Disagreement Without Being Disagreeable

Great Moments in Political Misdirection

2010-07-27T13:41:00.000-04:00

I'm not inclined to take Ahmadinejad's public predictions about U.S. foreign policy too seriously, but if the United States does end up launching attacks on (presumably) Iran and Syria and does so in cooperation with Israel, it would have to represent the biggest, most successful attempt at foreign policy misdirection in United States history. It's no secret that President Obama has been openly and ham-fistedly disdainful of Prime Minister Netanyahu and that he has been scrambling to show that he regards Israel as a good friend and ally of the United States and not as merely an obstacle to American interests in the Middle East. Again, I highly doubt Ahmadinejad's prediction will prove correct, but if it does, my estimation of President Obama's shrewdness and political ability will go through the roof.

Still, a question remains. Why is Ahmadinejad making this prediction when there is no overt sign the United States will take action? There is certainly the prospect of an Israeli surprise attack, and the Iranian government regards Israel as the Little Satan to the American Great Satan. So, by this logic, if Israel attacks Iran, it is doing so as an agent of the United States. As a point of fact, this line of logic doesn't hold (at most, the United States would be neutral on the subject, not hindering it as it went forward), but it is how the Iranian government views the U.S.-Isreali relationship (Walt and Mearsheimer(sp?), call your office).

Another possible reason for Ahmadinejad to make this prediction (and the one which seems most likely to me) is that Ahmadinejad is calling President Obama's bluff, effectively daring him to attack. The article ends with Ahmadinejad saying "The logic that they can persuade us to negotiate through sanctions is just a failure." He is declaring that not only will Iran not buckle under newly imposed sanctions, but that the United States knows this and is preparing to take military action as a result. If the attack does happen, the prediction costs Ahmadinejad nothing. If it doesn't happen, it allows him to declare that President Obama blinked and that he lacks the strength of will to prevent Iran achieving its nuclear objectives.

Of course, all of this is predicated on Ahmadinejad being believable in his assertions, so the effect will probably be negligible. Those who are inclined to believe him (i.e. his supporters) will believe him and be encouraged if the attack doesn't come. Those who are inclined to disbelieve him (i.e. just about everyone else) will be inclined to ignore him, and if an attack doesn't come, it will only mean that Ahmadinejad was engaging in more of his usual bluster.

Invitation to Fraud

2009-07-01T11:23:00.002-04:00

How will the government contain costs and limit fraud when anyone with some basic computer equipment can make his own Medicare card?

Money quote:

You want to know what a Medicare identification card is like? It is a little larger than the standard size for credit cards and driver’s licenses. (Of course. Couldn’t have the federal government make a card that will fit in a stack with all the other cards you use.) It has no magnetic strip. It is plain vanilla text and fonts—no security features whatsoever. It could be counterfeited by a sixth-grader with a scanner. It is made out of flimsy paper that would barely qualify for a really cheap business card.

Hat-tip: The Corner

How Does This Help?

2009-07-01T11:11:00.002-04:00

Jonah Goldberg explains how the federal government has responded to the economic crisis by flushing money down the toilet.

Recall the White House mantra of “never let a crisis go to waste.” Though the economic implosion had specific causes stemming from the financial and housing markets and how they were regulated, President Obama insisted that the items on his campaign wish list — overhauling health care, imposing carbon cap-and-trade, and reforming education — would be the real solutions to the crisis.

“The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight,” Obama told Congress in February. And only by “investing” in policies formulated years before “toxic asset” became household words could America get out of the crisis.

As a result, we’re now stuck with some of the most absurdly counterproductive legislation imaginable. The national debt is growing faster than the GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, within ten years Uncle Sam’s publicly held debt will double to 82 percent of GDP. The CBO predicts that by 2038, our debt will be 200 percent of GDP. Debt siphons off growth for the simple reason that dollars go to paying it off rather than investing in something productive.

Meanwhile, thanks to ongoing trade deficits and relentless borrowing, America’s financial status is deteriorating rapidly. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the value of foreign assets owned by Americans is $19.89 trillion, while the value of American assets owned by foreigners is $23.36 trillion. In other words, we are a “net debtor” to the tune of $3.47 trillion. That represents a 62 percent increase over 2007. Foreigners, most significantly China, own nearly 50 percent of our government’s public debt.

So while the Obama administration frets over the largely phony idea that we are dangerously dependent on foreign oil (Canada sends us about as much oil as the entire Persian Gulf region, and Mexico not much less), we are increasingly threatened by dependence on foreign bondholders who could wreak havoc on the dollar and our interest rates far more easily than OPEC could cut off our oil.

And what are we doing in response? For starters, the House passed carbon cap-and-trade legislation that essentially adds an onerous and inefficient energy tax on everyone, outsources jobs to carbon-profligate India and China, and raises tariffs in an attempt to stem the inevitable bleeding of jobs and manufacturing (the last time we raised tariffs in the midst of a bad recession, we got the Depression). Rather than have America invest in new oil and gas jobs (among the highest-paying of any industry), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists that one-time gigs weatherizing Granny’s attic and replacing light bulbs are preferable.

Funny how the "solutions" to our economic crisis were just the policies Obama campaigned on long before our financial system began to implode.

A Reason to Applaud a Teachers' Union

2009-06-04T21:56:00.000-04:00

They killed a smoking ban.

The Satirists Predicament

2009-06-03T16:51:00.001-04:00

You think you've written the perfect reductio ad absurdum, and lo, it turns out to be not that absurd after all.

Witness.

A gathering of 20 Nobel Prize winners, calling itself the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, has released a memorandum stating that 'Global climate change represents a threat of similar proportions' to that of thermonuclear armageddon at the height of the Cold War.
The qualitative difference between the two threats is perhaps nowhere better expressed, however inadvertently, than by the convener of the symposium himself, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Where once we had 'the Cold War notion of mutually-assured destruction,' he told the Times, 'Today we have mutually-assured increases in greenhouse gases.'
OK. But while debates around climate change are still qualified by the words 'might', 'could' and 'predicted', it's probably fair to say that the average person in the street may view the comparison of carbon emissions with things that can vapourise a major city in seconds as unhelpfully alarmist and perhaps just a little bit silly.

Hat Tip: The Corner

Rhetoric vs. Reality

2009-06-03T15:50:00.000-04:00

This is a must-read on the disconnect between Obama's rhetoric and his national security policies. The difference between Obama and Bush so far? Bush's rhetoric lined up with what he actually did.

So, How's That Stimulus Working?

2009-06-03T15:36:00.001-04:00

Not so well, according to John Lott, at least by the standard of the pre-stimulus predictions

How did the predictions stack up? While the unemployment rate was at 8.1 percent in February, it had risen to 8.9 percent by April. By May 11, Christine Romer was calling 9.5 percent unemployment by the end of the year “pretty realistic.” Business economists and forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had increased their estimates to 9.7 percent. Thus, what Romer was predicting would be the worst-case
scenario if the stimulus was not quickly enacted is occurring with the stimulus plan in place.

And,

Economists have consistently been expecting the economy to begin showing positive growth in the second half of this year. But the stimulus appears to have dampened the recovery that economists were expecting.
Take the expected growth in the third quarter (from July to September) this year. In January, the forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal were expecting GDP during that period to rise by 1.2 percent at an annual rate. By May, the expected growth had been cut in half to 0.6 percent. The pattern is similar for both the second and fourth quarters this year. Paul Evans, the editor of the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking and an economics professor at Ohio State University, agrees with this and tells FOX News: “Most likely the economic recovery would have been more rapid at this point without [the stimulus package].”

And,

Other forecasts have shown a similar pattern. By the end of last week, the U.S. manufacturing output is now expected to plummet by 12 percent this year. In February, the drop was expected to be 8 percent. The decline in the housing market failed to slow down after the stimulus package. The mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates in the U.S. just experienced their biggest quarterly increases since records started in 1972. Both numbers are also at their highest recorded levels. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index posted a 19.1% drop from a year earlier, the biggest single quarterly decline for the reading’s 21-year history. In January, forecasters expected about 770,000 new homes being built this year. By May, only 580,000 new homes were expected for 2009.
Over the same four months, economists have also become more pessimistic about housing starts next year: The number of expected new housing starts for next year declined from 980,000 to 820,000. Again, what recovery was originally expected later this year and next year has actually declined after the stimulus.

Now, correlation does not imply causality. In this case, the fact that things are worse than expected even before the stimulus was passed, does not prove the stimulus isn't working, but while things could have been worse than this without the stimulus, this is an extremely weak argument in its defense. After all, I could say with at least equal plausibility that eliminating the capital gains tax; cutting personal and corporate income taxes; lifting restrictions on energy exploration; oil refinery and nuclear power plant construction; and promoting a strong dollar would have an even greater positive impact on the economy.

Of course, defenders of the stimulus might also cite the fact that very little of the stimulus money has actually been spent, but that quickly becomes an argument in favor of tax cuts and deregulation. After all, in order for the government to put money into the economy, it has to take it out of the economy first- whether through taxes, the sale of bonds, or devaluing the money already in the economy by printing more of it- and then it has to, you know, spend it. On the other hand, cutting taxes allows money that is already in the economy to be spent, and deregulation and opens up new areas for investment or allows businesses to operate more efficiently by reducing the cost of doing business.

I guess you could stick to the whole "jobs saved or created" mantra, with the emphasis on saved, but as Jim Geraghty points out, it "can't be declared horsepuckey until national employment falls below 9.67 million jobs."

Can You Say "Conflict of Interest"?

2009-06-03T14:58:00.000-04:00

GM will continue to lobby the United States government, despite (because of?) the fact that the government is now GM's largest shareholder. Of course, this makes explicit what was already implicit: Will the government pursue policies that are in the best interest of the country if they have a negative impact on GM? Will GM seek to return to profitability by becoming more competitive in the free (ish?) market, or will they advance policies which are bad for the market, knowing that they can always rely on the government, whose policies they are advocating, to continue to funnel them money even as their product continues to lose money? In short, I smell a rat.

Even if I Find It Politically Disadvantageous

2009-06-03T14:22:00.000-04:00

Here's hoping Sen. Robert Byrd makes a quick and full recovery and can soon return to his duties.

What Do You Say to This?

2009-04-14T20:37:00.001-04:00

I Bush had done this, it would have been a front-page story.

Hat tip: The Corner

Symbolism Matters

2009-04-03T11:07:00.003-04:00

Which is why the President of the United States bows to no one.

Barack Obama Bows To Saudi King Abdullah

Apparently, our current president is unaware of this and has thus presented himself as being subservient to the king of Saudi Arabia.

Hat tips: The Corner, The American Thinker

What's Wrong Here?

2009-03-26T22:16:00.001-04:00

There's something not quite right with the beginning of this story:

LOS ANGELES — Cops have filed felony charges against an armed, crazed stalker who authorities say drove cross-country to break onto the "Dancing With the Stars" set to meet Olympian Shawn Johnson - who he hoped would father his children.

It's Only Funny Because It's True

2009-03-09T15:04:00.001-04:00

What European Tribes Think About One Another.

Let 'Em Die

2009-03-08T19:17:00.002-04:00

If John McCain had said this five months ago, he might be president today.

Hat tip: Drudge

There's No Situation So Bad the Government Can't Make It Worse

2009-02-11T17:19:00.001-05:00

See the Australian wildfires.

Hat tip: The Corner

My Very Quick Take on the Stimulus

2009-02-09T15:49:00.001-05:00

Pork and fury signifying nothing.

While President Obama's rhetoric could easily be described as Hope and fury signifying nothing.

Fisking Obama

2009-02-05T17:22:00.003-05:00

So President Obama has decided to take out in op-ed in the Washington Post to make the case for the ~~pork~~ stimulus bill making its way through the Senate. The problem is that he's not really saying anything of substance that hasn't been said before by other advocates of the bill. In other words, Mr. Obama is relying on the fact that he's the one making the case to make it persuasive.* Unfortunately for him, the fact that he says it doesn't make it so.

President Obama begins by saying

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

While it is certainly possible that we are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, it won't be possible to draw that conclusion for some time, and this is by no means a universal view. Things are bad, and will likely get worse, but the magnitude of the crisis is ultimately determined by what happens, not what might happen. Right now, there is a severe market correction going on as the effects of deleveraging an overleveraged market are felt, and there will undoubtedly be a lot of pain involved, but a lot of pain does not automatically equate to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Secondly, you do not actually lose money when your investment declines unless you sell the investment before it has regained its original value. The value of my pension fund has declined over the last year, but the losses will only be real if I sell it before the value goes back up. What matters with things like pension funds is not the value month-to-month or even year-to-year, but the value when you cash it in. While it's possible that millions of people had their funds invested entirely in firms like Lehman Brothers and Circuit City, most people's investments are run through things like pension funds, IRAs and 401(k)s. Their value has certainly taken a hit, but I find it hard to believe that millions of families have lost their entire nest eggs.

The President continues:

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

This is so vague as to be meaningless. It reduces to "Americans want Washington to do something that works and do it quickly." This is practically begging the question, "What works?" Should Washington inject itself further into economy than it has already? Should it step back and allow the market to correct? Some combination of the two, and if so, what combination will be most effective? Is any action needed on top of the TARP bill and all of the actions taken by the Federal Reserve? Would it be better for the government to just let things go, to let the market kill off the bad banks and allow banks that did things right to pick up the pieces? Should the government nationalize the banks? How? Purchase toxic assets? At what price? Of Mr. Obama's three criteria of swift, bold and wise, two of them are at odds. Swiftness requires that the analysis and reflection necessary to determine the lieklihood of the efficacy of any action be set aside, meaning that any wisdom inherent in the action taken will result purely by chance. Similarly, ensuring the wisdom of a particular policy requires eschewing swiftness. Cutting tax rates avoids much of this in that it trusts the wisdom of how to spend the money the government is no longer confiscating to the wisdom of the market, but it still requires the government to assess what its budgetary response will be. Will it keep spending at the same level, running the risk of increasing our already mammoth deficit? Will it cut spending and run the risk of alienating consituencies and further degrading the ability of the government to fulfill its duties?

Back to the President:

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

Mr. Obama certainly seems to have a short memory. Weren't things like the TARP, the Fed cutting interest rates to near zero, the Fed expanding its balance sheet, nevermind the stimulus package from last Spring, supposed to be efforts to either forestall a recession/depression/economic collapse? Do those count for nothing? Have the effects of these policies been fully felt in the economy as a whole? Do we have to start all over again? Is the market failing to correct, or are there signs things are turning around?

This recession might linger for years if nothing is done, but then again it might not. It might come to an end if we pass the stimulus bill, but the stimulus bill could also do nothing or even make things worse. We might lose five million more jobs, but we might not. Unemployment may or may not come near to double digits. Has it been reasonably that the stimulus will do anything to help this situation? Is there any evidence whatsoever that "[o]ur nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse"? I suppose it's possible, but to assert it without any supporting evidence is little more than naked fear-mongering.

Man, this could take a while.

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.

This thought occurred to me when Mr. Obama first made this assertion, but Jim Geraghty expressed it publicly before I did. As long as unemployment stays under 97-98%, hasn't the stimulus done its job? Now, it can be reasonably asserted that Mr. Obama is saying that only two million more jobs will be lost if the stimulus bill is enacted within his desired time frame, and I'll give the President the benefit of the doubt on this one, but he's still not actually making an argument that his stimulus plan will do this: He's merely asserting it. Similarly, there is no evidence that the sort of tax relief Mr. Obama is promoting will have the effect on spending he seems to predict. The last two times we tried using tax rebates to stimulate economic growth (2001 and 2008), it didn't do squat. Unless tax rates are reduced, the effect of the tax relief will be similar to what it was in 2001 and 2008, if not less because people are starting to save more as credit becomes harder to obtain.

Now the President begins to shift gears:

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

So, this is no longer about pulling the economy out of its present travail, but about laying the foundation for future growth. These are important areas of public policy, and crafting good policies that will encourage economic growth and adequately address these issues will take much research, analysis, reflection, deliberation, debate, and consultation. These are not issues to be forced through ostensibly attempting to alleviate a harrowing short-term crisis. As to his promise of transparency, I'll believe it when I see it.

The President continues:

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

Has anyone seriously suggested "that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems"? Has anyone seriously asserted "that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive"? This is a straw man argument, and poor one at that. Energy dependence and the cost of health care are not driving our current economic problems (though high energy costs exposed the underlying weakness in the economy), and it is therefore not essential to address them in this bill. There is time to address these issues after the crisis abates, especially now that energy prices have fallen back to Earth.**

As for his assertion "that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures", this amounts to a rejection of compromise. Mr. Obama is bound and determined to spend as much money as he can in an attempt to end the recession and wholly restructure fundamental sectors of the American economy. To this end, he will accept no compromise because to do so would result in a half-step. And he will accept nothing which turns the stimulus into a series of piecemeal measures. Given the sorts of things proposed in the stimulus as it it currently stands, I can only assume that the President hasn't actually read this bill, because it is nothing if not a series of piecemeal measures.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Part of the reason Washington produces half-steps and piecemeal measures is that different factions have different ideas of how things should be done. In order to get things done, compromise has to be made which reduce the ideological purity of legislation. Even within one party, different people have different ideas as to the best way to attain a goal or series of goals. Furthermore, fundamental differences on how best to deal with issues like energy dependence, education, and health care prevents anything substantial being accomplished because there is no clear view of how best to move forward that substantially crosses party lines. The notion that partisan differences are rooted merely in petty power struggles and thus ought merely be cast aside for the common good is risible. While power plays an essential role in politics, principles play a more important role in determining what sorts of policy a politician and a party will support or oppose. Republicans didn't vote unanimously against the stimulus bill in the House of Representatives out of petulance or a desire to spite the President. They voted against it because they thought it a bad bill. If President Obama wants to rise above the petty partisanship that seems so commonplace in Washington (and there is certainly a lot of pettiness in politics), he can start by recognizing that Republicans are making their objections in good faith and avoid publicly trying to bully them (and wavering Democrats, for that matter) into voting for a bill they believe will be detrimental to the welfare of the country.

Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.

Assuming the economy needs some sort of "remedy" from Washington at this point, it is not enough Mr. Obama merely to assert that his is the correct remedy for what ails the economy. There is no argument justifying why Mr. Obama believes his proposed remedy is efficacious, nor evidence presented to make his claim. At best, he is resorting to an appeal to his own authority.

Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.
Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.
Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.
And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.

At what cost? With what degree of efficacy? With what degree of efficiency? With what benefit? These are long-term projects, and to throw them in with the stimulus bill without a proper analysis of how best to go about implementing them is to guarantee poor solutions with little benefit, especially as wasteful expenditures suck money out of the economy, restraining long-term growth while providing sub-par services. The issues the President outlines need to be addressed, but there is a time and place to do so. But this is not it.

These are the actions Americans expect us to take without delay. They're patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide.
So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

If the economic recovery is going to take years, why is it essential that we act immediately? What's a few weeks or even a few months in process that will play out over the course of several years? Is it not better to take more time and make sure you get the policy right than to rush a bad bill and possibly nip a nascent recovery in the bud?

Finally, the Mr. Obama is deceiving either himself or us when he sets good ideas in opposition to ideological battles. Ideological battles occur precisely when there is a disagreement over whether an idea is good or not. The call to rise above narrow partisanship assumes that Republicans (and arguably Democrats) are putting the interest of the party above the interest of the nation, but if the political battle playing out along largely partisan lines is fundamentally ideological, the issue is not what's best for one party or another, but what is truly best for the country. Before the stimulus bill is passed, this question has to be hashed out, and we have more than enough time for the debate to unfold.

*I'm willing to concede that the constraints of the op-ed format limit his ability to make a case that is both broad and goes beyond simple assertions unsupported by facts.

**Though I do find it ironic that the President who harps so much on energy independence has used his power to block further domestic oil production in the United States.

Hat tip: Planet Gore

Obamanomics

2009-02-02T21:16:00.001-05:00

It don't come cheap.

Hat-tip: The Corner

Maybe We Don't Need Government to Save the Planet

2009-01-30T20:57:00.003-05:00

Ronald Bailey lays out evidence for the environmental benefits of capitalism.

Environmentalism has traditionally been dominated by the left because government intervention was seen as the only way to protect the environment from the predations of heartless capitalists. But concern for the environment doesn't have to be equated with scorn for the free market. Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources, including natural resources. Believers in the superiority of the free market over government intervention* in allocating natural resources are free market environmentalists.

According to Terry Anderson, a charter member of the free market environmentalist movement,

the first premise of FME is that "wealthier is healthier," meaning that markets generate the wealth that gives us the wherewithal to solve environmental problems. Although many people mistakenly think that markets can only generate consumerism and other gunk, in reality it is markets that produce wealth and thus help the environment.

The second major premise of FME is that "incentives matter." Positive incentives can turn the environment from a liability into an asset for a resource owner. If we own the water and land, we have the incentive to manage and conserve them properly.

The key to the first premise is technological development and dissemination. In a market system, obtaining resources comes with an explicit cost born by the firm or consumer obtaining the resources. Technologies which either reduce the amount of a resource required or make it easier to obtain reduce the cost imposed by the use of the resource. While needing less of a resource clearly leads to an environmental benefit, ease of access generally won't at first. But as technology improves, the environmental impact of bringing resources to market declines as producers find more efficient ways to bring resources to market.

Furthermore, new technologies lead to new uses for the environments from which the resources are extracted, and, assuming an operational market and property rights, owners of land have an incentive to conserve it for, say, hunters or hikers. On top of this, property rights give the owner exclusive access to the property he owns, but no other. Thus, he has to figure out how to allocate his resources in such a way that he doesn't run himself into the ground.

Bailey points out what happens when property rights aren't respected:

It is true that rainforests in Indonesia, Brazil, and the Congo are still declining, but that is largely the result of a gigantic institutional failure. Governments do not recognize ownership of the land, so people rush to take what they can before the next guy can get it--the all too familiar process of an open access commons race to the
bottom.

*This is a general rule. Upholding property rights and the sanctity of contract are two examples of government's legitimate role in the economy.

How Not to Fix an Economy

2009-01-30T12:37:00.001-05:00

Enough with the spending, already.

Which Way to Skin a Cat?

2009-01-29T18:51:00.002-05:00

Lawrence White, David Rose and Crispin Odey all agree that excessive debt caused the present economic unpleasantness, but they disagree on how to handle the problem because they disagree on why excessive amounts of debt caused the problems they did. White and Rose argue that

excessive money growth drove asset prices up and drove interest rates down, making people feel richer than they really were and lowering the cost of borrowing money to facilitate more spending. Since the level of spending before the period of excessive money growth was just sustainable, the resulting level of consumption and business investment spending was unsustainable. The solution is to allow asset prices to fall to levels that accurately reflect what our economy can produce. This will make it clear to people that they are not as rich as they thought two years ago and thereby return spending to sustainable levels.

From this, they conclude that "You can't solve an excessive spending problem by spending more. We are making the crisis worse."

Odey's view is slightly different:

The problem is not credit, but the paying back of credit. The asking for repayment and the inability to oblige has shattered the confidence of borrowers as well as savers. The twin engines for paying off the debt, rising wages and healthy profits, are stalled. Assets will be worth less than they are today, the financial economy will shrink further, and capacity and inventory will be taken out of the real economy on massive scale.

This leads Odey to a rather remarkable conclusion:

The world’s total outstanding debts have to be reduced. Our populations and companies need the means and the time to pay them off. These means are profits and pay rises. The other thing we need is inflation.
Inflation will allow debt to reduce day by day. Price rises will make companies going concerns, earning their way back to profit. Pay rises will enable households and consumers to pay down what they owe while saving more and spending some. And inflation allows interest rates to rise but still remain negative in real terms. It is
healthier that people receive an annual pay rise than take out an extra annual loan - as they have been doing since 2000. This package will allow markets to breathe again.

Where White and Rose argue that a certain amount of deflation is necessary, Odey sees inflation as an essential element of recovery from the current mess. Odey also mentions increased profits and increased wages as being elements essential to recovery, but something similar is implied in White and Rose's argument as well. As asset prices fall, they become less expensive relative to capital. This lowers the price of investment, driving down the cost of investment. As investment prices fall, investors become more willing to take risks as the cost of failure falls. This will spur new investment, which in turn will spur expansion and an increase in production. Furthermore, as the value of hard assets declines, it becomes less expensive to acquire new assets, lowering the cost of production. With a lower cost of production, firms can sell their goods and services at lower prices and still make a profit. Thus, a consumer can afford to consume more on the same amount of income, driving up his consumption; allowing him to save more, leading to an increase in investment; or allowing the consumer to pay down his debt, reducing the overall level of debt in the economy.* Thus, White and Rose implicitly argue that an increase in profit and real income are essential to economic recovery.

Odey's argument is interesting for being both novel and plausible.* It is obviously true that, holding the costs of production and the level of consumption constant while increasing the price of goods will increase profits. It is also true that this increase in profits will allow the firm to either hire more workers, pay its current workers more, or some combination of both. These workers will then be able to consume more. Inflation will also decrease the value of the dollar, so the real cost of existing debt will decrease. Two questions present themselves, though. Is demand sufficiently inelastic that the increases in prices will not bring about such a significant decrease in demand as to overwhelm the additional per unit profit? Will the increases in worker pay be high enough that the effect of inflation on real income does not overwhelm the rise in pay?

Interestingly, the Fed's monetary policy seems to line up fairly well with Odey's general policy prescription, and it seems to be having positive effects on the economy. Whether this means such a policy could also fuel a recovery, as opposed to simply preventing a collapse remains to be seen. And the supply-side effects of policies advocated by White and Rose can be seen in the effect of declining energy prices buoying consumption and investment. While I prefer the policies advocated by White and Rose, it could be that a combination of both courses of action is the key to a successful recovery.

*The only way to find out if it would work would be to try it and see what happens.

Hat tip: The Corner

Buying Time

2009-01-23T23:19:00.001-05:00

While I remain highly skeptical of the efficacy of diplomatic efforts to end Iran's nuclear weapons program, this would indicate there is more time for these efforts to produce this result if it's true.

This Is Not Kosher

2009-01-09T20:17:00.001-05:00

But that's okay because I'm not Jewish. Besides, it looks delicious.

Hat tip: The Corner

Pragmatism vs. Ideology

2008-12-20T15:09:00.001-05:00

A must-read at NRO.

Big 3 Bankruptcy Will Hurt

2008-12-10T20:20:00.001-05:00

But not nearly as much as some have claimed.

Hat tip: The Corner

Piss off Al Qaeda

2008-10-30T17:50:00.001-04:00

Vote for McCain.

Line for the McCain Campaign

2008-10-02T23:58:00.001-04:00

Senator McCain voted against a bill funding our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because it contained a timeline which would have hamstrung our troops and fatally undermined our efforts in Iraq. Senator Obama voted against a bill funding our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because it didn't contain this provision.

Another Proposal I Could Get Behind

2008-09-30T22:50:00.000-04:00

This one from House Republicans.

Hat tip: The Corner

An Idea I Can Get Behind

2008-09-30T17:18:00.001-04:00

At least if I understand it correctly.

Hat tip: TCS Daily

Well, what's the chance of McCain winning this election?

2008-09-30T16:53:00.005-04:00

My grandmother just asked me this question. My thoughts below.

Right now, if McCain's going to have a chance, the economy needs to stabilize a bit, and he needs to develop a more coherent message on the economy. Obama sounds good on the economy until you stop and think about what he says. Trouble is, McCain is Obama-lite when it comes to
the current financial mess, at least rhetorically. Both view it as a market failure caused by the greed of Wall Street fat-cats when there is a convincing case to be made that the failure is a result of government intervention and regulation of the housing market. There is also a compelling case to be made that Obama bears at least partial responsibility for causing the housing mess. McCain isn't making either case, and he isn't making a compelling case for his other economic policies. McCain is great on foreign policy, national security, love of country and duty, but he seems a fish out of water discussing economic issues. He's a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, with all the regulatory baggage that brings, and if he can't bring himself to stand up for the free market and show how government is at the root of our current economic problems, he comes across as a lesser Obama. And if he comes across as a lesser Obama, there's no reason for people to vote for him.

Ultimately, there are quite a few issues on which McCain can effectively and favorably contrast himself with Obama. Unfortunately, the economy hasn't been one of them. What McCain needs to do is root the crisis in the violation of the people's trust by government officials and quasi-government officials like Jim Johnson and Frnaklin Raines. McCain needs to unleash his reformist, maverick streak on the government because doing so would actually begin to address the underlying crisis, and because it undermines Obama's call for further regulation of financial markets. However, he only gets space to make this case once the current crisis abates somewhat. Hopefully, things will clear up within the next week or so, giving McCain three weeks to make his case, starting at the next presidential debate, where he should hit Obama hard both on his calls for further regulation of Wall Street and his involvement with ACORN as they looked to intimidate banks into giving home loans to people with bad credit.

Man, I wish Romney were on the ticket right about now. In fact, Romney-Bolton '08 sounds really goods to me right about now.*

*Not that they'd have much of a chance of winning.

It's All Obama's Fault

2008-09-30T00:36:00.001-04:00

Well not all, but Barack Obama certainly bears some responsibility for the current financial mess.

Hat tip: The Corner

Cars

2008-09-27T20:21:00.001-04:00

I never did this until I saw this.

Hat tip: Art & Letters Daily

The Libertarian Alternative

2008-09-27T00:22:00.001-04:00

Jerry Bowyer on how to deal with the latest Wall Street crisis.

How We Got Here

2008-09-26T14:39:00.000-04:00

A must-see on how this financial mess unfolded.

Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?

Hat-tip: Drudge

Must-Read on How to Solve the Economic Crisis

2008-09-21T19:25:00.001-04:00

Newt Gingrich offers his solutions.

Give It a Rest, Fellas.

2008-09-05T20:57:00.001-04:00

It certainly goes without saying that if Republicans had controlled both houses of the Michigan legislature, those absurd tax increases would not have passed last October. It also goes without saying that the Democrat Speaker of the House, Andy Dillon, played an instrumental role in getting the tax increases passed, but they still could not have done it without the capitulation of Senate Republicans on the issue.

On top of this, Dillon is up for reelection this November. Therefore, it makes no sense to try to recall him in the November elections. If his actions in this matter are that unpopular, he should be beatable in November. And if he isn't beatable, it is highly unlikely the recall will succeed.

Furthermore, what is gained by it? It won't prevent Dillon's participation in the budget process for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in early October. If Dillon loses his bid for reelection, he'll be out by January, and if he somehow wins his bid for reelection but loses the recall election, he'll have gotten a two month vacation, assuming the legislature is even in session during November and December.

This recall effort serves only to stick a finger in Dillon's eye and won't have any practical impact on legislation or on the makeup of the Michigan House of Representatives. Dillon's up for reelection in two months. If you want him out, vote for his opponent, don't resort to cheap stunts.

Line I'd Like to Hear from Huckabee

2008-09-03T21:26:00.001-04:00

"Sarah Palin took up the burden of raising a child born with Down's Syndrome. Barack Obama voted to let such children be left to die in utility closets."

Mitt's Proposal for Government Regulation

2008-09-03T21:16:00.001-04:00

Take a weed-whacker to it. Palin should do him one better and propose a chainsaw.

Bush Was Right

2008-08-27T18:21:00.002-04:00

In the summer of 2001, there was a dispute over federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Those in favor of it argued that ESCR held the promise to cure countless diseases and injuries from Alzheimer's to quadriplegia. Those opposed to it argued that it should be opposed as a matter of principle because it was (and is) necessary to destroy a human being to obtain the stem cells; that any cures from ESCR were years if not decades away; and that research into adult stem cells showed more promise. Indeed, treatments using adult stem cells are already being done.

Now comes news that regular adult cells can be reprogrammed from one type of cell into another. This means that the advantage supposedly inherent to working with embryonic stem cells, that they can become any type of cell in the body, is nullified. Indeed, this advantage was nullified when it was found that adult stem cells could be reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells. These methods of reprogamming give adult stem cell research and cellular therapies using normal adult cells the same potential as embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos and without the problem of controlling what sort of cell the embryonic stem cell will become (the latter problem being the major reason no potentially viable treatments have emerged through ESCR).

All of this goes to show both the wisdom of President Bush's decision to accept federal funding of ESCR for existing stem cell lines only.* The field of medical research operates in the market, and actors in the market respond to incentives. Cures utilizing ESCR were seen as being far off, and for them to be a worthwhile investment would have required large federal subsidies.** By limiting the scope of federal funding, President Bush created an incentive for investors to look into other forms of research that offered a better chance of short-to-medium run return on investment such as adult stem cell research (pushing lots of federal money that way as well). These forms of research also avoided the moral dilemma of destroying embryos. Now this research is bearing fruit, and the need for obtaining stem cells by destroying embryos and employing human cloning to obtain usable stem cells is on the verge of being obviated if it hasn't been already.

Can there be any doubt that, if the president had given in to the pressure and accepted unrestricted federal funding for ESCR, none of this would have happened? With massive federal subsidies going to the politically popular ESCR, would researchers have bothered to try anything else? Plenty of scientists back the popular line on global warming because it gets them government funding. Why take a chance on adult stem cells or this new cellular reprogramming method if ESCR gives you guaranteed money if you only promise that cures for all sorts of diseases are right around the corner?

Given the politics at the time, President Bush made as morally right a decision as he could, and the fruit of research in fields in competition with ESCR over the intervening years have born fruit. In short, Bush got this one right.

*In theory, it would have been best for him to deny federal funding altogether, but it was seen as being a politically untenable position.

**Otherwise, people scientists, companies, and universities engaged in ESCR would have been able to find private investors to fund their research.

Hat tip: The Corner

Is New York in Play

2008-08-26T14:31:00.001-04:00

Not yet, but if this trend continues, Obama's toast.

Hat tip: The Corner

Obama May not Be a Corrupt Washington Politician

2008-08-25T15:27:00.001-04:00

But he may well be a corrupt Chicago politician.

Obama-Ayers More than Meets the Eye

2008-08-20T12:34:00.002-04:00

Obama-Ayers, collaborators in disguise. For months Obama has been attempting to minimize his relationship with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Now, Stanley Kurtz is being denied access to publicly available documents that could reveal the extent of Obama's connections to both the far left and Chicago's notoriously corrupt political machine.

Money quote:

Let me make one broad point today. Notice that the critical evaluation of Woods Fund grant programs I discuss in "Senator Stealth," my piece in the current issue of National Review, occurred in 1995. That was the same year the Chicago Annenberg Challenge began, with Obama as board chairman, and the same year Obama launched his first campaign for State Senate, at a political coming out party at the home of Ayers and Dohrn, among other venues. In 1995, in other words, Obama moved to increase his influence over two local foundations, each of which would disburse money to his radical political-organizer friends, and even to his future campaign ground troops. This alone raises many interesting and important questions, some of which I pursue in "Senator Stealth." But I note that, if names were to be purged from the Chicago Annenberg Collection records, it could inhibit my ability to follow critical leads on this, and other, aspects of this story.

A tree is known by its fruit, and Obama's fruit has consistently been of a most radical sort (and not in the Bill and Ted sense). Now Obama is trying to cover his tracks, and it appears some of his former political allies are only too eager to help.

Veep Speculation

2008-08-18T16:49:00.001-04:00

Needless to say, there's been a host of speculation as to who Barack Obama will name as his running mate. Currently, the conventional wisdom is that he will name his running mate sometime this week as the Democratic Convention is next week, and Obama will want to get the maximum bounce from his selection.

However, I think Obama may do something unexpected: Let the delgates decide who his running mate will be. Obama currently faces the difficulty that he has no executive experience and little foreign policy experience, and no pick he can make, with the possible exception of Evan Bayh, who was governor of Indiana before becoming its senator, can cover both of those weaknesses. Complicating matters further, he has promised Hillary Clinton a roll call vote which will only serve to highlight her strength in the party and play up the deep, if frivolous, divisions currently plaguing the Democrat party.

Allowing the delegates to vote on a vice presidential candidate blunts this challenge by Clinton. If she does nothing and allows the vote to play out, her power base will undoubtedly be torn between nominating her for the vice presidency and holding out to demontrate their power in the symbolic roll call vote, and Clinton's power is diminished. If Clinton urges her supporters to vote for her, she is effectively submitting herself to Obama's leadership of the party, and the roll call vote becomes meaningless. If she urges her supporters to hold out for the roll call vote, she will be seen as deliberately dividing the party for her own benefit and runs the risk of marginalizing herself.

Furthermore, giving the delgates a vote on his running mate shows his attentiveness to the will of the party and will likely unify the party behind him. It will also help Obama market himself as a different type of politician even as that claim is becoming more and more laughable.

That's not to say there aren't risks involved. The delegates may nominate someone who accentuates Obama's far left credentials. Clinton may win the vice presidential nomination, which introduces whole new levels of uncertainty and the potential for Clinton to cause all kinds of trouble. Or it could bring her to heel. Or tensions between the Obamas and Clintons could throw the whole campaign into dysfunction. But that may be the best Obama can hope for. By granting Clinton the roll call vote, he has allowed a massive display of disunity to go forward at a time when the party's unity is supposed to be maximized, and the only way to fix the problem may be to give Clinton a shot at the consolation prize.

Obama Supports Negligent Infanticide

2008-08-14T21:48:00.001-04:00

At least as a matter of law.

The Fundamental Absurdity of Politics

2008-08-07T23:33:00.000-04:00

So, Democrats now claim that John McCain is likening Barack Obama to the anti-Christ.

Needless to say, that's ridiculous. If the McCain campaign wanted to compare Obama to the anti-Christ, they'd have just worn the shirt.

Go Tom, Go!

2008-07-31T01:37:00.001-04:00

Tom Coburn rules.

Hat tip: Real Clear Politics

What Multiculturalism Hath Wrought

2008-07-30T22:44:00.002-04:00

A must watch video with more thoughts from Roger Kimball.

Just Because

2008-07-30T00:22:00.001-04:00

Want to live forever? This guy has the key.

Imperialism Without an Empire

2008-07-27T02:44:00.001-04:00

Both former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and Weekly Standard senior editor Andrew Ferguson do an excellent job of eviscerating Barack Obama's incredibly vacuous Berlin speech. But as moronic as Obama's "one world" rhetoric may be, it still offers an insight into the thought of Barack Obama and reveals him to be very European in his thinking.

The particular from the speech line Bolton and Ferguson analyze is "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." Yes it's a dumb line, but what makes it interesting is that the aspiration expressed is no different from the aspirations of empires. From the Assyrians to the Persians to the Macedonians, Romans, Mongols, Aztecs, British, French, Germans, Japanese, and communists, the ultimate aim of an empire is to control the world, to secure their interests for all time by subjecting the world to their power. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by military conquest.

Then World War I and World War II devastated Europe and much of the rest of the world, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union as the dominant powers in the world. The lesson the Europeans took from the the World Wars was that militaristic imperialism was the cause of the wars and that multilateral cooperations was needed to restrain the these destructive ambitions. At the same time, Western European powers, bowing to political pressure based on the evils of imperialism, divested themselves of their colonies abroad (although the remains of the British Empire are a commonwealth with the Queen as their sovereign).* Instead of building empires through military might, Western Europe looked to political integration under the United States' military umbrella to create an empire founded not on conquest, but on cooperative treaties and institutions (e.g. the Euro, the European Commission, etc.). Given Europe's history in the twentieth century, this wasn't a bad idea, even if the result has been something of a monstrosity, but I digress.

Given that Obama apparently doesn't plan to launch massive wars of conquest, the only realistic alternative to achieving his vision of one world standing together would be something along the lines of EU model where nations cede their sovereignty to supra-national institutions. In other words, Obama is willing to cede the sovereignty of the United States (or some measure of it) in exchange for a united world. If Obama is serious about this one world nonsense, a President Obama would be bad for United States' sovereignty.

*Of course, the Soviets often supported this political pressure surreptitiously so as to make these newly independent states dependent on them.

Drawing Contrasts

2008-07-25T18:36:00.001-04:00

John McCain famously said that he'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Based on Obama's claims that even knowing what he knows now, he still would have opposed the surge, McCain should point out that Obama would rather lose a war rather than lose an election.

Obama Is Not Mocked

2008-07-25T11:35:00.001-04:00

Except when he is.

Hat tip: Drudge

Exploiting Government Reform to Seize Power

2008-07-18T14:48:00.003-04:00

There is a proposal likely to be on the Michigan ballot in the fall that would radically restructure the state government; cut many elective positions; cut pay for government figures; eliminate fifty state boards and commissions; even eliminate two departments of the state government, among other things. But these reforms, of which many would be laudable on their own, are not simply reform for the sake of improving Michigan's government.

We now know what many have long suspected: The initiative is an attempt by the Democrats to take control of all three branches of Michigan's government by sleight of hand, having failed to do so through the more conventional method of winning elections. The proposal is structured in such a way that the overwhelming number of positions cut are currently held by Republicans, especially in the Judiciary. Furthermore, adding ten seats to the lower courts (to be filled by Granholm appointees), while eliminating two Supreme Court seats and eight Appeals' Court seats will give the Democrats a net gain of sixteen judgeships in the state courts. It is less clear what the effects of eliminating legislative seats would be, but it certainly stands to reason the Democrats would not have included the cutbacks in the proposal if they did not believe they would come out ahead in the deal.

There are some good ideas in the proposal (at least in principle), but the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation on the proposal makes clear that the good ideas mask a dangerous intent: to alter the political structure of the Michigan political system so as to shield them from the will of the people and entrench themselves in power for years to come, no matter how far they run the state into the ground.

If Being a Global Warming Skeptic Is Equivalent to being a Holocaust Denier. . .

2008-07-18T14:24:00.003-04:00

Does this mean the Holocaust didn't happen? Ahmadinejad will be thrilled.

Hat tip: Planet Gore

For the record: The comparison between global warming skeptics and Holocaust deniers has been made by "serious" people.

News Flash

2008-07-11T16:32:00.001-04:00

Men and women are different.

Dude, Give the Guy a Break

2008-06-11T16:09:00.001-04:00

Drudge has posted a story claiming that Barack Obama has on occasion smoked cigarettes after quitting. How is this newsworthy? The man has been running for president for almost a year and a half and has been engaged in one of the most hotly contested presidential primary campaigns ever. He has been on the road constantly, under constant stress, maintaining a grueling schedule. Is it that unbelievable that under these conditions he might feel and possibly succumb to the urge to have a cigarette? Is it that unconscionable? There are plenty of legitimate issues to raise concerning Obama without getting into whether he occasionally engages in a legal, if socially looked-down-upon, activity.

I may not agree with him on much of anything, but at the end of the day I'd be more than happy to kick back and light one up with Barack Obama.

The Next Great Feminist Struggle

2008-05-31T15:57:00.001-04:00

The right to kill the infidel.

HT: The Corner

Wright Was Right

2008-05-20T23:10:00.001-04:00

In distancing himself from his pastor of twenty years, Barack Obama was merely doing what he had to do as a politician.

Will He or Won't He?

2008-05-20T13:14:00.001-04:00

The Jerusalem Post has an article reporting the Bush administration's denial of a report that the United States will attack Iran's nuclear program before President Bush leaves office in January. This story, and the subsequent denial of its veracity, is just the latest in a long line of stories that the President will not leave the problem of Iran's program to his successor. For my part, I suspect that had it not been for our setbacks in securing and stabilizing Iraq, the issue would have been long on its way to resolution, but Iran's disruptive activities in Iraq have forced the United States to concentrate on using its military resources to fight al Qaeda and the Shiite militias, both backed by Iran. Now, as time runs out for President Bush, he is faced with a question, does he take action in the waning months of his presidency, or does he let the diplomatic process continue to play out and hand the problem to his successor?

In an ideal world, I think the president would have liked to have dealt with Iran by the end of his second term, but now he doesn't believe the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan leave him in a position to take action without potentially compromising the gains in Iraq, and making the situation worse in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine, all countries where Iran is highly active in undermining security. Thus, he would like to wait as long as he can before taking action in the hope that the situation on the ground will improve. Unfortunately, the only place where things are likely to improve in the remaining months of the Bush presidency is Iraq, where the al Qaeda in Iraq is nearly defeated. This means that an attack on Iran is likely to lead to a regional war launched by Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, and ultimately involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and possibly Egypt. That is the meaning of Hamas' activity in Gaza and Hezbollah's brief uprising in Lebanon. It is also why the United States and Israel are propping up Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party in the West Bank, not because Fatah is interested in a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So, what will happen? This depends on the political developments in Israel and the United States. If Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert falls, he is likely to be replaced by the hawkish Binjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu will likely pursue a much more aggressive policy in dealing with Hamas and will be unafraid to retaliate viciously to any attack on Israel by Hezbollah, where Olmert has proved weak and feckless.

The other key event will be the presidential elections in the United States this fall. President Bush trusts Senator John McCain's instincts on issues of national defense, and if McCain is elected, Bush would most likely be comfortable handing the problem over to him. The same cannot be said for Senator Barack Obama, as the dust-up over who wants to appease whom illustrates. Bush believes Obama's plans for dealing with Iran are dangerously naive, and should Obama win the election in November, Bush would be unlikely to trust him with the task of eliminating Iran's nuclear program. Therefore, he would almost certainly take action to resolve the issue, or at least retard Iran's progress enough to push the final confrontation either past the end of an Obama presidency or far enough down the road for Obama to be disabused of his supreme belief in his ability to persuade nations to act contrary to what they perceive to be their own self-interest by dint of his winning personality.

Liking McCain in Spite of Myself

2008-03-25T23:33:00.001-04:00

I still have serious reservations about John McCain as president, but things seem to keep happening that make me like him more and more.

Hat tip: Drudge

More on Obama's Speech

2008-03-24T21:35:00.002-04:00

Mark Goldblatt defends Obama, while Christopher Hitchens takes issue.* Meanwhile, Doug Kmiec, "a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents," endorses* Obama. I come down somewhere between Goldblatt and Hitchens, in large part because I think Goldblatt is wrong to dismiss Obama's policy prescriptions as "Obama being Obama", but right to be understanding toward Obama's refusal to disavow Wright (though Hitchens does make some compelling points).

If Obama is correct that federal education spending, economic protectionism, universal health care, and withdrawal from Iraq are the keys to racial reconciliation, then opposition to these policies are racist (unless there is some non-racist reason to oppose racial reconciliation that I'm missing). It follows from this that conservatives who want decreased government involvement in education and health care, support free trade, and believe it to be in the national interest to maintain our presence in Iraq are racists.

This is patently absurd. What's more, I don't think Obama believes this. But it does indicate, again, the discrepancy between Obama's rhetoric and his politics. Obama declares time and again that he wants to transcend our differences, to transcend not only race, but fundamental political and philosophical divisions as well, but his policies are of a decidedly left-wing bent. As I've said before, something has to give. Obama doesn't seem to think so:

"What I'm certain about is that people are disenchanted with a highly ideological Republican Party that believes tax cuts are the answer to every problem, and lack of regulation and oversight is always going to generate economic growth, and unilateral intervention around the world is the best approach to foreign policy. So there's no doubt the pendulum is swinging."

It is certainly true that the Republicans dropped the ball when they were in power on a whole host of issues, and they deserved to lose in 2006. It does not follow from this that conservatives are looking to abandon their belief in limited government and muscular foreign policy just because the Bush administration and Republican Congress were inept at implementing these conservative principles. Kmiec himself makes this point when he points out that his endorsement of Obama does not imply an abandonment of his conservative principles. He has made the bet that Obama's rhetoric will trump his policy proposals (except on the war in Iraq, where Kmiec and Obama are in agreement). I hope he's right, but I refuse to abandon my principles for Obama's dreams, no matter how audaciously he may hope otherwise.

*Hat tip: The Corner
**Hat tip: Drudge

No Iran-al Qaeda Links Either

2008-03-19T23:29:00.001-04:00

That whole Sunni-Shia split kind of precludes that. Except that it's a load of bunk. Groups with major differences have historically worked together to when both sides believe it will be to their benefit. Think of Cardinal Richelieu siding with Protestant forces against the Holy Roman Empire to increase the power of France, or the United States and Great Britain making common cause with the Soviet menace to defeat the National Socialists. More relevantly, think of the Ayatollah Khomeini working accepting the aid of French radicals opposed to the Shah of Iran before stabbing them in the back. While each side will try to turn the outcome of events to its own advantage, there is no reason to believe that their sectarian differences will prevent them pursuing a common goal. Indeed, the evidence indicates the exact opposite.

Paging Jack Lynch

2008-03-19T22:12:00.002-04:00

You might want to exploit this in your Congressional run. Then again, it might go over pretty well in the Ann Arbor area.

Obama's Speech

2008-03-19T00:03:00.004-04:00

In light of recent events, Senator Barack Obama has given a speech explaining his views on racial issues, specifically as they relate to his firebrand of a pastor, Jeremiah Wright. As far as I'm concerned, he hit all of the right notes on Wright, condemning what Wright said without throwing him under the bus, and offering a human, if not exactly logically coherent, explanation for some of the things said and done by Wright. As long as Obama told the truth about his relationship with Wright and what he did and didn't hear Wright say. the issue is settled for me.

Obama then goes on to expand on what he thinks has to be done to bring about racial reconciliation, including making some points that conservatives have been making for years, such as blacks "taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to
despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny." But this is also where Obama's speech starts to get worrisome. Just prior to this he had stated that

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.

He immediately goes on to say that "embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change." Assuming for a minute that this is true (it isn't), is simply believing society can change enough, or does someone actually have to do something to bring this change about? If so, who is that someone? Because the speech is political above all else, the most reasonable conclusion would be that the responsibility for changing society falls to the state, particularly the federal government. And what ought the federal government do to bring about this momentous change in society? Obama sets down the outlines of his program to bring about racial reconciliation, and it looks remarkable like embracing the typical progressive slate of programs.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

Obama continues

In this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas
for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

So, according to Obama, racial reconciliation must be grounded in massive increases in federal education spending; economic protectionism (leaving the whole NAFTA issue aside for the moment); government-provided health care; and fighting the perennial bogeyman, Washington special interests. So, apparently the key to reconciliation is recognizing that our social problems stem from the fact that the government isn't taking good enough care of us. Implicit in Obama's narrative is the idea that all social tension stems from economic hardship. More to the point, Obama seems to believe that national unity requires that the nation rally around a program of massive government action for the common good, defined in strictly economic terms and grounded in socialist principles.

Never mind the question of whether Obama's policy proposals would be efficacious if enacted, this is yet another example of how Obama's soaring rhetoric is at odds with his politics. He proclaims himself a transcendent figure capable of bridging the divisions in American society, but for large segments of the population, embracing his politics on social, economic, and national security issues means abandoning their own principles. Obama is not coming to meet them by offering some new political synthesis that eliminates the contradictions between the principles of the left and right, he is demanding that they bridge the divide by sacrificing their principles in the name of unity. Obama's nods to conservatism are in areas where no policy implications can be drawn, while an examination of the actual positions he has taken in the Senate show him to be to the left of all other Senators.

Obama's politics can be summed up by this line from his speech:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

Simply put, Obama seems to be preaching statolatry, the worship of the state and the belief in its salvific powers. I say seems because it is possible to read just about any position you want into what he's saying, including libertarianism, but a perusal of his policy proposals gives the impression that the libertarian reading of Obama's speech is unlikely to be correct. Instead, he believes in the power of government to alleviate the human condition and bring about a peaceful and harmonious society. The problem with this is not that government has no role to play, but that the role Obama would assign it would have an infantilizing effect on the population. When people become dependent upon the government for their well-being, especially in the realm of providing for their material needs, they cease to view themselves as moral actors because they lose sight of what was their major obligation: providing for themselves and their families. Obama recognizes this when he speaks of "A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and
frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family,
contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare
policies for many years may have worsened." But he misses the point. When the state guarantees you a certain standard of living, you have no incentive to work for it. You only have incentive to work if you want your standard of living to be higher than the one provided by the government and want it badly enough that you're willing to go out and work for it. If the government is paying you enough to get by, a life of leisure looks pretty good, and idle hands do the devil's work.

But instead of getting government out of the way, Obama wants more of it, and this is largely anathema to conservatives (which is one reason why Mike Huckabee didn't gain much traction outside his evangelical base and John McCain has work to do to shore up his base). It is still the height of naivete to assume conservatives will abandon their principles for the sake of political unity when their raisson d'etre is to stand athwart history, yelling "Stop!"

Once Again, Class

2008-03-14T21:45:00.001-04:00

There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

This Is Getting Ridiculous

2008-03-13T13:34:00.003-04:00

A relatively weaker dollar is favorable to domestic industry because it makes domestically produced goods cheaper both at home and abroad, while making imported goods more expensive. Thus, in a time where American industry is struggling to compete with new industries in places like India and China, it makes sense to have a slightly weaker currency. But this is getting ridiculous. With the prices of oil and other commodities going through the roof as a result of the weak dollar, now being made weaker by the Federal Reserve's latest injection of liquidity into the market (though it may not be as bad as I think), I have to agree with Larry Kudlow: "It's time to resurrect King Dollar."

Oh, So That's What He Was Doing

2008-03-13T13:28:00.001-04:00

"This isn't what it looks like. We were just having a naked prayer time."

via Drudge

Will Cuba Become the New China?

2008-03-13T13:21:00.002-04:00

Fidel Castro's brother, Raul, is showing signs that he is willing to open up Cuba's economy to her people. Obviously, you can't draw any firm conclusions from one example, but this could be an indication that Raul will pursue policies similar to those of China: statist economic policies, with a reasonable amount of economic freedom (unless the State feels your resources are better used elsewhere), combined with strong repression of personal liberties.

You Can Dress Up Like a Sultan in Your Onion-Head Hat

2008-03-06T20:26:00.001-05:00

This video response to will.i.am's "We Are the Ones" video is pitch perfect.

Hat tip: The Corner

More Than Meets the Eye?

2008-03-05T01:15:00.004-05:00

Peter Wallison has a piece discussing whether Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign is really as vacuous as many contend, myself included. He concludes that there is plenty of substance to the Obama campaign, just that it's a little warmed over. But Wallison opens his piece with the following:

The television images are striking. A handsome young candidate, an adoring audience, a beautifully delivered speech in which he offers to bring us together as a nation, and speaks of his "movement for change:" "I don't want to spend the next year or the next four years" he says, "re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don't want to pit Red America against Blue America, I want to be the President of the United States of America." Nice rhetoric. Is it real or is it theater? Relax: it's theater.

A visit to Barack Obama's website reveals that this is not a candidate who is offering a new left-right synthesis—a new way of looking at our politics and bridging the old Red-Blue divide. Instead, what we see in 60 pages of policy proposals and commitments are the same old ideas of the Democratic Left. Even the rhetoric is old.

This is precisely the point. There is a fundamental, even obvious disconnect between the policies Obama is proposing and his stated aim to unite the country behind his platform of hopeful change, but his actual changes are the standard Democratic policies Republicans have been fighting against since Ronald Reagan ran for president and conservatives have been fighting since the modern conservative movement cohered in the 1950's. We're not "re-fighting the same fights we had in the 1990s." These fights were never finished, and unless Obama expects Republicans in general and conservatives in particular to abandon their principles, to stop fighting for the policies they believe are best for the country for the sake of public unity is absurd. If he thinks political division is only about one faction or another gaining power for power's sake, he is sorely deluded.

Plainly, something has to give. If Obama wants to govern in a spirit of public unity, he will have to set aside his policy proposals, and if he wants to see his policies enacted, he will have to retreat to the dynamic of Red vs. Blue.* Either Obama's rhetoric is empty, or his policy proposals are empty promises. That is the choice he faces, and if he tries to avoid making that choice, it may get him elected, but it will ultimately cripple his presidency.

This raises some interesting questions. Is Obama aware of the inherent contradiction between his rhetoric and his policy proposals? If he isn't, do we want someone so naive in the White House? If he is, which aspect gives way, unity or policy? Ultimately, the question, "Where's the beef?" remains a valid question, though in a different sense. Is Obama interested primarily in uniting the country, using his platform to make him appear a more substantive candidate next to Senator Hillary Clinton (who has similar issues of substance as Obama, just less obviously so)? Is his rhetoric simply a front for his policies? If it is the former, his candidacy still lacks substance, validating the original sense of "Where's the beef?" If the latter, then Wallison's characterization is correct, and Obama's rhetoric of unity is patently dishonest.**

*No, not that Red vs. Blue.

**This is not necessarily to say Obama is lying. He would only be lying if he knew his rhetoric to be dishonest.

Best for the Right

2008-03-04T12:36:00.002-05:00

Jim Geraghty notes that Rush Limbuagh has been urging Republicans in Ohio and Texas to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton in today's primaries on the grounds that the longer the Democrats spend beating up on each other, the more it helps Senator John McCain. This is probably correct, but I wonder if it is really best for conservative political aims going forward.

As has been noted by many conservatives, Rush Limbaugh included, there are several significant issues between Senator McCain and the conservative base of the Republican party. These differences are so great and the bitterness they have engendered so severe that it is believed many will stay home on election day. More importantly, conservatives feel his favored policies, if enacted, on immigration, global warming and embryonic stem cell research would be detrimental to the welfare of the nation. Many conservatives are unsure of McCain, not willing to trust him on issues other than the war and want to see him make rapprochement with them by addressing concerns they have over these and other issues. In an election cycle that looks to favor Democrats rather heavily, McCain will need all of the support he can get, and he will especially need to shore up his conservative base if he wants to win.

However, the Clinton-Obama cat-fight threatens to disrupt this calculus. If they do enough damage to each other, McCain may well conclude that emphasizing his status as a maverick willing to break with the party he desires to lead provides him with a greater electoral advantage in the general election by appealing to independents put off by the internecine conflict in the Democrat party (which will only get nastier if Clinton believes she has even a ghost of a chance).

A settled Democratic nominee forces McCain to shore up his base and go from there. A nasty political brawl on the Democratic side makes it less necessary for McCain to appease would-be conservatives unsure about whether the costs of a McCain presidency would outweigh the benefits. That's not to say emphasizing his maverick status wouldn't work for McCain; it may well. But if the consequence of a McCain victory is "comprehensive immigration reform", a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions, and embryonic stem cell research, conservatives may well view a McCain victory as being rather Pyrrhic.

No Christian Case for Capitalism?

2008-03-02T04:38:00.003-05:00

According to Robert Tracinski, Buckleyite Fusionism is dead. Tracinski claims this is because "its basic premise--that the moral foundation of free markets and Americanism can be left to the religious traditionalists--is false."

Tracsinski elaborates:

The reason for this shift toward the religious left is that religion cannot support the real basis for capitalism and a strong American national defense: a morality of rational self-interest. Christianity is too deeply committed to a philosophy of self-abnegation, a destructive morality that urges men to renounce any interest in worldly goods and to turn the other check in the face of aggression. The early Christian saints, for example, abandoned all material comforts and lived in caves--which is to say that their closest contemporary disciples are the radical environmentalists. As for foreign policy, St. Augustine spent a fair bit of his massive apologia for Christianity, The City of God, explaining to the Romans that being sacked by barbarians was good for them because it taught them the virtue of humility and cured them of their attachment to material wealth.

It is certainly true that Christianity has an ascetic streak. It is even true that Christians believe material possessions can draw people away from God if not viewed rightly. It is even more true that Christians believe that people who have much have a duty to help those who have little (and this goes for things beyond material possessions). In short, every point Tracinski brings up in support of his contention is true, but it does not follow that a Christian defense of capitalism cannot be made. Indeed, two papal encyclicals, Rerum Novarum, issued in 1891 by Pope Leo, and Centesimus Annus, issued one hundred later by Pope John Paul the Great, while not entirely uncritical of capitalism, heartily endorse the fundamental principles of a free market society and condemn not only socialism but the notion of man being dependent upon the State for his well-being:

For man, fathoming by his faculty of reason matters without number, linking the future with the present, and being master of his own acts, guides his ways under the eternal law and the power of God, whose providence governs all things. Wherefore, it is in his power to exercise his choice not only as to matters that regard his present welfare, but also about those which he deems may be for his advantage in time yet to come. Hence, man not only should possess the fruits of the earth, but also the very soil, inasmuch as from the produce of the earth he has to lay by provision for the future. Man's needs do not die out, but forever recur; although satisfied today, they demand fresh supplies for tomorrow. Nature accordingly must have given to man a source that is stable and remaining always with him, from which he might look to draw continual supplies. And this stable condition of things he finds solely in the earth and its fruits. There is no need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body. [RN, para 7]

Pope Leo goes on to highlight the evil effects produced by socialism and socialist-style policies.

14. The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. True, if a family finds itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a part of the commonwealth. In like manner, if within the precincts of the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them. But the rulers of the commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids them stop. Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself. "The child belongs to the father," and is, as it were, the continuation of the father's personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes its place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its quality as member of the family in which it is born. And for the very reason that "the child belongs to the father" it is, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "before it attains the use of free will, under the power and the charge of its parents."(4) The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.

15. And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the levelling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation. Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property. This being established, we proceed to show where the remedy sought for must be found. [RN, para 14-15]

John Paul the Great adds his thoughts in Centesimus Annus:

Two things must be emphasized here: first, the great clarity in perceiving, in all its harshness, the actual condition of the working class — men, women and children; secondly, equal clarity in recognizing the evil of a solution which, by appearing to reverse the positions of the poor and the rich, was in reality detrimental to the very people whom it was meant to help. The remedy would prove worse than the sickness. By defining the nature of the socialism of his day as the suppression of private property, Leo XIII arrived at the crux of the problem.

His words deserve to be re-read attentively: "To remedy these wrongs (the unjust distribution of wealth and the poverty of the workers), the Socialists encourage the poor man's envy of the rich and strive to do away with private property, contending that individual possessions should become the common property of all...; but their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that, were they carried into effect, the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are moreover emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community".³⁹ The evils caused by the setting up of this type of socialism as a State system — what would later be called "Real Socialism" — could not be better expressed.

13. Continuing our reflections, and referring also to what has been said in the Encyclicals Laborem exercens and Sollicitudo rei socialis, we have to add that the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call "his own", and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.

In contrast, from the Christian vision of the human person there necessarily follows a correct picture of society. According to Rerum novarum and the whole social doctrine of the Church, the social nature of man is not completely fulfilled in the State, but is realized in various intermediary groups, beginning with the family and including economic, social, political and cultural groups which stem from human nature itself and have their own autonomy, always with a view to the common good. This is what I have called the "subjectivity" of society which, together with the subjectivity of the individual, was cancelled out by "Real Socialism".⁴⁰

If we then inquire as to the source of this mistaken concept of the nature of the person and the "subjectivity" of society, we must reply that its first cause is atheism. It is by responding to the call of God contained in the being of things that man becomes aware of his transcendent dignity. Every individual must give this response, which constitutes the apex of his humanity, and no social mechanism or collective subject can substitute for it. The denial of God deprives the person of his foundation, and consequently leads to a reorganization of the social order without reference to the person's dignity and responsibility.

The atheism of which we are speaking is also closely connected with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which views human and social reality in a mechanistic way. Thus there is a denial of the supreme insight concerning man's true greatness, his transcendence in respect to earthly realities, the contradiction in his heart between the desire for the fullness of what is good and his own inability to attain it and, above all, the need for salvation which results from this situation. [CA, para 12-13]

John Paul goes on to re-affirm the Church's commitment to the free market:

34. It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. But this is true only for those needs which are "solvent", insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources which are "marketable", insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to man because he is man, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required "something" is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity. [CA, para 34]

The Pope even endorses the role profit plays in a market economy

The Church acknowledges the legitimate role of profit as an indication that a business is functioning well. When a firm makes a profit, this means that productive factors have been properly employed and corresponding human needs have been duly satisfied. But profitability is not the only indicator of a firm's condition. It is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people — who make up the firm's most valuable asset — to be humiliated and their dignity offended. Besides being morally inadmissible, this will eventually have negative repercussions on the firm's economic efficiency. In fact, the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavouring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society. Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business. [CA, para 35]

Again, neither Pope Leo XIII nor Pope John Paul the Great fail to critique capitalism, but they do proclaim the necessity of a free market at the foundation of a just society. Their criticisms of capitalism are found in the error of reducing man and society to the market, as well as man's role as the steward of creation. Their criticisms of capitalism are grounded in the fact that man is a moral actor in addition to being an economic one and thus must use just means to pursue the end of providing for himself and his family (e.g conduct business honestly and do not wantonly destroy the environment, which is God's gift to man). Also, man must have (as has been mentioned above) an active concern for the well-being of his neighbor, rendering such assistance to him as he is able. Indeed, the more a man has, the more he is able to devote to helping his fellow man. Thus, an economic system which maximizes its output is an economic system in which people are able to contribute the most to aid those in need.

The response to poverty and even environmental degradation is not massive state intervention and regulation; it is personal charity and responsibility. Christ calls us to give of ourselves for His sake and the sake of our neighbor in need. He doesn't call us to leave the poor in the hands of the State.

There's nothing wrong with making an honest buck, or even a billion of them. In the end, it's what we do with our money that matters, not how much of it we make: to whom much is given, much will be required.

Obama! Obama!

2008-03-01T19:18:00.001-05:00

Jonah Goldberg finds this creepy. To me it's just one more example of the complete subjugation of substance to style that seems to typify Barack Obama.

UAW Flexes It's Muscle

2008-02-29T02:45:00.001-05:00

And punches the Michigan economy in the nose.

Ouch

2008-02-29T01:18:00.001-05:00

Spengler thinks he has Obama figured out, and his critique of Obama's economic proposals amidst his analysis of American economic conditions is pretty rough too.

Does Obama hate America, as Spengler contends? I'd like to think not, and asinine economic policy proposals are hardly dispositive evidence, nor is a remote analysis of the views of Obama's mother and wife. Still, Obama's high-sounding, empty rhetoric leaves room to wonder. In all of his talk of hope and change he never seems to put forth fundamental principles on the role of government in society. He says lots of nice things, promises lots of nice things, even has a website listing all the things he would like to do, but he has never laid out anything like a coherent philosophy. What basis does he have for believing his policies will be efficacious in bringing about purportedly desired outcomes? Does he really believe, for instance, that the government ought be in the business of determining who is or is not patriotic?

Is Obama's vacuity a sign of political naivete or deliberate obfuscation of his real principles and motivations? I hope it's the former, but I can't rule out the latter.

What to Make of This

2008-02-29T00:25:00.001-05:00

Michigan Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land is being sued by the ACLU and several smaller political parties over who gets access to the information of primary voters. Currently only Democrat and Republican parties are granted access to the information, which is reasonable given that the elections in question were the primary elections for the two parties. On the other hand, because the primaries were run by the state any information gathered on voters is public information, and if it is permissible to release voter information to the major parties, there is in principle no reason to fail to release it to other legitimately interested parties.

I don't know who is right in this dispute (though I'm inclined to side with the Secretary of State), but it seems to me that this demonstrates the wisdom of separating the government from the parties' nominating processes. If the primaries were run by the parties, as opposed to the state, any information gathered on those who voted in the primaries would be the property of the parties themselves and would only be available to outside interests at the discretion of the parties themselves. As the situation stands now, while the Democrats and Republicans clearly have the greatest interest in the information of primary voters, it is not clear that they are the only parties with a legitimate interest in the information, and because state jurisdiction makes any information gathered the property of the state, the exclusive right of the Democrats and Republicans to the information is jeopardized.

You Don't Say

2008-02-23T15:04:00.002-05:00

According to Reuters:

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports showing work linked to making atomic bombs and that Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers.

I wonder why. Maybe it's because they have a nuclear weapons program. Maybe.

My Problem with This

2008-02-21T21:22:00.001-05:00

Spielberg had to look to China's role in the Darfur crisis to find actions by the Chinese state worthy of his moral opprobrium. Certainly China is deserving of said opprobrium, but he could have found issues closer to Beijing on which to voice his disapproval, such as China's one-child policy, or the state-run religious persecution, or the imprisonment and torture of dissidents, or their censorship of the internet, or lack of property rights.

Honestly, it's a good thing that Spielberg has quit his work with the ChiComs, and it is good that he has chosen to point to China's role in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents, and whatever issue he cited as his reason for quitting his work on the Olympics, it probably wouldn't have had any effect beyond a slight embarrassment for the Chinese government. Still, it would have been better to cast light on China's domestic abuses as public exposure of these systemic abuses calls into question the legitimacy of the Chinese regime and gives encouragement to dissidents who are working to bring about a free China.

Too Cool, Man!

2008-02-21T16:51:00.001-05:00

Satellite gets blow'd up.

President Gore?

2008-02-20T21:43:00.001-05:00

I'm skeptical, but John Derbyshire is sticking to his guns.

Cutting Down on Wait Times Government Style

2008-02-19T20:23:00.001-05:00

Waiting too long in the hospital for a bed in Britain (more than four hours)? The government has a solution: You can wait in the ambulance. The average in the United States is closer to thirty minutes for critical care, though average treatment time is closer to four hours when non-serious injuries and illnesses are taken into account. Why is this the case? Well, part of it is certainly due to the fact that trips to the ER won't necessarily cost you anything. Because ER's treat regardless of ability to pay, they are an attractive alternative to visits to the doctor's office to deal with minor bumps and bruises or minor illnesses for those who don't have health insurance. Those without health insurance have to pay for trips to the doctor at the same rate HMO's pay, and HMO's pay a rate much higher than what the market would normally bear because removing the responsibility of paying for doctor's visits from the hands of those who would normally pay them (i.e. the patients) and places them in the hands of the HMO's, and ultimately the employers who offered health benefits to their employees. The cost of health care being thus dramatically reduced for the insured, they consume health care at a rate far higher than they otherwise would, increasing the price of health care and causing a shortage of health care, leading to the increased wait times in both ER's and doctors' offices.

The fact that ER's are required to treat regardless of the ability of their patients to pay means that a further segment of the population is receiving, in effect, free health care, and this further increases the size of the health care shortage, as well as its price, as hospitals pass these unmet increased costs on to patients in more long-term situations who either can pay or have to pay. Illegal immigration only compounds this as illegal immigrants, who are generally not the wealthiest folks in the world, are taking full advantage of this, in some areas becoming the majority of hospital patients, straining resources to the point where some of these hospitals are little better than the ones in Mexico, even causing many of them to close.

On top of this, Medicare and Medicaid, though well-intentioned, further subsidize the demand for medical care, exacerbating its costs and shortages. What makes these increases particularly pernicious is that the federal government pays for health care these programs no matter the cost, causing increasing in both the net and proportional share of the federal budget taken up by health care spending, inhibiting its ability to fulfill its other obligations, never mind the effects of an aging population and the additional costs of an increasingly bloated and sclerotic bureaucracy rife with increasing inefficiency. Furthermore, the fact the government's payment for treatments through programs like Medicare once again shields the consumer from the incentive to mitigate cost, driving demand up further and increasing costs and shortages further still.

Litigation drives costs higher still, as litigation insurance drives the cost of doing business higher than it would otherwise be. Doctors also tend to perform more and more unnecessary procedures to reduce the likelihood of being sued for malpractice because they somehow managed to miss some obscure condition that only three people have had in the past hundred years. Now, it is certainly true that doctors who, say, amputate the wrong leg or leave surgical instruments inside of patients or maltreat their patients in some way should be subject to legal action, but doctors should be protected from litigation and criminal proceedings when they have made a decision in good faith, and the burden should be on the litigants to prove maliciousness or negligence on the part of the doctor, not for the doctor to prove he wasn't. Also, in cases where the litigants lose, they should be required to pay they attorney's fees of the defendants. Attorneys are expensive, and many times even the prospect of a lawsuit is enough to prevent a doctor doing what he believes is in the best interest of his patient if he is not sure of its prospects for success.

With the possible exception of an aging population, the federal government bears a large portion of the responsibility for creating the conditions which have precipitated today's health care problems, from increased costs to shortages of care. And what is the solution to this problem? Allowing the market to function effectively to reduce costs and alleviate the health care shortage, while relying upon the good will of the American people to see that those in need get the help they need? Remove the government imposed barriers to a functioning market for health care? Well, if you're a Democrat running for president, your solution is more of the same: increased government interference in the market that will inevitably increase costs, cause shortages, curtail innovation, and reduce overall quality of care. We don't need more health insurance, we need less of it. We don't need more government regulation, we need less of it. We don't need more employer-provided benefits, we need less of them, which will free up the resources of corporations for increased investment, wages/salaries, and whatever else corporations feel the need spend money on to operate more effectively. We don't need more litigation, we need less.

There are certainly problem s in the health care system not caused by the government, but getting the government mostly out of the health care business will go a long way to creating an environment where solutions to the health care shortage can be found. If you get the government more involved the only way to reduce your wait-time in the hospital will be to wait in the ambulance.

Who's Right?

2008-02-05T23:48:00.000-05:00

The CIA or Mossad. Given the CIA's recent track record on things like 9/11 and Saddam Hussein's WMD program, I think I'll trust Mossad, thank you very much.

Pigs Do Fly

2008-02-05T19:45:00.000-05:00

And an anti-Communist article has appeared in The Nation.

A Riposte to Sen. McCain (sort of)

2008-02-04T21:44:00.000-05:00

Senator John McCain has said he's willing to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell. Based on his preferred global warming policy, he seems to want to bring the economy with him.

The Great Conservative Crack-Up Continues Apace

2008-02-03T17:54:00.000-05:00

Deacon Keith Fournier has an article at Catholic Online on the current state of the Republican Party. Particularly, he is interested in Sean Hannity's dressing down of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Mike Huckabee as not being true conservatives. He then contrasts this, quite effectively, with Hannity's much more sympathetic treatment of Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Deacon Fournier takes from this that modern conservatism "does not operate from a foundational philosophy which positions the dignity of every human person as the polestar of every public policy analysis. It then fails to order and prioritize issues based upon a hierarchy of values and importance." I don't disagree that this is the philosophical implication of an endorsement of Mayor Giuliani, but I suspect Hannity's willingness to give the mayor a pass on social issues stems more from feelings of personal loyalty to the mayor than from an inadequate philosophical devotion to the dignity of every human person (i.e. he let his feelings obscure his beliefs).

Still, Mayor Giuliani, before he left the race, had picked up significant support from conservatives who knew full well that Rudy was pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, etc. Even so, I don't think it is correct to view these endorsements as an explicit rejection of the primacy of the dignity of every human person. The reason for this is the nature of the abortion issue and what many conservatives want to see happen, namely the return of the issue to the political sphere. While it is enshrined as a Constitutional right by Supreme Court precedent, it is impossible for to advance the cause of defending the life of the unborn through the political institutions of American society. Thus, in order for any substantial progress to be made in enshrining protection of the unborn in law, Roe has to be overturned, at which point a correct ruling would hand responsibility for abortion regulation to the states. Mayor Giuliani's pledge to appoint "strict constructionist" or "originalist" justices to the Supreme Court, had it been honored in a Giuliani administration, would have advanced the pro-life cause as surely as had, say, Governor Huckabee nominated the justice. Similarly, these conservatives reasoned that an originalist justice would hold the lines on the expansion of rights discovered by the Supreme Court, among them a right to gay marriage. In both of these cases, these conservatives feel that the proper venue for dealing with issues like abortion and gay marriage are properly dealt with at the state level,* rendering Giuliani's political positions on these issues irrelevant. Indeed, some even believe, plausibly, that a pro-choice Giuliani supporting a return of the issue to the states grants the position a certain degree of political credibility it cannot attain if only those who are pro-life argue for it. I don't buy the argument, but it's not an unreasonable one to make (and might have become more persuasive had Giuliani won the nomination, making the election a choice between him and Clinton or Obama).

I also suspect that the apologetics voiced on Mayor Giuliani's behalf reflect are the result of of the perceived trend on the right and in American politics in general. Deacon Fournier makes this point himself when he says

Most people agree on the importance of economic freedom. Certainly, most Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, want to see the dynamism of the market economy flourish and open up participation to more and more of our people.

Simply put, the trend among voters, swing voters in particular, was thought to be economically conservative, socially liberal (ECSL). The 2004 and 2006 elections have basically amounted to a reverse of this apparent trend, so that the trend now seems to be socially conservative, economically liberal (SCEL). The upshot of this is that on the one hand many on the right had been preparing for a situation where electoral circumstances would have to come to terms with a presidential candidate who held positions that were ECSL and what concessions such a candidate would have to make in order to make him palatable to social conservatives. Now, someone like Governor Huckabee comes along with positions on economic issues that seem closer to those of the Democrats, from "Fair Trade," to support for increased federal funding for arts education, to his embrace of Keynesian "pump-priming," and while his views may be more in line with public sentiment, those on the right have not had time to determine what concessions are necessary to prevent the undermining of conservative economic principles. This becomes an especially thorny issue when you consider the influence the federal government holds over the economy. It was relatively easy for social liberals on the right to say to social conservatives "I don't agree with you, but I won't get in your way," as appeared to happen with Mayor Giuliani because many social issues either can or should be dealt with on the local level. Unfortunately, a live-and-let-live approach becomes much harder when the two sides are advocating contradictory positions as is happening on trade with Gov. Huckabee and Free-Traders.

Then there is the issue of Gov. Huckabee's populism (For a very good take-down of populism, go here.). Deacon Fournier avers that populism is a good thing. If by populism, you mean simply grass-roots democracy or working-class activism, then populism can very well be a good thing, depending on what is being advocated. But there are other senses in which this word is used that are unquestionably bad and which Governor Huckabee has evinced in his rhetoric. The first definition of populism that is undeniably bad is

any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies.

The second is

A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.

These definitions point to a political style and philosophy that relies on emotional appeals offering simplistic solutions to problems (real or perceived) that are long on sentiment, ill-defined principles, grandiose promises and short on effective analysis of the problems. Governor Huckabee's rhetoric about social conservatives being neglected by the Republican Party also smacks of this darker side of populism. From the ban on partial-birth abortion, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, to attempts to enact a Federal Marriage Amendment, to appointing Justices Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court, to President Bush holding the line on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, social conservatives have fared as well as, if not better than any other faction of the conservative coalition. The Republican record on social issues may not be perfect over the past seven years, but it has been a far sight better than its record on, say, fiscal issues. There is also the issue of demagoguery, as Jay Nordlinger explains here and here (see second item).

From all I can tell, Governor Huckabee is a good man, and if he were to get the Republican nomination (unlikely at this point), I would vote for him. But his views on economics and national security, as well as his populism have persuaded me that, among the major contenders for the Republican nomination, the only one less likely to get my support would have been Rudy Giuliani.

*They're right on abortion and wrong on gay marriage.

The Market Responds

2008-02-02T18:16:00.000-05:00

With many places instituting bans on smoking indoors in public places, cigarette companies are developing shorter cigarettes with more punch.

Subsidising Illegality

2008-02-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

If a man has more than one wife, he can claim additional welfare benefits for his additional for each of his additional wives. Is this happening in some enlightened Muslim country with a generous welfare state? Nope. It's happening in Great Britain, where polygamy is illegal. Why in the world would a country supposedly governed by the rule of law not only allow such behavior to continue but pay additional benefits to those who violate the law in such a brazen manner?

At bottom, this seems to be a problem of multiculturalism. Muslims are considered an alien culture in Britain, and the doctrines of multiculturalism dictate that host societies make attempts to accommodate the alien cultures in their midst. This is a reasonable thing to do, but only up to a point. From a political point of view, the purpose of accommodating other cultures is to ease the transition of people from alien cultures into the host culture, making assimilation easier and reducing tensions between the host culture and its strange guests. To the extent that these objectives are attained, accommodation makes sense, but when accommodation is demanded in matters that go to the fundamental organizing principles of a society, it ceases to be a means of assimilation and social cohesion and instead walls off the host culture from the culture of the newcomers and increases tensions between host and guest.

In this case, the principles at issue are the rule of law and the nature of the institution of marriage. The issue of the rule of law is fairly obvious: Polygamy is illegal in Britain. Muslims in Britain are receiving additional welfare payments for having multiple wives. Therefore, the British government is rewarding British Muslims for violating British law, QED. Much more interesting is the question of why. Why is the British government paying Muslim men to violate British law? Certainly it is consistent with the principles of multiculturalism, but I suspect the decision has as much if not more to do with the nature of the institution if marriage. In what could be described as Christendom (traditionally Christian Europe and places where Christianity came to be the primary religion through European colonization), marriage was the union between one man and one woman for the purposes of uniting them (and, importantly for reasons of politics, their families), as well as for the procreation of the subsequent generation. On the left, of which Gordon Brown's Labour Party is a part, undermining this traditional understanding of marriage has been a central goal in their attempts to remake society as they see fit. The gay marriage movement has been essential to undermining the heterosexual nature of marriage, and it is more than likely that in Muslim polygamy Labour sees an opportunity to undermine the monogamous nature of marriage in Britain. By granting tacit approval to polygamy among Muslims, the British government has rejected the idea that marriage in Britain is a monogamous institution, clearing the way for future attempts to enshrine polygamous marriage in British law.

Ken Green Misses the Correlation

2008-01-25T00:27:00.000-05:00

Over at Planet Gore, Ken Green wonders why Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore is suddenly questioning the scientific consensus on global warming. The answer is, of course, obvious. The magnitude of the threat to humanity and the global ecosystem in general posed by global warming is inversely proportional to the amount of hot air being spewed by Gore on the issue. Thus, as the magnitude of the threat decreases, the amount of hot air spewed by Gore increases, apparently to the point where predictions he once regarded as legitimate are no longer dire enough to inspire action.

Does Capitalism Lead to Democracy?

2008-01-12T23:37:00.000-05:00

That's the question Hilton Root asks in this piece reviewing two books on the subject. Root's conclusion is that it is not necessarily the case:

At least at the global level, the correlation between free markets and plural politics breaks down, and it seems to do so from both ends. Democratic politics often do not support open markets, and open markets do not always reinforce the tendency to democratic government.

And:

Young, still-developing democracies lack the resources and the institutions to counteract the enormous lobbying power of global business. Young democracies have few mechanisms to prevent large corporate contributions from influencing political outcomes. Even mature democracies, after all, often fail to meet this challenge.

Yet it is also clearly the case that under the correct circumstances, capitalism is a major pillar of democracy, as has been the case in the United States. Under what conditions then does capitalism foster democracy. It seems to me that three conditions need to be present in order for capitalism to foster democracy: the rule of law, limited government, and an economy with its foundations in entrepreneurial activity.

American political philosophy begins with the premise that government governs with the consent of the governed and that its powers and duties are established by the Constitution, which is held to be the supreme law of the land. No man is held to be above the law or beneath it, and the legitimate actions of government, groups and individuals are bounded by the law, not by the whims of a king or potentate.

Closely linked to the rule of law, though not necessarily following from it (see the European Constitution), is the notion of limited government. The Constitution of the United States limits the power of the United States' government to regulate the economic activity of the people of the United States. This limitation on government power reduces the incentive of players in the marketplace to use the government to advance their business ends through regulation of the market, seizure of the assets of competing firms, etc.

The third major component of the equation, an economy grounded in entrepreneurial ventures, is also essential because it limits the ability of larger corporations to drive competitors out of the market. It also reduces the political power of individual corporations and increases the incentive of individuals to fight for limited market regulation to give them freedom to carry on their businesses as they see fit.

Though the power of government has waxed, especially since the 1930's; living constitutionalism has somewhat undermined the rule of law; and large corporations play a larger role in American life than they had in the early history of the United States, and many of them pressure the government to pass regulations designed to benefit them to the hindrance of their competition, especially small businesses, the foundations of American society, built on the rule of law, limited government and the entrepreneurial spirit continue to drive American vitality and preserve its democratic society.

What does this tell us about, say, Iraq. There is no history of the rule of law in Iraq; many people look to the government for jobs; the nation's largest portion GDP comes from oil revenue, and the Iraqi oil industry is state-run. None of the three elements that contribute to a flourishing of capitalism and democracy are present, though there is a significant entrepreneurial element in Iraqi society. As long as the United States remains in Iraq, something like democracy and capitalism will survive in Iraq because that is the system the United States is promoting, and they are the dominant power in the country. If the United States leaves too soon, it is likely that the cycle of tribalism and nationalism that dominated Iraqi society in the post-Ottoman era will come to dominate Iraq again with spikes of Saudi Wahabbism and radical Iranian Shi'ism further enflaming the situation. If the United States is willing to remain the dominant player in Iraq for the foreseeable future, a stable, democratic, capitalist Iraq may yet emerge, but it will take awhile.

A Riposte to Gov. Huckabee

2008-01-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has been tossing around the line that people want their president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off, clearly a shot at former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, behind whom I have thrown my feather's weight of support. This is a fairly clever line from a pretty clever guy, but, like much of what Governor Huckabee says, it doesn't bear up under close scrutiny. The necessary implication of this statement is that the American people want a president who is like their buddies, as opposed to the guy who is willing and able to make the tough, costly, but necessary decisions for the good of the country. Thus, by Governor Huckabee's own admission, he aspires to be your buddy, while Governor Romney is willing to make the tough choices that any president invariably faces and accept the consequences of those choices.

Well, Governor Huckabee, I'd love for you and me to be buddies. You seem like a good, upright, God-fearing man with a winning personality whose friendship I would greatly enjoy. I'm just not voting for you for President of the United States because I don't want a president who puts being friendly over the good of the country.

Not So Fair Tax

2008-01-09T20:44:00.000-05:00

Arnold Kling has a piece at TCSDaily on the flaws inherent in the Fair Tax, a proposal to replace all Federal taxes with a 30% national sales tax. Personally, I'm partial to the flat tax, but I find Kling's proposal at the end of the piece intriguing, essentially combining a potion of the Fair Tax with a proposal similar to the one being advanced by former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson.

I'm not sure what I think of the plan as a whole, but Kling closes with the strongest argument in favor of his plan: "if the rules about keeping the income tax invariant and paying for new spending with sales tax increases could be made to stick, the bias toward higher government spending might be greatly reduced." I don't know how you could make the income tax invariant in any meaningful way (which is why I am inclined to be opposed to this measure), but if it could be made to work with a measure short of a constitutional amendment, a proposal such as Kling's could very well win my support.

Who Do You Love?

2008-01-08T16:25:00.000-05:00

Or at least support. Find out here. I'm currently supporting Mitt Romney for president, and according to this, he's my top match (91.18% match). Of the other major Republican candidates, the rest of the candidates rank as follows: Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani. I find that interesting because I've recently begun hoping for a Romney-Thompson ticket. The list doesn't perfectly track with my preferences, though, because I prefer McCain over Huckabee for foreign policy reasons.

The calculator ranks all of the candidates, not just those from one party, so it ranked the Democrats for me as well. Now, I haven't seriously considered voting for any of the Dems because I have too many disagreements with them on first principles and fundamental issues, but I still have my preferences, and the calculator gets these right too, though this more or less coincidence. Coming in at the top for the Dems is Bill Richardson (a 32.35% match), followed by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich (an 8.82% match).

Another Must-Read from Mark Steyn

2007-11-30T14:31:00.000-05:00

Mark Steyn has a piece in The New Criterion on the effects of "popular" music on the culture at large (hopefully it won't disappear behind a firewall). Steyn's is that the rise of rock, rap and the other various styles of "popular" music, leading to their ubiquity in society at large has had the effect of unmooring music from its long and rich tradition in Western society so that we no longer have any barometer for judging what is actually good and worth preserving, causing us to reach out for the latest fad and undermining the foundations of culture.

As someone who very much enjoys a fair amount of "popular" music, indeed grew up listening to mostly rock music, but has of late come to a greater and greater appreciation of classical music, I'd have to say that he's right. What I find most interesting about the phenomenon, though, is how I've come to view the various forms of "popular" music in light of having developed something of a taste for classical music. I still enjoy a lot of what I used to enjoy both in terms of specific groups and songs, as well as styles of music, but listening to classical music has caused me to draw a distinction between what I like and what is actually good. I also find myself drawing the conclusion that songs are good as far as they go. That is, while Stairway to Heaven may not measure up to Beethoven's Fifth, within the constraints imposed by the genre of rock music, it is an excellent song, and I will listen to it if I run across it on the radio.

Interestingly, I seem to be in the same place with classical music as I was when I first started listening to rock music. There are pieces I recognize instantly, but mostly its all just classical music, and I'm not at the point where, beyond a few well-known pieces (e.g. Ride of the Valkyries), I cannot readily differentiate between composers and pieces. Maybe as I listen to more and more of it, I will be able to better distinguish between composers and styles and maybe even learn some of the terminology (I have no idea what the difference between an adagio and a libretto is, for instance). But as things stand now, all I can really say is that there's much more to music than "popular" music, and it is worth investigating because it is the foundation of the western musical tradition, and the more we ignore it, the more vapid "popular" music becomes.

Well This Settles It, Then

2007-11-30T14:20:00.000-05:00

On balance, Republicans are sane, and Democrats are crazy. Well, maybe not, but the poll is at least as credible as all those studies claiming conservatives are somehow inherently mentally defective. Still, the Kossacks and their ilk serve as anecdotal support that more Democrats are mentally unbalanced than Republicans, but the independents are nuttiest of all. Probably being unable to make up their minds drives them over the edge.

Russian Machinations

2007-10-25T16:29:00.000-04:00

Michael Ledeen has a fascinating piece on Russian political maneuverings relating to the Iranian nuclear issue. I've come to suspect for awhile now that Russia was attempting to manipulate the situation so as to bring about an attack on Iran from either Israel or the United States, and Ledeen lays out the case for how and why they are doing this succinctly. But I suspect his analysis, while accurate as far as it goes, falls short of what's really going on.

We hear with some regularity that President Bush recognizes the threat posed by Iran and by their pursuit of nuclear weapons, and about how he feels that is his responsibility to see that the situation is resolved on his watch, not left to his successor. The president has also said, somewhat to his apparent embarrassment, that Vladimir Putin is someone with whom he can work (having come to this conclusion by looking into Putin's soul). I can't help but think that all of Russia's bluster, the mounting tensions between the United States and Russia as relations appear to deteriorate, Russia's support for Iran both materially and politically on the nuclear issue, and the apparent American fecklessness in the face of Iranian intransigence on many fronts, including support for insurgents and militias in Iraq, are a deliberate cooperative act on the part of the United States and Russia to get the Iranians to expose themselves to attack, to stick their necks out too far so that there will be no option but for the United States, either alone or with a small group of allies, to attack Iran, destroy its nuclear program and undermine the regime in Tehran.

I don't have any hard evidence of this, nor do I have any particular expertise in this field, but as the Bush administration and the American military continue to increase the rhetorical pressure on Iran, and as European negotiations appear more and more ineffective, and the deal with North Korea looks more and more like a bad deal, the more quickly the prospects of a peaceful resolution to the crisis show themselves to be empty (whether they always were is a matter for debate). And if options like diplomacy and sanctions are going to be ineffective, that leaves only options like sabotage, insurrection and military action. Recognition of this may not bring allies flocking to the United States' efforts to disarm the mullahs, but it should at least buy the political cover necessary to ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.

Now all of this may be dead wrong. American fecklessness in the face of Iranian and North Korean intransigence may be genuine. Relations with Russia may be as bad as they appear. Russia may be more concerned with keeping the United States occupied so as to increase its own international standing than with preventing the mullahs acquiring nuclear arms. The United States government may just now be waking up to Iranian mischief in Iraq, though they've certainly known about it since 2003. In the morass that is international politics, there's no way to be sure, but it strikes me as being the height of absurdity that the president would stand for having an issue on which he places high import handled and such an inept and disjointed manner, even if some of his actions on the domestic front do not inspire confidence in this belief.

Was Listening to NPR Earlier Today

2007-10-10T23:07:00.000-04:00

And I heard that Jennifer Granholm is likely to endorse Hillary Clinton for president. That's no surprise, but think Granholm's endorsement of Hillary might hurt her in Michigan more than it helps. I can see the Republican barb now:

The woman running Michigan into the ground has endorsed the woman who will run America into the ground.

Some Deal

2007-10-10T22:59:00.000-04:00

Jack McHugh of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has the goods on the deal that ended the brief government shutdown in Michigan. All politics aside, I'd like to think that I might be wrong in thinking this deal will only make Michigan's economy worse while doing nothing to resolve the budget problems facing the state, but I don't see it happening. Things are going to get worse for Michigan before they get better, and the least bad scenario is things getting bad enough quickly enough that Michigan has the sense to elect free-market, fiscal conservatives in the 2008 and 2010 elections.

Where's John Engler when you need him?

Either/or or Both/and?

2007-10-05T13:51:00.000-04:00

Cynical Synaps e has posted a reply to my recent post on the sources of Michigan's brief shutdown. I don't know how much more I want to say on this because it looks to me like we aren't too far apart on this issue, but I think some clarification is warranted.

Synapse argues the following:

The parties involved—the Democratic governor, Republican majority leader in the State Senate, and to a lesser degree the House speaker, a Democrat, want us to believe this was about the Democrats and Republicans standing up for philosophical differences in what government should be. The fact is, there's not that much difference between the two parties any more but the doublespeak they wrap their spin in.

On one level, this is certainly true. Both parties are interested in maintaining and increasing their own power at the expense of the other party. This was clearly an essential part of the dynamic which led to shutdown, and all involved deserve equal blame for using the pending shutdown to make a political power play, but to dismiss the philosophical differences between the parties is to dismiss the foundation of the power play by the two sides. Because our elected officials are held accountable publicly through the electoral process, their ability to gain and hold power is grounded in the perceived effectiveness of their policies, and because it is impossible to determine the effectiveness of a policy until after it has been allowed to play itself out, you need to have well-grounded principles underlying your policies in order to justify their implementation. These principles also come in handy after the fact if the policy is the result of a compromise. Any good results are due to the implementation of your principles, while bad results proceed from the implementation of your opponent's principles.

To make a long story short, self-interest dictates adherence to principle (or at least the appearance of it). But there's another side to the story because adherence to principle has to translate to real-world benefits for those impacted by policies implementing these principles. Thus, you want the policies you implement to benefit tangibly as many people as possible, because people vote based upon their own self-interest, and if adherence to your principles benefits them, they will vote for you and people of similar mind. Thus, if you adhere to certain principles, you believe that they are true, or at least more true than those of your opponents. From this, it follows that if your opponent's principles undermine your own, policies based on those policies will be bad policies because people will be worse off than they would have been if your principles had played a greater role in forming said policies.

But this can't be the end of it because if you simply cave into the other side, allowing them to have their way, in what sense can you be said to be standing for your principles? Simply casting a vote in silent protest is little more than lying down and letting yourself get run over by a stampede. If you're going to lose a political fight, you want to go down valiantly, inflicting as much damage as possible to your opponent to establish where you stand, why you stand there, and how committed you are to holding that ground. This way, when things go South, you can say that yours was and is the better way.

Ultimately, political aims are cyclical. You advance policies grounded in certain principles because you believe they will make people better off. You want to make them better off because they will then give you the power you seek. You then use this power to advance more policies you think will make people better off because they will reward you by either allowing you to maintain your power or giving you more.

In the end, you can't separate philosophy and politics in the political process because both are essential elements of the process. Sometimes one element is more clearly seen than the other, as in the budget fiasco, but while both parties were using the mess to try and gain political advantage (and share equal blame in this regard), the philosophical differences between the parties were and are real, not simply window-dressing, and because I think the Republicans were more right than the Democrats on how best to deal with the deficit, they are more blameworthy than the Republicans.

Mere Ineptitude?

2007-10-03T13:10:00.000-04:00

Cynical Synapse blames the brief shutdown of Michigan's government on the sheer ineptitude of Governor Granholm and the Michigan legislature. As a small-government conservative with something of a libertarian bent (especially economically), I find myself highly sympathetic to this argument.

However, there is something else at play here which Cynical Synapse ignores and tends to be dismissed by those who don't pay much attention to politics: the fundamental philosophical differences between the two parties. This dispute was born of irreconcilable differences between the two parties on the role of government in society, and the economy in particular. Is government the engined driving economic growth, or are the economic needs of the people more dependent upon and better secured by an effectively functioning market only minimally constrained by government regulation and interference? All of the stonewalling, politicking, maneuvering, demagoguery, procrastination, inflexibility, and general b.s. surrounding the budget fight were an attempt by each party to craft the budget in a manner consistent with its view of the role of government.

What's more, it really should be no surprise that politicians in political institutions play politics with political issues. It may be ugly, but this is how we have decided to make our laws. We choose up sides and do everything in our power to make sure our side wins because we believe our side is right. When the resulting policy doesn't perfectly reflect our principles, we do everything in our power to make sure the resulting policy shows the wisdom of our views by claiming credit for the policy's successes and blaming its failures on the aspects of the policy favored by the other party.

Another factor that has to be considered is the fact that Michigan's constitution prohibits the state running a deficit. Therefore, it was impossible for both sides to come together and agree to kick the can down the road with deficit spending. Spending had to be cut and/or "revenues"* (i.e. taxes) had to be raised. Republicans favor the former solution while Democrats favor the latter, and both sides were probably going to have to give. The question was over who going to come out ahead politically, and both sides deliberately engaged in brinkmanship to either get all of what they wanted (not likely) or to make the other side look bad, and both sides succeeded at that.

A final factor in the situation is the current plight of GM, Ford and Chrysler. For decades, Michigan has been dependent upon the auto industry for a huge portion of its tax revenue. With the struggles facing the Big Three in terms of sales and expenses and these companies locating plants outside the United States to cut costs, not to mention straight plant closings, Michigan has suffered a massive reduction in tax revenue from one of its biggest sources, and it has paid the price for the profligate spending supported by these tax revenues. It is unfair to say that the current government of Michigan owns a budget crisis that was dropped in its lap by the lack of foresight by previous governments and the travails of the auto industry. It is fair to say that after five years of economic hardship, the state government has failed to put Michigan in a position to overcome its economic struggles. The tax plan that was passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor was a short term solution at best. It would not surprise me in any way if we were debating this same issue of tax increases versus spending cuts at budget time next year.

*I find using the term "revenues" in this context to be rather dishonest. There are two factors in determining the size of tax revenues: the tax rate and the size of the tax base. It is true that, given a fixed (in monetary terms) tax base, increasing taxes will increase revenue, but it is also true that given a fixed tax rate, increasing the monetary value of the tax base will also increase revenue. What's more, if a cut in a tax rate causes a sufficient rise in the monetary value of the tax base, it is possible for revenues from those taxes to increase.

The Madness Grows

2007-09-29T01:11:00.000-04:00

Friday, the state of Michigan sent a memo to 35,000 of its 53,000 workers instructing them not to come into work on Monday because they are being temporarily laid off until such time as a budget is passed. This is reasonable as you don't want to have people come into work if you can't pay them, but there's a problem. Union contracts require at least twenty days' notice of impending layoffs to give those workers time to prepare (one of the good things unions have been able to procure for their members). Several hours after the temporary layoffs were announced, the Civil Service Commission failed to enac t a rule change that would have enabled the governor to follow through on the announcement. Granted, it's not like this is something that sort came out of the blue, so workers have probably been preparing for this eventuality for some time, but the governor's failure to put herself in a position to deal with the looming shutdown by temporarily laying off non-essential workers in a manner consistent with the contract the state has signed with its workers' unions is yet another example of how her governance of the state has been utterly inept.

Governor Granholm is bound and determined to advance policies which continue to prevent Michigan from dealing with its severe economic problems (highest unemployment rate in the country) for the sake of protecting the interests of her union backers, and now she's willing to let the government close down in order to secure these aims. The sad thing is that the tax increases the governor wants to impose aren't even necessary for the fiscal health of the state. What's more, if the state wanted to save another $194 million, it could move its employees into Health Savings Accounts.

In her 2006 State of the State address, Granholm said that, because of her economic policies, we'd be blown away (this after four years of the state economy tanking on her watch). So far, she's being proven right, though not in the way she probably had in mind.

Once More Into the Tank

2007-09-27T00:45:00.000-04:00

Michigan's government is on the verge of shutting down because an agreement cannot be reached on whether to simply cut spending or raise income taxes as well. Governor Granholm and her Democrat allies in the state legislature contend that the income tax must be raised to overcome the $1.75 billion shortfall. Republicans feel that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has a way to do it. Of course, shutting down the government should save money too. Shut everything down for a couple weeks, and that should clear up that pesky budget shortfall. Granted, this will make for some difficulties, but it might not be all that bad.

Michigan is in the tank economically, and raising taxes will only make things worse, not to mention making things harder for a lot of people struggling to get by as it is. Republicans should stick to their guns and resist the siren song of increased revenue through increased taxation. Michigan's government is highly inefficient, and it needs to straighten itself out, streamline its spending and bureaucracy, and not pursue a short-sighted tax increase that in the end will only serve to hit Michigan's citizens in their pocketbooks and create a disincentive for businesses to invest in the state. In this environment, the consequences of a brief shutdown are better than the consequences of a tax increase that is, for all intents and purposes, unnecessary.