Tuesday, April 29, 2003
PBS on Blogs
Josh Marshall posted yesterday that PBS's Newshour would run a piece on blogs last night. Not reading TPM yesterday, I missed the show, but the transcript is up now. Who got the big plugs? Instapundit, Sully, Marshall (also quoted extensively), Salam Pax, John Irons (of ArgMax, but they don't mention the name of his blog). The piece was actually filmed several months ago, possibly explaining why angrybear.blogspot.com didn't make the cut. The story did cite an estimate that there are 5 million blog readers, which means there are approximately 4,999,800 blog readers not yet reading Angry Bear.
I did find one statement that I disagree strongly with, by Joan Connel, Exec. Producer, MSNBC.com:
One of the values that we place on our own weblogs is that we edit our webloggers. Out there in the blogosphere, often it goes from the mind of the blogger to the mind of the reader, and there's no backup. And I would submit that that editing function really is the factor that makes it journalism. Are you making a mistake here? Do you really want to say that? Do you really want to use that word? Is that libelous? All of those basic journalism questions that we always ask.And I thought MSNBC's real value-add was not implementing permalinks. Seriously, Bloggers don't need editors. The readers and other bloggers are the editors; when they find mistakes or omitted details, that's what "UPDATE:" is for.
AB
Economics, Straight Up, Please
Prefer your economics straight up, without political ramblings and me complaining about spam and such? Check out It's Still the Economy. ISTE is a work in progress set up by M.B. of Wampum that is apparently developing into a team blog of left and center-left economic/political (but more economic I think) news. It's a work in progress, but there are already good posts up and surely more on the way. Matt Stoller of To The Point is already contributing and I may also add some thoughts to the blog in the near future. If it's me, MB, and Matt, I suspect I'll occupy the enviable position of the "Righty" in the project.
AB
Monday, April 28, 2003
Rumsfeld on Military History
I caught a clip on CNN of Rumsfeld saying something to the effect that the march to Baghdad was the fastest in history. That didn't sound true, so with the help of Google I found the exact quote (near the end): "Baghdad was liberated in less than a month, possibly the fastest march on a capital in modern military history." [emphasis mine]
I guess it all depends on the meaning of "modern" and "possibly":
- In Grenada, Marines were in the capital on the first day (the medical school that was evacuated was in St. George, the capital of Grenada).
- In Panama, the US invaded on December 20, 1989 and Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990--two weeks, start to finish.
- In Poland, Germany invaded on September 1, 1939 and had Warsaw surrounded on September 17th--slightly more than two weeks (the Poles completely surrendered on September 28th, though heroic partisan activity continued throughout WWII).
So yes, it is "possibly" the fastest in history, but it's "factually" not. This is something of a minor point, but the invasion went smoothly enough that it doesn't need to be exaggerated (and I suppose we could reasonably hold Secretary of Defense to a high standard on the subject of military history). Similarly, the extent of the looting after the takeover of the capital should not be minimized (in case you missed it, Rumsfeld recently said "The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over. It's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase and you see it twenty times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases? ...[pause for laughter]...Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?" Given 5,000 years, I hypothesize that a nation the size of California can in fact accumulate many, many, vases.
AB
More on Spam
ZDNet is your Spam Info Central, for those interested. They have a page dedicated to "Spam 2003: A progress report. The amount of spam grew in March and has almost doubled from last year, threatening to cost businesses $10 billion in 2003. The best tech minds are working feverishly to help you perform one simple task--read your e-mail.".
AB
Spam and Taxing Emails
Every so often I get a chain email that alleges that Congress is about to levy a tax on email. Then I think to myself, "this email is proof of why that tax might not be such a bad idea". Not only would an emal tax cut down on chain letters, it would also keep my acquaintances from sending me the latest list of jokes that was forwarded to them, or the fake picture of the tourist on the tower, or the crying eagle. On the other hand, I would get less exciting opportunities to embezzle funds from Nigeria (which I talked about here and here). Firms will engage in an activity, for example, spam, if the incremental revenue exceeds the incremental cost. In the case of spam, the cost is roughly zero. So any proposal that, if disseminated far enough and wide enough, can generate any positive amount of revenue gets sent out to the In Boxes of the world.
Take the Nigerian Bank emails that I get nearly every day, and imagine that 1 in 50 million such emails find a sucker who ends up losing their life savings of $50,000. To curtail such emails, the tax only has to be high enough that the cost of sending out 10 million emails exceeds $50,000, or 1/10th of a penny. I'm not quite ready to endorse an email tax, but it would go a long way towards reducing spam. I guess the only down side would be the sharp reduction in the number of opportunities See Anna Kournikova topless!!!!!!, Refinance my Home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Order Toner Cartridges in Bulk!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and to Enlarge my Penis!!!!!!!!!.
Or I could just adopt the AOL approach and sue the spammers for $10 million each.
AB
P.S. Imagine that telemarketers had to pay 5 cents for every call they made. If such a tax could be enforced then there would be a dramatic reduction in the number of calls. Because of the costs, only higher yield pitches (meaning those that result in a sale more often) could profitably be made; other telemarketers would be driven out of business. The high yield pitches have higher yields for a reason: they are offers that people like or find valuable--good telemarketing calls. So if telemarketing calls were taxed, most of the crappy ones would be eliminated, and only the valuable ones would remain, and we would all actually like getting telemarketing calls (but we'd get a lot less of them).
Think about that: tax something and it becomes valuable, rather than annoying! (Or at least becomes much less annoying).
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Slow Day
No topic for a new post leaps to mind, but I do try to put something up every day. So instead of insightful commentary and analysis, I'll just link to this, which I think is funny. (I linked to this back in the first days of the blog, but since I had no readers then, it is new to most of you).
AB
Friday, April 25, 2003
No More Deficits
The IRS has come up with a clever plan to offset the deficit-creating effects of the Bush tax cuts: More scrutiny of the poor!
The Internal Revenue Service is planning to ask more than four million of the working poor who now claim a special tax credit to provide the most exhaustive proof of eligibility ever demanded of any class of taxpayers....The I.R.S., trying to prevent errors and cheating, says it needs greater proof of eligibility months before people claim the credit on their tax returns because its efforts to find errors through audits after the fact have not worked. Treasury officials estimate that $6.5 billion to $10 billion is lost to improper payments each year...President Bush has praised the tax credit. But his administration has also complained about fraud, and the president has asked Congress for $100 million and 650 new employees to identify potentially erroneous claims before any money is paid out. There is a similar effort with federally subsidized school lunches.
The program they are referring to is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a program both sides of the aisle have long applauded. The logic of the EITC, as opposed to welfare, is that it increases rather than decreases the benefit of working. Suppose a person could work or not work. If they work then they get $1000; if they don't work, they get $600 in welfare benefits. That makes the pecuniary value of work $400, and it costs the government $600 per person who decides not to work. The EITC turns this math around, by paying poor people (only those with children, I think) to work. Say we give $300 to every family that works under the EITC, while still offering $600 in benefits for the unemployed. Then by working, this hypothetical person gets $1300 a month total, which is $700 more than what they get by not working. Since $700 is a lot more than $400, more people will choose to work. And for each person that works instead of taking the $600, the government saves $300 (the difference in the $600 cost of welfare benefits vs. the $300 cost of the EITC). So discouraging use of the EITC could actually end up costing the government more money, not less (though EITC costs come out of the Federal budget; a large part of welfare benefits is paid out of state coffers). To understand the type of dollars the IRS is looking at, the total cost of the EITC is around $30b or so, about 1/10th of the deficit this year.
AB
Brokaw and the Man
BROKAW: Why not fold in some of the U.N. inspectors to this effort, not turn it over to them, but make them a part of it? Would that help with the credibility, do you think?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there's going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program. One thing there can't be skepticism about is the fact that this guy was torturous and brutal on the Iraqi people. I mean, he brutalized them, he tortured them, he destroyed them, he cut out their tongues when they dissented. And now the people are beginning to see what freedom means within Iraq. Look at the Shia marches, or the Shia pilgrimages that are taking place.
The world will see that the United States is interested in peace, is interested in security and interested in freedom.
BROKAW: But it is important to find the weapons of mass destruction, or the evidence that he had a massive program underway, isn't it?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I think we will. I'm pretty confident we will.
Full transcript at NYT. Note that in his response to the inspectors question, Bush never mentions weapons inspectors, just the brutality of Saddam. I'm looking forward to the 2004 debates:
LEHRER: President Bush, unemployment has reached a 12 year high under your administration, the stock market remains lackluster, deficits are at record levels, and your only substantive economic policy remains more upper income tax cuts. If elected, what is your plan to help the economy and does it involve programs other than tax cuts?
THE PRESIDENT: Jim, I'm glad you asked that question. Until April of 2003, the Iraqi people were horribly oppressed by the evil dictator, Evil Saddam Hussein. He even had rape rooms -- rape rooms -- Jim. Now the people of Iraq are free from the evil dictator, Saddam Hussein, and his evil, evil regime.
Ok, I've wandered a bit into fantasy land, Jim Lehrer would never ask the president that question. But somehow I suspect that if he did, this would be the answer.
AB
UPDATE: Typos corrected 4/26
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Moralistic right wingers can really piss me off (In this case, I'm not talking about Sen. Santorum, though I should be). But that just makes it more fun to watch them fall, Jimmy Swaggart style. From Joe Conason, an update on the status of Richard Delgaudio (full story in the Washington Post). Delgaudio was one of the people who brought Paula Jones to the public eye; as Conason explains, "Delgaudio literally brought Paula Jones to public attention in 1994. That was when one of his fundraising fronts, the "Legal Affairs Council," paid her travel and hotel expenses to appear at the Consevative Political Action Committee conference in Washington, where she gave a brief account of the indignities she had allegedly suffered years before." [This may be when he first learned that if you pay people who are in dire straights then they will do things that you want them to, an acquired skill that he would soon put to further use].
What's he been doing since then? Mostly conservative fundraising and PAC activity. Oh, and also using some portion of the proceeds thereof to pay minors to get naked in hotels, reports the Washington Post: "Delgaudio was charged with taking sexually explicit photographs of a 16-year-old girl. He paid the girl -- a single mother and high school dropout -- by the hour for photo shoots at the Deluxe Plaza Motel in Baltimore, according to court documents and Baltimore City Police Detective Randy Wynn, who investigated the case." Jackass. The judge instructed him to not visit the prostitute-ridden area around the Deluxe Plaza Motel anymore and gave him two years probation.
At sentencing, Delgaudio's attorney told the judge that Delgaudio "plans to donate $5,000 to help 'young mothers in great need.'" Delgaudio piped up and said "actually, Your Honor, that's exactly what I was doing in the hotel when the police came in". Ok, I made that last part up, but the rest is true. But seriously, maybe Delgaudio should just stay away from young mothers in need.
AB
P.S. Also via Conason, it seems like Santorum can't tell the difference between sex between consenting adults and sex with dogs. Go read it.
UPDATE: I'm a day late and a dollar short; Atrios had the Degaudio story on Tuesday.
Bush in Ohio Explaining the Dire Need for Tax Relief
In Mr. Voinovich's home state yesterday, Bush said
"Some in Congress say the plan is too big. Well, it seems like to me they might have some explaining to do. If they agree that tax relief creates jobs, they why are they for a little-bitty tax relief package? If they believe tax relief is important for job creation, they ought to join us and join this administration and join many in Congress and have a robust package that creates enough work for the American people."But what if they don't agree that these tax cuts create jobs? What if they believe that their stimulative effect is outweighed by the negative effect of expectations of future deficits? It almost seems like Bush is making Voinovich's case for him. And, $350b is not really "little-bitty", though it is fun to hear the President say that.
AB
P.S. Interesting trivia from the same article: no Republican has ever been elected president without carrying Ohio.
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
California Consumption Tax Gambit?
As a few loyal readers may recall, this blog was started largely in response to serious discussion in the 2002 Economic Report of the President of phasing out income taxes in favor of consumption taxes (see the "Consumption Taxes, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5" in the sidebar). I've since wandered a bit, but allconsumptiontaxesallthetime.blogspot.com doesn't seem like a great way to generate traffic. Anyway, unless implemented very carefully, as something much more refined than a national sales tax, a consumption tax would be an extremely regressive form of taxation. Why? The poor, almost by definition, consume most of their income and therefore would pay taxes on all their income. As wealth and income rise, less of income is devoted to consumption, so under a consumption tax, the wealthy pay less of their income in taxes.
Why the flashback? At his new home, CalPundit has a report on the politics surrounding the state's massive budget deficit. In a nutshell, Democrats can't increase taxes without a 2/3 majority, which they lack. Republicans are adamantly opposing tax increases, in spite of the $35b shortfall (see my earlier post on state deficits here). But the Democrats don't need a super-majority to implement fee increases (Kevin defines a fee for us: "[it's a tax] that goes toward mitigating things that harm the health of Californians." Well and good, but where it gets interesting is when Kevin speculates that this might be a bit of brinksmanship on the part of Democrats:
Are the Democrats serious? Or are they just trying to propose something so horrific that Republicans have no choice except to buckle under and get down to serious negotiating?To which I'd add, "or is this giving Republicans exactly what they want?" In fairness, I think the typical California Republican is more moderate than the average Republican, so in this instance he might be right. But it's a bit risky to assume that Repblicans would, given a choice between progressive (or at least neutral) income taxes versus regressive consumption taxes, be horrified by the latter and opt for the former.
AB
Next Target of Club for Growth Ads?
As you've probably heard, the Club for Growth, a fairly extreme supply-side organization, launched ads against Olympia Snowe of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio. The ads are in response to the two senators saying they would not back, and would in fact actively oppose, a tax cut over $350b. Said Steven Moore, president of the Club for Growth, in what appears to be an ongoing bid to become the Harry Belafonte of the right: "These Franco-Republicans are as dependable as France was in taking down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein." The ads even picture Sen. Voinovich in front of a French flag (Snowe's ad may also have a French flag; I haven't seen it), scenes of victory in Iraq, and the like, before concluding with a message imploring Senator Voinovich to back Bush's plan.
And yesterday, the markets reacted favorably when Bush said "I think Alan Greenspan should get another term." While he was eventually won over to the initial Bush tax cut after initially appearing skeptical, as recently as February of this year Greenspan voiced concern over deficits (see here too) and tied deficits to higher interest rates. In mid-2002, Greenspan also expressed opposition to further tax cuts. Can we really have a Franco-Republican in charge of the nation's money supply?
AB
UPDATE: TBogg has a post up on the "still stupid" Greens and their inability to relent on the claim that Republicans and Democrats are just alike (apparently, their heads have remained up in the sky, or perhaps up some less pristine place, for the last 2.25 years). As the Salon story TBogg quotes indicates, the Greens plan to target Progressive Democrats like Barbara Boxer in an attempt to run them out of office make them run to the left. TBogg concludes that "It's gotta be the hemp. I blame it on the hemp....." What does this have to do with Steven Moore and the Club for Growth? Well, CFG does have one redeeming virtue: like the Greens, they target moderates in their own party for primary challenges, in this case attempting to make them tack hard right. Also like the Greens, CFG really only ends up hurting the causes they care about. There's only one possible implication for rational Greens: stop donating to the Green Party and start giving to the Club for Growth.
UPDATE: On Wednesday, Greenspan said, "The president and I have not discussed this, but I greatly appreciate his confidence. If President Bush nominates me and the Senate confirms me, I would have every intention of serving."
Has Anyone Read this Book?
In 1998, Chief Justice Rehnquist published a book, All the Laws But One, on the subject of civil liberties and the writ of habeas corpus. I hadn't heard of this book until I came across this:
Chief Justice Rehnquist talked about his latest book on U.S. Supreme Court history, All the Laws But One, a book about wartime civil liberties. In 1861, with the survival of the United States in jeopardy, Abraham Lincoln responded to the national threat by suspending the writ of habeas corpus, a traditional bulwark of individual liberty. Lincoln's decision reveals a conflict in the practice of American democracy, and in this absorbing new study the Chief Justice of the United States examines the inevitable clash between the demands of a successful war effort and the compelling need to protect civil liberties. Taking his title from Lincoln's speech before Congress defending his suspension of the writ, William H. Rehnquist relates how the exigencies of wartime have strained civil liberties. The decisions made by a wartime government are unlike those made in times of peace, and here the Chief Justice guides the reader through the various wartime policies--and the legal decisions that followed: the Lincoln administration's prosecution of civilians before military tribunals (as well as of the alleged conspirators in the Lincoln assassination); the criminalization in World War I of speech inciting resistance to the draft; the forcible relocation of Japanese-Americans in World War II; and the imposition for nearly three years of martial law in Hawaii. Each of these instances illustrates the Roman dictum Inter arma silent leges, "In time of war the laws are silent"; but as Rehnquist argues, that silence alternates with voices raised in defense of civil liberties.1998 being part of the Clinton Years, I'm curious as to what Rehnquist's veiws were at the time and how they compare to the PATRIOT act provisions. mailto: angrybearblog@yahoo.com. Is it worth a read?
AB
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Thinking About 2004?
Bush's advisors are. Here are some highlights:
"...Bush's advisers have drafted a re-election strategy built around staging the latest nominating convention in the party's history, allowing Mr. Bush to begin his formal campaign near the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks" [remember the use of photos of Bush from Air Force One after 9/11 in Republican fundraisers?] "...they are prepared to spend as much as $200 million".
"...For the next 18 months, Mr. Bush's explicitly political appearances will be limited almost exclusively to fund-raisers and tending-the-vineyard visits to important political states like New Hampshire."
"...Already, the president's travel schedule is emphasizing states that will prove pivotal in the 2004 election. He went to Missouri last week and is heading for Ohio this week. Since those trips are presented as official White House travel, they were not billed against Mr. Bush's re-election campaign."
"...the Republican National Committee, at the direction of the White House, has methodically distributed information intended to discredit his possible challengers and has set up a full-fledged research effort into their backgrounds". [Click here to read about this in action.]AB
Still Busy
With the real job, so posting remains light. In the meantime, reading Mac Diva's blog, I came across another new blog worth a look. While some may find it extreme or a little offensive, it is really funny: J.C. Christian's blog. I'd call it a lefty's attempt to blog like a Freeper would.
AB
Monday, April 21, 2003
The Daily Show
I've been meaning for some time to do a post about how sad it is that the most cutting analysis of politics, at least on TV, is on The Daily Show (Comedy Central), not Fox, MSNBC, or CNN. Alas, the Nation beat me to it. It's worth watching, particularly the first ten minutes, and since Comedy Central plays it about 7 times per day, it should be easy to catch. Link to The Nation story via TBogg.
AB
State Governments Saving Money
Flush with tobacco settlement cash, going on eight years of a rapidly growing economy, and in many cases with newly elected Republican governors, many states slashed taxes around 2000. The crisis is probably worst in California (Democrat), but Texas (R) and New York (R) are not doing much better. Missouri has adopted an innovative new measure:
...the governor of Missouri has ordered every third light bulb unscrewed to save money.And in Oklahoma,
teachers are doubling as janitors in Oklahoma.And in Oregon,
[teachers are] working two weeks without pay.And in Nebraska,
Nebraska has dismissed two of its three state diagnostic veterinarians.These state deficits are in at least one way more problematic than the federal deficit: states cannot run budget deficits from year to year. This means that if they slash taxes when times are good (as opposed to saving), then when times are bad they have to cut back on spending or increase taxes, which exacerbates the crises.
Some might argue that the need to help the states is another argument against Bush's tax cut, but it's not so clear cut. As a general argument against irresponsible tax cuts (say, ones that turn surpluses into $300 billion plus deficits), the states serve as a cautionary example. But making the case that the federal government should bail out the states instead of cutting taxes is somewhat risky because it dramatically reduces voters' incentives to demand fiscal responsibility from their state government.
If a state expects billions of dollars in federal aid whenever they cut taxes too much, then it is in that state's economic interest to slash taxes (benefiting its residents) and then await a federal bailout (paid for by all citizens). This incentive towards irresponsibility is particularly strong in the less populous states (which were, coincidentally?, mostly red in 2000). Consider Montana, population 902,195. If bailing out Montana cost the federal government $1 billion dollars, then Montanans would pay roughly 0.3% of that cost, with the other states paying the balance. When every state reasons along these lines, fiscal affairs can go badly pretty quickly (if this sounds like a Prisoner's Dilemma, it is). Even Californians only have to bear roughly 12% of the cost of any federal bailout of California, so the incentive is the same, but less strong than Montana's.
AB
UPDATE: Why is this happening? Is it really fiscal irresponsibility and tax-cut euphoria, as I suggest above? No, Matt Yglesisa found the real answer: economic malaise is the price of freedom (as oppose to, say, the price of tax cuts that are targeted at the wealthy and have limited stimulative effects).
Note to State Governments
Flush with tobacco settlement cash, going on eight years of a rapidly growing economy, and in many cases with newly elected Republican governors, many states slashed taxes around 2000. The crisis is probably worst in California (Democrat), but Texas (R) and New York (R) are not doing much better. Missouri has adopted an innovative new measure:
...the governor of Missouri has ordered every third light bulb unscrewed to save money. And in Oklahoma,
teachers are doubling as janitors in Oklahoma.And in Oregon,
[teachers are] working two weeks without pay.And in Nebraska,
Nebraska has dismissed two of its three state diagnostic veterinarians.These state deficits are in at least one way more problematic than the federal deficit: states cannot run budget deficits from year to year. This means that if they slash taxes when times are good (as opposed to saving), then when times are bad they have to cut back on spending or increase taxes, which exacerbates the crises.
Some might argue that the need to help the states is another argument against Bush's tax cut, but it's not so clear cut. As a general argument against irresponsible tax cuts (say, ones that turn surpluses into $300 billion plus deficits), the states serve as a cautionary example. But making the case that the federal government should bail out the states instead of cutting taxes is somewhat risky because it dramatically reduces voters' incentives to demand fiscal responsibility from their state government. If a state expects billions of dollars in federal aid whenever they cut taxes too much, then it is in that state's economic interest to slash taxes (benefiting its residents) and then await a federal bailout (paid for by all citizens). This incentive towards irresponsibility is particularly strong in the less populous states (which were, coincidentally?, mostly red in 2000). Consider Montana, population 902,195. If bailing out Montana cost the federal government $1 billion dollars, then Montanans would pay roughly 0.3% of that cost, with the other states paying the balance. When every state reasons along these lines, fiscal affairs can go badly pretty quickly (if this sounds like a Prisoner's Dilemma, it is). Even Californians only have to bear roughly 12% of the cost of any federal bailout of California, so the incentive is the same, but less strong than for Montana.
AB
Friday, April 18, 2003
Just because he's cranky and once had a tree fall on him doesn't mean he's wrong
It's Friday afternoon, which means it's the time the weekly What's New updates from Professor Robert Park, of the University of Maryland and the American Physical Society (you can subscribe to his free and entertaining weekly newsletter at the previous link) go out. This week, he reports on the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences report on the reliability of lie detectors. Remember Wen Ho Lee? His case led DOE to implement widespread lie detector testing. The problem is that lie detectors generate a lot of false positives, and are apparently fairly easy to thwart. As Park reports
DOE carefully reevaluated its policies [in light of the NAS report] and reissued them without change, arguing that a high rate of false positives must mean the threshold for detecting lies is very low. Therefore, the test must also nab a lot of true positives. Since that's the goal, the DOE position seems to be that the polygraph tests are working fine and false positives are just unavoidable collateral damage.But surely there must be a better way? Park has the answer:
WN therefore recommends replacing the polygraph with a coin toss. If a little collateral damage is not a problem, coins will catch fully half of all spies, a vast improvement over the polygraph, which has never caught even one. Moreover, coins are notoriously difficult to train, making them impervious to countermeasures.AB
While I'm in a Linking Mood
Read this CalPundit piece, where he talks about the lack of WMD discoveries in Iraq. Reasonable people might be tempted to say that it's a big country and these things take time. Kevin sagely points out that pre-war we said we knew they had WMD, which should imply that we have some idea where they are. In a postscript, he adds
And if anybody says that it used to be around but since September it's all been moved to Syria, I'm going to scream.
Warm up your voice and get some lozenges. For that matter, I think it's already been said.
AB
UPDATE: For a list of times and places Bush said that we knew Saddam had WMD, see Uggabugga here (link via Atrios).
See Digby
He's got a great post on the merits of General Clark on either position in the 2004 Democratic presidential ticket. Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing:
I believe that the best person to make the argument that Democrats are Americans too is someone who defies the phony liberal stereotype manufactured by GOP Inc. I think that many Americans could have their eyes opened to the true patriotism of the Democratic Party if that case were made by someone who spent more than 35 years maintaining American security. If that someone was so excellent that he began this career by graduating first in his class at West Point and ended it as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, the Democrats would have the perfect symbol of patriotic leadership as well as someone who has the demonstrated ability to maneuver the political shoals of the Pentagon and Washington without the taint of partisan politics.
I think Digby is roughly 100% correct here.
AB
Bechtel
So the NYT has a story on Bechtel winning the first major contract for construction in Iraq. Here's one paragraph, in it's entirety:
Administration officials said it was important to give contracts to American corporations, essentially leapfrogging over international groups, as a way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that the United States is a liberator bringing economic prosperity and democratic institutions to their nation.I hope, but somehow doubt, that this was a poorly executed paraphrase. In Bechtel's defense, this wasn't a no bid contract like the now nixed Haliburton deal, but the bidding was open only to US companies.
AB
If you look to your left
You'll see that Instapundit is out now (his role and handling of the latest Lott affair knocked significant points off my impression of him as smart and witty if somewhat misguided), while Mac Diva is in.
AB
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Permalinks FUBAR
The permalinks seem to go down a lot, so that if you follow a link here from another site, you don't go to the right place. The solution seems to be to republish the archives after every post, but that's a hassle. Anyone have any tips?
AB
More on Taxes
Matt Yglesias found the NYT article before I did. As he points out, the article basically says that under any model, whether traditional or "dynamically scored", the result of the Bush Economic plan is bad for the economy.
Conservatives renamed "Creationism" as "Intelligent Design". What is "Dynamic Scoring"? It's just the new name for the old supply-side theories. The dynamic part says that in computing the costs and benefits of a tax cut, you have to factor in the dynamic benefits of the stimulative effects that tax cuts will have on the economy (if this sound just like the old supply-side argument, that's because it is). In the old days, the supply-siders went a step further and said that the stimulative effects would more than compensate for the lost revenue, thereby reducing deficits--an argument popularized by an aptly surnamed economist, Arthur Laffer (scroll down). See this post to see the Laffer idea in action rather than theory.
Well and good, if tax cuts are stimulative (they are), what economist could disagree with factoring in those benefits? Not me. But if you are going to do a dynamic analysis, be sure it's complete: factor in the depressing effect that expectations of future deficits (and thus expectations of a combination of future tax increases, inflation, and higher real interest rates) have on the economy. To OMB's credit, the article makes it look like they did factor in both of these factors. Under no model, whether Keynesian or Rational Expectations (the Dynamically Scored ones) did the net effect come out positive.
If a tax cut, perhaps a small and targeted one, could be enacted without creating expectations of future deficits, that would in fact be good for the economy. I vaguely recall someone proposing something along these lines in 2000. But he was wearing earth tones and had robotic mannerisms so nobody listened.
AB
Lock-In and Number Portability
What's the big deal with number portability? Firms create ways to lock consumers in to their products all the time--loyalty programs such as frequent flyer miles are a common example. In the case of cell phones there are two or three sources of lock-in. The first is the physical phone itself: not all brands of phones work with all providers, so switching can involve the cost of a new phone. A second form of lock-in some cellular companies use is one-year contracts; under the terms of these contracts, if you cancel your service (e.g., switching to another company) then you owe your cellular provider $150 (Sprint PCS does this). The third, and probably the strongest, form of lock-in is the lack of number portability. This is particularly strong for business users, where the costs of changing a phone number include new cards and more importantly, potentially lost sales. Note that contracts and free phones are a type of lock-in that expires (at the end of the contract or when the phone breaks/gets lost/is too obsolete), but the non-portable number is a permanent lock-in.
At the same time, there are many cellular firms and the industry seems fiercely competitive. Yet once you have signed on with a given company, they have some monopoly-like power over you (even though they lacked such power before you signed on). How does this work out for consumers? In lock-in markets, most of the competition for consumers occurs up-front. Basically, consumers anticipate that once they choose a particular firm it will be costly for them to switch. So if customers end up a bit unhappy with the service and they call, the attitude of the company will be along the lines of What are you gonna do? Switch? I don't think so. Still, the industry is competitive, meaning that firms enter until the profits are driven down to the level where the firms on average earn a normal rate of return on capital.
If each firm has market power over its customers, what drives the profits down? The firms know and the customers know that post-sale service won't be great, and there's not much firms can do to credibly committ to excellent post-sale service because everybody knows their consumers are locked-in. They could try to develop a great reputation, but that is costly and takes time, and the temptation to cut back on service, reduce price cuts (due to falling technology costs), or spend less on infrastructure will always be there, because doing those things won't lead the firm's customers to leave in mass, as would occur in industries without lock-in. So in markets like these, all the action centers around getting the customer, not keeping the customer, which is somewhat automatic. So the competition plays out in the form of up-front goodies: X months free or other special introductory price plans, a free or heavily subsidized phone, a bunch of frequent flyer miles, and so on.
So consumers still benefit from competition in markets with lock-in, but it comes in a big payment up front to compensate consumers for anticipate future crappy service. This is at least better than monopoly markets, where you get crappy service and no up-front goodies (think of your local phone company), bot over the long run, competition without lock-in is beter. First note that if lock-in did not exist, you would lose all or most of the up front goodies--why would companies give you something valuable to become a customer today when you can costlessly keep the stuff and switch tomorrow? What would you get in exchange for this? Faster price decreases, better-staffed call centers, probably more cell towers, and most importantly in my opinion, faster innovation.
Why faster innovation? When all the competition is up-front, the firms just match each others' up-front goodies, adding minor twists. The day-to-day pressure that a major innovation by a rival could steal 50% of your customers in a matter of months just is not there in the same way it is in competitive markets without lock-in. So on balance, when lock-in is reduced, firms are neither helped nor harmed as they earn a normal rate of profit either way--they spend less on bribing consumers with up front benefits but prices are lower and/or service quality is higher. Consumers appear to get about the same benefit--less up front and more over time. But with lock-in, most consumers are unhappy most of the time; they are only happy when they are choosing a provider from scratch. Without lock-in, most consumers are happy most of the time, which seems like a good thing. Add in the fact that the dynamic competitive pressures, while they do exist even with lock-in, are much stronger without lock-in. The result would be faster innovation, so the policy scales are tipped well in favor of local number portability. Everything I've seen on the subject says that the costs to the companies are minimal, so there really is no compelling reason not to do it.
AB
P.S. If this is true then why are the firms so opposed? It's mostly due to management risk-aversion.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
See CalPundit
My last post on the Tax Cuts is getting (for this site) a fair amound of discussion. Kevin Drum uses an inane Weekly Standard piece to frame his discussion of Republicans, taxes, and income inequality. And, Kevin includes a must-see graph that you should print out and keep in your pocket for future discussions with supply-siders and trickle-downers. Here's another graph you can keep in your other pocket--make sure to write "Clinton" on the graph and draw a line pointing to the green bars (this graph goes more to the "lower taxes equal higher revenue" Laffer-inspired crowd, but these are basically the same people as the supply-siders and trickle-downers):
AB
More on this Soon
In an ongoing effort to make me angry, the cellular providers are once again trying to stop phone number portability.
AB
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
More Tax Cuts
Some say that repeatedly doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome each time is the height of folly. Apparently, when it comes to the economy, the administration wants to do just this. If the first tax cut did nothing for the economy, then the solution must be...more tax cuts! And trust me, if there were a day of the year for me to be sympathetic to tax cuts, today is the day.
The CNN story says that Bush claims his tax cut would "create 1.4 million new jobs by the end of 2004", and quotes him saying "We need tax relief totaling at least $550 billion to make sure our economy grows". The election will be just in time to either call Bush on this claim, or reward him for his economic prescience. The version of the tax cut wandering around the Senate is for just $350 billion over ten years. All this while the 2004 projected deficit--without any accounting of war costs--is $300 billion.
Note that dividend tax cuts may have long run beneficial effects (see the links at the top of the sidebar), but they are certainly not a prescription for fiscal stimulus. In fact, dividend tax cuts are pro-cyclical. When times are good and corporate profits are high, low dividend taxes effectively put more money in the hands of investors. During a recession, when corporate profits are low, companies pay little or no dividends. So a dividend tax cut does very little to put more money in the hands of consumers qua investors during a recession. For that matter, eliminating the estate tax doesn't do much to prop up spending during a recession either.
AB
Monday, April 14, 2003
Angry Bear Milestone
I noticed that I am getting some traffic from the FreeRepublic.com (the website for those with political orientations somewhere between Andrew Sullivan and the John Birch Society). That's right, I got my first complaints about me and my blog in Free Republic posts. But hey, any publicity is good publicity. Here's the freeper's take on Angry Bear:
Oh man, check out what I came across on a random google...found another very very angry and verbose useful idiot blogging away -- if ya get bored, get your barf bag ready and look at www.angrybear.blogspot.com (a bear of VERY little brain and EVERYTHING seems to bother him, I should dig on this guy a little :p). Typical tripe.
I don't mind the "EVERYTHING seems to bother him" part, but "VERY little brain?". That's just not nice.
AB
Not to Make Light of a Serious Incident
I wonder if the authors of the smoking study in Helena, Montana factored in this hidden cost of the smoking ban--more fights.
Googling around, I still can't find much in the way of news stories about researchers questioning the findings of the study, which is odd since the immediate 50% reduction is so implausible on its face. I did find a few city councils that are considering a ban and cite the study (e.g., here and here).
Also, Montana's governor, Judy Martz, is apparently about to sign a ban on smoking bans:
"Republican Gov. Judy Martz said she will sign the bill because it protects property rights of businesses and because of strong bipartisan support in the state Legislature."
I happen to think both sides are wrong (even though they have the opposite positions!). I've long puzzled over why smoking bans or smoking-bans-bans are necessary; it really seems like the market should take care of an issue like this. Based on personal experience, there are many people out there who really can't tolerate smoke and avoid bars for that very reason. If there is in fact more than a trivial number of such people--and the support for smoking bans suggests there are--then it should be profitable to open and promote a No-Smoking Bar, regardless of local laws. How many such bars should there be? Well if one bar converted to non-smoking and it were profitable, then others would copy it. This would continue until the profits of running a non-smoking bar were about the same as those from a smoking bar. Then everyone could go to the bar that makes them happy and there's no need for the government to be involved. If a non-smoking bar simply isn't profitable, then it's a clear sign that non-smoking bars are not something the public values, and therefore the government probably has more important things to deal with. I really sound like a conservative right now. And, while I advocate for the free market, Montana's conservative governor is about to sign a law that takes away local authority to pass smoking laws.
AB
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Tapper on Civil Liberties
Earlier, regarding civil liberties, I said "Also on the hopeful side, there is the fact that civil rights, when and only when it comes to non- intrusive government, is probably the only common ground between most of the left and much of the right. Picture the ACLU and the NRA working together."
Jake Tapper has a Salon piece on this very subject: Conservative constitutional catfight! Right-wing activists team up with the left-wing ACLU to bash the PATRIOT Act. The Justice Department is not amused.":
With leaders like Daschle on the left, Norquist feels compelled to take up the fight he says he previously "always sort of assumed the ACLU and the liberals would take care of. I'm not sure ... we can count on our left-of-center friends."I enjoyed Grover Norquist's Hillary Test: "Someday Hillary Clinton's going to be attorney general and I hope conservatives keep that in mind."There seems to be agreement on both sides of the aisle on that point. So the result was an ACLU forum Thursday billed as the "first time organizations from the left and right in Washington have come together publicly to discuss their growing common ground on civil liberties in the post-9/11 world," featuring not only Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; but three other notable conservatives as well: David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union; Lori Waters, executive director of the conservative Eagle Forum; and outspoken former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a 1998 House impeachment manager. The four were invited by Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office...
AB
Friday, April 11, 2003
More on Protests
Still wondering what protesters will do this weekend. I think that, both to maintain consistency and for the good of the Iraqi people, the slogan of peace protesters should change to "US stay in Iraq". For that matter, this should be the slogan of most people. In Afghanistan, we basically (1) overthrew the Taliban (good), (2) installed a near puppet (not necessarily bad), (3) gave the puppet protection and support in the capital and left the countryside wide open for the warlods, and (4) for the most part left. Along the way, President Bush forget to put funding for reconstruction of Afghanisan into his budet.
Following this pattern in Iraq seems likely to lead to a three-way civil war, which in turn seems likely to lead to Kurds declaring independence. Kurdish independence is fine in principle, but Turkey may then invade. Hopefully, Turkey's membership in NATO and desire to join the EU would forestall that last step.
AB
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Still busy
Posting will remain light through the weekend, as I'm currently travelling. I'm in DC through the weekend. There is a war protest scheduled for this weekend (that's not why I'm here), but now I wonder if the protest will still be on and if so, what they will protest. "US out of Iraq" isn't quite as catchy now as it was a week or two ago.
AB
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Good News
The war appears to be rapidly nearing an end, and the casualties appear modest, which is good. It's unclear whether this vindicates the Rumsfeld plan, or simply reflects the inevitable. Now on to restoring relations between the U.S. and Europe, not to mention the U.S. and the Arab world. (Or is it "now on to Syria"?)
AB
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Syria
A confession...due to limited options I do listen to Rush in my car. Since I live close to work, this means I listen in 5-10 minute bits, which is about all I can handle. What did I hear today? He was saying that he would be happy to see Syria as the next target and would be happy to see four bunker-busting bombs hit President Bashar Assad. I had a bit on this subject earlier. Also see Dave Neiwert on Rush's role in lending legitimacy, at least among the mainstream right, to what would otherwise be pretty radical ideas.
AB
Monday, April 07, 2003
People get the government they deserve
So by now you've probably read somewhere about Mike Hawash, the U.S. citizen and Intel engineer, being held on secret charges, at a secret location, without access to council. Talkleft is definitely the place to go for news and commentary on this issue (for example, this). This is happening under the auspices of the first PATRIOT act; things will go downhill more swiftly should PATRIOT II pass. PATRIOT I doesn't allow secret arrests of citizens, so Mike Hawash's detention is probably illegal (and would likely be unconstitutional even should PATRIOT II pass--legalizing secret arrests should require a constitutional ammendment, not an acquiescent congress).
Secret arrests are basically a suspension, or perhaps an overriding, of the writ of habeas corpus (the right to contest detention in front of a court of law; historically, for civilians this means a non-military court of law). There's a nice summary of the right to habeas corpus petitions at The 'Lectric Law Library. Here's the important quote:
In Brown v. Vasquez, 952 F.2d 1164, 1166 (9th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 112 S.Ct. 1778 (1992), the court observed that the Supreme Court has "recognized the fact that`[t]he writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.' Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 290-91 (1969). "Translated into plain English, this says
In a 1991 case, Brown v. Vasques, the 9th Circuit upheld the right to petition courts for release. In doing so, the 9th Circuit quoted from a 1969 Supreme Court case, Harris v. Nelson in which the Supreme Court wrote that "[t]he writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." In 1991, the Supreme Court refused to accept an appeal of the 9th Circuit's Brown v. Vasques decision.So, yes, secret arrests are scary indeed. For those more swayed by the heart than by reason, here are Hawash's two children:
What brought all this to mind for me? I was checking out a site, it's blog-like but not exactly a blog, called Polity Net. There, I found this quote:
"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
And then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
-- Pastor Niemoeller, arrested by the Nazis during World War II
There's more on this quote at PolityNet, read the whole thing. Clearly, we're nowhere near there yet, but for those fond of slipery-slope arguments, it's food for thought. I suppose the good news is that the Supreme Court members in 1991 were Rehnquist, White, Kennedy, Scalia, Souter, Blackmun, Marshall, O'Connor, and Stevens. So, insofar as the 1991 court tacitly (by denying cert) supported the right to a trial, they are likely to again do so should a case arise. Basically, White, Blackmun and Marshall are out while Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer are in--roughly a wash. Also on the hopeful side, there is the fact that civil rights, when and only when it comes to non-intrusive government, is probably the only common ground between most of the left and much of the right. Picture the ACLU and the NRA working together.
AB
Russert, Then and Now
I came across this statement by Meet the Press's Tim Russert, from a December 1997 appearance he made on CSPAN's Booknotes. Here's Russert talking about when he started at MTP in 1991:
The first call I made when I became moderator [was to Lawrence Spivak, the founder of Meet the Press]. He invited me to lunch. I said, "What's the mission of Meet the Press? What do you do each and every Sunday? He said, "That's simple. You learn everything you can about your guest and his or her positions, and take the other side. If you do that each and every Sunday, you'll demonstrate the requisite objectivity and balance and deference of guests, and no one will complain, and you'll have a long and illustrious career.
Think of Russert over the last five years, and Russert's work leading up to, during, and after the 2000 Campaign. Did he forget his mission? (For a Russert refresher, you know what to do, just click here).
Note that this post isn't directed at Tim Russert's war-time show. I certainly don't suggest or endorse Russert having Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace on the show and then "taking the other side".
But when the war is over and Campaign 2004 looms large, let's hope Russert remembers that his mission includes research, skepticism towards both those in power and those seeking power, and that the mission extends well beyond talking about blow jobs when there is an election in progress. (Yes, this is an exaggeration, but you get the point).
AB
Sunday, April 06, 2003
How to Weight Links?
Upon reflection, the post turned out a bit boring and I almost didn't post it. But a promise is a promise. Click here if you're excited by the issue of weighting links.
AB
Don't read too much into this...
...Comedy Central is running an all-Sandler Saturday Night Live Marathon. At this very moment, they are playing an episode hosted by Heston, and the skit is The President is Illiterate. The opening bit:
"Wanna have some fun?"..."When President Dexter [Heston] gets here, let's tell him this is Senator Powell's Education Bill"Hilarity ensues.
"Oh come on, Ted. This is a menu from a Chinese restaurant."
AB
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Links Updated
Welcome to Gary Hart, Mad Prophet, Punning Pundit, India West, and Trivial Pursuits. All are good, but I particularly recommend the last two.
AB
UPDATE: I'm about half way to my second cell (to see my ranking, it's easiest to do a "ctrl-f" and search for "angry bear"), keep the links coming! Tomorrow, I'll talk about how an economist might improve on the ranking system that N.Z Bear devised.
Shorter John Kerry
In this case it's shortened so that more people will read it, not because the full text is long and rambling. Go read the whole thing. The elipses and emphasis are mine
April 5, 2003 | I don't think it gets better in public life, and certainly not in mine, than to be introduced by my brother, Max Cleland…when I think about Max Cleland saying something about Hemingway and grace under pressure as he just did I think all of you should join me in sharing the sense that this man, who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam for this country, deserves better than what the Republican Party gave him in the last election here in Georgia…every day in the course of my race for the presidency of the United States I will be motivated -- and I ask you to help me be motivated -- to hold them accountable for what they did to Max Cleland.Of course, Kerry would be running against George Bush, not Tom DeLay, in 2004.…But let me just share today something I feel very strongly about, because today I had the pleasure of having Tom DeLay, Denny Hastert, and a score of other Republicans come out of the woodwork to attack me for speaking out regarding the direction of our country when I spoke up in New Hampshire yesterday.
I think that Max who served with me and many who have served share with me this belief: I don't need any lessons in patriotism or caring about America from the likes of Tom DeLay and the right wing, whose motivations can be questioned...Tom DeLay, hear me loud and clear: I speak out for America, not for politics, and as long as I have air in my lungs I will continue to speak my mind.
…We made a sacred bond with these men and women when we asked them to risk their lives for their country. And this administration has failed to hold up its side of the bargain. Just as we wouldn't think of sending our military into battle without the uniforms and equipment they need, we shouldn't neglect to care for our troops and their families before, during, and after the war. Yet, 20 percent of our Reservists and their families don't have healthcare coverage.
And at the same time that American soldiers are engaged in battle at home, this administration is proposing substantial cuts in federal school aid to children of military families. As we learned the hard way after Vietnam, our duty to our troops doesn't end when the battle is won. Those that put their lives on the line have earned a lifetime of support. And America must live up to that commitment.
Yet, two months ago, this administration announced it would suspend enrollment in the healthcare system of at least 160,000 qualified veterans. And now they want to deny another 230,000 veterans the healthcare they deserve.
…And I say to Tom DeLay, one thing I know about America is that in the face of war there are things more important than cutting taxes and it is wrong to reward the wealthiest Americans before we fulfill our solemn obligations to those that have served.
Like others, I have this sort of visceral Dukakis reaction to the idea of another Massachusetts "liberal" atop the ticket. But I do like to see speeches like this, and who knows, I could even grow to like John Kerry. Put Kerry and Clark on a ticket together (the veteran and a general against the AWOL pilot and never-served Cheney) and the Republicans will have something to fear.
AB
Friday, April 04, 2003
Smoking Ban Update
Some good comments on my earlier smoking ban post. So I did a bit of Googling and I found this Reason article (Reason is a Libertarian/Objectivist magazine). The Reason article does a good job of showing why this result makes no sense. For example,
The American Heart Association attributes 35,000 heart disease deaths a year, about 5 percent of the total, to secondhand smoke. It seems reasonable to assume that the proportion would be similar for heart attacks, fatal or not. So even if a city completely eliminated secondhand smoke (which Helena's ban did not do, since it did not apply to smoking at home), how could that possibly cut heart attacks in half?"
If you want the details of the methodology the doctors used, the Reason article also links to the authors' Power Point slides.
AB
Scary
Rumsfeld's statements on Iran and Syria are a few days old now, but in case you missed them, here's one:
"These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We consider such trafficking as hostile acts, and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments," Rumsfeld said.
And there are others--Condoleezza Rice and John Bolton (undersecretary of state for arms control)--in the administration intimating that Iran is next.
Now former CIA chief James Woolsey says we're at the start of World War IV (The Cold War was WWIII in his view). According to CNN's story (I can't find the transcript of the speech) Woolsey apparently argues that we're actually at war against three countries: Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Here's a cheeful quote from Woolsey:
"This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us. Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War."Here is his message for recalcitrant regimes:
"We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you -- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal family -- most fear: We're on the side of your own people."So maybe the order is Iraq, then Iran and Syria, then Egypt, and then Saudi Arabia. The problem is that If we use our military might to install true democracy in all of these countries, who do you think their citizens will then elect? The neocons say that in a surge of freedom and gratitude, they will elect pro-Western leaders. But it could just as easily go the other way--countries whose citizens already dislike the US may be even more anti-West after Woolsey's WWIV and, being democracies, elect leaders who act in ways consistent with the (anti-American) will of the people. Are we then prepared to accept the actions of those democracies when they go against US interests? The reactions in the US to recent actions by Turkey, France, Germany, and to a lesser extent, Canada and Mexico, suggest not.
AB
UPDATE: Matt's got a bit on this too.
You Almost Have to Admire...
...such single-minded (or simple-minded?) devotion:
"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, blithely told CongressDaily.
From a NY Times editorial yesterday.
AB
For the "more important" category, might I suggest winning? Fewer casualties? Paying for the war?
Thursday, April 03, 2003
You must take a look at this picture.
As Digby would say, this picture is "Another example of why homeschooling by idiots is a very bad idea".
I could make some point about how it's logically incorrect to take the dumbest or most extreme member of a group and project their idiocy onto the entire group. But if I did that, Republicans wouldn't be able to use Noam Chomsky to attack all Democrats. No, it must be the case that because this guy is a moron, we can safely conclude that all pro-war protesters are idiots.
AB
UPDATE. Perhaps his "Get A Brain! Morans" poster was really a bold progressive statement against all the Jim Moran's of the world. As you may recall, in early March, Representative Jim Moran insinuated that Jews--Elders of Zion??--were directing the war on Iraq. Moran's a Democrat from Virginia. See, we've got idiots, too. Just not nearly as many.
More Bad News
Just yesterday, I said that unemployment increases tend to follow slowdowns in the manufacturing sector. Now today, the new unemployment figures are out and they are worse than expected (coming in at 445,000 instead of the anticipated 410,000 new jobless claims). In this case, these numbers are related to past slowness in the manufacturing sector; what yesterday's news about drops in orders for both durable and non-durable goods means is that there's likely more bad unemployment news to come.
Both pieces of news combine to make an interest rate cut by the Fed, perhaps even an inter-session cut, much more likely. But I'm not sure that more cuts will do much. Interest rates are already very low by historical standards--business don't need to invest when they are not using, and do not expect to soon use, current capacity. That leaves the consumer sector, where interest rates primarily affect housing and car purchases. On Monday, General Motors rolled out 0% financing on most models, and Ford also stepped up its incentives. Others are likely to follow. But can this have a big effect? Zero-percent and other very attractive terms have been around for some time now, so these new deals might be expected to keep the industry about where it has been for the last two years, but are unlikely to provide a big lift.
And the same is true for housing: interest rates have been low for so long that the number of households in the market for a new house is unlikely to jump substantially in response to a mortgage rate decrease (the refinance business would benefit, however). Moreover, a Fed rate cut may not even affect mortgage rates, as they are driven in large part by expectations of future inflation. What makes people expect future inflation? Large federal deficits are one important factor.
AB
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
If it Sounds to Good to be True
Then it probably is. Kevin Drum (CalPundit) points to a CNN story, Study: Smoking ban cuts heart attacks; Trend shows heart attacks down by half. Here's the big quote from the story:
Now, about eight months after Dr. Richard Sargent first noticed the trend, both doctors are saying their data shows heart attacks in Helena fell by more than half last summer after voters passed the ban.
Clearly, cutting heart attacks in half would be a tremendous health benefit, both in terms of quality of life, length of life, and health care expenditures. But of course there's a catch: the authors of the study were also long-time backers of the smoking band in Helena. Kevin points out that the CNN story says that Helena, population 26,000, may be too small a sample from which to draw definitive conclusions. And the CNN story goes on to quote the author of the study as saying "This is a tiny, little community in the middle of nowhere. This study needs to be replicated in New York City."
Kevin points out that we don't need to wait:
But why New York? California has had a statewide indoor smoking ban for years, so there ought to be plenty of data available. And since it's statewide, you don't have to worry about the possibility that smokers all just "went outside city limits" to light up.
As it turns out, California data are readily available on the web. I thought that if the result were true, economists would have already written papers on the subject and if not then I should probably do so. So I took a quick look and found that there was no noticeable change in California's rate of heart attacks after the smoking ban started:
Year | Hospital Discharges for | Hospital Discharges for |
1997 | 85,819 | 2.33% |
1998 | 91,008 | 2.44% |
1999 | 89,144 | 2.36% |
The ban in California took effect on January 1, 1998, so if the results from Montana are credible then there should surely be an effect in California in 1998, but there were actually a bit over 5,000 more hospital admissions for heart attacks in 1998 than 1997. Is some of that population growth? Perhaps, but heart attacks as a percentage of hospital admissions also increased in 1998 (note: a death counts as a "discharge", so discharges are essentially equivalent to admissions). California heart attacks fell from 1998 to 1999, but not back to their 1997 (pre-ban) levels--measured either in the number of attacks or attacks as a percentage of discharges.
So what could account for the Helena result? It may simply not be true. Alternatively, the ban lasted from June to December, so it may be that heart attacks are historically lower in that period for some reason. To check this, the doctors should compare the June-December heart attack rate in 2002 to the rate for the same period in 2001. Another story: It might be the result of random statistical variation. Or maybe a new Bally's opened. But, at least in California, there was no pronounced effect on heart attacks following the smoking ban.
On the other hand, if you smoke you should quit anyway.
AB
UPDATE: The Montana story is spreading fast (Google News finds 115 relevant hits). The numbers were actually first released yesterday (Tuesday, 4/1/2003), a somewhat suspicious (or perhaps inauspicious) release date for such "big" news.
This is Bad Economic News
Orders for durable goods -- items such as cars and appliances meant to last three or more years -- fell 1.6 percent, a bigger fall than the previously reported 1.2 percent drop...Orders in almost all major categories of manufactured goods were down. Non-durable orders were also down, falling 1.4 percent, their largest decline since February 2002, the department said.Unfortunately, unemployment increases tend to follow decreases in any (or in this case, all) of these numbers. With more unemployment and less optimistic expectations as a result of these numbers, it is rational for firms to further scale back their orders, leading to further unemployment and worsened expectations... It's the type of situation where short-term stimulus (either from fiscal or monetary policy) is usually called for, especially with inflation not an issue. Instead, we have a tax plan that (1) skews the benefits upward, (2) is phased in over time, and (3) is not alleged even by its supporters to be stimulative in the short run (except perhaps insofar as it improves expectations of lifetime income--the permanent income hypothesis).
AB
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
More Rumsfeld, Meyers, and "The Plan"
Rumsfeld and Meyers had a press conference today (transcript here).
AB
In Honor of Mr. Cheney Today
There's this from the Press Gaggle:
Q. So you think that his [Vice President Cheney] prediction could still pan out that the Iraqis wouldn't fight?AB
MR. FLEISCHER: I assure you, the Vice President does not say things lightly. So when the Vice President says something like that, he has good reason to say it and to think it and, therefore, to say it.
25 Mar. 03
It's sufficiently appropriate for the current times that I'll lift it entirely from Dave:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." [emphasis mine]
Theodore Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 149. May 7, 1918.
Yes, this is from Teddy "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" Roosevelt. Based on this, Roosevelt would clearly argue that those who are against people exercising their right to free speech and their right to criticize U.S. policy are "base", "servile", "unpatriotic and servile", and "morally treasonable to the American public". Using the logic heard often on talk radio and righty blogs, this anti-American behavior gives aid and comfort to the enemy and makes those who practice it objectively pro-Saddam.
AB
And, while we're mentioning Dave Neiwert, when you have free time and are mentally prepared to be a little bit frightened, make sure to read his excellent 12 part series on "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism". If you're not in a hurry, it will be easier to read when he finishes compiling all the posts into a single pdf.
Controversy becoming more public
The story of the Military Brass vs. Rumsfeld and the Neocons has been getting a lot of play lately. In Europe, both the very liberal Guardian and the center-right Financial Times had daily stories alleging that the troops and commanders were unhappy over the limited deployment of ground troops. Today's New York Times has a story that must really make Rove--not to mention Defense Secretary Rumsfeld--unhappy. Here are some quotations:
Of course, Gen. Shinseki is the Army Chief of Staff, and under the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz model of war, the Army will play a less crucial role. So some of this debate may be traditional turf battles. On this subject, it's worth noting that Rumsfeld spent 35 years in the Navy (4 years active, 31 reserve). Wolfowitz, though he has extensive experience in defense policy, apparently never served in the armed forces.
- Long-simmering tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army commanders have erupted in a series of complaints from officers on the Iraqi battlefield that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it.
- [there are] questions [from troops in Iraq] that challenge not only the Rumsfeld design for this war but also his broader approach to transforming the military.
- Even some of Mr. Rumsfeld's advisers now acknowledge that they misjudged the scope and intensity of resistance from Iraqi paramilitaries in the south, and forced commanders to divert troops already stretched thin to protect supply convoys and root out Hussein loyalists in Basra, Nasiriya and Najaf.
- General Shinseki, who commanded the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia, said several hundred thousand troops could be needed [for the post-war occupation]..."Wildly off the mark," was how Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, dismissed the Army chief's comments. Mr. Rumsfeld was a bit more circumspect in his criticism, saying that the general had a right to his opinion, but that this one would be proven wrong.
- General Nash, currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, added, "It is extremely unfortunate that he [Gen. Shinseki] has not had more influence on the war planning and the allocation of forces."
AB
UPDATE: This today from Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Meyers: "It is not helpful to have those kind of comments [comments that "the plan" is a bad one" come out when we've got troops in combat, because, first of all, they're false, they're absolutely wrong, they bear no resemblance to the truth, and it's just harmful to our troops that are out there fighting very bravely, very courageously". Meyers entered the Air Force in 1965. What I still haven't seen is a senior Army official defending the plan. (Note: I think it's still too early to state that the plan is good or bad).
Monday, March 31, 2003
Gary Hart Has a Blog
It looks like Hart is posting on alternate days. Here's a sample:
I've been meeting with students and activists in Durham, Manchester, Hanover, Boston, Amherst, and New Haven and I have been hearing some common themes...Heidi Brooks, a business school student, asked me "how will we know when the war is won?" We'll know the war is won when we withdraw the last of the American forces from the region.This link is not an endorsement of Hart (I don't think he can win, which is perhaps unfortunate since Hart has--or should have--substantial credibility on the subject of anti-terrorism). As far as I can tell, the principle flaw with Hart's blog is the blogroll, which is at least one link short. It would be nice if more of the field added blogs, assuming they are not vacous and ghost-written statements, press releases disguised as blogs. Just for fun, ponder briefly what blogs by G. W. Bush and John McCain would have looked like in the spring of 2000 (say, during the South Carolina primary); even better, consider Gore and Bush blogs between the 2000 election and the final Supreme Court ruling.
AB
P.S. Taking cheap shots might be viewed by some as somehow giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy so I probably shouldn't, but I try as I might I can't stop myself from suggesting www.hungrycaterpillar.blogspot.com [for Bush's campaign blog].
Angry Bear Back from Vacation
I guess the headline says it all. Europe was great and the people were friendly to Americans--at least to us. Unfortunately, I didn't talk much to the locals about war views. I guess I wasn't real anxious to approach people and say "Hi, I'm American, what do you think about the war?" Here's one exchange, which occurred in a pool hall in Brussels:
European: You're American? How do you feel about the war?Then we played snooker. AB won.
AB: We're against, she ("Honey Bear"?) is entirely, and I am against without UN and NATO being on board. [pause]...I suppose you're against?
European: Why? Because I'm Muslim?
AB: No, because you're European.
European: Yes, I'm against.
More interesting were the conversations with Americans upon my return. Here's an unfortunately typical exchange:
American: How was your trip?
AB: I had a great time.
American: Good. Were they mean to you because you are an American?
AB: No, they were quite nice, even the French.
American: You spent money in France?
AB: Yes, lots.
American: I hate the French.
AB: Don't you see the contradiction in supporting a "war for democracy and freedom" while hating countries that are actual democracies when the leaders of those countries follow a course that reflects the will of 80 to 90 percent of their citizens?
American: I hate the French.
AB: Another beer, please.
In any event, I have to catch up on (1) real work, (2) the news, and (3) my favorite bloggers. Normal posting should resume tomorrow.
AB
P.S. In the meantime, there's this for your consideration: Is this the second dip? Recent economic numbers show contraction has already begun.
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