The Climate Debate: A Couple Of Approaches

TW: Obviously this is over-simplified but in my view reflective of the opposing approaches to climate change debate. Who are you going to believe?

From Paul Krugman at NYT:


From Washington Monthly:
"National Review's Victor Davis Hanson [TW: VDH is a very conservative columnist and historian] explained his rationale yesterday for denying evidence of global warming.


'I just spent a few days in the Sierra in May during freezing cold temperatures and snow; a week ago it was quite cool and raining in New York; each time I have passed through Phoenix this spring it seemed unseasonably cool; and just gave a talk on the Russian River and about froze. Meanwhile the grapes look about ten days behind due to unseasonably cool temperatures. Any empiricist would be worried, as Newsweek once was, about global cooling. Will the planet boil, if we slow down a bit, review the science and dissenting views, and consider the wisdom in a recession of allotting nearly a trillion dollars to changing our very way of life (while the Chinese absorb market share)?'

It's items like these that help explain why our political discourse is so routinely stunted. If the left and right disagreed on how best to address policy challenges, that would at least open the door to constructive dialog. But we're still stuck in a political environment in which prominent conservative voices at high-profile conservative outlets a) don't recognize the difference between climate and weather; b) find meaningless anecdotes compelling evidence of global trends; and c) are entirely comfortable delaying necessary solutions while an already-completed debate continues."

This Week In 1930

TW: The 1930 WSJ headlines are too ironic to only dip into once. We have a new feature for Saturdays for awhile at least- "This Week In 1930". The thing that impresses me most is how the rhetoric has barely changed over the past 80 years.

From June 24, 1930-
"J. Westerfield of the NY Stock Exchange lectures civics clubs of Yonkers on the causes of the current business recession. Says the effort to attribute it to any single cause is superficial; criticizes sanguine statements of “new era” economists that “the vast amount of reliable statistical information had practically abolished the old-time evils of large inventories and overproduction.” Concludes that an illusion grew popular that “paper profits in ... quoted values for real estate, commodities, securities, and other forms of property increased fortunes and thereby spending power.”

Current speculative sentiment is bearish, but the conditions are there for a strong bull market in the future. While commodity price decline is serious, many are selling for record lows or below cost of production, which can't continue forever. Inventories are low. Wages have not gone down with deflation, leaving workers with more buying power. Businesses generally have good balance sheets and are operating efficiently; those that need to borrow can do so cheaply.

From Wednesday June 25th
"Oregon voters in November will decide on a Constitutional amendment outlawing manufacture, sale, or possession of cigarettes."

From Thursday June 26th
"Washington officials will be looking carefully at whether the record-low 2.5% discount rate will revive business. So far easy money hasn't affected the credit picture much, with demand for commercial credit continuing down. However, the lower rates and longer duration now in effect should give a fairer test. Also hoped that easy credit together with lower commodity prices will encourage businesses to restock."

"Conventional wisdom is that stock market moves anticipate business conditions, so stocks should go up soon if predictions of a fall improvement in business are true. Skeptics note that the market kept moving up last fall even though business started turning down in July. "

Jim Demint And Why the Republicans Are Poseurs On Health Care

TW: I frequently point out the lack of solutions from the Republicans on issues such as health care. They are good at complaining but not so much at solving. So here is an attempt from a Republican at health care reform. A taste (kinda) great, less (very much so) filling effort to say the least.

Sen. Demint of SC suggest giving vouchers to Americans for use in buying health care. At a superficial level it sounds like a "free market" type action instead of perfidious government led reform. The concept breaks down rapidly. Furthermore it is highly cynical as Demint claims it would not raise the deficit, but he "achieves" that goal by gutting the primary government measure to avoid GD 2.0 (TARP). So as the piece points out, it does not raise the deficit because TARP has already been funded (not to mention if one guts the primary measure against GD 2.0, perhaps the odds of GD 2.0 go up).

The fundamental challenge with vouchers is that it basically channels more money into health care with no measures to contain costs. Classic economics tells one that if you push more money into a good (think of oil prices) without increasing supply or limiting costs increases, all one gets is inflation. Demint's plan does not nothing to address folks with pre-existing conditions or merely sub-optimal demographics (i.e. being say 50 instead of 20 years old).

This is a nice example of a simple-minded "free market" approach to a market that is neither "free" nor normal.

From Slate:
"...The plan, basically, is for the federal government to give out annual vouchers to Americans which they can spend on any health care insurance offering they want: $2000 dollars for individuals, and up to $5000 for families.

Under the Health Care Freedom Plan, Americans would be able to keep the care they have now, but if they are uninsured or unhappy with their current plan, they could access a voucher to purchase health insurance anywhere in the country.

...And at no cost to the taxpayer!...

How, you might wonder, could the U.S. government offer a $5000 health care voucher to every uninsured American family without adding a dime to the deficit? The answer is brilliant: Pay for the program with TARP money! Yes, "The Health Care Freedom Plan" is paid for by requiring banks to pay back all their TARP money within five years, and then use that money for the vouchers.

Frankly, I am in awe. Nothing will be added to the deficit because we will be re-using money that was added to the deficit last September.

So what happens when TARP runs out? How would succeeding allocations of vouchers be funded? There's not a whisper of an answer to that question in the DeMint press release or summary.

Two other questions.
First: If the government is offering vouchers to anyone unhappy with their current coverage, why should businesses bother offering health care coverage to their employees at all? There's a built-in incentive here for employers to abandon their own
health care offerings, which would surely send the cost of the government program skyrocketing in short order. (Yes, this would be a potential problem with any government-subsidized health care reform, but the incentive seems particularly stark in this case.)

Second: How exactly would this plan work to bring down health care costs? At first glance it would seem to do exactly the opposite. A massive transfer of taxpayer dollars almost directly to the HMOs would seem inherently inflationary. What incentive does anyone have to cut costs when the government directly subsidizes the HMOs?"

Things I Like Chicago

Yesterday was the opening day of the 29th annual Taste of Chicago. According to the Mayor’s office, this 10 day festival which starts the Friday before the 4th of July and runs through the following Sunday is the 2nd largest tourist attraction in Illinois (they don’t mention what attraction is at the top of the list).

The Taste started as a one day food extravaganza in 1980 and took place on Michigan Ave near the river. The huge turnout and overall success of the event prompted the city to move it to Grant Park the following year. They also extended the event to its present 10 day schedule and added musical performances. In fact, the free music has become almost as big a draw as the food. In addition to local bands (The Lovehammers, Chicago Afrobeat), the main stage gets some big names. This year has the Wallflowers, Buddy Guy, Booker T, Counting Crows and Barenaked Ladies. See a full schedule here.

But back to the main event. In the beginning, the Taste was a great opportunity to sample a variety of ethnic and regional specialties local to our city. Unfortunately, the ‘bigger is better and humongous is best’ approach soon took over and food portions became ridiculous. It’s hard to sample more than a couple items when each ‘taste’ is a meal in itself.

Add in the average July temperatures combined with huge crowds and the experience can be unpleasant if you don’t do it right. In the mid-80’s my office building was on Michigan and Jackson, directly across from Grant Park and the Taste. I went just once during the workday. Wearing a suit is not recommended while pushing your way through crowds of sweaty people walking around with giant turkey drumsticks dripping barbecue sauce and slabs of oozing pan pizza. I quickly learned to take advantage of the relatively empty restaurants on Michigan Ave for lunch and do the Taste in the evening when the sun was down and I could wear clothing that didn’t need to be dry cleaned.

And it sounds like the Taste might be getting back to its original purpose:

This year, Taste vendors are required to offer at least two "Taste portion" items, small-scale nibbles...(Last year and some previous years, vendors made only one Taste portion available.) And all vendors have been asked to include at least one healthy-eating item on their menus; you'll find a few that strain the definition of "healthy," but the number of sensible-eating options will be greater than ever this year.
~ The Chicago Tribune

My advice is to go in the evening, be ready for huge and messy crowds, and take advantage of the tasting portions. You’ll be comfortable and well fed.

And don’t forget the 4th of July fireworks display which, or course, takes place on the evening of the 3rd.

Quiz Later

From Tom Rick's Blog:
"I refuse to support ANY attempt to pivot the narrative unless the pivoter is willing to offer enough granularity and fidelity to truly allow the end-user some insight on the effects-based targeting it will foster. Otherwise, we're chasing our tail down a rabbit hole filled with self-licking ice cream cones.

We're dealing with a large delta and a steep learning curve here, so we need to get comfortable being uncomfortable, recognizing that the only constant in this environment is...change.

I believe that Clausewitz once said that Sun-Tzu once said that victory in one thousand battles will be complete only when we have swallowed the dominant paradigm wholesale and then made sure that we've all boarded the bus to Abilene!"
TW: This was a comment on Rick's blog, he did not understand it either.

Working For Obama v. Bubba Clinton

TW: Another example of why I think our current POTUS might just be able to get some things done. Obviously the sausage making process currently underway relative to climate and health care reform shows an almost super-human person is needed in order to have any chance of actual reform occurring.

As for Bubba C., an unbelievable talent ultimately diminished tremendously by the lack of discipline. He was a very good POTUS who could have been so much more. Discipline in his governing style and discipline in his personal life would have made him a real force. It took Bubba a couple of years to really figure out the governing piece. Then he f'ed it all up with the Monica thing. He should have resigned btw. If he had, Gore would have been POTUS instead W. Bush, leaving the world in far better shape than it was on Jan 23rd, 2009.

From Christian Science Monitor interview with Rahm Emanuel:
"EMANUEL: I think President Obama has one of the most disciplined minds and styles I've ever seen. And I think of my – I exercise every day. I've been doing it for umpteen years. I read a book, one every three weeks, I think I'm personally pretty disciplined. This guy is incredibly disciplined. And not only, structured, but his mind is unbelievably disciplined.
Q: For instance?

EMANUEL: He goes into a meeting and he'll have read the brief the night before, and have the crux of his argument written down that he wants to drive that discussion to basic points. And he goes right to either the assumptions, the presumptions of the case. Now, I mean, I loved, as you know, working for President Clinton, who had an unbelievably creative mind. And I think was, for a host of reasons, was a very significant president. I was honored to work for him. Their contexts are different, so while every president has a domestic issue and an international issue, etc., I mean, President Obama has what President Clinton had, but, I don't want to say, it's not appropriate to say on steroids, but by a quotient of 10."

Why Healthcare Economics ARE Different

TW: Conservatives wave many bloody shirts ("free market!!!", don't socialize medicine!!!) in the health care debates but propose few if any actual solutions. Understanding the dynamics of health care economics is crucial to defining what programs and policies to support. What most everyone appears to agree on is that health care costs are threatening to grow so fast as to crowd out other needed spending (have you noticed most new construction in the burbs appears to be medically related?).

Okay so costs are exploding. What do you want to do about it? Continue the status quo that is failing?

From Jim Kwak at Baseline Scenario:
"In a capitalist economy, the thing that is supposed to keep prices in check is the buyers. If someone offers me a product that costs more than it is worth to me, then I won’t buy it. But we can’t count on patients to play this role in health care, because there is no way to make patients internalize all of the costs of their care; they simply don’t have the money.

Furthermore, most people don’t understand the health production function (the relationship between treatments and outcomes), so they don’t have the ability to select treatments that provide benefits that are worth their costs. (And, in many cases, it’s not obvious even to professionals that a treatment isn’t worth the cost; it’s only obvious when you look at the data in aggregate.)

What about payers (health insurers?) A “market” solution would be to change the reimbursement rates for different procedures – increase payment for things that doctors should do more of and reduce payment for things that doctors should do less of. Theoretically, payers should be doing this already. However, in the current situation, a private payer who tried to reduce the rates for popular, expensive procedures would find itself unable to attract providers. The only payer with any real negotiating power is Medicare. The private payers have little ability to control costs. Or, if they have the ability, they aren’t exercising it.

In short, prices will only go up. As a result, the cost of health insurance goes up, and the market finally kicks in in the crudest possible form: people who can’t afford it become uninsured. At some point, if we have enough uninsured people, the health care industry will hit a point where it cannot increase revenues anymore, because it has fewer and fewer paying customers.

The proposed public health insurance plan would have the power to negotiate lower rates with providers. That’s why some providers don’t like it. That’s also why private payers don’t like it; they would be at a cost disadvantage to the public plan. (They can live with Medicare because Medicare leaves them the entire under-65 market.) Maybe that’s unfair. But the current situation isn’t working."

What You Can Do...

From Robert Reich's blog:
"Someone recently approached me at the cheese counter of a local supermarket, asking "what can I do?" At first I thought the person was seeking advice about a choice of cheese. But I soon realized the question was larger than that. It was: what can I do about the way things are going in Washington?

People who voted for Barack Obama tend to fall into one of two camps: Trusters, who believe he's a good man with the right values and he's doing everything he can; and cynics, who have become disillusioned with his bailouts of Wall Street, flimsy proposals for taming the Street, willingness to give away 85 percent of cap-and-trade pollution permits, seeming reversals on eavesdropping and torture, and squishiness on a public option for health care.

In my view, both positions are wrong. A new president -- even one as talented and well-motivated as Obama -- can't get a thing done in Washington unless the public is actively behind him. As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, "Maam, I want to do those things, but you must make me."We must make Obama do the right things. Email, write, and phone the White House. Do the same with your members of Congress. Round up others to do so. Also: Find friends and family members in red states who agree with you, and get them fired up to do the same. For example, if you happen to have a good friend or family member in Montana, you might ask him or her to write Max Baucus and tell him they want a public option included in any healthcare bill."

TW: As you can imagine, I fall into the truster camp. But the FDR quote is the point. Politicians are executing the views, biases, ignorance and hopes of their constituents. They are the means not the end. If folks want change and reform they must burn through the roadblocks (i.e. entrenched interest groups, professional lobbyists, general societal apathy and ignorance) via their own initiatives. This tiny micro-blog is one attempt to do so. What are you doing?
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-can-i-do.html

Things I Like - Sciences

For the Women: Pardon my asking, but do you have really smelly armpits? What about wet, sticky earwax? If yes, please make sure to do your monthly self breast exam and get an annual mammogram.

As reported earlier this month, a team of Japanese scientists led by Toshihisa Ishikawa

…found that a gene responsible for breast cancer causes these physical symptoms. Ishikawa and colleagues monitored the activities of a protein created by a gene associated with breast cancer, called "ABCC11." By studying this gene and its complex cellular and molecular interactions in the body, the researchers discovered a distinct link between the gene and excessively smelly armpits and wet, sticky earwax...This discovery could lead to practical tools…to rapidly identify who may have a higher risk for breast cancer.
~Medical News Today

And if your armpits and earwax are normal, you should still do the monthly exam and get an annual mammogram. There’s no need to take chances.

One more request – please say a prayer for my baby sister Amy today. She’s having a radical mastectomy at the age of 34. Thank goodness she found the lump when she did.

Plus ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose. (cont.)

"Next to kidnappers, politicians seem to be the most unpopular men in this great Republic. Nobody ever really trusts them. Whatever they do is commonly ascribed to ignoble motives. The country is always glad to see them humiliated. . .

As for the governors, they are so low-down that 2 or 3 of the 48 are always being impeached and there is always at least one who is on his way to the hoosegow. During the past 15 years no less than 20 governors have been charged with downright felonies, and 4 or 5 have actually gone to prison. The rest, though maybe honest enough, are mainly only demagogues and mountebanks. It would be hard to find any other class of presumably reputable men who show so high an average of rogues and charlatans."
---HL Mencken 1934
(via Floyd Norris at NYT)

TW: As I mention frequently, democracy is flawed just better than the alternative. Our system breeds hypocrisy and those comfortable with it. To run for office is to be an egotistical freak. But if we as voters acted differently, rewarded better behavior then perhaps the politicians would act differently. Or maybe those more pure would be even less effective...

R.I.P. Mr. Jackson

TW: The guy lived three lives: very talented child star of the Jackson 5; mega-star as big as they get; then freak, about as freaky as you could get. For those of us of a certain age his passing brings back many memories. My first album, a gift from my grandmother (vinyl thank you very much) was a Jackson 5 album. He was an integral part of that thing called American culture for better or worse.

Regulatory Capture: The National Assoc. of Fradulent Realtors

TW: Have posted before about how evil the Nat'l Assoc. of Realtors can be. NEVER trust anything their PR machine spews out. Here they are going for some good old regulatory capture in order to resuscitate the moribund real estate market by cooking the appraisals. I think most who have dealt with appraisers know they can be pliant. There are good ones for sure but without proper incentives and supervision it is a role ripe for abuse. Count on the NAR to try to make things ripe for abuse.

From Barry Ritholz at Big Picture Blog:
"I am beginning to suspect that the Realtor’s association and the Mortgage Broker’s association are pro-fraud.


...I noted the bizarre (and potentially corrupt) statement from NAR economists Lawrence Yun calling for appraisers “familiar” with local neighborhoods:
“Lenders are using appraisers who may not be familiar with a neighborhood, or who compare traditional homes with distressed and discounted sales. In the past month, stories of appraisal problems have been snowballing from across the country with many contracts falling through at the last moment. There is danger of a delayed housing market recovery and a further rise in foreclosures if the appraisal problems are not quickly corrected.”

I called that a thinly veiled hint for “friendly” i.e., “corruptible” appraisals.

I did some more digging, and I quickly discovered what this contemptible suggestion was all about: It is part of a broader lobbying effort by the The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) and The National Association of Realtors (NAR) against honest appraisals.

...Appraisal fraud was an enormous contributor to the unsustainable run up in prices during the boom period. Many (but not all) mortgage brokers and realtors referred buyers to appraisers that ALWAYS hit the number of the home purchase price.

A Bernie Madoff-like 100% success rate is often cause for suspicion, but we have much harder evidence than a statistical fluke. For that, let’s go to the big book of real estate fraud, Bailout Nation:


Fraud in Real Estate, Mortgages, and Home Building Minor amounts of real estate–related fraud have always existed. During the housing boom years of 2002 to 2007, it became a pandemic. These various fraudulent actions helped make the housing boom much bigger—and the bust that much more painful:

Appraisal fraud: Historically, there was no incentive to inflate appraisals. But with the rise of the mortgage brokers—many working closely with real estate agents—the business of steering appraisals to the most generous rose rapidly. By inflating appraisals, many appraisers found they could attract more referral business; some even managed to always hit the target prices given by real estate agents, which contributed significantly to the huge run-up in home prices. In 2005, more than 8,000 appraisers—roughly 10 percent of the industry—petitioned the federal government to take action against such abuses. But both Congress and the White House did nothing, allowing this rampant fraud to continue unabated.

So the very people who were enormous contributors to the credit bubble (mortgage brokers), and their colleagues who helped feed the housing boom and bust via friendly (i.e., corrupt) appraisals (RE Brokers, appraisers), are now mobilizing to make sure that honest appraisal reform is thwarted.


The NAR and NAMB apparently have no ethics to speak of. Their shameless self-interest, regardless of the damage it may cause, disgusts me ."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/nar-namb-fighting-appraisal-reform/

Should California Be Bailed Out? NOOOO!!

TW: California is barreling towards its July 1 fiscal deadline without resolution. This should be interesting. California is a partial metaphor for the rest of the nation's fiscal situation. This piece's core point- "The [CA] public imagined that they could have world class government services with extraordinarily low levels of taxation" is applicable to the balance of the nation.

The California situation frames numerous issues:
1) Fiscally speaking Californians mouths are bigger than their stomach's and their system is good at feeding the mouth without digesting properly. The governance structure in CA can relatively easily initiate new spending programs (via referendums) but cannot raise the commensurate taxes (need 2/3 majorities for that and the state districts are gerrymandered to elect strident partisans from both sides).
2) CA creates systematic risk for the rest of the country. If CA were to default on its bond obligations, we would be talking about another cascading financial crisis as other muni bonds across the nation would come under new scrutiny (rates would rise etc.). A CA default is highly unlikely as I believe the bondholders are ahead of just about every stakeholder in CA but for education. In other words CA would have to stop paying firemen, police, health care expenses first before defaulting on the bond payments.
3) CA symbolizes the challenge of variable revenues amidst a demand contraction. As CA (or any other state) contracts is spending in line with its contracting tax revenues, it feeds the downward cycle of overall demand. States unlike the Federal government do not have the leeway to deficit spend to counter the overall demand contraction.
4) But for the federal government to "bailout" CA creates a major moral hazard. If states think Washington will ultimately bail them out then their incentives to address their own problems is greatly diminished.
5) Would the rest of the country support "bailing out" CA?

For these last two reasons, I do not believe Obama will "bail out" CA. The political support issue is important but should ultimately be secondary. The moral hazard issue should be paramount. There are ways for that issue to be overcome (i.e. by CA initiating governance reforms to prevent the deficit from recurring) but the only way those reforms will happen will be through a game of chicken with the federal government. While I support playing the game, these games are how disasters occur and depressions are created. Things should never get to this point.

From Economist:
"...NPR interviewed two mayors from California cities—San Diego and Santa Anna—on the subject of the state's budget crisis and the state government's efforts to close the yawning gap between revenues and expenditures by taking or borrowing money from metropolitan budgets. The mayors were obviously not very pleased with this approach, but what surprised me was how sanguine they seemed about the crisis in general, and how unable they were to discuss the actual issues involved. The mayors appeared to believe that so long as their local budgets were sound, no amount of state level cuts would much affect them. They also stood firmly in the belief that California voters were entirely in the right in placing strict constitutional limits on tax increases, and they declared that the "literally bloated bureaucracy" needed to live within its means.

It's all well and good to talk about a bloated bureaucracy, but state legislators could cut government employment in Sacramento to the bone without making much of a dent in the budget crisis. It isn't the pencil pushers spending the money, it's the demands of the public, expressed through their elected representatives but also directly, in statewide ballot initiatives.

The public has imagined that they could have world class government services with extraordinarily low levels of taxation. This is a fantasy, and one is sorely tempted to let the state figure this out for itself. Presumably, after the sudden release of thousands of prison inmates has spurred a spike in crime, drastic cuts to top universities generate mass academic brain drain, and shortfalls in key social services lead to a wave of well-publicised suffering, Californians will begin to get the picture—you get what you pay for.

For now, the administration seems inclined to take this approach...presidential advisors have determined that California is not yet at the brink and ought to work harder to close its budget gap by itself. Obama officials are also nervous that a California bail-out will lead to a wave of requests from other states

...Structural budget problems in California and elsewhere are a major roadblock, and no aid should be forthcoming until binding negotiations have taken place between state and federal officials, establishing a path to long-run budget stability. But this is the wrong place to hold a line against bail-outs.

For one thing, countercyclical aid to states is entirely appropriate. Most state constitutions prevent their governments from running annual budget deficits. This means that in recessions, pro-cyclical tax increases and service cuts are necessary. There should be a federal aid automatic stabiliser in place to prevent this (accompanied by a "tax" on state budgets during boom times).

...But it is also clear to me that this is the next Lehman. This is the domino you can't let topple. There are no good options available. A default would roil municipal debt markets and could seriously harm both state budgets and financial markets. Solving the budget crisis without addressing the constituional issues would involve pro-cyclical and economically destabilising budget cuts. Solving the crisis while addressing the constitutional limits on tax increases would prevent dangerous cuts to services, but would still be pro-cyclical, and is at any rate impossible in the necessary time frame.

The downsides to intervention are clear—moral hazard, growing demands from other states, the risk that California may not fix the underlying issues, the use of scarce political capital to obtain funds from Congress, and so on. But the adminstration has gone to great lengths to put a floor under this economy, guaranteeing that no major financial institutions would fail and racking up a trillion dollar deficit. Letting California go would throw much of that work out the window. How one observes the failure of a middling investment bank creating global financial havoc and then allows the world's eighth largest economy to crater over a matter of $24 billion is beyond me. I remain convinced that the adminstration will not allow it to happen"
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/06/slipping_into_the_sea.cfm

We Shall See On Syria

TW: While some demagogue, hopefully something positive is stirring with Syria. Syria is the redheaded step child of the Middle East- little oil, not enough population to demand attention and a mediocre military. Its government garners attention asymmetrically by fomenting terrorism and generally causing mischief.

But if Syria could be pulled into a more integrated, more symmetrical diplomatic and economic posture, good things could happen. Lebanon's stability enhanced, Iran further isolated and one less sovereign nation left to foment terrorism. Obama sending an ambassador over is one of those little noticed but potentially very significant events that will hopefully bear fruit over time.



From Joe Klein at Time:
"The Obama Administration has decided to send a U.S. Ambassador back to Syria, for the first time since Margaret Scobie was pulled by the Bush Administration, which was protesting the likely involvement of the Syrian government in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. This is a wise move on several grounds. It is a reflection of productive negotiations between the U.S. and Syria just below the radar screen. It also sends an interesting signal to Iran, whose regime should begin to wonder if Syrians are shifting with the international tides, given the Iranian regime's public brutality and the recent defeat of Hizballah in the recent Lebanese elections. And it positions the U.S. as mediators in potential peace talks between Syria and Israel, which both sides have been pursuing through intermediaries for years.

The Syrians have been slightly uncomfortable with their Iran alliance for years, but they tend to move very slowly and cautiously in negotiations. This is a sign that something's bubbling in Damascus."

Things I Like - Books

The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of my favorite books. This first novel from Chicago-based Audrey Niffenegger is your basic boy meets girl love story with one major twist – the boy, Henry, is chronologically challenged. With no control over his random movement through time, Henry lives his life out of order – popping in and out of his own and other people’s lives. He is an adult when he meets Clare, his future wife – she is only 6 at the time. They meet again when she is 20 but he doesn’t know her, all of his trips to her childhood occur after this point. I know, it doesn’t make any sense but believe me, it all comes together, and beautifully.

I didn’t run across TTTW until it was out in paperback (some time in 2004) and I’ve been eagerly awaiting Audrey’s next book ever since. I was very excited to learn last week that my wait is almost over! Her Fearful Symmetry is due out in October this year.
Here's a quick synopsis:

Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical 'mirror' twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin ...but have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins' mother - and who can't even seem to quite leave her flat. With Highgate Cemetery itself a character and echoes of Henry James and Charles Dickens, "Her Fearful Symmetry" is a delicious and deadly twenty-first-century ghost story about Niffenegger's familiar themes of love, loss and identity.
~Waterstones

Even more good news – the long awaited movie of TTTW is scheduled for release on August 14th. Starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, the movie is set and was filmed in Chicago – even better!



via Omnivoracious

Is This The Best They Got?

TW: The Republicans unlike the Dems tend to identify their POTUS candidates early. They are struggling as potential prospects drop like flys (Jindal- childish public speaking, Ensign- winky issues, Sanford- one can assume Buenes Aires is now off limits to 2012 candidates, Newt- general ickiness and Palin- ummm...puhleeeze). Haley Barbour actually might make it though. He is southern, former lobbyist, white, old and very conservative; a perfect match for his party. He and Mitt Romney could have a fine face-off in late 2011, early 2012.

Neither will win. The next Republican POTUS (2016 or 2020) will be a female and/or Hispanic, count on it.

From Economist:
"THIS report on the possible White House dreams of Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi, is funnier than it should be. Mr Barbour dined with top Republican strategists on Monday night at the Caucus Room, "a steak place that Barbour co-founded along with Democratic lobbyist Tommy Boggs". (Mr Barbour, too, was a lobbyist.) His guests included a political director for George Bush, a veteran of Bob Dole's 1996 campaign, and a vice president of the American Gas Association.

Chris Cillizza, who broke the story, writes that it's "smart to do these sorts of sessions since they ensure that the inside-the-Beltway buzz surrounding his potential candidacy will keep up." Sure, but in what country? Who thinks that support from the oil industry can lift a former lobbyist into the White House? A steak dinner to launch a presidential bid; in 2009, it's almost quaint."

Cover Your Mouth Already

(via Feingut.de)

The Dangers Of Living In an Echo Chamber: Red State As an Alternative State

TW: As Mark Sanford's political career blew up today I would point you to the following as an exhibit of blind obedience to ideological politicians whilst slamming around within your own echo chamber. Below was from Erick Erickson at the Red State blog, a place where that 20% or so of the electorate hangs out to be fed unadulterated Fox-like, right-wing propaganda.

At a minimum Dems know winkies are a powerful challenge for male politicians we are a bit more cynical on this front.

UPDATE: Mr. Erickson wrote a follow-up here...net net being a governor, Sanford probably did not have access to a proper bible study group to make him see the error of his sinning...give me a fugging break.

From Red State blog:
"The Lessons of Mark Sanford’s Hike
Posted by Erick Erickson
Tuesday, June 23rd at 10:23AM EDT 80 Comments

First, we need to be clear on the facts — not the media speculation:

Sanford did tell his staff and family where he was going.

Because he was traveling without a security detail, it was in his best interests that no one knew he was gone.

His political enemies — Republicans at that — ginned up the media story.

When confronted by a pestering media, things went downhill.

Again though, at all times there was no doubt that Sanford’s staff and family knew where he was.

Now, here is all you need to know about this whole entire story — the reaction from the erstwhile Republicans angry at Sanford for not being a fiscal squish and from the media all go back to their core belief that without Sanford manning the barricades of government at all times, the government will collapse and people will starve, die, and forget how to read and write.

That’s it.

But that did not happen. Life in South Carolina went on. The world did not end. Government did not go off the rails. That the media and politicians would react as they did says more about their world view than anything else.

It is refreshing that Mark Sanford is secure enough in himself and the people of South Carolina that he does not view himself as an indispensable man."

Our Space Program In Limbo

TW: Above are prototypes for our next manned spacecraft. The one on the left is the Ares I in which astronauts would be launched into orbit. The lower stage is a modified space shuttle booster rocket. The astronauts would launch into lower orbit where they would meet up with equipment carried into space by the vehicle on the right, the Ares V. The Ares V being a modified Apollo rocket assisted by a couple of the Shuttle booster rockets.

The Ares I allegedly will fly in 2015. Allegedly because if it did it would be about the first space program to stay on schedule since Apollo. In the meantime we will have no manned space launch vehicles after next year when the Shuttle is meant to be retired.

Jay Barbree has a nice write-up below on the genesis of the Ares.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31496353/ns/technology_and_science-space/

The Ares vehicles are meant to be precursors to an American return to the moon in 2020 or so (again I would emphasize the "or so" part). I strongly believe in the manned space program as it symbolizes technological excellence, leadership and exploration of new frontiers.

Unfortunately our POTUS does not share my enthusiasm. The entire program is up for review with an August report due that is meant to articulate whether Obama et al. will continue with the Ares approach, suggest a new one or greatly scale back our ambitions. We shall see. In the mean time the Chinese and others are quietly readying their own projects which I suspect will soon accelerate past our's.

The Wilkins Micawber Corrosion

TW: I concur with Meacham (as usual). His point- politicians have cried wolf about fiscal deficits so many times, the resulting attitude is a Micawberian cynicism that something will come along to solve them. This dynamic is not particularly useful. It is also ripe for political demagoguery.

The Republicans have adopted a woe is the deficit attitude of late (about the same day W. Bush left office). As I have posted numerous times, fiscal contraction amidst a demand contraction is Hooverian. But this is a slightly subtle point missed by many voters, hence the demagoguery. What is VERY real is the need to address the deficits in the longer run, yet few and certainly no Republicans are willing or able to do so.

As Meacham mentions, the powerful will find a way to get along regardless of the insidious cancer of deficits, the less powerful are the ones who suffer most. We need investments in education, infrastructure etc. Without an enlightened electorate we will get less investment, more demagoguery and more deficits.

From Jon Meacham at Newsweek:
"...two troubling figures that foreshadow political problems for the president and, more important, intractable problems for all of us: 48 percent disapprove of his handling of the federal budget deficit, and 51 percent are unhappy with his control of federal spending...


Research by Bill McInturff and Peter Hart cited by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation puts the matter in even more telling perspective: 66 percent of registered voters say the deficit and debt pose a "very big threat to our country and its future," more than twice as many as say global warming does.

Such findings reflect a point conservatives have been making for months that you now hear more and more moderates echoing: that the vast projected deficits and rising national debt are not incidental issues, but central ones.

...Exhortations about deficits and debt are worthy but unglamorous. Count the clichés in the following: we are in danger of mortgaging our children's future because of the ticking entitlement time bomb that will lead us to a dark reckoning because we are living beyond our means and—did I mention we were mortgaging our children's future?...When it comes to economics, many of us tend to the thinking not of Smith or Keynes or Galbraith or Laffer but to that of Wilkins Micawber, the character in Dickens's David Copperfield who, confronted by the challenges of life, always held that "something will turn up." Given the largely mysterious workings of the economy—as in politics, clarity about events in real time comes mainly in retrospect—Micawberism is a fairly rational philosophy. But there is optimism, and then there is wishful thinking, which Eleanor Roosevelt called America's "besetting sin."

The Micawbers among us have history on their side, or at least recent history. Living beyond our means was supposed to kill us in the aftermath of the Reagan years, but the 1990 budget agreement and the technology boom led to record surpluses. We were running huge deficits as the Iraq War wore on, but still managed to find the billions upon billions to rescue the financial sector.

All of which makes it difficult for people to take red-ink apocalypticism very seriously. I would argue that the disconnect between the rhetoric of fiscal discipline and the reality of spending is important not only for the obvious economic reasons, but for less evident political ones, too.
The most familiar critique of deficits and debt is that they divert investment from new ventures and sap creativity. A country that must spend money to service its creditors has that many fewer dollars to create jobs, build schools or defend itself. That is certainly true, but the more pernicious effect of huge deficits and significant debt is that they feed cynicism, for experience tells us that there is never money for a program or an interest—except when there is.
Often something does turn up—but only for the well connected and the well organized. The politically powerful will always find the ways and means to secure their benefits and protect their interests. The losers in an economy constrained by deficits and debt will be the unconnected and the disorganized. The result is resentment and, ultimately, conflict: a dearth of money may lead to a decisively fragmented politics conducted with an intensity of passion usually reserved for issues of war and peace. Then the Micawbers will look anew for something to turn up. And they may find that Mrs. Roosevelt was right after all."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/201967