Category: Good Writing

Josh Marshall is Right, and Was Right in 2004

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In the aftermath of the Massachusetts debacle, a lot of people are wondering what the hell happened.

The talking heads inside the Beltway are sure that it’s because Obama is too Librul™, of course, but I think that Josh Marshall talked about the core problem in August of 2004.

He was talking about the Bush-Kerry campaign, and he characterized it as follows:

Let’s call it the Republicans’ Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.

It goes something like this.

………

Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really — a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they’re tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.

………

One way — perhaps the best way — to demonstrate someone’s lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves — thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.

………

Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person’s supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who’s receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.

………

Only now, it isn’t the Republicans bitch slapping anyone. It’s the Democrats who bitch slap themselves.

Or as Zaid Jilani’s southern ConservaDem friend says:

And can I say this? F*ck the Democrats. They couldn’t get s%$# done with 60 seats, why the hell would I care if they have 59? F%$# them seriously we deserve to lose Congress this year. And don’t bitch and whine about it either how much has changed since we took over in 2006? Ain’t s%$# as far as I can tell. We capitulated to Bush, then capitulated to Republicans and now are just capitulating to ourselves.

F%$# it dude, I mean Republicans get whatever the f%$# they want with 50 seats and we can’t do f%$# all we deserve to lose

(“%$#” mine, “*” original)

Fundamentally, when we look at what is going on in DC, it looks like no one in the Senate or the White House is even trying to make substantive change. (Pelosi, at least, creates the appearance that she is trying to do something)

What’s more, among the DC Dems, there has been near constant bitch slapping of the Party Base, whether it’s the capitulation on the public option, the labor union insurance surtax, or the constant drum beat of how “the left” hates the Democratic Party because they want to primary DINOs (Democrat In Name Only) who have safe seats.

The central campaign platform of the Republican Party is that government can’t do anything. The Democratic Party seems to try very hard to prove them right.

Quote of the Day

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It’s from the “about” section of a blog called Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed:

Even further back in time, Dr. Kedrosky was one of the first technology equity analysts at a major brokerage firm. Back before there were such things as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and subprime mortgages, we vandalism-loving greed-heads on Wall Street were forced to take down capitalism the hard way — by selling over-valued technology companies to an unsuspecting public via initial public offerings. While it eventually worked out (c.f., the tech crash of 2000), the next generation of Wall Street-ers learned from our inefficiency and took down the global money grid in half the time it took us to mess up Nasdaq. Lesson learned.

Needless to say, I put him in my feed reader.

H/t The Big Picture for the catch.

Quote of the Day

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Courtesy of Stephen Colbert, but Colbert the person, not the character that he plays on his show.

He was at a reunion of Second City comedians, and they had a panel on comedy and politics:

As for Glenn Beck, the panel discussed the challenge of maintaining a separation between reality and satire when so many TV pundits are simply, premeditatedly over-the-top.

“I said, ‘Let’s start doing some Glenn Beck stuff but in praise of Glenn Beck,'” said Colbert. “But every time we do one, he will have done something dumber. He raised the stupid bar and now it’s nearly inapproachable.”

(emphasis mine)

George Soros Speaks for the Powerless

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In this case, he is speaking for the Roma (Gypsies) because no one else will:

Continued discrimination against Roma in Europe not only violates human dignity, but is a major social problem crippling the development of eastern European countries with large Roma populations. Spain, which has been more successful in dealing with its Roma problem than other countries, can take the lead this month as it assumes the European Union presidency.

Good for him.

Unsurprising Lesson

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When the modern version conservatives talk about anything, they define reality to fit their preconceived notions, much in the tradition of their Trotskyite progenitors, and you cannot believe a word they say.

Case in point, James Manzi, who, as Paul Krugman notes, talks about the GDP of Europe, and completely fudges the data:

But as Jonathan Chait quickly pointed out, Manzi’s definition of Europe included the Soviet bloc (!), so that he was attributing to social democracy an economic decline that was mainly about the collapse of communism. Chait also suggested that Manzi wasn’t comparing the same dates for America and Europe; and most importantly, Chait pointed out that to the extent there has been a growth divergence, it’s almost entirely because America has faster population growth; since 1980, real GDP per capita in Western Europe and the US have grown at almost the same rate.

But I went back to Manzi’s source of data, and it turns out that it’s even worse than that. If you use the broad definition of Europe, which includes the USSR, it did indeed have 40 percent of world output in the early 1970s. But that share has not fallen to 25 percent — it’s still above 30 percent.

The only thing I can think is that Manzi compared Europe including the eastern bloc in 1970 with Europe not including the east today.

It’s probably not a deliberate case of data falsification. Instead, like so many conservatives, Manzi just knew that Europe is an economic disaster, glanced at some numbers, thought he saw his assumptions confirmed, and never checked.

I think that Krugman is being too charitable. Manzi lied, and had to have knowingly lied in order to cook the books this way.

This Explains a Lot About the Washington Post

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This story is old, I saved it when I was visiting my Mother-in-Law’s, but my sense of this remains the same.

There was a snowball fight in Washington, DC, and some people threw snowballs at a Hummer driven by a Washington, DC police officer, who then drew his gun and threatened the participants.

If it hadn’t been caught on video, and posted to Youtube (included), and the police claimed that it never happened, until, of course the video, and the photographs showed up all over the web.

This is actually pretty standard: Until you have outrageous law enforcement misconduct on tape, the police deny that it ever happened, and so I have very little to say about this.

That being said, I do have something to say about the Washington Post‘s coverage of the incident.

You see, they took the original police story, “Nothing to see here, move along,” at face value, and they did so despite the fact that a Washington Post editorial staffer was at the event and reported what happened:

Washington Post editorial aide Stephen Lowman was at 14th and U on Saturday when the controversial snowball-fight-cum-police-indiscretion went down. He wasn’t there on assignment–he was just taking it all in.

And take it all in he did. He eye-witnessed the snowball fest and the cop waving around a gun, not to mention all the hubbub that ensued.

So Lowman got on the phone to the Post, to give the newsroom a heads-up. He says he was placed in contact with staff writer Matt Zapotosky. Lowman told Zapotosky about the confrontation and the gun. It was just after 3 pm.

………………

Two hours later, at 5:40 pm, the inexplicable takes place: The Washington Post files a post by Zapotosky and Martin Weilrefuting the photographic evidence already on the Web and taking the official position of the D.C. Police Department. Here are some key excerpts:

Assistant Chief Pete Newsham, who leads the department’s investigative services bureau, said it appears the patrol officer acted appropriately, and the worst the detective might have done is use inappropriate language in dealing with the snowball fighters.

So, what we have by the time that the Post covers the story is:

  • A staffer who says that a cop pulled a gun at a snowball fight.
  • Pictures and videos all over the internet showing that the cop pulled his gun and brandished it, which is technically assault with a deadly weapon.

Now the folks at DC’s alternative paper, the Washington City Paper, whose link I am citing in the story, broke this. They had the pictures, they linked to the Youtube, etc., and they, or at least their reporter Erik Wemple, think that this is all about the WaPo not wanting to link to them, because they are a bunch of DFH’s* from the alternative weekly.

I think that they are wrong. I think that what is going on is far more malevolent.

I think that this has nothing to do with the Post dissing an alternative weekly competitor, and it has everything to do with being an upper middle class, and overwhelmingly white institution in a city that is majority black.

Simply put, they went with the police story, because the unspoken bias of the Washington Post editors is that they need to keep the N***ers down. They go with a blatantly false police account of the events for the same reason that they so so aggressively repeat and amply blatantly false Republican spin: They believe that the police and the Republicans are the best way to keep N***ers in their place in the District.

Then again, maybe I am just reading way to much into this, and it’s just a crappy and lazy reporter.

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

Adventures in American MBA Wankertude

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Steve Blank relates a story, one which is all to frequently repeated in American Boardrooms, where the new CFO comes into a startup company that is finally making a profit, and decides to end the provision of free soda to employees, which saves $10,000 a month, but chases away the experienced staff:

Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers.

……………

I had lived through this same conversation four times in my career, and each time it ended as an example of unintended consequences. No one on the board or the executive staff was trying to be stupid. But to save $10,000 or so, they unintentionally launched an exodus of their best engineers.

This company had grown from the founders, who hired an early team of superstars, many now managing their own teams. All these engineers were still heads-down, working their tails off, just as they had been doing since the first few months of the company. Too busy working, most were oblivious to the changes that success and growth had brought to the company.

The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free
One day the engineering team was clustered in the snack room looking at the soda machine. The sign said, “Soda now 50 cents.” The uproar began. Engineers started complaining about the price of the soda. Someone noticed that instead of the informal reimbursement system for dinners when they were working late, there was now a formal expense report system. Some had already been irritated when “professional” managers had been hired over their teams with reportedly more stock than the early engineers had. Lots of email was exchanged about “how things were changing for the worse.” A few engineers went to the see the CEO.

But the damage had been done. The most talented and senior engineers looked up from their desks and noticed the company was no longer the one they loved. It had changed. And not in a way they were happy with.

The best engineers quietly put the word out that they were available, and in less than month the best and the brightest began to drift away.

Truth be told, I’ve never worked a company that gave out free sodas in the break room in the first place, and if I were to start a company, I would not choose this as a benefit for the employees, but it is American management that would create that would chase away its most valuable employees by counting pennies this way.

To the degree that the United States has achieved economic success since the end of the 2nd World War, it has been in spite of management, not because of it.

Krugman Just Called Ben Bernanke a Wanker

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In his New York Times blog.

It was pretty polite, but it was also rather firm:

Here’s the story of two metro areas, Los Angeles (which has run out of room to sprawl) and Atlanta, the ultimate Sprawl City:

Huge bubble in LA; nothing in Atlanta. Looking at the national data was deeply misleading.

So here’s one of the charts from Bernanke’s paper at the meetings:

Yep, he’s using average US housing prices as a bubble indicator. This wouldn’t matter if the division between Flatland and the Zoned Zone was comparable across the advanced world, but it isn’t: other advanced countries lack sprawling metros comparable to Atlanta or Houston. So we aren’t learning much from this comparison.

And the whole thing suggests that the Fed hasn’t learned much about how to identify housing bubbles.

(emphasis mine)

Meow! I whole heartedly approve.

Read the Rude Pundit

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He’s a genius, as he shows in his latest, “It Shouldn’t Surprise Us that Some Ex-Gitmo Detainees Want to F%$# Us Up.” (%$# mine):

We are incapable of dealing with the notion that whether you’re the good guy or the bad guy is a matter of perception. And that sometimes the United States is the bad guy. Unless we’re willing to confront that and do something about it (like, at minimum, apologize and offer compensation), then we shouldn’t be surprised that Yemeni Mel Gibsons will seek to go all Lethal Weapon on us.

The man is a genius, if somewhat profane.

Go read.

Normally, I Don’t Quote Paul R. La Monica…………

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I find him rather to excessively optimistic, glib, shallow, and thoroughly conventional in his journalism.

That being said, his review of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech at the American Economic Association meeting in Atlanta, nails it in the title, “Surprise! The Fed says don’t blame the Fed.”

That pretty much captures the substance of what Bernanke said in a nutshell.

Security Theater

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Bruce Schneier, once again, is all over it:

Our current response to terrorism is a form of “magical thinking.” It relies on the idea that we can somehow make ourselves safer by protecting against what the terrorists happened to do last time.

Unfortunately for politicians, the security measures that work are largely invisible. Such measures include enhancing the intelligence-gathering abilities of the secret services, hiring cultural experts and Arabic translators, building bridges with Islamic communities both nationally and internationally, funding police capabilities — both investigative arms to prevent terrorist attacks, and emergency communications systems for after attacks occur — and arresting terrorist plotters without media fanfare.

It’s very clear that many of the so-called security measures do not enhance security, but exist to create an appearance of security.

Just go read it.

Economic Quote of the Day

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On the subject of raising marginal rates for rich people:

Here’s why: in 2007, there were 495,000 tax returns filed for millionaires. That means a significant fraction were corporate CEOs, CFOs, finance people, and professional athletes/best-selling textbook authors/TV celebs.

Peyton Manning makes about $30 million a year — let’s explore his potential behavioral responses to changes in taxes. Let’s raise Peyton’s taxes by 10%. Under the logic of Alan Liard, Greg Mankiw’s student, and under the logic that all economists know to be the truth, people respond to incentives. Peyton Manning is a person, so he responds to this tax hike by working 6% less, and decides now he’s going to sit for the Colts playoff games since he makes less money per game, and he enjoys watching Tom Brady play in the playoffs more than being there himself. Doesn’t really sound likely, does it?

Of course, Peyton Manning is going to play 16 NFL games and the playoffs even if you raise his taxes considerably. The same is true of a wide variety of other professions — corporate execs usually have two choices, they can choose to work or not work — there are no part-time CFO jobs, and it’s probably tough to be a “part-time” hedge-fund manager as well… So, let’s say Greg the textbook publisher or Chuck the hedge-fund manager decides, due to higher taxes, that they are just going to retire. In that case, the government loses 100% of the taxes Chuck or Greg would have paid! The multiplier is -10!!!

Except, according to logic which is totally obvious to a pre-schooler, if Greg the textbook author doesn’t sell textbooks, then Thorstein the textbook publisher will. If Peyton the quarterback doesn’t play in the playoffs or appear in Gatorade commercials, then Tom the quarterback will. If the CEO of Anthem, who routinely makes $40 million, quits due to high taxes, Anthem will pay the next CEO extravagantly. If Chuck the hedgefund manager doesn’t manage Peyton’s money, then Emilio the hedgefund manager will manage Tom’s money…

—Thorstein Veblen

(emphasis mine, and I think that the hedge fund manager managing Tom’s money would be named Ashok, not Emilio, and he work out of Bangalore, not Wall Street, or at least he would in a system that was truly efficient.)

What he does not note is that the massive amounts of money received is not because they will do the “productive” “work” for only that amount of money, but because Peyton, and Tom, feel that they deserve more than the next best guy at their position.

If you engage in policies that discourage extremely high income, for example, expanding the AMT to include all forms of income, and increasing the marginal tax rate for the AMT (Currently 26%, and which has little/no deductions), at $¼ million by 1%, and by an additional 1% at $250K increments, so that a income beyond $1 million is taxed at 29%, and at $5 million it is taxed at 45%, at $10 million it is taxed at 65%, and it maxes out at 85% at $15 million,* then you will find that business will be less inclined to ginormous packages,† and you would see a moderation in this trend.

*Note that these are marginal tax rates, so the 85% is the tax payed on the dollars earned beyond $15 million, the 50 thousandth dollar would still be taxed at around 20%.
†Yes, I know, “ginormous package” sounds dirty, but the executive pay levels are obscene.

News Flash: Bernanke is an Idiot

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The Kaplan Test Prep Company Washington Post actually does some reasonably good news gathering now and again, even if their OP/EDs are complete crap.

Case in point is this history of the Federal Reserve’s mis-steps in dealing with the housing bubble and the related sub-prime debacle.

Their lede is a speech that Bernenke gave in 2007, where he, “Assured the bankers and businessmen gathered at the Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue that their prosperity was not threatened by the plight of borrowers struggling to repay high-cost subprime loans,” because, most banks were not involved at all with sub-prime lending, which was false, and transparently so:

He was wrong. Five of the 10 largest subprime lenders during the previous year were banks regulated by the Fed. Even as Bernanke spoke, the spillover from subprime lending was driving the banking industry into a historic crisis that some firms would not survive. And the upheaval would shove the economy into recession.

Just as the Fed had failed to protect borrowers from the consequences of subprime lending, so too had it failed to protect banks.

(emphasis mine)

So, it’s clear that the Fed, and Ben Bernanke were clueless, but it gets worse:

A warning ignored

In January 2005, National City’s chief economist had delivered a prescient warning to the Fed’s board of governors: An increasingly overvalued housing market posed a threat to the broader economy, not to mention his own bank and others deeply involved in writing mortgages.

The message wasn’t well received. One board member expressed particular skepticism — Ben Bernanke.

“Where do you think it will be the worst?” Bernanke asked, according to people who attended the meeting, one in a series of sessions the Fed holds with economists.

“I would have to say California,” said the economist, Richard Dekaser.

“They have been saying that about California since I bought my first house in 1979,” Bernanke replied.

This time the warnings were correct, and the collapse of the California real estate market would bring down the nation’s fourth-largest bank, the largest casualty of the financial crisis.

(emphasis original)

This is egregious enough that one of Bernanke’s most stalwart supporters, Paul Krugman calls him out, with charts:

The point is that there was indeed a huge CA bubble in the 80s, which burst painfully. Nor was this an obscure bit of knowledge: in fact, people like Calculated Risk and yours truly were quite explicitly using the great California bubble of the 80s as a model for what was going to happen nationally.

This whole episode makes me think considerably worse of my former department head.

(emphasis mine)

Bernanke was saying that there had never been a housing bubble and crash in California, despite the fact that there had been one that popped and bottomed out just 10 years before.

This man should not be in charge of a pastry shop, much less the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America. I’m not sure how he even became the head of the econ department at Princeton….He seems far to feckless for that.

What John Said

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John Aravosis, that is:

President Obama doesn’t seem to lack the will to fight on matters of principle, rather, he seems to lack the will to fight on anything.……

…

…We know that when you fight for something in politics, you can very often win. But if you don’t fight, you’ll never win. We are upset at the President and the Congress because no one fought for the public option, for the President’s own campaign promise. (As David Gregory rightly noted to David Axelrod during the same broadcast.)

(emphasis mine)

We are not angry because he refused to fight for our own values, we are angry because he has refused to fight, period, full stop.

It’s not the morals, or lack thereof. It’s the cowardice.