Wisconsin governor Scott Walker won handily in the recall election on Tuesday. The unions tried to have him thrown out of office because he dared defy their powers.
As I understand it, he cut government workers benefits, and when the unions tried to demonize him for it they discovered that the public wasn't too enamored with the extraordinary benefits of the union workers, and had at least some sympathy for Walker's claim that the benefits were bankrupting the state. As a matter of fact, since the new rules on the government unions went into effect the state went from a massive deficit to a surplus.
So, the unions decided to change the issue to Walker's denying the unions the right to collective bargaining, which Walker was hindering. But, at the heart of the unions' complaint was that Walker was changing the rules on the unions' ability to collect union dues. That is, the dues would no longer be automatically collected, and union membership would become voluntary. As I understand it, once these new rules were enacted, union membership dropped by about half. The result? Loss of union power, which is what the recall effort was all about, union power.
The unions tried to wield their power, but lost power instead. That is what happens in power plays - either you win or you lose, and the governmental unions lost.
The most interesting thing, to my mind, is to revisit the grandfather of modern liberalism's views on the role of collective bargaining of governmental unions - that of Franklin D Roosevelt himself. In a letter to the National Federation of Federal Employees, written August 16, 1937, FDR made it very clear that collective bargaining had no place in public service of governmental employees.
A couple of excerpts from this short letter:
"All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.... Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the function of any organization of Government employees... a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable an intolerable."
Pretty clear - "unthinkable and intolerable."
I'm not sure that the public employee unions have done much in the way of threatening strikes in Wisconsin or elsewhere, but they have been negotiating with politicians, Democrats especially, who have an incentive to give them what they want. This is because the Government unions are the biggest supporters of pro-union politicians, i.e. Democrat politicians. They give them both money and lots and lots of free labor to man phones and help them campaign in many ways.
So, it is no wonder that the unions got so much of their demands on pensions. Had they demanded large wage increases, those kinds of numbers could be publicized and used effectively as a tool to deny the government unions' demands. But, pension improvements were just too arcane to be able to be turned into headlines or bumper stickers, so the unions got what they wanted.
The problem is that the big pensions, granted to younger and younger retirees, are eating up the other government services in a time of recession like today. Voters are seeing that libraries, parks, education, and public safety are suffering while the pensions sail along keeping middle class, middle aged people on the public dole for decades to come, at nearly the same wages as when they worked.
So, Wisconsin said no to the recall. How did government unions stray so far away from FDR's vision? I don't see this so much as a victory for Republicans against Democrats or Republicans against unions. I see this more as a needed balancing of something that was out of balance.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Activating our imaginations to understand our political opposites
I have been focusing on trying to understand the political tribes in America - what they believe and why. More to the point, I am trying to see the goodness and morality that each tribe represents. I think that one of the biggest toxins in America today is the inability of those in each tribe to be able to use their imaginations and see the goodness in the people of the other tribe.
I just finished a very insightful book on this issue: "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Dr. Jonathan Haidt, moral psychologist at the University of Virginia.
His basic presentation is that liberals, conservatives, and libertarians each view the world in the light of six moral yardsticks:
One of his basic points is that our sense of right and wrong is not based upon our rational, explaining mind, but rather is based upon our subconscious, unconscious, intuitive mind. We can consciously make changes, but our psychologies that infuence our morals are deep and usually unexamined. And, more to the point, our judgments of others' morality is instinctive, intuitional, and not based upon our rationality. It is a gut reaction to those who disagree with us as being immoral. This is the toxin in today's political climate, in my opinion.
Another point that he makes is that the tribes cannot change each other's points of view by combatting them. It takes empathy and human connection to be able to get past the rational part of the mind which functions as a rationalizer of our moral commitments. Once we can see each other as real people that we can identify with on basic human terms, we can start to see the goodness in the moral values that they hold, even though they are different than our own.
He cautions against "confirmatory thought" which just confirms and justifies our own moral view of the world, and encourages "exploratory thought" which explores other points of view. When we want to confirm a belief, we ask ourselves if we "can" believe it, and the answer is almost always yes. When we want to discredit someone else's belief, we ask if we "must" believe it, and the answer is almost always no. So, we just live inside the bubble of our own tribes, judging others as evil who must be destroyed. Such is the nature of our political world today.
As to how this works in our political thinking, he demonstrates, through experimentation, that Liberals focus almost exclusively on the Caring and Fairness (equality fairness) values; Libertarians focus almost exclusively on the Liberty value; and conservatives focus fairly evenly on all six of the moral values. Dr. Haidt started his journey into the study of moral psychology as a liberal trying to find ways for liberals to persuade conservatives. He ended up having a much greater respect for conservatives, much to his surprise apparently, and became more conservative himself as he recognized the value of the yardsticks other than just caring and fairness/equality.
Haidt concludes by chosing positive contributions to society by both liberals and conservatives that he thinks can be a starting point to help understanding.
He sees two indisputable contributions from liberals:
I just finished a very insightful book on this issue: "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Dr. Jonathan Haidt, moral psychologist at the University of Virginia.
His basic presentation is that liberals, conservatives, and libertarians each view the world in the light of six moral yardsticks:
- Care/harm - the ability to empathize with the pain of others, to care, and react to react against those who do harm to others;
- Fairness/cheating - wanting things to be fair, and react against those who cheat;
- Liberty/oppression - wanting liberty, and react against oppression;
- Loyalty/betrayal - wanting loyalty to your own "tribe", and reacting against those who betray it;
- Authority/subversion - wanting to honor authority, and reacting against those who subvert it;
- Sanctity/degradation - wanting to live in a world that is sanctified and pure in a spiritual sense, and reacting against the degradation of life and the spirituality of the world.
One of his basic points is that our sense of right and wrong is not based upon our rational, explaining mind, but rather is based upon our subconscious, unconscious, intuitive mind. We can consciously make changes, but our psychologies that infuence our morals are deep and usually unexamined. And, more to the point, our judgments of others' morality is instinctive, intuitional, and not based upon our rationality. It is a gut reaction to those who disagree with us as being immoral. This is the toxin in today's political climate, in my opinion.
Another point that he makes is that the tribes cannot change each other's points of view by combatting them. It takes empathy and human connection to be able to get past the rational part of the mind which functions as a rationalizer of our moral commitments. Once we can see each other as real people that we can identify with on basic human terms, we can start to see the goodness in the moral values that they hold, even though they are different than our own.
He cautions against "confirmatory thought" which just confirms and justifies our own moral view of the world, and encourages "exploratory thought" which explores other points of view. When we want to confirm a belief, we ask ourselves if we "can" believe it, and the answer is almost always yes. When we want to discredit someone else's belief, we ask if we "must" believe it, and the answer is almost always no. So, we just live inside the bubble of our own tribes, judging others as evil who must be destroyed. Such is the nature of our political world today.
As to how this works in our political thinking, he demonstrates, through experimentation, that Liberals focus almost exclusively on the Caring and Fairness (equality fairness) values; Libertarians focus almost exclusively on the Liberty value; and conservatives focus fairly evenly on all six of the moral values. Dr. Haidt started his journey into the study of moral psychology as a liberal trying to find ways for liberals to persuade conservatives. He ended up having a much greater respect for conservatives, much to his surprise apparently, and became more conservative himself as he recognized the value of the yardsticks other than just caring and fairness/equality.
Haidt concludes by chosing positive contributions to society by both liberals and conservatives that he thinks can be a starting point to help understanding.
He sees two indisputable contributions from liberals:
- Governments can and should restrain corporate superorganisms, who would otherwise operate only in the interest of profit and have no incentive to care about their impacts on people or society;
- Some problems really can be solved by regulation, for example the defiling of the environment or harming the health of people.
- Markets are miraculous, and they set prices, establish efficiencies, and foster creativity and innovation that a controlled, planned economy never can.
- You can't help the bees by destroying the hive, i.e. by weakening cohesive groups you destroy the moral capital that binds them and the people withing them are diminished.
List the Calories, don't ban the drinks
One final thought about Bloomberg's New York law banning huge sodas. I think the most persuasive thing he can do would be to list the calories of the drinks, on the cups or on the menu boards in the establishments, prominently and easily seen. Banning them is government coercion, which I don't like. But showing the calories is education, and will have an effect, probably more of an effect than the other.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
The Puritanical heart of liberalism
New York Mayor Bloomberg's outlawing the selling of sodas over 12 ounces does one major thing, in my mind, it reveals the Puritanical core of liberalism.
The wonderful book that I have written about previously, "American Nations: a history of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard, made the very interesting observation that modern liberalism was descended from the Puritan Massachusetts founders, and that although the content of the Puritanism has changed a bit, the basic energy is still there, to improve society for its own good, and to do so with dictatorial certainty and righteousness.
There is no doubt about the fact that people harm themselves dramatically by drinking over-sized sugar drinks, but it is a belief in government coercion for the benefit of humankind that lies at the heart of liberalism. And many find it oppressive and dictatorial.
The knee-jerk reaction of conservatives is to tell an overly powerful government to take their good intentions, and their belief in the right of government to control every aspect of people's lives -- and shove it.
I think I agree.
(And I hope people start addressing the terrible health habits that are causing the obesity epidemic in America, on their own, as a result of persuasion rather than force)
The wonderful book that I have written about previously, "American Nations: a history of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard, made the very interesting observation that modern liberalism was descended from the Puritan Massachusetts founders, and that although the content of the Puritanism has changed a bit, the basic energy is still there, to improve society for its own good, and to do so with dictatorial certainty and righteousness.
There is no doubt about the fact that people harm themselves dramatically by drinking over-sized sugar drinks, but it is a belief in government coercion for the benefit of humankind that lies at the heart of liberalism. And many find it oppressive and dictatorial.
The knee-jerk reaction of conservatives is to tell an overly powerful government to take their good intentions, and their belief in the right of government to control every aspect of people's lives -- and shove it.
I think I agree.
(And I hope people start addressing the terrible health habits that are causing the obesity epidemic in America, on their own, as a result of persuasion rather than force)
Monday, May 28, 2012
The heart of the American dream still lives
I just came back from a trip to our nation's capitol, Washington D.C., where I spent some wonderful, inspiring, and thought provoking time with dear friends. It is quite a stunning experience to go as deeply into the heart of the monuments and memorials of our country as I could and try to feel the essence of the United States. And it seems fitting on this Memorial Day to try to summarize my notions of what the essence of our country is.
I believe at the heart of America is the overthrow of rule by aristocracy.
When George Washington and the founding fathers of our country rose up and created our nation, it wasn't just the rule of England that they said "no" to, it was the rule by an aristocracy that they said "no" to. It was an amazing revolution because it was the elite of the American colonies who led the revolution rather than the masses. One of its wonderful characteristics, it seems to me, was that it was so deeply rooted in deep understandings of political history and philosophy. They understood the virtues and failings of previous democracies and set out to establish system where the people would rule themselves rather than be ruled by an aristocracy.
So, what happened in next couple of centuries? We have done a pretty good job, I believe, in doing just that - ruling ourselves in a country "of the people, by the people, and for the people" to quote President Lincoln. But to fend off newly forming aristocracies has always been the challenge of our country. Teddy Roosevelt struck a blow against the over-control of the oligarchies and monopolies of his era and became the trust buster. Reagan struck a blow against the impersonal bureaucracies of overly controlling governments in the state and federal governments.
The Tea Party extremists of the right wing see the liberal government headed by President Obama as becoming tyrannically controlling more and more of people's lives and rebel against it. They are impervious to arguments that the government is taking over more and more of society for our own good, and reject the righteous puritanical tyranny of the "do-gooders" as meddling tyrants. They see the left wing as a new "aristocracy" of the highly educated by the elite schools trained to become the philosopher kings dreamed of by Plato. And they reject them as puritanical scolds who force the country to conform to more and more trendy intellectual fads that the intelligentsia become enamored with. They see the aristocracy of the intelligentsia as being impractical, idealistic, hopelessly out of touch with reality, and dictatorial.
The Occupy Wall Street movement extremists of the left wing see the financial industry and industry in general becoming more and more tyrannical as they control more and more of the electoral and governing processes with their enormous wealth for the purposes of feeding their own greed for huge wealth and political power. They are impervious to arguments that Wall Street and industry are the gooses the lay the golden eggs for all, and see wealth creation as a function of the greedy at the top with no concern for the rest of us.
In other words, the extremes on both the right and the left are wanting a new revolution, patterned on the original American Revolution - they want to overthrow the tyranny of the ruling aristocracy. But for the right, the ruling aristocracy are the intelligentsia who dominate the government and the media, and for the left, the ruling aristocracy are the business leaders of Wall Street and industry.
The both have a pretty good point, it seems to me.
The biggest problem with both extremes is that they see their opponents as devils who must be destroyed. Kind of strange that they don't see themselves as allies united in rebirthing a new version of the America dream, a dream where the people are able to rule themselves, and create a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" - the original dream of America - and of the world.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Even the right is calling for the breakup of the too big to fail banks
I have read two articles now by conservatives calling for the break up of the too big to fail banks - Charlie Gasparino of the New York Post, and Arnold Kling of the National Review. In the past, almost all of the calls to break them up have come from the left side of the isle, so this is interesting to me that the right is joining in as a result of the massive losses of Jamie Dimon's JPMorgan Chase.
I think the most persuasive argument for breaking up these behemoth banks is that if even Jamie Dimon can't catch his own company in the act of taking excessive risks in the derivatives markets, then there is no chance of regulators catching them - they aren't as smart as Dimon and don't have his resources.
The point is that these organizations are way too big to regulate, but beyond that they are even too big to manage. If the much admired Dimon can't do it, it can't be done.
And, we all know what happens if one of these Titanic financial institutions go down, they are too big to fail and have to be bailed out by our taxpayer dollars.
Regulation will be inadequate to the task of protecting the financial industry and our tax dollars. They won't be able to see what these labyrinthine giants don't want them to see. For goodness sake, the very management of these institutions aren't able to see what others in the organization don't want to be seen.
Maybe the time has finally come to actually do it - break up the too big to fail financial institutions.
I think the most persuasive argument for breaking up these behemoth banks is that if even Jamie Dimon can't catch his own company in the act of taking excessive risks in the derivatives markets, then there is no chance of regulators catching them - they aren't as smart as Dimon and don't have his resources.
The point is that these organizations are way too big to regulate, but beyond that they are even too big to manage. If the much admired Dimon can't do it, it can't be done.
And, we all know what happens if one of these Titanic financial institutions go down, they are too big to fail and have to be bailed out by our taxpayer dollars.
Regulation will be inadequate to the task of protecting the financial industry and our tax dollars. They won't be able to see what these labyrinthine giants don't want them to see. For goodness sake, the very management of these institutions aren't able to see what others in the organization don't want to be seen.
Maybe the time has finally come to actually do it - break up the too big to fail financial institutions.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
JPMorgan Chase looses $2 billion on excessively risky derivatives trading
The giants of Wall Street continue in their pattern of pushing their risks to the edge and beyond, or so it appears to me. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase was considered the golden boy of Wall Street after the terrible crash of 2008 since he and his institution escaped some of the more dire consequences of that crisis. Unfortunately for him, his firm, and America Mr Dimon apparently led the charge to carve out a loophole in the "Volker Rule" of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that was passed as a result of the crisis.
As I understand it, the Volker Rule forbade the financial institutions from trading in their own money in the derivatives market. But there was an exception that was granted as a result of the intense lobbying led by Dimon - hedging was allowed. But the hedging was to be a hedge against a specific, individual trading position. JPMorgan Chase's hedging looks like it was a violation of the law, as it was a "portfolio hedge" rather than a targeted hedge.
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times explains:
The loophole is known as portfolio hedging, a strategy that essentially allows banks to view an investment portfolio as a whole and take actions to offset the risks of the entire portfolio. That contrasts with the traditional definition of hedging, which matches an individual security or trading position with an inversely related investment — so when one goes up, the other goes down.
As I understand it, the Volker Rule forbade the financial institutions from trading in their own money in the derivatives market. But there was an exception that was granted as a result of the intense lobbying led by Dimon - hedging was allowed. But the hedging was to be a hedge against a specific, individual trading position. JPMorgan Chase's hedging looks like it was a violation of the law, as it was a "portfolio hedge" rather than a targeted hedge.
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times explains:
The loophole is known as portfolio hedging, a strategy that essentially allows banks to view an investment portfolio as a whole and take actions to offset the risks of the entire portfolio. That contrasts with the traditional definition of hedging, which matches an individual security or trading position with an inversely related investment — so when one goes up, the other goes down.
The way the loophole was justified was that it was supposed to mitigate risk by hedging against failure. But once the hedging was expanded to the entire portfolio it became a risk again rather than a conservative insurance type position.
I hope that these trades were a violation of law. I hope that JPMorgan Chase and its management, including Dimon, are found guilty of violation of that law and that they pay real consequences for those violations.
As far as I can tell, the overall zeitgeist of Wall Street has not really changed. It looks to me like they are still in the grip of their traders' mentality, which seems to be bet the farm on riskier and riskier investment schemes, and if they win they make huge fortunes for themselves (without any substantial benefit to the economy as these derivatives are zero sum gambling games rather than investments in the economy or businesses), and if they lose they don't pay much of a price, and if they lose big enough they can count on Uncle Sam to bail them out with our taxpayer money.
I am not enough of a financial expert to know the details; I am just reading and trying to figure it out, but this event looks like it is more of the same greedy overly risky behavior that is still the guiding principle of Wall Street.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Can you see the goodness of your political opponents, or do you see them as demons to be destroyed?
New York Times writer Paul Krugman wrote an editorial declaring that the problem in the country and the world is the Republicans. Not a surprise for him to think that, of course, as he is a cheerleader for the Left wing of the Democratic Party. I often read him, but I usually find him to be part of the problem in our politics rather than part of the solution. By that I mean that he is firmly in the camp that sees the political world as split between the good people and the bad people. He seems to me to have a very limited sense of imagination when it comes to putting himself in the shoes of his political opponents, and can only see them as enemies that must be destroyed, or at least defeated very very soundly.
I am sure that there are millions and millions of conservatives who would take angry exception to Krugman's notion that their political beliefs are a result of being bought by the .01%. Somehow, in Mr Krugman's world, Republicans are dim-witted pawns of the super-humanly persuasive .01% who apparently can buy the opinions of scores of millions of people with their supernaturally powerful lobbying. That notion says that conservatives are stupid, naive, sheep, unable to reason for themselves.
Needless to say, Krugman will have no chance of ever persuading any of them to see the light that he is so certain of. Of course, those who see the world the same way that Krugman sees it will think that he has once again made a brilliant analysis showing how those who agree with Krugman are smart and good, and those who disagree are dumb and/or bad.
Needless to say, Krugman will have no chance of ever persuading any of them to see the light that he is so certain of. Of course, those who see the world the same way that Krugman sees it will think that he has once again made a brilliant analysis showing how those who agree with Krugman are smart and good, and those who disagree are dumb and/or bad.
And of course, the same situation is on the other side of the political spectrum. Conservatives are always thrilled by the partisan arguments of George Will and Rush Limbaugh, and are convinced that if they could just get the other side to pay attention to the great wisdoms that they utter, everyone would eventually agree with them.
What is missing, I think, is understanding. It seems to be so very difficult to use our imaginations when it comes to political debates. That is to say, it seems almost impossible to imagine the goodness of our political opponents. To get our minds inside the mindsets and moral values of those we oppose.
To one of Krugman's points, it is certainly true that greed and almost pathological indifference to the suffering that many on Wall Street caused is there. But there are very positive effects of the financial and corporate world as well. And just seeing those who support conservative ideas as pawns of the greedy enemy is a lack of imagination, it seems to me. If we aren't at least a little confused and uncertain, I think that may be a sign that we are trying to calm ourselves with the certainly of ideology as the world swirls scarily around us.
If we can see our political opponents as human, respectable, and good, then from there politics can actually happen, that is, negotiation, compromise, solutions that are free from the iron grips of the True Believers on both the Right and the Left. And politics can stop being about doing anything and everything necessary to keep from losing to the evil demons on the other side of the isle.
Guess what? Our political opponents are not going to go away. Both extremes seem to think that finally in this, this, this election they are going to vanquish the opposition to the point where they disappear. Never happens. They always come back.
It seems to me that there is a simple test to tell if you are able to see both sides of an issue. If you can't argue persuasively, intelligently, and emotionally for both sides of a issue, you don't really have an opinion about it, you aren't at choice about it, you are just reacting. If you can't see and feel the emotions underneath the positions of your political opponents, I don't think you can really make any claim to making a real choice rather than just being a knee-jerk liberal or knee-jerk conservative. I have been on both sides of the political spectrum, with passion and study in both cases, and I know that there are good people on both sides, and of course there are scoundrels as well.
If we can see our political opponents as human, respectable, and good, then from there politics can actually happen, that is, negotiation, compromise, solutions that are free from the iron grips of the True Believers on both the Right and the Left. And politics can stop being about doing anything and everything necessary to keep from losing to the evil demons on the other side of the isle.
Guess what? Our political opponents are not going to go away. Both extremes seem to think that finally in this, this, this election they are going to vanquish the opposition to the point where they disappear. Never happens. They always come back.
It seems to me that there is a simple test to tell if you are able to see both sides of an issue. If you can't argue persuasively, intelligently, and emotionally for both sides of a issue, you don't really have an opinion about it, you aren't at choice about it, you are just reacting. If you can't see and feel the emotions underneath the positions of your political opponents, I don't think you can really make any claim to making a real choice rather than just being a knee-jerk liberal or knee-jerk conservative. I have been on both sides of the political spectrum, with passion and study in both cases, and I know that there are good people on both sides, and of course there are scoundrels as well.
I guess my main point is that you can't persuade someone to change their minds if you think that they are evil or stupid. You have to start with respect and understanding. And I don't mean the kind of understanding that psychoanalyzes them and concludes that the reason they believe what they believe is because there is something wrong with them.
All that being said, I think the Republicans are more intolerant and divisive than the Democrats now, but the Dems are completely entrenched in the protection of their patiently built up entitlement systems and social agendas, every bit as much as the Republicans are entrenched in trying to dismantle the entitlement mentality of the nation and their own conservative social agendas.
Result? Demonizations all around. Which I regret.
Result? Demonizations all around. Which I regret.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
What we can learn from comparing the U.S. and European economies
One of the biggest issues of this campaign should be how to grow the economy. Both candidates will likely speak in small terms, using symbols to send their messages, but it would be nice if they actually went to the heart of the matter and discussed their very different macro views of the role of government and the economy.
At the heart of the Republican view is the idea that the U.S. needs to cut spending and reduce regulations and let the economy grow as a result of the freedom it is given if left to do so by a government that just stays out of the way.
At the heart of the Democrat view is that the federal government needs to inject stimulus spending into a depressed economy to provide temporary demand that will keep the economy going, and create jobs, so that the economy can recover and start to grow on its own without the extra stimulus from the government.
Of course, the conversation devolves immediately into accusation and demonization because the hard right sees government spending and regulation as attempts by the intelligentsia to take over the country with massive socialist endeavors that empower themselves and steal power from the entrepreneurs and business.
And, of course, the hard left devolves just as quickly into accusation and demonization because it sees cutting spending and reducing regulation as nothing more than ideological cover for heartless exploitation and greed of the few (the 1%) at the expense of the many (the 99%).
Interestingly, Fareed Zakaria on his Global Public Square show last Sunday tried to inject some objective data into the debate. His point is that these two approaches are currently being tried: one in Europe and one in the U.S.
In Europe, the austerity approach is being tried, and the results are terrible. Governments are cutting spending, rather draconianly, in Brittain, Greece, etc. The results are the tiny growth of about 0.8% for the EU, with the economies most subject to austerity actually shrinking. Why? because austerity shrinks the economy and lays off people, reducing demand, which ends up with not only a worsening economy but also an ever increasing deficit. It doesn't look like austerity is working in Europe, and there is no reason to think it will work in the U.S., other than to those whose secular religion is the ideology of tax cutting, spending cutting, and austerity.
In the U.S. the stimulus approach was tried, and the results are moderately good. The growth rate is about 2.2%, not as good as we would like, but quite a bit better than those countries following the austerity mantras of the Right. Of course, Republican outrage has stopped any future Keynesian stimulus, but I think that Obama and the Democrats are correct when they say that it has helped. Plus, I firmly believe that much stronger regulation of the financial industries is necessary because Wall Street has proven to me that they cannot be trusted to run their businesses in any way other than to take ever greater risks to make huge personal fortunes, while they know that the federal government will absorb their losses and keep them from failing, and will keep them out of jail if they do.
So, I am in the process of changing my mind. Up to now I have thought it was obvious that with our huge deficits and debt we needed to both cut spending and raise taxes. I still think that is largely true, but I am thinking that the spending cuts can be moderate and should focus largely on the military superstructure as well as entitlement reform, the tax raising is best in the form of a major tax reform that takes away the government giveaways to interest groups, and active government stimulus and regulation are vital to the creation of a newly robust economy.
So, raise taxes, increase regulation, Keynesian stimulus spending, and spending reform (entitlement and military cuts leaving room for infrastructure, education, and research support) - the four pillars of economic growth. My new mantra. So far.
At the heart of the Republican view is the idea that the U.S. needs to cut spending and reduce regulations and let the economy grow as a result of the freedom it is given if left to do so by a government that just stays out of the way.
At the heart of the Democrat view is that the federal government needs to inject stimulus spending into a depressed economy to provide temporary demand that will keep the economy going, and create jobs, so that the economy can recover and start to grow on its own without the extra stimulus from the government.
Of course, the conversation devolves immediately into accusation and demonization because the hard right sees government spending and regulation as attempts by the intelligentsia to take over the country with massive socialist endeavors that empower themselves and steal power from the entrepreneurs and business.
And, of course, the hard left devolves just as quickly into accusation and demonization because it sees cutting spending and reducing regulation as nothing more than ideological cover for heartless exploitation and greed of the few (the 1%) at the expense of the many (the 99%).
Interestingly, Fareed Zakaria on his Global Public Square show last Sunday tried to inject some objective data into the debate. His point is that these two approaches are currently being tried: one in Europe and one in the U.S.
In Europe, the austerity approach is being tried, and the results are terrible. Governments are cutting spending, rather draconianly, in Brittain, Greece, etc. The results are the tiny growth of about 0.8% for the EU, with the economies most subject to austerity actually shrinking. Why? because austerity shrinks the economy and lays off people, reducing demand, which ends up with not only a worsening economy but also an ever increasing deficit. It doesn't look like austerity is working in Europe, and there is no reason to think it will work in the U.S., other than to those whose secular religion is the ideology of tax cutting, spending cutting, and austerity.
In the U.S. the stimulus approach was tried, and the results are moderately good. The growth rate is about 2.2%, not as good as we would like, but quite a bit better than those countries following the austerity mantras of the Right. Of course, Republican outrage has stopped any future Keynesian stimulus, but I think that Obama and the Democrats are correct when they say that it has helped. Plus, I firmly believe that much stronger regulation of the financial industries is necessary because Wall Street has proven to me that they cannot be trusted to run their businesses in any way other than to take ever greater risks to make huge personal fortunes, while they know that the federal government will absorb their losses and keep them from failing, and will keep them out of jail if they do.
So, I am in the process of changing my mind. Up to now I have thought it was obvious that with our huge deficits and debt we needed to both cut spending and raise taxes. I still think that is largely true, but I am thinking that the spending cuts can be moderate and should focus largely on the military superstructure as well as entitlement reform, the tax raising is best in the form of a major tax reform that takes away the government giveaways to interest groups, and active government stimulus and regulation are vital to the creation of a newly robust economy.
So, raise taxes, increase regulation, Keynesian stimulus spending, and spending reform (entitlement and military cuts leaving room for infrastructure, education, and research support) - the four pillars of economic growth. My new mantra. So far.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Tribal politics
We think we choose our politics based upon dispassionate reason, or at least some of us like to think so. However, market researchers have a different view of the electorate: we are members of cultural tribes.
If you read the NY Times or Washington Post, drink congnac, brandy, gin, or Heinekin, drive a hybrid, Suburu, or Audi, browse the internet for personal ads or dating, or do job searches, eat at Popyes, White Castle, or Church's Chicken, watch Lifetime, Bravo, CNN, or MSNBC - you are in the tribal demographics more likely to vote Democrat in elections. And you will likely be targeted by Democrats to get your vote.
If you read the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal, drink Amstel Light, Michelob Ultra, or Canadian whiskey, drive a Land Rover, Isuzu, or Lexus, browse the internet for sports updates, financial services, or weather, eat at Cracker Barrel, Macaroni Grill, or Schlotsky's Deli, watch Fox News, the Golf Channel, or the History channel - you are in the tribal demographics more likely to vote Republican in elections. And you will likely be targeted by Republicans to get your vote.
Here are some fascinating results of this kind of marketing research:
One of the things I find interesting in the above data is that Republicans apparently use the internet more than Democrats. Who knew?
So, where does that leave the upcoming election? There is an interesting thought that the opening of the campaign financing to superpac money will have the odd result of moving the campaigns more to the center. The idea is that when campaign money is tight, both Democrats and Republicans need to focus almost all of their money on their base - to hybrid buyers or Land Rover buyers, for example. But, now that Citizens-United opened up the money coffers, there may be so much money available for campaigns that each side might go after venues that are populated by those in the middle - those who watch ESPN, read USA today, drink Bud Light or scotch, drive Chevrolets or Fords, browse the internet for movie listings, use email, eat at McDonald's, Wendy's and Subway, and watch TNT and the Animal Planet.
There is hope for us after all.
If you read the NY Times or Washington Post, drink congnac, brandy, gin, or Heinekin, drive a hybrid, Suburu, or Audi, browse the internet for personal ads or dating, or do job searches, eat at Popyes, White Castle, or Church's Chicken, watch Lifetime, Bravo, CNN, or MSNBC - you are in the tribal demographics more likely to vote Democrat in elections. And you will likely be targeted by Democrats to get your vote.
If you read the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal, drink Amstel Light, Michelob Ultra, or Canadian whiskey, drive a Land Rover, Isuzu, or Lexus, browse the internet for sports updates, financial services, or weather, eat at Cracker Barrel, Macaroni Grill, or Schlotsky's Deli, watch Fox News, the Golf Channel, or the History channel - you are in the tribal demographics more likely to vote Republican in elections. And you will likely be targeted by Republicans to get your vote.
Here are some fascinating results of this kind of marketing research:
One of the things I find interesting in the above data is that Republicans apparently use the internet more than Democrats. Who knew?
So, where does that leave the upcoming election? There is an interesting thought that the opening of the campaign financing to superpac money will have the odd result of moving the campaigns more to the center. The idea is that when campaign money is tight, both Democrats and Republicans need to focus almost all of their money on their base - to hybrid buyers or Land Rover buyers, for example. But, now that Citizens-United opened up the money coffers, there may be so much money available for campaigns that each side might go after venues that are populated by those in the middle - those who watch ESPN, read USA today, drink Bud Light or scotch, drive Chevrolets or Fords, browse the internet for movie listings, use email, eat at McDonald's, Wendy's and Subway, and watch TNT and the Animal Planet.
There is hope for us after all.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Is the negotiation with Iran working?
Don't look now, but there is a pretty good chance that increasingly severe economic sanctions on Iran are actually doing a good job of moving that country into a workable negotiation on their nuclear program.
It looks like a big moment came when Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei swore not to commit the "grave sin" of building a nuclear weapon. I took that at the time as normal stalling tactics to give them time to finish the job, but David Ignatius of the Washington Post points out that both sides are finding ways to create face saving moves to avoid confrontation over Iran's nuclear program, with Iran forgoing the building of nuclear weapons.
The key to negotiations is how the moves are framed.
Iran can perform "confidence-building" measures to demonstrate how serious a moral issue it is to Khamenei not to build nukes. These measures require "reciprocity" from the West. If this step by step negotiating process can proceed quietly a deal may really end up happening.
"Confidence building" by Iran would be to ship Iran's low-enriched uranium abroad and receive back 20% enriched fuel, for "isotopes" for "medical research." In addition, Iran would stop working on their underground enrichment facility near Qom, which would no longer be needed. This would be acceptable, one hopes, to Khamenei as long as the West accepts Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy. Viola, Iran backs down but saves face under the umbrella of Khamenei's moral declaration that nukes are a "grave sin."
"Reciprocity" by the West would be to accept Iran's right to nuclear power and an easing of the sanctions. The key date is apparently the beginning of July when the U.S. and Europe's sanctions are to take full effect.
Another key to this seems to be that the U.N. Security Council, meaning China and Russia, has "signaled" that Iran's nuclear program aimed toward building nuclear weapons is too dangerous.
I think that Obama's foreign policy, aided by the apparently very skilled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is working pretty well around the world. And keeping Iran from building nukes, and keeping Israel from attacking Iran, is a huge accomplishment, and is best achieved at the levels of diplomacy and statesmanship rather than grandiose and bellicose showmanship wanted by some.
It's worth a prayer or two that they, no ... that we, succeed.
It looks like a big moment came when Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei swore not to commit the "grave sin" of building a nuclear weapon. I took that at the time as normal stalling tactics to give them time to finish the job, but David Ignatius of the Washington Post points out that both sides are finding ways to create face saving moves to avoid confrontation over Iran's nuclear program, with Iran forgoing the building of nuclear weapons.
The key to negotiations is how the moves are framed.
Iran can perform "confidence-building" measures to demonstrate how serious a moral issue it is to Khamenei not to build nukes. These measures require "reciprocity" from the West. If this step by step negotiating process can proceed quietly a deal may really end up happening.
"Confidence building" by Iran would be to ship Iran's low-enriched uranium abroad and receive back 20% enriched fuel, for "isotopes" for "medical research." In addition, Iran would stop working on their underground enrichment facility near Qom, which would no longer be needed. This would be acceptable, one hopes, to Khamenei as long as the West accepts Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy. Viola, Iran backs down but saves face under the umbrella of Khamenei's moral declaration that nukes are a "grave sin."
"Reciprocity" by the West would be to accept Iran's right to nuclear power and an easing of the sanctions. The key date is apparently the beginning of July when the U.S. and Europe's sanctions are to take full effect.
Another key to this seems to be that the U.N. Security Council, meaning China and Russia, has "signaled" that Iran's nuclear program aimed toward building nuclear weapons is too dangerous.
I think that Obama's foreign policy, aided by the apparently very skilled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is working pretty well around the world. And keeping Iran from building nukes, and keeping Israel from attacking Iran, is a huge accomplishment, and is best achieved at the levels of diplomacy and statesmanship rather than grandiose and bellicose showmanship wanted by some.
It's worth a prayer or two that they, no ... that we, succeed.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
What is it about Massachusetts' governors?
Now that even Rick Santorum concedes that Romney will be the Republican nominee for president, I notice an odd thing: Romney reminds me of another former governor of Massachusetts governor, Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. Both seem to be cold, calculating, data oriented analysts, but seem to be missing the warmth factor.
Dukakis famously made a pretty big mistake in a presidential debate by telling CNN debate moderator, Bernard Shaw, that he would not favor the death penalty if his wife, Kitty, had been raped and murdered. He answered as an ideologue, as an analyst, about how the data showed that the death sentence does not deter violent crime. There was no human response to the abhorrent suggestion that his own wife had been subjected to such a degrading death. He seemed to be a robot, a man with only a brain and without a heart. He didn't have to change his position on the death penalty, but he could have shown a beating heart if he had said he would want to find the bastard and kill him himself, and then reaffirmed his principles. But, he was just a cold fish policy wonk and it hurt him pretty badly in the election, which he lost, of course to Bush I.
Dukakis famously made a pretty big mistake in a presidential debate by telling CNN debate moderator, Bernard Shaw, that he would not favor the death penalty if his wife, Kitty, had been raped and murdered. He answered as an ideologue, as an analyst, about how the data showed that the death sentence does not deter violent crime. There was no human response to the abhorrent suggestion that his own wife had been subjected to such a degrading death. He seemed to be a robot, a man with only a brain and without a heart. He didn't have to change his position on the death penalty, but he could have shown a beating heart if he had said he would want to find the bastard and kill him himself, and then reaffirmed his principles. But, he was just a cold fish policy wonk and it hurt him pretty badly in the election, which he lost, of course to Bush I.
Patricia Murphy of the Daily Beast, makes the same kind of observation about Mitt Romney: that he lacks a certain sense of humanity.
Dukakis spoke in ideological terms about the government policy, rather than about people. Romney speaks as a CEO about the economy in abstract data driven arguments and doesn't speak in terms of people's lives.
Of course, Romney's good luck is that he is not running against Mr. Warmth. Obama has the same remote, cool, data oriented temperament. One of the things I find so fascinating about this election is the likeness of the two candidates on a temperamental level - cool, remote, analytic, dispassionate. Two Dukakises running for president, odd actually.
Friday, April 6, 2012
What the campaign should be about
Romney won the nomination after the first primary in Iowa, the rest has been about the theatrics of party politics. Now it should be obvious to all that Romney will be the Republican nominee. I have a dream - what the campaign should really be about:
The deficit - Romney should say that we need to follow the blueprint of Simpson-Bowles and both cut government spending and raise taxes. He should say Obama and the Democrats are only talking about raising taxes and won't talk about cutting spending. Obama should say that we need to follow the blueprint of Simpson-Bowles and both cut government spending and raise taxes. He should say Romney and the Republicans are only talking about cutting spending and won't talk about raising taxes. Both would be right - both raising taxes and cutting spending are necessary to keep the country's economy and government from collapsing under the weight of the deficit.
The terrorist wars - both should say that we need to protect the country from terrorists, but we should do everything we can possibly do to avoid sending troops into the toxic tar pit of the Middle Eastern religious and civil wars. I hope there is no real dispute.
Health care - the debate is over, health care reform became the law. We need to improve it. Romney will want market mechanisms to improve it, Obama will want government oversight to improve it. Both would be right.
The economy - blah blah blah, the economy will grow if pretty much left alone. Leave it alone.
The Culture Wars - Obama should leave them alone. Romney should leave them alone. Let Fox News and MSNBC fight it out as a gladiator spectator sport to get their little niche audiences, and the candidates should get on with running the country.
Of course, many Democrats, and many Republicans will run campaigns based on the nonsense that those in the other party are demons from hell and hell bent on destroying everything sacred in This Great Country of Ours. But, I have a dream that the two presidential candidates will run as who they really are, not ideologues, but as pragmatic problem solvers, one with more reliance on the marketplace and one with more of an emphasis on the government, who will do their best in dealing with a very complicated world.
I can dream...
The deficit - Romney should say that we need to follow the blueprint of Simpson-Bowles and both cut government spending and raise taxes. He should say Obama and the Democrats are only talking about raising taxes and won't talk about cutting spending. Obama should say that we need to follow the blueprint of Simpson-Bowles and both cut government spending and raise taxes. He should say Romney and the Republicans are only talking about cutting spending and won't talk about raising taxes. Both would be right - both raising taxes and cutting spending are necessary to keep the country's economy and government from collapsing under the weight of the deficit.
The terrorist wars - both should say that we need to protect the country from terrorists, but we should do everything we can possibly do to avoid sending troops into the toxic tar pit of the Middle Eastern religious and civil wars. I hope there is no real dispute.
Health care - the debate is over, health care reform became the law. We need to improve it. Romney will want market mechanisms to improve it, Obama will want government oversight to improve it. Both would be right.
The economy - blah blah blah, the economy will grow if pretty much left alone. Leave it alone.
The Culture Wars - Obama should leave them alone. Romney should leave them alone. Let Fox News and MSNBC fight it out as a gladiator spectator sport to get their little niche audiences, and the candidates should get on with running the country.
Of course, many Democrats, and many Republicans will run campaigns based on the nonsense that those in the other party are demons from hell and hell bent on destroying everything sacred in This Great Country of Ours. But, I have a dream that the two presidential candidates will run as who they really are, not ideologues, but as pragmatic problem solvers, one with more reliance on the marketplace and one with more of an emphasis on the government, who will do their best in dealing with a very complicated world.
I can dream...
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Constitutional oddities
So, I guess from the right wing point of view it is unconstitutional to mandate that everyone buys private health insurance (Obamacare), but it is constitutional to mandate that everyone buy government health insurance (Medicare and Social Security). So, I guess that the right wing point of view is that it would be constitutional to have Medicare for everyone in the nation rather than just everyone in the nation that is 65 or over?
Poor Romney, he led a conservative triumph in Massachusetts when he signed Romneycare by stopping the left wing drive for a single payer (government) statewide health plan and instituted the conservative Heritage Foundation idea of offering universal health care by using the market rather than the government - i.e. by mandating that everyone in the state buy insurance, with subsidies to those who couldn't afford to. Viola! universal coverage provided by the market! A completely conservative, market oriented solution designed to create a system where market forces would create the most efficient and cost effective health system. Government bad, market good - the fundamental requirement for a conservative idea.
That is, it was a brilliant right wing idea until Obama adopted it and it became a bad left wing idea that was an attempt to force people to buckle under to the tyrannical left wing government on the way to a socialist takeover of everyone's freedoms.
It's just one tribe fighting the other tribe with no attention being paid to the merits of anything. Perhaps it is a result of a legal mindset that has taken over congress, inhabited mostly by lawyers. The definition of a good lawyer seems to be that he or she can argue either side of any issue depending on who is paying them. The issue doesn't matter, the arguments don't matter, just the winning matters. Same thing for the endlessly exhausting culture wars in this country. It seems to me that Obamacare and Romneycare are perfect examples of arguing for and against the same thing depending on whose ox gets to be gored.
In a way, this current political environment in which the only thing that matters is winning looks to me like it is a parallel to what has happened to Wall Street, where the only thing that matters is making money. When all other considerations are thrown away, everything goes out of balance and things are destroyed - millions of jobs destroyed when the financial system got so out of balance that it almost destroyed capitalism itself, and the ability of our politicians to govern is being destroyed by the polarization getting so out of balance that democracy itself is being compromised.
Lord, I'm sick of it all, but we have a whole presidential and congressional campaign ahead of us of vitriolic exaggeration and bile. I send some prayers to our body politic for some soothing of the rhetoric, some listening to the ideas rather than just attacking of the enemies, and to that most hated word to the extremes - compromise - which is a synonym for another word - politics.
Poor Romney, he led a conservative triumph in Massachusetts when he signed Romneycare by stopping the left wing drive for a single payer (government) statewide health plan and instituted the conservative Heritage Foundation idea of offering universal health care by using the market rather than the government - i.e. by mandating that everyone in the state buy insurance, with subsidies to those who couldn't afford to. Viola! universal coverage provided by the market! A completely conservative, market oriented solution designed to create a system where market forces would create the most efficient and cost effective health system. Government bad, market good - the fundamental requirement for a conservative idea.
That is, it was a brilliant right wing idea until Obama adopted it and it became a bad left wing idea that was an attempt to force people to buckle under to the tyrannical left wing government on the way to a socialist takeover of everyone's freedoms.
It's just one tribe fighting the other tribe with no attention being paid to the merits of anything. Perhaps it is a result of a legal mindset that has taken over congress, inhabited mostly by lawyers. The definition of a good lawyer seems to be that he or she can argue either side of any issue depending on who is paying them. The issue doesn't matter, the arguments don't matter, just the winning matters. Same thing for the endlessly exhausting culture wars in this country. It seems to me that Obamacare and Romneycare are perfect examples of arguing for and against the same thing depending on whose ox gets to be gored.
In a way, this current political environment in which the only thing that matters is winning looks to me like it is a parallel to what has happened to Wall Street, where the only thing that matters is making money. When all other considerations are thrown away, everything goes out of balance and things are destroyed - millions of jobs destroyed when the financial system got so out of balance that it almost destroyed capitalism itself, and the ability of our politicians to govern is being destroyed by the polarization getting so out of balance that democracy itself is being compromised.
Lord, I'm sick of it all, but we have a whole presidential and congressional campaign ahead of us of vitriolic exaggeration and bile. I send some prayers to our body politic for some soothing of the rhetoric, some listening to the ideas rather than just attacking of the enemies, and to that most hated word to the extremes - compromise - which is a synonym for another word - politics.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Will the Supreme Court legislate from the bench?
The Supreme Court is considering the challenges to Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act starting today. It seems to me that the most conservative position that the conservative members of the court can take is to leave it alone, unchanged, to stand as is.
I think that one of the tenets of conservative courts is that they should not legislate from the bench. This law is what laws are - flawed, messy, a cobbled together set of compromises needed to get it passed. I have never been avidly for nor against Obamacare, and have always been more on the sidelines observing, with some distress, the process that the legislation took. All told, I expect it to cost more than promised (what government program doesn't?), and I expect that it will provide health care for a huge number of people that didn't have insurance coverage prior to the law. And I expect that the insurance companies will not be able to reject coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. In other words, the basic claims of both the right and the left are correct.
However, there is one thing that seems obvious to me: this law is one of the most powerful examples of legislation by the legislature in my lifetime. This wasn't passed in the dead of night after minimum debate. It was the result of an excruciating year long process played out in both the Senate and the House, with maximum publicity, with all segments of society and business passionately weighing in to try to influence the outcome. At the end, the legislation passed, and a new law came into being.
To overturn it would be one of the most blatant examples of legislation from the bench of all time. That alone should convince the conservative justices to leave it alone, it seems to me.
If Obamacare is to be overturned, it needs to be overturned by the legislature, not the courts. The hard core right wing seem to think that the country is as eager to overturn it as they are. I sincerely doubt it. I think that a Republican push to overturn the health care law will blow up in their faces. The fight to overturn the law will enrage the country all over again, and is a lost cause, as far as I can tell. It is what the ideologues want to do, but I don't think the country has the taste for it.
I think that one of the tenets of conservative courts is that they should not legislate from the bench. This law is what laws are - flawed, messy, a cobbled together set of compromises needed to get it passed. I have never been avidly for nor against Obamacare, and have always been more on the sidelines observing, with some distress, the process that the legislation took. All told, I expect it to cost more than promised (what government program doesn't?), and I expect that it will provide health care for a huge number of people that didn't have insurance coverage prior to the law. And I expect that the insurance companies will not be able to reject coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. In other words, the basic claims of both the right and the left are correct.
However, there is one thing that seems obvious to me: this law is one of the most powerful examples of legislation by the legislature in my lifetime. This wasn't passed in the dead of night after minimum debate. It was the result of an excruciating year long process played out in both the Senate and the House, with maximum publicity, with all segments of society and business passionately weighing in to try to influence the outcome. At the end, the legislation passed, and a new law came into being.
To overturn it would be one of the most blatant examples of legislation from the bench of all time. That alone should convince the conservative justices to leave it alone, it seems to me.
If Obamacare is to be overturned, it needs to be overturned by the legislature, not the courts. The hard core right wing seem to think that the country is as eager to overturn it as they are. I sincerely doubt it. I think that a Republican push to overturn the health care law will blow up in their faces. The fight to overturn the law will enrage the country all over again, and is a lost cause, as far as I can tell. It is what the ideologues want to do, but I don't think the country has the taste for it.
Friday, March 23, 2012
What do the extremists believe?
I believe that the extremists of both parties are toxic to our national dialog and are inadvertently leading their parties to ruin. Who are they? What do they believe?
I believe that the Left Wing of the Democratic Party sees BUSINESS as rapacious, exploitative, insensitive, uncaring sharks who prey on the weak for their own selfish profit and greed. They certainly have ample evidence to support their beliefs: from Bernie Maddoff and the Wall Street Too Big to Fail behemoths who made fortunes at their clients' expense, to the raping of the environment, to their disproportionate control over elections by campaign funding and lobbying.
I believe that the Right Wing of the Republican Party sees BUSINESS as the "strong horse that pulls the whole cart" to quote Churchill, and is the energy that actually creates prosperity for the modern world. They certainly have ample evidence to support their beliefs as well: from the creation of the auto industry in America and then Japan, to the creation of the high tech industry in Silicon Valley and then around the world, to the stark contrast between the levels of prosperity in the affluent Capitalist world and the lack of prosperity in the impoverished Communist worlds during the Cold War, and still today.
I believe the Left Wing of the Democratic Party sees GOVERNMENT as kindly parents who exhibit caring and establish justice. They certainly have ample evidence to support their beliefs: from the safety nets of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid to provide for the elderly and disabled who become unable to provide for themselves, to a vast system of criminal and civil justice that provide protection for the population from personal and corporate crime, and the establishment of a legal framework in which the Capitalist business system can operate freely with guaranteed competition.
The Right Wing of the Republican Party sees GOVERNMENT as meddling tyrants bent on accumulating more and more centralized power in the hands of faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats who run the country for their masters according to the latest intellectual fads of the day. There is ample evidence to support their beliefs: from the faceless insensitivity of the DMV bureaucrat, to the attempted government takeover of the largest economic sector of the country (health care), to the totalitarian control of every aspect of society and personal life in the past and present Communist countries, with enormous government take-overs like Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act seen as giant steps toward that kind of totalitarianism.
But most people, thank goodness, do not see business as either a predatory shark or a beneficent work horse, nor do they see government as either a totalitarian force in waiting or a kindly, caring parent. I think most people look upon both business and government as human institutions, not capitalized super-entities, with some suspicion and some gratitude, and see that both are mixed bags of beneficial and harmful forces. I certainly do, unlike how I viewed things in my earlier years where I more or less chose sides in the endless battle between the believers in GOVERNMENT and the believers in BUSINESS.
That is why I am glad that elections are generally decided by the moderate middle of the political spectrum. The middle is often fairly disengaged, but often quite engaged indeed, but they are not captive of the caricatures of business and government portrayed by the outer wings of each party.
I believe that the Left Wing of the Democratic Party sees BUSINESS as rapacious, exploitative, insensitive, uncaring sharks who prey on the weak for their own selfish profit and greed. They certainly have ample evidence to support their beliefs: from Bernie Maddoff and the Wall Street Too Big to Fail behemoths who made fortunes at their clients' expense, to the raping of the environment, to their disproportionate control over elections by campaign funding and lobbying.
I believe that the Right Wing of the Republican Party sees BUSINESS as the "strong horse that pulls the whole cart" to quote Churchill, and is the energy that actually creates prosperity for the modern world. They certainly have ample evidence to support their beliefs as well: from the creation of the auto industry in America and then Japan, to the creation of the high tech industry in Silicon Valley and then around the world, to the stark contrast between the levels of prosperity in the affluent Capitalist world and the lack of prosperity in the impoverished Communist worlds during the Cold War, and still today.
I believe the Left Wing of the Democratic Party sees GOVERNMENT as kindly parents who exhibit caring and establish justice. They certainly have ample evidence to support their beliefs: from the safety nets of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid to provide for the elderly and disabled who become unable to provide for themselves, to a vast system of criminal and civil justice that provide protection for the population from personal and corporate crime, and the establishment of a legal framework in which the Capitalist business system can operate freely with guaranteed competition.
The Right Wing of the Republican Party sees GOVERNMENT as meddling tyrants bent on accumulating more and more centralized power in the hands of faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats who run the country for their masters according to the latest intellectual fads of the day. There is ample evidence to support their beliefs: from the faceless insensitivity of the DMV bureaucrat, to the attempted government takeover of the largest economic sector of the country (health care), to the totalitarian control of every aspect of society and personal life in the past and present Communist countries, with enormous government take-overs like Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act seen as giant steps toward that kind of totalitarianism.
But most people, thank goodness, do not see business as either a predatory shark or a beneficent work horse, nor do they see government as either a totalitarian force in waiting or a kindly, caring parent. I think most people look upon both business and government as human institutions, not capitalized super-entities, with some suspicion and some gratitude, and see that both are mixed bags of beneficial and harmful forces. I certainly do, unlike how I viewed things in my earlier years where I more or less chose sides in the endless battle between the believers in GOVERNMENT and the believers in BUSINESS.
That is why I am glad that elections are generally decided by the moderate middle of the political spectrum. The middle is often fairly disengaged, but often quite engaged indeed, but they are not captive of the caricatures of business and government portrayed by the outer wings of each party.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Left Wing Extremism also loses elections
It's not just the Republicans who are in danger of extremism that alienates the mainstream voters. Ruth Marcus, center left editorialist of the Washington Post, warns that the way Democrats lose is by being too extreme as well.
She cites a recent study that shows that Democratic Party activists are quite a bit more liberal than voters who identify themselves as Democrats.
This fact is compounded by the fact that those who identify themselves as independent but leaning Democrat are more likely to vote Republican than those who identify themselves as independent but leaning Republican are likely to vote Democrat.
The weakness of each party is oddly the very thing that party activists think is their strength - ideological commitment, passion for The Cause - extremism. I believe that whichever party is able to reject its own extremism is the party of the future. Right now, it seems to me that Obama is a fairly moderate liberal, and Romney is a fairly moderate conservative, despite the red meat they throw out to their extremist wings in an effort to keep them excited.
If the race is between these two, I would feel fairly comfortable with the choices presented. The Republicans are trying their best to get a passionate movement conservative on the ballot, but I think that they will end up settling on the pragmatic problem solver, Romney, in the end.
Who knows, we might even have an interesting race between two pragmatic candidates who discuss the issues and their positions. In truth, if they would actually speak of how they see issues in the same pragmatic way that they would like to govern, they might end up doing a lot of agreeing with each other rather rather than adapting ideological poses to satisfy their wings and trying to create wide differences between them.
Wouldn't that be a welcome relief?
She cites a recent study that shows that Democratic Party activists are quite a bit more liberal than voters who identify themselves as Democrats.
This fact is compounded by the fact that those who identify themselves as independent but leaning Democrat are more likely to vote Republican than those who identify themselves as independent but leaning Republican are likely to vote Democrat.
The weakness of each party is oddly the very thing that party activists think is their strength - ideological commitment, passion for The Cause - extremism. I believe that whichever party is able to reject its own extremism is the party of the future. Right now, it seems to me that Obama is a fairly moderate liberal, and Romney is a fairly moderate conservative, despite the red meat they throw out to their extremist wings in an effort to keep them excited.
If the race is between these two, I would feel fairly comfortable with the choices presented. The Republicans are trying their best to get a passionate movement conservative on the ballot, but I think that they will end up settling on the pragmatic problem solver, Romney, in the end.
Who knows, we might even have an interesting race between two pragmatic candidates who discuss the issues and their positions. In truth, if they would actually speak of how they see issues in the same pragmatic way that they would like to govern, they might end up doing a lot of agreeing with each other rather rather than adapting ideological poses to satisfy their wings and trying to create wide differences between them.
Wouldn't that be a welcome relief?
Monday, March 19, 2012
Who are the big spenders?
Who raises government spending more - Democrats or Republicans? Oops... it's Republicans! Andrew Sullivan, center right editorialist, presents the following chart:
Nixon-Ford, Reagan, and Bush II all raised growth well over 2.5% per capita during their terms. Obama is under 1.5% and Clinton was under 1.0%.
Maybe it's a kind of Nixon-to-China syndrome, the liberal Dems couldn't reach out to China without being accused of appeasing Communists, but the anti-communist Nixon could. Perhaps it's the same here, the big spending Dems can't get much big spending done without being savaged for playing to type, but the cost cutting Reps can get away with budget murder.
It would be nice if either party would seriously address our very big deficit issue along the lines of Simpson-Bowles cost cutting and tax reform, but I expect the upcoming campaign will stick to ideological sound bites and play it safe. But after the election, I can't imagine the elected president not focusing on tax reform, cost cutting, and deficit reduction, regardless of which candidate wins.
Nixon-Ford, Reagan, and Bush II all raised growth well over 2.5% per capita during their terms. Obama is under 1.5% and Clinton was under 1.0%.
Maybe it's a kind of Nixon-to-China syndrome, the liberal Dems couldn't reach out to China without being accused of appeasing Communists, but the anti-communist Nixon could. Perhaps it's the same here, the big spending Dems can't get much big spending done without being savaged for playing to type, but the cost cutting Reps can get away with budget murder.
It would be nice if either party would seriously address our very big deficit issue along the lines of Simpson-Bowles cost cutting and tax reform, but I expect the upcoming campaign will stick to ideological sound bites and play it safe. But after the election, I can't imagine the elected president not focusing on tax reform, cost cutting, and deficit reduction, regardless of which candidate wins.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Is Rush Limbaugh killing talk radio?
Is talk radio dying?
Has Rush Limbaugh, who gave birth to extremist political radio, killing it now? Limbaugh spawned many imitators on both the right and the left, from Glenn Beck to Keith Olbermann. Extremism seems to be the goal, and the hook needed to get a small niche audience. It doesn't take many people to agree with a radio host to give them a very profitable audience. I think I saw that the biggest success in the talk show world, Limbaugh himself, gets only about 5% of the radio audience during his time slot. Most people are not that focused on politics, they actually have lives that concern them and aren't obsessing about how the political world is destroying the world. Good for them.
Apparently, a company named Premiere Networks is a main distributor of Limbaugh and many right wing talk shows. And they have made a pretty shocking announcement: 98 sponsors want guarantees that they will not be advertised on extremist, polarizing, mean spirited talk shows. John Avalon, centrist editorialist, writes the following:
"Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”
This includes corporations like Ford, Geico, and McDonalds. These are big players.
In a time where our politics has become so polarized that actual governing becomes almost impossible because both parties are incapable of compromise with opponents that they see as evil, I can think of nothing quite so promising as this development. This is not the government suppressing free speech. This is advertisers refusing to be associated with extremist nastiness that hurts their brand and inhibits their ability to do business.
As I have written before, in the '80s the Loony Left became so separated from reality that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were given power to undo some of their craziness. Now, thirty years later, the Rigid Right, lead by Limbaugh and others on the radio, have become so trapped inside the bubble of their own ideology that they can't see any reality that doesn't confirm their beliefs.
I once heard Limbaugh announce that his job was ideological purity. He is famous for saying that what you find in the center of the road is roadkill. I say what you find at the extreme edges of the road, both right and left, are ditches. And these extremists have proudly led our country into the ditches: the ditches of right wing and left wing ideological purities that are incapable of pragmatism and compromise, in other words, incapable of the practice of actual politics, which involves give and take, and ... compromise.
They are lost in obsolete ideologies, and it is time for most of us to turn away from their sad little mean spirited conspiratorial views of the world - both right wing and left wing.
Has Rush Limbaugh, who gave birth to extremist political radio, killing it now? Limbaugh spawned many imitators on both the right and the left, from Glenn Beck to Keith Olbermann. Extremism seems to be the goal, and the hook needed to get a small niche audience. It doesn't take many people to agree with a radio host to give them a very profitable audience. I think I saw that the biggest success in the talk show world, Limbaugh himself, gets only about 5% of the radio audience during his time slot. Most people are not that focused on politics, they actually have lives that concern them and aren't obsessing about how the political world is destroying the world. Good for them.
Apparently, a company named Premiere Networks is a main distributor of Limbaugh and many right wing talk shows. And they have made a pretty shocking announcement: 98 sponsors want guarantees that they will not be advertised on extremist, polarizing, mean spirited talk shows. John Avalon, centrist editorialist, writes the following:
"Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”
This includes corporations like Ford, Geico, and McDonalds. These are big players.
In a time where our politics has become so polarized that actual governing becomes almost impossible because both parties are incapable of compromise with opponents that they see as evil, I can think of nothing quite so promising as this development. This is not the government suppressing free speech. This is advertisers refusing to be associated with extremist nastiness that hurts their brand and inhibits their ability to do business.
As I have written before, in the '80s the Loony Left became so separated from reality that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were given power to undo some of their craziness. Now, thirty years later, the Rigid Right, lead by Limbaugh and others on the radio, have become so trapped inside the bubble of their own ideology that they can't see any reality that doesn't confirm their beliefs.
I once heard Limbaugh announce that his job was ideological purity. He is famous for saying that what you find in the center of the road is roadkill. I say what you find at the extreme edges of the road, both right and left, are ditches. And these extremists have proudly led our country into the ditches: the ditches of right wing and left wing ideological purities that are incapable of pragmatism and compromise, in other words, incapable of the practice of actual politics, which involves give and take, and ... compromise.
They are lost in obsolete ideologies, and it is time for most of us to turn away from their sad little mean spirited conspiratorial views of the world - both right wing and left wing.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Rush Limbaugh loses a sixth advertiser
Apparently, Carbonite is the sixth advertiser that has pulled their ads from the Rush Limbaugh show. Carbonite's reason was very explicit:
No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.
Carbonite joins Sleep Number, Sleep Train, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Citrix as sponsors who have decided Rush Limbaugh damages their brands. Perhaps also Auto Zone is part of that group.
Lack of civility in our political discourse is perhaps our greatest problem in this country. When each side demonizes the other, no cooperation and compromise is possible, and thus, no actual governing happens. Thirty years ago, it was the "Looney Left" that had gone off the cliff. These days, extremists like Limbaugh are leading the Rigid Right off the cliff.
I remember back in the days when I was more conservative, and listening to Limbaugh from time to time, one of his accusations of liberals was that they would damage the country rather than do anything that would allow George W Bush look good. This was supposedly because of Democrats' lust for power. But, hasn't Rush Limbaugh already confessed to that very motivation right after Obama was elected when he said that he hoped Obama would fail as president? Doesn't this man do everything in his power to force Republicans to refuse to cooperate in any way with Obama and the Democrats, just so the Republicans can seize power in 2012?
Conservatives like Limbaugh are seeming more and more desperate and sad to me. I think they have put all of their eggs in the basket of overthrowing Obama and the Dems in 2012, and it looked like they were going to succeed a few months ago. But now it looks like it is all slipping away from them. Long term, demographics are working against the conservatives, and they know it, and I think they are panicking and becoming more and more extreme, and more and more alienating to those outside of their tight little world. Hispanics and young people strongly lean toward the Democrats, and those demographics are only getting larger. If Obama and the Democrats win 2012, there is a chance that the Reagan Revolution, so beloved by conservatives, will be dead, even to them.
The stakes are very high in the minds of the True Believer conservatives like Limbaugh. And his nasty over-reaching as he assaults those he disagrees with is an indicator of their desperation. Or so it seems to me.
No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.
Carbonite joins Sleep Number, Sleep Train, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Citrix as sponsors who have decided Rush Limbaugh damages their brands. Perhaps also Auto Zone is part of that group.
Lack of civility in our political discourse is perhaps our greatest problem in this country. When each side demonizes the other, no cooperation and compromise is possible, and thus, no actual governing happens. Thirty years ago, it was the "Looney Left" that had gone off the cliff. These days, extremists like Limbaugh are leading the Rigid Right off the cliff.
I remember back in the days when I was more conservative, and listening to Limbaugh from time to time, one of his accusations of liberals was that they would damage the country rather than do anything that would allow George W Bush look good. This was supposedly because of Democrats' lust for power. But, hasn't Rush Limbaugh already confessed to that very motivation right after Obama was elected when he said that he hoped Obama would fail as president? Doesn't this man do everything in his power to force Republicans to refuse to cooperate in any way with Obama and the Democrats, just so the Republicans can seize power in 2012?
Conservatives like Limbaugh are seeming more and more desperate and sad to me. I think they have put all of their eggs in the basket of overthrowing Obama and the Dems in 2012, and it looked like they were going to succeed a few months ago. But now it looks like it is all slipping away from them. Long term, demographics are working against the conservatives, and they know it, and I think they are panicking and becoming more and more extreme, and more and more alienating to those outside of their tight little world. Hispanics and young people strongly lean toward the Democrats, and those demographics are only getting larger. If Obama and the Democrats win 2012, there is a chance that the Reagan Revolution, so beloved by conservatives, will be dead, even to them.
The stakes are very high in the minds of the True Believer conservatives like Limbaugh. And his nasty over-reaching as he assaults those he disagrees with is an indicator of their desperation. Or so it seems to me.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Santorum's self defined Courage sinks his candidacy
I finally broke down and listened to the last Republican debate last week prior to the Michigan and Arizona primaries. Up to then I was content to see highlights on news reports and internet sites, on the idea that why listen to seven or eight people when only one is going to be the candidate?
The key moment in this campaign for Santorum came, I believe, when someone texted in asking for each candidate to define themselves in one word. Paul said "Consistent", Romney said "Resolute", Santorum said "Courage", and Gingrich mischievously said "Cheerful."
I think they all revealed a lot, but most especially, Santorum. Up until then apparently he had run a fairly focused and smart campaign, speaking as a working class guy that connected with people who were feeling the hardship of the economy and wanted to find a way to make a living and feel some self respect again which had been so hurt by the Great Recession. That was a message with some appeal to a lot of people.
But, I think that once he defined himself with the brand of Courage, I think he felt he had found his true voice, and had given his campaign a greater purpose - to be Courageous. And, I think he proved to us what being courageous really means in Rick Santorum's world - to speak out against Godlessness and sin. He became the preacher rather than the politician. He scolded the country for their sins, courageously. He spoke the truth on those things that he held as being the most important - issues of morality - courageously. Say "no" to contraception because it places the will of men and women above the Will of God; wanting to Throw Up when he heard what John F Kennedy said about the separation of church and state - misinterpreting Kennedy's assurances that he would not be a pawn of the Vatican for a declaration that people of faith should stay out of politics; etc. He revealed his deepest passions, his deeply held convictions of his faith and his obvious desire to impose his dogmas on as many Americans as he could manage.
Not an attractive message to most people, certainly not to me. Those that shared his dogmatic views were thrilled, of course, but they had already seen him as one of them. But many of the rest saw him as someone other than themselves. So, he is losing. I am willing to give thanks to God for that, personally.
As for Romney's identifying himself as "Resolute", I think that is also instructive. I think he is resolute. He is the energizer bunny that just keeps going even though he is not doing an awful lot to catch on. I expect him to resolutely plow ahead and win the nomination. I'm not inspired, but I think he would be so much better than his Republican opponents that I am happy to see him continue his upward, laborious path to the nomination. I expect Super Tuesday to pretty much put the competition to bed and show that there is only one viable candidate.
But, as long as billionaires are willing to back the non-Romneys I suppose we will have to endure more primary drama. And that relentlessly negative drama only hurts the conservative brand - or does it just reveal it?
The key moment in this campaign for Santorum came, I believe, when someone texted in asking for each candidate to define themselves in one word. Paul said "Consistent", Romney said "Resolute", Santorum said "Courage", and Gingrich mischievously said "Cheerful."
I think they all revealed a lot, but most especially, Santorum. Up until then apparently he had run a fairly focused and smart campaign, speaking as a working class guy that connected with people who were feeling the hardship of the economy and wanted to find a way to make a living and feel some self respect again which had been so hurt by the Great Recession. That was a message with some appeal to a lot of people.
But, I think that once he defined himself with the brand of Courage, I think he felt he had found his true voice, and had given his campaign a greater purpose - to be Courageous. And, I think he proved to us what being courageous really means in Rick Santorum's world - to speak out against Godlessness and sin. He became the preacher rather than the politician. He scolded the country for their sins, courageously. He spoke the truth on those things that he held as being the most important - issues of morality - courageously. Say "no" to contraception because it places the will of men and women above the Will of God; wanting to Throw Up when he heard what John F Kennedy said about the separation of church and state - misinterpreting Kennedy's assurances that he would not be a pawn of the Vatican for a declaration that people of faith should stay out of politics; etc. He revealed his deepest passions, his deeply held convictions of his faith and his obvious desire to impose his dogmas on as many Americans as he could manage.
Not an attractive message to most people, certainly not to me. Those that shared his dogmatic views were thrilled, of course, but they had already seen him as one of them. But many of the rest saw him as someone other than themselves. So, he is losing. I am willing to give thanks to God for that, personally.
As for Romney's identifying himself as "Resolute", I think that is also instructive. I think he is resolute. He is the energizer bunny that just keeps going even though he is not doing an awful lot to catch on. I expect him to resolutely plow ahead and win the nomination. I'm not inspired, but I think he would be so much better than his Republican opponents that I am happy to see him continue his upward, laborious path to the nomination. I expect Super Tuesday to pretty much put the competition to bed and show that there is only one viable candidate.
But, as long as billionaires are willing to back the non-Romneys I suppose we will have to endure more primary drama. And that relentlessly negative drama only hurts the conservative brand - or does it just reveal it?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Republican slog continues
Well, Romney continues to slog his way to the nomination. My only hope is that he doesn't mean most of the right wing extremist things that he says, and he is just posturing to get the nomination. But that brings to mind one of my favorite quotations from Mark Twain:
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." Mark Twain
I think Romney is in the first category, and I fear that Santorum is in the second.
In truth, I think that Romney is a pragmatic problem solver without a deep sense of ideology, and that he would probably be a pretty good president. But, he certainly inspires no one, and remains the "Other Guy" to Obama - pretty well an undefined character that the country could turn to if they decide that Obama has messed up too much. But, I really don't think Santorum would be a good president, and the country is not about to elect someone from the evangelical Christian camp (even though he is an extremist Catholic rather than an evangelical, his appeal seems to be the absolutism of the religious zealot)
I think Obama's main challenge is to keep from becoming overconfident. Unless, of course, the world blows up in some way between now and November. I think prayers for a stable, slowly improving world are in order.
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." Mark Twain
I think Romney is in the first category, and I fear that Santorum is in the second.
In truth, I think that Romney is a pragmatic problem solver without a deep sense of ideology, and that he would probably be a pretty good president. But, he certainly inspires no one, and remains the "Other Guy" to Obama - pretty well an undefined character that the country could turn to if they decide that Obama has messed up too much. But, I really don't think Santorum would be a good president, and the country is not about to elect someone from the evangelical Christian camp (even though he is an extremist Catholic rather than an evangelical, his appeal seems to be the absolutism of the religious zealot)
I think Obama's main challenge is to keep from becoming overconfident. Unless, of course, the world blows up in some way between now and November. I think prayers for a stable, slowly improving world are in order.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Romney's failing economic proposal
Eliot Spitzer, former Democratic governor of New York, points out that Romney's campaign is faltering because his only issue, his approach to reviving the economy, is faltering.
The Romney, and the Republican, approach is austerity and tax cuts: cut spending, reduce taxes, reduce regulations. But, where that approach is being tried, Europe, it is creating further recession, not economic revival.
The Obama, and the Democrat, approach is stimulus and regulation: bail out the auto industry, regulate the banking industry, inject stimulus into the economy directly with a stimulus package and payroll tax cuts. The result seems to be a slowly growing economy and subsequent job growth. The results are painfully slow, but it's a very big economy, and for it to take time seems understandable to me.
I still wish either party would propose a Simpson-Bowles type plan where there is dramatic cuts in government spending combined with a real tax reform that would raise revenue while simultaneously lowering tax rates and closing loopholes and ending tax earmarks. I think that approach both cuts spending and stimulates growth, but both parties avoid that as toxic, especially during an election. Who wants to answer questions about which spending gets cut and which earmarks get eliminated while running for office? I think it would sell, but it would take an educated electorate to be able to discern how it would work, and the cacophonous blather from the ideologues on both extremes would certainly try to drown out reasoned discussion.
If Romney's campaign collapses because all of his eggs are in the economic turnaround basket and that approach looks flawed, where do the Republicans turn? Santorum? A social conservative whose leading trait seems to be scolding America for being sinners? I don't think that is the honey likely to attract many bees.
The Romney, and the Republican, approach is austerity and tax cuts: cut spending, reduce taxes, reduce regulations. But, where that approach is being tried, Europe, it is creating further recession, not economic revival.
The Obama, and the Democrat, approach is stimulus and regulation: bail out the auto industry, regulate the banking industry, inject stimulus into the economy directly with a stimulus package and payroll tax cuts. The result seems to be a slowly growing economy and subsequent job growth. The results are painfully slow, but it's a very big economy, and for it to take time seems understandable to me.
I still wish either party would propose a Simpson-Bowles type plan where there is dramatic cuts in government spending combined with a real tax reform that would raise revenue while simultaneously lowering tax rates and closing loopholes and ending tax earmarks. I think that approach both cuts spending and stimulates growth, but both parties avoid that as toxic, especially during an election. Who wants to answer questions about which spending gets cut and which earmarks get eliminated while running for office? I think it would sell, but it would take an educated electorate to be able to discern how it would work, and the cacophonous blather from the ideologues on both extremes would certainly try to drown out reasoned discussion.
If Romney's campaign collapses because all of his eggs are in the economic turnaround basket and that approach looks flawed, where do the Republicans turn? Santorum? A social conservative whose leading trait seems to be scolding America for being sinners? I don't think that is the honey likely to attract many bees.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Is the "Rigid Right" heading for the cliff?
The Republican Primaries may be giving the country a vivid demonstration of the inflexible and dogmatic nature of the extreme right wing, and its iron-fisted control over the Republican party, as all the candidates have tried their best to cater to the primary voters by toeing the hard core right wing line, even Romney, whom nobody really believes when he professes his dedication to the acceptable positions.
By the time all of this comes mercifully to an end, I suspect that the country will turn away from the last candidate left standing who will be anointed as the Republican presidential candidate. The Republican brand may well be branded for quite some time to come as the party of inflexible, uncompromising, and dogmatic extremists.
After all, a few decades back, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power as their electorates turned against what was then perceived to be the "Loony Left" - a left wing that was so dedicated to its own ideological vision that it had blinders on and unable to see how it was perceived by the rest of society.
I think the "Rigid Right" is in the same situation now, and they are only doubling down on their passions rather than looking up and seeing that they are headed for the cliff.
I can't see Santorum as anything other than a Social Conservative candidate, and I don't think more than about a quarter or a third of the country will ever vote for him or any other candidate whose main passions are social conservatism. And by the time they are through with Romney, he may be too damaged to have any real chance in the general election.
The question might end up being "will the Republican Party survive the election of 2012?" rather than "will be Republican Party win the White House?".
By the time all of this comes mercifully to an end, I suspect that the country will turn away from the last candidate left standing who will be anointed as the Republican presidential candidate. The Republican brand may well be branded for quite some time to come as the party of inflexible, uncompromising, and dogmatic extremists.
After all, a few decades back, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power as their electorates turned against what was then perceived to be the "Loony Left" - a left wing that was so dedicated to its own ideological vision that it had blinders on and unable to see how it was perceived by the rest of society.
I think the "Rigid Right" is in the same situation now, and they are only doubling down on their passions rather than looking up and seeing that they are headed for the cliff.
I can't see Santorum as anything other than a Social Conservative candidate, and I don't think more than about a quarter or a third of the country will ever vote for him or any other candidate whose main passions are social conservatism. And by the time they are through with Romney, he may be too damaged to have any real chance in the general election.
The question might end up being "will the Republican Party survive the election of 2012?" rather than "will be Republican Party win the White House?".
Friday, February 17, 2012
Contraception, a winning Obama strategy
Andrew Sullivan, center right editorialist, points out that the hard core conservatives are making a big political blunder by trying to whip up voter frenzy about the Obama administration's stance on contraception as a part of the health care law.
At first, I thought that the administration had made a political mistake by mandating that Catholic institutions had to provide full contraceptive, sterilization, and morning after pills to people in their employ as part of their health coverage. After all, it is part of Catholic teaching that these things are immoral, so why not honor their religious beliefs?
But, Obama quickly made a compromise that took the Catholic administrations of these institutions off the hook and still allowed women these contraceptive services if they chose. Sadly, many Catholic leaders, and Evangelicals as well, seem to have kept pounding on the notion that the Obama administration is anti-religion and is trying to impose a dictatorial secular morality on religious institutions. It seems to me that the hard core culture warriors of the social-issues right wing is in the process of destroying itself, which causes me no grief. I suspect that they are not persuading anyone to their position and are quite literally "preaching the the choir", (the I-hate-Obama choir, that is).
Most Catholics practice contraception, or at least see no evil in it. Maybe the bishops don't know this. But, there seems to be a lot that bishops don't know when it comes to sexual morality.
Sullivan's point is that perhaps Obama didn't make a political blunder at all, but set out bait that the socially conservative right wing leaped at, and revealed themselves to be dogmatic and scolding compared to the accommodating and compromising Obama.
Not a bad tactic, whether planned or not, as a way to demonstrate to the country that it is the hard core right wing, not Obama, who is dictatorial, uncompromising, and out of touch. Sullivan's point is that one of Obama's greatest political gifts is his ability to help his political opponents over-reach and self-destruct. He may have a point. Of course, if your political opponents are the hard core culture warriors, from either end of the political spectrum, it is not hard to help them over-reach. Over-reaching is an intrinsic characteristic of extremism.
At first, I thought that the administration had made a political mistake by mandating that Catholic institutions had to provide full contraceptive, sterilization, and morning after pills to people in their employ as part of their health coverage. After all, it is part of Catholic teaching that these things are immoral, so why not honor their religious beliefs?
But, Obama quickly made a compromise that took the Catholic administrations of these institutions off the hook and still allowed women these contraceptive services if they chose. Sadly, many Catholic leaders, and Evangelicals as well, seem to have kept pounding on the notion that the Obama administration is anti-religion and is trying to impose a dictatorial secular morality on religious institutions. It seems to me that the hard core culture warriors of the social-issues right wing is in the process of destroying itself, which causes me no grief. I suspect that they are not persuading anyone to their position and are quite literally "preaching the the choir", (the I-hate-Obama choir, that is).
Most Catholics practice contraception, or at least see no evil in it. Maybe the bishops don't know this. But, there seems to be a lot that bishops don't know when it comes to sexual morality.
Sullivan's point is that perhaps Obama didn't make a political blunder at all, but set out bait that the socially conservative right wing leaped at, and revealed themselves to be dogmatic and scolding compared to the accommodating and compromising Obama.
Not a bad tactic, whether planned or not, as a way to demonstrate to the country that it is the hard core right wing, not Obama, who is dictatorial, uncompromising, and out of touch. Sullivan's point is that one of Obama's greatest political gifts is his ability to help his political opponents over-reach and self-destruct. He may have a point. Of course, if your political opponents are the hard core culture warriors, from either end of the political spectrum, it is not hard to help them over-reach. Over-reaching is an intrinsic characteristic of extremism.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
How to tell if you're liberal or conservative
I think there is an easy way to tell if you are a liberal or a conservative - at the gut level. Which song would you like to be our national anthem? "America the Beautiful" or the "Star Spangled Banner"?
If the flag were to be raised at the Olympics, which song would bring a tear to your eye? the song of Brotherhood, or the song of Freedom?
America the Beautiful has as its top words - "good" and "brotherhood."
The Star Spangled Banner has as its top words - "free" and "brave."
These words speak to the emotional heart of each ideology.
To liberals, brotherhood, doing good, being part of a beautiful community is what America is all about.
To Conservatives, freedom and bravery are at the heart of what America is all about.
Unfortunately, we have entered a time when the brotherhood and caring of community so valued by liberals, and the freedom and bravery of individualism so valued by conservatives are seen to be in such distant poles that they no longer seem to be in the same country. That is why both those on the extremes of liberals and conservatives are always trying to win their country back from the alien beings who seem to have stolen it from them.
It seems to me that caring and freedom can coexist, that community and individuality are both needed, but at the extremes they look to be mutually exclusive.
It seems to me that caring and freedom can coexist, that community and individuality are both needed, but at the extremes they look to be mutually exclusive.
If the flag were to be raised at the Olympics, which song would bring a tear to your eye? the song of Brotherhood, or the song of Freedom?
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