately, unlike both Keynes and Friedman, Krugman stoops with great regularity to the demonization of anyone who disagrees with him, and has subordinated substantive thought to the creation of red meat talking points.
Heck, he could have worked for the last administration.
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Curbing CO2 will not make much difference
Washington Post:
Greenhouse gas levels currently expected by mid-century will produce devastating long-term droughts and a sea-level rise that will persist for 1,000 years regardless of how well the world curbs future emissions of carbon dioxide, an international team of scientists reported yesterday.The Chicken Little globo warmers are screeching up their rhetoric as Washington faces another snow storm.
Top climate researchers from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Switzerland and France said their analysis shows that carbon dioxide will remain near peak levels in the atmosphere far longer than other greenhouse gases, which dissipate relatively quickly.
...
Talk about climate change--Right now it is 70 degrees and overcast in Washington, Texas, but this evening we are supposed to get freezing rain. Warm is clearly better.
I am skeptical of the forecast of rising sea levels and droughts. It seems to ignore the effects of the bodies of water on precipitation. The summer weather pattern over the Gulf coast is typical. Clouds form over the gulf at night because the water is warmer than the land. During the day, the clouds drift toward the land mass as it heats up and usually in the late afternoon they dump a rain shower and then drift back to the Gulf to start the process again. If the forecast is as dire as the globo warmers predict that will only increase the rain bearing clouds dumping on the land.
You have to also consider that there will continue to be temperature differentials between winter and summer, so that water will still be freezing for at least a part of the year even if the scary forecast is realized. Will that result in large tidal differences that can be exploited for energy?
I think what may be going on with this new forecast is an attempt to preempt arguments when restricting CO2 does not work.
I think there is also a basic flaw in the argument for the greenhouse effect. The earths atmosphere protects it from the suns rays, as well as the extremes in temperature when a portion of the Earth is not being warmed by the sun. Is it just a coincidence that the temperatures have increased since we have been removing pollution from the air allowing more of the suns rays to penetrate the atmosphere?
It is a good thing I like warm weather.
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A bit quiet here at the moment
Regulars may have noticed that there's not as much ranting as you've come to expect here. This is largely because - as I've said before - I don't know what I think until I read what I've written.
Well, I've written a lot here, and I'm a bit clearer on what I think now - and I'm trying to shape some of the stuff from the archives into something that will be a bit more coherent than these hastily drafted posts.
It'll probably happen elsewhere, but I think it's time for a bit less Id blogging and a bit more Superego-driven stuff.
I'll still be here with the odd observation though, so don't be a stranger, y'hear?
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Quid Without the Quo
Obama is apparently urging House Dems to strip birth control funding from the stimulus bill. While this would be wrong on the merits, as Matt says what's even worse is that the Dems seem to be getting absolutely nothing in return. Indeed, Obama should be moving in the other direction; since at this point it's obvious that there's essentially no chance that the Republicans will vote for the bill, and it will make no difference to any future election how many Republicans vote for it (voters will give Democrats the credit or blame irrespective of the final vote), the Dems might as well pass the best bill they can.
[X-Posted at TAPPED.]
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We cannot rely on the media to tell us the truth or keep us informed of things that matter.
This is not a political post. (It's indirectly related.)
I find it insulting that CNN, a major US news broadcaster, finds it appropriate to even print a story about a mother hiding the death of a guinea pig from her son. (AND that this link made it to the front page of digg.com, which is now becoming exceptionally useless after the election). CNN is nothing more than a trashy tabloid at this point in time.
America, listen to me. The mainstream media is not here to make your life better or keep you informed. Its purpose is to distract you and lull you into complacency while your liberties and financial fortunes are being robbed. We cannot rely on a news agency that deems it fit to distract us with non-sense.
The truth is always so much deeper than what the media reports. Liberty, freedom, and sanity depend on Americans knowing where to get real news. CNN, as far as I am concerned, is the enemy.
Americans ARE stupid. We let ourselves get this way and, more importantly (and frightening), a lot of us want to stay this way. CNN could not exist were it not for a legitimate market demand for its content. Obama will not fix our problems and keep us in stupid-happy land, and listening to CNN will not get us out of stupid-happy land.
It is critical that you REJECT CNN as a source of information for ANYTHING. The same goes for FOX, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNBC, and even Bloomberg. Our government has pissed through trillions of dollars in just the past 6 months and CNN is reporting on a guinea pig.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Co-Operative Financial Services and Britannia Building Society to merge
This article in the Independent reports that Co-Operative Financial Services and Britannia Building Society are to merge. I don't know whether this will get them more customers or not but, if it does, that is a good thing. I think that it is important as many alternatives to the PLC or private company form of organisation exist as possible. Nationalising the banks and an expansion of building societies would be good in terms of creating a financial system which is unlikely to make the same mistakes that it did in the past.
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Elsewhere: On the Side of Angels
Jacob Levy is hosting a crookedtimber style book symposium on Nancy Rosenblum's new book, On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship. The first several posts are by Rosenblum herself, laying out main arguments of the book:
Nancy Rosenblum's account moves between political theory and political science, and she uses resources from both fields to outline an appreciation of parties and the moral distinctiveness of partisanship. She draws from the history of political thought and identifies the main lines of opposition to parties, as well as the rare but significant moments of appreciation. Rosenblum then sets forth her own theoretical appreciation of parties and partisanship. She discusses the achievement of parties in regulating rivalries, channeling political energies, and creating the lines of division that make pluralist politics meaningful.
I'm about 100 pages in to this rather long book, so all I've really seen so far is her historical account of what she calls "the grand traditions of antipartyism" in political thought. While I've yet to get to her own positive argument, so I've not yet formed a worthwhile opinion, this looks like an important book; even if the core of the argument seems rather obviously right (as it does to me, and I suspect most of our readers) assembling all aspects of the argument in one place. I'm hopeful, from the list of participants, that some will offer some of the critical pushback I wouldn't necessarily come up with as an overly sympathetic reader. There's quite a bit already up, and I probably won't have time to read it all until the weekend, but if you've got the time and the interest, check it out.
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Bunning Headed to the Showers?
Looks like Jim Bunning may be getting the hook:
Some Republicans are privately urging Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) to step down at the end of his term amid growing concerns that he can’t win reelection in 2010.Not terribly shocking, given that I've lived in Kentucky for almost four years and have never heard anyone (even Republicans) say anything nice about the august Senator. Indeed, the only thing I find surprising is that Bunning apparently still has fans...
According to two GOP sources, leading Republican fundraisers in Kentucky are hesitant to raise money for Bunning and have told him he should not seek a third term.
“They want him to realize he’s had a good run but that it’s time to move on. These people want to win, and they realize he could easily lose this seat,” said one leading Kentucky Republican operative who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
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Obama to take Mugabe, Zimbabwe back to UN
Times:
This appears to be more magic thinking on the part of the Obama administration. If they are going to try this gambit, it would have made much more sense to clear the deal with Russia and China and some of the African nations who objected the first go round when things were just as dire and the evidence of election theft was fresher.President Obama wants a fresh approach to toppling Robert Mugabe and is discussing with aides an unprecedented, US-led diplomatic push to get tough new UN sanctions imposed against the Zimbabwe regime, The Times has learned.
During talks Mr Obama has had with his top Africa advisers in recent weeks, the central idea they focused on was taking the issue of Zimbabwe before the UN Security Council, but for the first time to combine such a move with an intense diplomatic effort to persuade Russia and China not to block the initiative.
According to a senior aide present at the discussions, the goal of taking the issue of Zimbabwe to the Security Council would be to pass a series of "strong" sanctions, including a ban on arms sales and foreign investment. They also want to expand significantly the number of ruling Zanu-PF party officials subject to sanctions.
Last July, after Mr Mugabe was accused of rigging the elections to stay in power, China and Russia, who have significant financial interests in Zimbabwe, vetoed moves to impose UN sanctions. Mr Obama and his aides believe that, with the growing international outcry over conditions there and the devastating loss of life from the cholera outbreak, Beijing and Moscow can now be persuaded at the very least to abstain when the issue of sanctions comes to another vote.
...
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Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy
Too bad our resident Brit left us last semester. Otherwise, he could have commented on this [internet slang]EPIC GOVERNMENT FAIL[/internet slang].
The GBP/USD is where the real story is:
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Crucial Friday meeting for Tony's Labu
With MoF and EPU. Air Asia's Tony Fernandes is still pushing for his own airport despite all the protests from members of the public and the arguments against the Labu airport, including the reservation expressed by Khazanah Inc, which is chaired by the Prime Minister.
According to sources, he will be making a last-ditch pitch with the Economic Planning Unit and the Minister of Finance to secure approval for the highly-contentious project.
It will be tough to get past the EPU and MoF guys. They know that the cost of building the LCCT would include constructing a fuel farm by Petronas, which will be borne by the Government. Unless Air Asia plan to build a pipeline from KLIA to feed LCCT, or drive fuel bowsers all the way from KLIA to Labu. And are Air Asia and Sime Darby planning to privatize Immigration, Customs, etc.?
Still, we await Friday's meeting.
p.s. An editor told me that if CIMB is planning to be involved in the project, that will add another problem. CIMB is headed by the Finance Minister's little brother. Conflict of interest.
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Fool Me Twice
January 14, 2009, 8:10 a.m.
(Brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
We're going to look back on the current rush to provide the second $350 billion to the banking industry as a tragic, tragic, mistake. Mark my words.
And not just my words, but those of the World Economic Forum -- an organization of some of the, as the name suggests, world's most influential economists and corporate CEOs -- the very folks you'd expect to be enthusiastic about gifts of billions from grateful taxpayers.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to delight in saying "I told you so" sometime on down the road. My most fervent wish is that I'll be saying "well, I sure got that one backwards." But I fear I'm right.
The following assertions are those of someone who is neither ideologue nor academic economist. I'm just an ordinary citizen taxpayer, hopefully with some common sense and a small dollop of cynicism, who tries to learn from experience. Like Will Rogers, "all I know is what I read in the papers;" it's just that my newspaper reading isn't limited to American papers.
This is not an argument for the proposition that a trillion-plus bailout of the banking, financial, investment and real estate mortgage industries would never be beneficial at some time, under some circumstances, for some individuals and businesses -- only that it is very, very wrong to do it at this time, under these circumstances, for these individuals and businesses.
Why?
1. They caused the problem. It seems fairly clear that our dire economic circumstances are the result of individuals' decisions -- whether the consequence of abysmal ignorance or cynical and selfish greed. They are not the result of "acts of God," only the acts of executives who thought themselves to be God. That makes them undeserving of bailouts. But who cares about that if by giving these undeserving millionaires hundreds of billions of dollars our economy turns around, the currently unemployed get jobs, and evicted former homeowners are back in their houses?
2. It didn't work. Many, including this blog, predicted that the $700 billion bailout wouldn't produce jobs, put folks back in their homes, and boost the economy. Those were just guesses, even if those who offered those warnings turned out to be right. Now there are more than guesses. There is data; the results of the first $350 billion are known. Unemployment is up; the economy has continued to spiral down. Knowing that it didn't work the first time, why would we try it a second.
3. The recipients have proven they aren't trustworthy. Sure, the Congress and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson screwed up big time. But the recipients knew what the money was for, and it wasn't for squirreling away to increase reserves, buying other banks, dividends, and executive bonuses. Having created the problem by putting their own selfish greed ahead of the public interest, we should not be surprised that, given the opportunity, they would be inclined to keep the money rather than let those billions of dollars slip through their fingers and "trickle down" to their desperate neighbors. But OK, so they fooled us once. Now why are we setting ourselves up to be fooled again? Are these really the best guys to trust with another addition to a national debt we're leaving to our grandchildren?
(For details regarding how banks are using taxpayers' money in fact, as distinguished from theory and intention -- along with criticisms similar to my own and those of the World Economic Forum regarding the bailout approach -- see the excerpts from a story in today's [January 14] New York Times at the bottom of this blog entry: "In Michigan, Bank Lends Little of Its Bailout Funds.")
4. Stop digging. "When you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is to stop digging." Our economic problem is, in large measure, irresponsible levels of debt -- multi-trillion-dollar national debt, mortgages, student loans and credit card balances beyond our means. And just why is it that additional debt is the solution to our debt problem?
5. Conditions first, money second. Even if this were a wise and warranted strategy, and the recipients who let us down in the past were now paragons of virtue, what's the rush? "If you don't give me $350 billion by tomorrow the economy will collapse." We fell for that once. "Show me the money?" -- No, not until you show me the details, the business plan. What is it about economists and financiers and their three-page proposals for near-trillion-dollar expenditures? (Yes, like Henry Paulson, Larry Summers is also offering a three-page letter of explanation.) Who's getting this money? What are they required to do with it? What oversight will be provided? What if (again) they violate the conditions? What is a reasonable prediction, scenario, as to what is going to happen as a result of this additional national debt?
6. Exit strategy. President-elect Obama "intends to agree to Pentagon plans to send up to 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan in order to gain time to review the conflict" -- rather than learning from the Russian experience there, and focus on designing an exit strategy. AFP, "Obama to review Afghan strategy, approve troop increase," January 13, 2009. Unfortunately, his current approach to the coming economic depression also lacks an "exit strategy" -- that is to say, a long term plan, reasonably rational on its face, that takes us beyond the current one more bailout at a time approach. Where are we headed? What are we doing and why? What is our long term strategy and how reasonable are we in thinking it will work? I don't get this from Obama, his team, or our congressional leaders.
Now here's the news, along with the World Economic Forum's concerns:
President-elect Barack Obama worked Capitol Hill, trying to persuade Democratic senators not to block a request for the last $350 billion of the bailout funds and assuring them that he is willing to use his veto power if they do so. . . . "[T]he bulk" of the remaining TARP rescue funds would be used to invest in banks and other financial institutions . . .. Many Senate Republicans, meanwhile, continued to insist that Obama's team has provided too few details about how they would use the money. Many said they are seeking a written statement detailing Obama's intentions that goes beyond the three-page letter submitted to congressional leaders Monday by Obama economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers. . . . "Members need to know how the Obama administration is going to carry out this bill -- and we need to know not just statements of principle, but what they are willing to bind themselves morally to do," said Brad Sherman (D-Calif.).Neil Irwin and David Cho, "Fed Backs Obama's Bailout Request," Washington Post, January 14, 2009, p. A1.
Obama is making personal calls to Democrats and Republicans to urge them to release the money, and Democratic leaders were confident that he would prevail on a matter he told them he considers the "first vote" of his administration.
To the extent there are any details, they are not encouraging. The AP reports, "Frank's bill would require $40 billion to $100 billion of the bailout money to be spent on mitigating foreclosures [$40 billion is scarcely 10% of the funds] and . . . require the Treasury Department to use nonbailout resources to increase demand for home purchases [even though, while appealing to realtors and bankers, purchasing a home now is the furthest thing from the minds of those who've just been thrown out of the home they thought they had]." (comments added) AP, "Highlights of New Bailout Proposals," January 13, 2009.
And, "Bank executives will get to fly their company jets after all. Financial institutions that get assistance through the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program had faced a provision that recipients of the money would be prohibited from owning or leasing private aircraft. But Kansas is one of the nation's centers of aircraft manufacturing, and state lawmakers complained . . .. So yesterday, Barney Frank (D-Mass.), head of the House Financial Services Committee and the author of the bill, lifted the jet ban." AP, "Ban on Private Jets Lifted from Bailout Program," Newsday, January 14, 2009.
Meanwhile, the prestigious World Economic Forum is warning that government spending, and lack of long range planning, not only contains the possibility of doing little or no good, it may even "backfire" and end up doing considerable harm:
The World Economic Forum took a grim view of prospects for the world economy this year in a report released Tuesday, warning that government spending to counter the financial crisis could backfire. . . .Agence France-Presse, "World Economic Forum Warns Government Bailouts Could Backfire," ABS CBN News, January 13, 2008.
But the crux of the report was a prediction that "massive" government spending to support ailing financial institutions hit by the credit crisis could sow the seeds of more problems in the future.
Although it has been widely advocated, such spending is set to fuel big deficits in several major economies including Australia, Britain, France and the United States, WEF's "Global Risks 2009" report said.
"One of the biggest risks is that short-term crisis fighting may induce businesses and governments to lose the long term perspective on risk," said one of the contributors, Daniel Hofmann, chief economist for insurer Zurich Financial Services.
Although I cannot yet find a copy of the organization's Global Risks 2009 report online, it has been providing similar warnings for years. See Global Risks 2008: A Global Risk Network Report, World Economic Forum, January 2008, and the earlier reports from January 2007 and 2006.
I hold out little hope that the industries containing some of America's most generous campaign contributors will not get their $350 billion -- and even less that it will do much good for those 305 million Americans who have taken the losses, and are bearing the hardship of the consequences of their selfish, irresponsible greed.
Excerpts from "In Michigan, Bank Lends Little of Its Bailout Funds":
The Treasury Department has invested $72 million out of the $700 billion in federal bailout funds to help prop up this community bank [Independent Bank of Michigan] . . ..
But Independent . . . is not doing much lending these days. So far it is using all of the government’s money to shore up its own weak finances by repaying short-term loans from the Federal Reserve. . . .
This is not what the Treasury Department had in mind when it started this program, saying it would give the nation’s “healthy banks” enough money to start lending again, so that people could buy homes and businesses could invest and create jobs, thereby invigorating a disintegrating economy. . . .
As of Tuesday, 257 financial institutions in 42 states had received $192 billion in capital injections from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, out of $250 billion set aside for this purpose. Seven giant banks — like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — have received more than 62 percent of the total so far, and have gotten most of the attention. . . .
Economists say the decision by banks like Independent to use the federal money for purposes other than lending, while perhaps disappointing, is not surprising, given that the Treasury Department did not honor its plan to give the money only to healthy banks.
“It’s a matter of logic — when you are in a perilous position, like many of them are, you try to bolster your balance sheet,” said Alan S. Blinder, a monetary policy economics professor at Princeton. “But this is a real flaw in the program.”
Some banking experts are even questioning if the bailout may be doing more harm than good, in some cases, by giving banks like Independent a cushion as they struggle to fix their problems, rather than forcing them to sink or swim on their own. It could also delay mergers of weaker banks with healthier ones.
“You are keeping a lot of troubled institutions in kind of a status quo state,” said Eric D. Hovde, the chief executive of a Washington-based hedge fund that invests in the banking industry. “They can continue on their merry ways.” In Congress, anger over the management of the TARP program runs deep. Many lawmakers say that there is little oversight, and that they can see no evidence that the taxpayer money is making its way from the coffers of banks to businesses and consumers. . . .
Some lawmakers have criticized the Treasury for allowing banks to use the government’s bailout money to acquire rival banks. . . .
“A lot of the money is already out there and the inspector general needs to get up to speed on how banks are using it,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. “We need to make sure we get this money back and the only way we can do that is with strong oversight on how this money is spent.” . . .
Mr. [Eric D. Hovde] Hovde, the hedge fund investor who says he believes the bailout program is putting off judgment day for many banks, said his fear was that many of the banks would burn through their federal money only to face a squeeze again. And they will never have made the extra loans that the Treasury had hoped would jump-start the economy.
Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon, "In Michigan, Bank Lends Little of Its Bailout Funds," New York Times, January 14, 2009.
__________
* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
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Devils and details
I am not in favor of absolutist standards. Most of the statements that I have grown to regret personally included the words "never" or "always."
That having been said, having spent the entire campaign season taking the high ground on issues like Gitmo, torture, and lobbyists in government, the Obama administration is showing some disturbing early signs of making grand pronouncements backed by entirely too much wiggle room.
Take Gitmo. I do believe, and have said so here, that Obama is committed to a more constitutional method of handling detainees, yet--as Shirley was first in the Delaware blogosphere to point out--his Executive Order left plenty of latitude to, for example, transfer the Gitmo inmates to other US faciltiies on foreign soil or to the prisons of allied nations who (guess what?) torture their prisoners.
As for torture, Bowly point to this NYT article in the comments, which suggest that the line on torture isn't quite so firmly drawn in the sand as the early press releases would suggest:
But the orders leave unresolved complex questions surrounding the closing of the Guantánamo prison, including whether, where and how many of the detainees are to be prosecuted. They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured.
The new White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, briefed lawmakers about some elements of the orders on Wednesday evening. A Congressional official who attended the session said Mr. Craig acknowledged concerns from intelligence officials that new restrictions on C.I.A. methods might be unwise and indicated that the White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other than the 19 techniques allowed for the military.
As for lobbying, I already pointed out here that some lobbyists are apparently OK, even though others are not. Here's what Robert Schlesinger at USNWR says about Obama's decision to place former lobbyists in senior sub-cabinet positions at Defense and Human Services:
I'm deeply ambivalent about this whole thicket of issues, as I have at times contradictory feelings about it.
I thought Obama's sweeping condemnation of lobbyists was better campaign rhetoric than policy. The reality is that some lobbyists are as nefarious as advertised and some are not. Some want to turn their public service into big bucks and some turn around and help what we liberals would call good causes. And oh yeah: Many have experience that could be helpful for a new administration trying to enact its agenda.
I think that some substantial number of people who go through the so-called "revolving door" are a problem, and so I have some sympathy for tougher restrictions on that kind of back and forth.
But if you're going to campaign on sweeping condemnations about the evil of lobbyists and then, with great fanfare, ban them from your administration, you need to live by your own rules; or at least you shouldn't start making exceptions for them on Day 1.
Else the message is: It is important to prevent other administrations from doing business with lobbyists; but we are of such moral character that the rules need not apply to us. That's a slippery slope and leads to problems (and specifically could lead to the ex-lobbyists not getting confirmed, as Spencer Ackerman notes).
More troubling in some ways that these deviations themselves are the extent to which Mr Obama's supporters are willing to give him a pass--even to obscure the record. Take the Delaware blogosphere and the issue of lobbyists. The extent to which our liberal and progressive friends have discussed the issue (even though it has been known for two weeks that Obama intended to appoint a Raytheon lobbyist to run the Pentagon) has been limited at Delawareliberal to a nemski post about how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may prove to be a disappointment to Obama's high morals:
If it wasn’t obvious to you before that Harry Reid, whose ancestor may have been horse thief and a train robber, was going to be a problem for President Obama, no matter, Harry is here to remind us. Firedoglake points us to an ABC News report that informs us that Reid invited top lobbyists to an inaugural brunch on Monday. Said Reid:People should understand that lobbyists, per se, are someone’s father, mother, son, daughter.They work for a living.
And to this should be added the following cassandra comment:
I don’t think that Reid is going to be the only legislator who is going to be a problem on the lobbying front. Too many of all of them are too wed to the money and to the favoritism it gets them.
[Let's also note here that there are not just evil, greedy corporate lobbyists out there. The legions trolling the halls of Congress and the White House include lobbyists for non-profit organizations and lobbyists hired by State and municpal governments to insure that they get their own pieces of the pork. Many of our more Statist brethren had this intriguing tendency to condemn the corporate lobbyists while simply ignoring the others.]
The clear implication here is that some Democrat opportunists may sell out the high moral standards of Barack Obama in his attempts to clean up government and make it more efficient. This is naive at best, and disingenuous at its worst.
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1 million Malaysians could lose jobs this year
The government is slowly telling us the bad news. Yesterday, the Human Resources Ministry says 45,000 Malaysians could lose jobs over the Chinese New Year period alone! [Read here, the Dep Minister beats around the bush about people losing jobs temporarily and factories closing down business - also temporarily! - but you get the message].
The MEF says up to 400,000 Malaysians will lose their jobs by end of the year. In Singapore, another half a million Malaysians will be jobless as the republic buckles under the economic slowdown. [Read here]
If so, we are into times worse than 1985 or 1998.
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Monday, January 26, 2009
The Inaugural Speech: Religion's Role in the 'New Era of Responsibility"
Religion's Role in the "New Era of Responsibility"
by Jon Pahl
Barack Obama's inaugural speech signaled a fascinating new twist on an old role for religion in American culture. Platitudes of civil religious discourse, exploited so effectively by recent administrations--"sacrifice," "God's gift of freedom," and the ritual invocation of God's blessing on America--were present, but muted. Obama's chief theme was that religions provide people with spiritual strength to be responsible citizens; to work for the common good.
This was not a speech about mystical union with some millennial destiny. Indeed, Obama's clear articulation that "God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny" means that history is up to us. What America will be depends upon what we do, not what some hidden hand might provide.
This was a speech about the spirituality of work. "What is required of us," the 44th President intoned, "is a new era of responsibility--a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task." The President here argued that it is through our common work that humans find spiritual fulfillment, this side of eternity.
No less than ten times Obama invoked "work," "works," or "workers." "Everywhere we look, there is work to be done." It is not in "worn out dogmas" that one can find the American spirit, he asserted, but "the faith and determination of the American people" is evident in "the kindness to take in a stranger . . . the selflessness of workers . . . [a] firefighter's courage." "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."
The last line--an oblique reference to a Langston Hughes poem, might seem to invoke the old Horatio Alger version of the Protestant ethic. In fact, Obama's religious foundation was intentionally pluralistic. 'We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus--and non-believers." Such a "patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness." But if and when people of faith commit to work together with unbelievers toward a vision of a more just and virtuous common good, we might see how "old hatreds shall someday pass;" how "lines of tribe shall soon dissolve;" how "our common humanity shall reveal itself;" and how "America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."
There is in such a vision plenty of the old American millennialism. But the stronger voice was this practical assertion: "greatness is never given. It must be earned." And this pragmatic question: it is "not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."
The world Barack Obama addressed with this speech was not just the American nation and its future. Invoking George Washington's words at Valley Forge, it was "the future world" broadly envisioned that he had in mind. And that meant that Americans needed to "set aside childish things," in the words of Paul's First Letter to the Church at Corinth. It was time to get to work enacting the substance of faith, hope, and love--beyond mere rhetoric of sounding gongs and clanging cymbals that had merely sustained the wealthy--"those who prefer leisure over work"--under a cloak of religious pretense.
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Obama's Gitmo screw up see plan begin to crumble
Times:
Obama's confidence is clearly misplaced and it shows his naivete on the matter of the terrorist at Gitmo. It is a naivete shared by many on the left until they are faced with the consequences of turning these guys loose are trying them. Much of the problem stems from their lawfare mentality and their ignorance of history and the treatment of enemy combatants. Such detainees have always had indefinite detention in every war. It gives the enemy and incentive to reach a conclusion. That al Qaeda does not care about them should be turned against them not the US.President Obama's plan to close Guantánamo Bay within a year appeared to be unravelling yesterday with the emergence of former inmates on terrorist websites, fierce opposition in the US and a lukewarm response to taking detainees from the European Union.
After signing an executive order last week to close the US military prison, Mr Obama has been confronted with myriad obstacles that are making his ambitious pledge look unrealistic.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, ruled out the prospect of Britain taking any more inmates, claiming that it had already made a significant contribution.
His announcement, at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, came as Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that it had rearrested nine Islamist militants, including former Guantánamo inmates released to the Kingdom who had undergone a re-education programme in Riyadh.
Two other former detainees sent home to Saudi Arabia from the prison in November 2007 re-emerged over the weekend on a jihadist website, railing against Britain, the US and Israel and identifying themselves by their Guantánamo detainee numbers. One of the men who appeared on video was Said Ali al-Shihri, now the deputy leader of al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch. He is suspected of involvement in a bombing at the US Embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September, which killed 16. “By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for,” al-Shihri said on the video. The other former inmate has been identified as Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, who is seen clutching an automatic rifle and a grenade.
Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama's spokesman, said that there were “admonitions” to be taken from the case of al-Shihri, but that the President had confidence in the process he had put in place to evaluate the prisoners.
...
BTW, for those of you who have noticed that I use the term screw up often when discussing Obama's policies, if you look at election history the incumbent party only loses when the voters perceive they have screwed up. It is not too early to plant that thought in voter minds.
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Forget Madoff, Focus on Bernanke
December 17, 2008, 11:00 a.m.
Bad Apples or Poster Ponzis?
(Brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com)
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday night that it had missed repeated opportunities to discover what may be the largest financial fraud in history, a Ponzi scheme whose losses could run as high as $50 billion. . . . Mr. [Bernard L.] Madoff was arrested at his Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan last Thursday by F.B.I. agents, after his two sons — both of whom work for the company — reported that he had confessed to them that his money-management business was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme” and “a big lie.”Alex Berenson and Diana B. Henriques, "S.E.C. Says It Missed Signals on Madoff Fraud Case," New York Times, December 17, 2008.
There are not a lot of people coming to Madoff's defense this week. There seems to be relatively widespread agreement that defrauding one's friends of $50 billion is not nice.
But how much difference is there between what Madoff did and what the investment and commercial banking industries have been doing to 305 million Americans over the last decade?
Not much, says Tom Friedman:
I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is, his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the “legal” scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed. What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds — which Moody’s or Standard & Poors rate AAA — and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn’t a pyramid scheme, what is?Thomas L. Friedman, "The Great Unraveling," New York Times, December 17, 2008.
Two days later the comparison was being spelled out in even greater detail: Paul Krugman, "The Madoff Economy," New York Times, December 19, 2008.
So, meanwhile, what has Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke been up to?
We all know about the $25, or $34, or $15, or $5 billion the auto industry says it needs. We're all appalled at the $700 billion Congress authorized for Wall Street with little more attention to detail than it gave to authorizing our "preemptive war" in Iraq.
But do you have any idea what the total is at this point?
It's not $700 billion, it's 11 times that: $7.7 trillion. That's right, $7.7 trillion.
Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg's report:
The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system . . ..Read the whole story; there's lots more. Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry, "U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit," Bloomberg, November 24, 2008.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, . . . [dwarfing] the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis. . . .
The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $23 trillion, or 38 percent, of the value of the world’s companies and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms. . . .
The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.
But wait; it gets worse.
Having grabbed 10 times what we thought he'd taken from the taxpayers, Bernanke now refuses to tell Congress or the media or us who he gave our money to, or what he got for it on our behalf, or how much what he got is worth on the present market.
Don't believe it? Read on. Bloomberg's suing him.
The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.Mark Pittman, "Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion," December 12, 2008.
Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. . . .
The Fed stepped into a rescue role that was the original purpose of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The central bank loans don’t have the oversight safeguards that Congress imposed upon the TARP. . . .
Congress is demanding more transparency from the Fed and Treasury on bailout, most recently during Dec. 10 hearings by the House Financial Services committee when Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Americans had “been bamboozled.”
Bloomberg News, a unit of New York-based Bloomberg LP, on May 21 asked the Fed to provide data on collateral posted from April 4 to May 20. The central bank said on June 19 that it needed until July 3 to search documents and determine whether it would make them public. Bloomberg didn’t receive a formal response that would let it file an appeal within the legal time limit. . . .
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would meet congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system.
The Freedom of Information Act obliges federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public. . . .
“There has to be something they can tell the public because we have a right to know what they are doing,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“It would really be a shame if we have to find this out 10 years from now after some really nasty class-action suit and our financial system has completely collapsed,” she said. . . .
The Fed lent cash and government bonds to banks that handed over collateral including stocks and subprime and structured securities such as collateralized debt obligations, according to the Fed Web site.
Borrowers include the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Citigroup and New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., the country’s biggest bank by assets. . . .
“Americans don’t want to get blindsided anymore,” Mendez said in an interview. “They don’t want it sugarcoated or whitewashed. They want the complete truth. The truth is we can’t take all the pain right now.”
The Bloomberg lawsuit said the collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.” . . .
“I understand where they are coming from bureaucratically, but that means it’s all the more necessary for taxpayers to know what exactly is going on because of all the money that is being hurled at the banking system,” [Bruce Johnson, a lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle] said.
The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
$7.7 trillion. It kind of puts Madoff's little $50 billion fraud into perspective, doesn't it?
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