From the Left...
October 15, 2008
Earlier today, Uncle wrote:
I can’t find where taxes are lower for anyone under Obama’s plan.
If that’s true, then he’s not looking or not paying attention. See the non-partisan Tax Policy Center’s report (PDF) on the two candidates tax plans. In particular, note Figure 1 on page 41 — for the bottom four quintiles, both candidates cut taxes, but the average increase in after-tax income as compared to current law is much larger under Obama’s plan than it is under McCain’s:
(More after the fold)
The top quintile is the only group for which the average after-tax income goes down under Obama, and the detailed numbers (e.g., Table 4, Page 33) show that you’d have to be in the top 1% of taxpayers to see a decrease in after-tax income:
Under the Obama plan, families in the middle quintile would see their taxes go down by an average of $1,035 in 2009 as compared to current law (Table 3, Page 32):
Whereas under McCain’s plan, the average tax savings for that same quintile is only $325 (Table 6, Page 36):
For the middlest of the middle class (for lack of a better description), the average tax savings in 2009 under Obama is more than three times what it would be under McCain. Even for the upper-middle class (the fourth quintile), the increase in after tax income would be half again as large under Obama (+2.4%, Table 4, Page 33) as compared to under McCain (+1.6%, Table 9, Page 39):
Bottom line: If you’re not in the top 10%, your taxes will go down, and if you’re not in the top 1%, your taxes won’t go up. Further, if you’re in the bottom four quintiles, your taxes will be lower under Obama’s plan than they are under currently, and lower than they would be under McCain’s plan.
Now, of course, all of these reports assume that the candidates would actually be able to get their tax plans passed as proposed, and if you believe that of either candidate, I’ve got a bridge in Alaska to sell you, especially in light of the current state of the economy. But the point is that according to their stated plans, taxes would be lower for the overwhelming majority of taxpayers under Obama than they are under current law, and lower than they would be under McCain. You can argue about the fairness or lack thereof — and the fiscal responsibility or lack thereof — of the two plans, but it’s either ignorant or disingenuous to state that “taxes [won’t be] lower for anyone under Obama’s plan.”
Crossed at Say Uncle
[UPDATED for clarity]
by tgirsch on October 15, 2008 08:25 PM
Relevant to what KTK just posted, The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison weighs in:
What is striking about McCain’s failure is how irrational it was to approach an election this way amid conditions that everyone acknowledged to be very good for Democrats. It might make sense to coast along on biography and belittling your opponent’s readiness and depth in a year when you have the wind at your back, a coherent message and a party label that is not radioactive, but McCain had none of these advantages. Gordon Brown, a similarly doomed political figure, also likes the refrain “it’s no time for a novice” as a dig against Cameron, but after years of failure by the experienced politicians you would naturally think this is precisely the time for some new blood. McCain supporters are always dwelling on Obama’s inexperience. This would be fair enough, but we see now that it isn’t very smart, because each time this charge is made people are reminded that he hasn’t been in Washington very long, to which the ordinary sane response is to say, “Excellent.”
As for being ambushed, as Gerson puts it, no one put a gun to McCain’s head and demanded that he talk senselessly about earmark reform and the “surge” for half of the campaign. No one forced him to have no message beyond calls for generic reform against stereotypical corruption. The lack of policy detail, indeed lack of policy knowledge, the ad hoc, day-by-day planning, the utter disorganization in the campaign, the obsession with scoring tactical victories, and the endless sanctimony, all of which have crippled the McCain campaign’s ability to communicate a consistent, clear argument for his candidacy and build a successful “ground game,” are all reflections of who McCain is. Let’s also remember that if McCain had been allowed his true desire, he apparently would have chosen Lieberman as a running mate, which would have been the single greatest act of political self-immolation ever. When choosing Sarah Palin is the smart, safe alternative, there is something fundamentally screwy in the candidate’s ability to make decisions.
Perhaps most remarkable about the attempt to potray Obama as a lightweight celebrity is how true of McCain that description now seems to be.
Side note: If you’re interested in a conservative-but-not-bat-shit-crazy viewpoint, you should be reading Larison’s blog.
by tgirsch on October 15, 2008 07:38 PM
Where's the action? Answer: China. The first piece highlights just where foreign firms are producing; the second highlights China's strategy in Africa.
Auto Parts
Immune to the global slowdown, Chinese auto parts industry delivers record numbers. By Bertel Schmitt, CEO Sinamotive Group (HK) Limited.
While markets all over the world tank, while auto maker flirt with bankruptcy, the Chinese auto parts industry goes full steam ahead. In the first seven months of 2008, China’s auto-parts exports skyrocketed by 34.9% year on year (y/y) to $8.88 billion, says a report released by China’s Customs Bureau.
China exported $ 8.73 billion worth of auto-parts from January to July 2008.
Most of this growth was driven by companies that usually complain the most about Chinese imports. Foreign invested companies and joint ventures exported $4.56 billion of auto-parts, up 31.6% y/y, amounting to 51.4% of the total.
Where are Chinese auto parts most popular? In the U.S., in the EU and Japan. The U.S.A. took parts for $2.69 billion ( 8.8%), Europe imported parts for $1.6 billion ( 39.2%), Japan sourced parts for $1 billion ( 36.8%). These three markets alone accounted for 59.6% of the total value of China’s Jan-Jul auto-parts exports.
This validates the previous predictions made by our company:
1.) The parts market, especially when targeted at after sales, is recession-proof.
2.) Europe takes an ever increasing amount of Chinese parts. Exports to the U.S.A. still grow, but at a more leisurely pace.
3.) The main drivers of this growth are foreign companies, who use China as a low cost production base and sell the product under their own brand name at high margins.
4.) Expect further sales increases due to falling raw material prices and sinking shipping costs. This is especially true in the after sales sector. Auto makers may also buy even more Chinese parts. They aim to off-set their diminishing sales with higher cost savings with parts, sourced in China.
About the Author:
Author Bertel Schmitt is looking back at a 30 year career as a marketing consultant to Volkswagen AG. He is now CEO of Hongkong, Beijing, and Hamburg based Sinamotive, a company specialized in sourcing low cost high quality auto parts in China. The company is backed by U.S. venture capital.
China and Africa
The great game continues. While the West frantically tries to cauterize the bleeding of its financial sector, China moves ahead, even though its yearly growth may slow to 8% because of faltering U.S. consumer demand.
To the consternation of U.S. trade officials, policymakers and private-sector trade groups, trade between Africa and China not only has exploded, but also continues to grow at a pace that eclipses the growth in trade between Africa and the U.S.
“It’s a subject that is attracting a considerable amount of attention among members, but there is no one opinion as to whether it is detrimental to U.S. interests, neutral, or if it’s a good thing,” said Tim McCoy, vice president at the Corporate Council on Africa, a Washington-based trade association that focuses on commercial relations between the United States and Africa.What it underscores, many say, is the need for a different U.S. commercial strategy in Africa.
“If we want to compete with China, we can build railroads, put in power infrastructure and telecommunications infrastructure,” said Shelvin Longmire, a veteran Washington-based international consultant. “We may not like the way they’re doing it, but I see China’s activities delivering substantive capital-intensive projects that are going to benefit (African) countries, versus what the West was doing: extracting resources without putting infrastructure in place.”
“With so many infrastructure projects under way in West Africa, this multipurpose offering gives us a real edge,” Verner Hammeken, Safmarine’s multipurpose-vessel manager in China, said at the launch of the service.Three African countries — Angola, Sudan and the Republic of Congo — are among China’s top 10 oil sources, with additional crude imported from Chad and Equatorial Guinea. But China’s huge appetite for Africa’s commodities goes beyond crude oil. There’s cobalt and other strategic minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo; timber from Mozambique; copper from Zambia; and iron ore and manganese from South Africa
by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on October 15, 2008 07:26 PM
Does anybody else get a sense that the GOP has essentially thrown in the towel, and is now simply positioning itself for the best possible outcome in the Obama/Democrat landslide ahead?
Already, we’re hearing the excuse-making narratives. The GOP is going to spend the next 8 years whining about how they were robbed (any election they can’t steal is unfair by definition), and how they would have had the thing except for various kinds of bad luck that all turn out to mean they’re not really unpopular losers. For instance:
- ACORN/Voter fraud: Notwithstanding that there has never been any evidence whatsoever of systematic voter fraud in recent presidential elections, and that there is no evidence of systematic misconduct by ACORN, they are positioning themselves to claim that Obama won on illegal votes in swing states.
- Rev. Wright: We keep hearing complaints from McCain aides that he won’t attack Obama over comments by his church pastor. Supposedly this is because McCain is such a good guy and refuses to take the low road, or at least that doing so is bumping up their poll negatives. But it’s obvious that McCain has been deterred by Obama’s carefully-calibrated hit-back strategy - releasing one sharp attack on McCain in response to each negative attack by McCain on him, then pulling back. If McCain goes back to the Wright issue, Obama can not only target McCain’s Keating history but, even more apropos, Palin’s equally long connection to a total whackaloon end-times Pentecostal church whose pastor conducts literal witchhunts. Palin has not merely attended that church regularly, but has spoken at it, from the pulpit, in explicit praise of the nutcase pastor. McCain simply can’t open that can of worms again (as he did earlier, prior to adding Palin to the ticket), but they’re spinning that as some sort of principled stand.
- “Liberal media”: One weird story after another keeps popping up that is supposed to reflect badly on Obama or turn people against him somehow: Obama smoked dope; his half-brother lives in poverty; his father was some sort of rascal; he’s not really a US citizen and his birth certificate is a forgery; he’s secretly Muslim; he’s secretly Arab and Muslim; he “pals around” with William Ayers; a friend of his family’s turned out to be a child molester; etc. None of these has gotten any traction, which pisses conservatives right out of what’s left of their tiny little minds. It isn’t the fact that most of these stories are false, or that the rest are egregiously stupid, or that the public has evaluated them and just doesn’t care. (Ayers’s misdeeds were 40 years ago; Obama’s closest connection to him is that they sit on an agency board that probably meets less than once a month; it doesn’t mean anything. As for the child molester thing, nobody can even figure out what the story is supposed to be, but it got dozens of conservative blog posts yesterday.) The right wing is convinced that if the public only knew about these various stories, then they’d be just as shocked and outraged and beside themselves and raving nutty as the wingers are at the prospect of an Obama presidency, and McCain would be saved. Since the stories aren’t having any effect, there can be only one explanation: . . . (wait for it) . . . l . i . b . e . r . a . l . . . m . e . d . i . a . . . b . i . a . s . . . the standard explanation for anything that causes normal people not to think like conservatives. And because that ol’ liberal media kept the public from hearing about Bill Ayers more than about a hundred times a day for the last month, it’s obvious that Obama’s inevitable election victory is illegitimate. The voters were uninformed! They didn’t really want Obama! They just thought they did and voted that way!
- Bad Luck: McCain just got caught up in a perfect storm of circumstances that worked against the Republican candidate: an unpopular president (that he supports like a parasitic twin); a bad economy (resulting from laissez faire policies that he supported all his life); an unpopular war (that he cheerled into being, never questioned, and is still trying to prolong). It wasn’t his fault - could have happened to anybody. Here’s former Bush speechwriter Michael “Axis of Evil” Gerson, spinning like a Dervish:
[S]ometimes a candidate who is down in the polls is not an incompetent but a bystander. While America remains a center-right country, this may well be a Marxist election in which economic realities are determining the political superstructure.
. . . The world suddenly went into an economic slide. Americans blamed the party with executive power, which is also the party most closely tied in the public mind to bankers and Wall Street. None of this was fair to McCain . . .
Previous to this economic free fall — and after his transformative vice-presidential choice — McCain was about tied in a race he should have been losing by a large margin. . . .
McCain was left with flawed options. He reasonably chose to work for a responsible bailout while hoping the markets would stabilize quickly. Instead, the bailout proved politically unpopular . . . .Then McCain raised Obama’s past association with William Ayers . . . . But this accusation naturally looks small compared to the nation’s outsized economic fears.
Obama’s task has been easier. He needs only to ride a historical current instead of fighting it. . . .
Obama’s current success is not enjoyable for conservatives. But this does not make McCain an incompetent. Maybe he is a great man running at the most difficult of times.
- They Know Not What They Do: Or maybe it’s just that voters are too dumb and too crazy to make good choices. They vote for Obama for no reason at all, and against their own inclinations. (”I know because I found two crazy racists in a focus group who said so!”)
However you slice it, the GOP has got a great set of excuses cooked up. They are really convinced that there is just no way people are allowed to vote for non-Republicans, and the fact that they do, by itself, is evidence that something is wrong with the whole system - and besides, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
It’s heartening to see them polishing up these excuses so early. It’s important to note them, though - the self-delusion, the self-congratulation (even while losing), the arrogance, and the childishness. It’s important to remember that, for once, the country stood up and repudiated the rot that has been dragging it down and hurting so many of us - and that it was not accident, bad luck, or conspiracy, but democracy, that made it possible.
by KTK on October 15, 2008 06:54 PM
by Tom Bozzo
The 'McCain Resurgence Plan' surges on (h/t Creative Destruction):
Current rules mandate that investors must begin to sell off their IRAs and 401Ks when they reach age 70 and one half years old. Those rules should be suspended to spare senior citizens from being forced to sell their stock just as the market is hurting the most. Under the emergency measure I propose, we will also cut the tax rate for withdrawals from tax-preferred retirement accounts to ten percent...
Fine, but this affects a small slice of the public and not necessarily those who are going to be hurt by the recession.
"Small slice of the public" may be an understatement for the retirement plan changes. Last time I checked, there was a 10 percent regular income tax bracket, and for 2008 a married couple has to have $16,050 in taxable income to clear it. The top of the 15% bracket is $65,100. So lower-income seniors get nothing except the right to defer tax-deferred plan withdrawals that they arguably cannot afford not to take, and most seniors get no more than 5 percent of their withdrawals. The main beneficiaries are owners of tax-deferred retirement accounts that are so large that they can replace an income in roughly the top 25% (or better).
McCain
goes on...
It is essential that we avoid an exodus of capital from the market. Senator Obama yesterday offered up a proposal that would have the effect of encouraging early withdrawal of funds from 401(k) accounts, by suspending penalties through 2009. This is an invitation to capital flight, and therefore to continued instability in the market, at a moment when exactly the opposite is needed. Any family that takes part in this will not see the benefits of the market recovery that smart policy can help bring about. In my administration, we will instead revive the market by attracting new investment. I will cut in half the capital gains tax on stocks purchased and held for more than a year -- from a rate of 15 to 7.5 percent.
These provisions do not make exactly make Team McCain look in-touch.
First, people are raiding their 401(k)'s because defined contribution plan balances are often the only significant "savings" they have. "Joe Sixpack," as a certain vice-presidential candidate likes to say, doesn't have appreciable amounts of money in assets that are potentially subject to capital gains tax. (See, e.g., the
Survey of Consumer Finances. In 2004, the median holdings for working families
owning stocks and investment funds were $10,000 and $25,000, respectively. But only 15 percent of all families owned stocks directly and 40 percent owned mutual funds, so majorities had nada.) Eating one's retirement capital is already a desperation measure, and Obama's plan arguably relieves an injury following insults that are done deals. Plus, Obama would keep in place the loss-of-income-tax-deferral disincentive and limit penalty-free withdrawals, so we aren't talking carte blanche here.
Meanwhile, there is a fairness issue here, in that the "rich" — i.e. those with substantial financial asset holdings outside of retirement accounts — can dump their assets at will and McCain will if anything make the terms of such transactions more favorable. It's just us chumps with defined contribution plans who are tasked with riding out the crisis in McCain world.
Second, it's not at all obvious what McCain could substantively mean by "capital flight." This, I suppose, is part of what has Brad DeLong
scratching his head. Asset sales have to have two parties — the upshot is that someone exchanges money for an asset. These transactions aren't counted as savings in the NIPAs since all that happens is a change in ownership, and the macro statistics don't care exactly who holds what. Capital can't be "fleeing" the market since someone has to buy in to complete the transaction, and desperate 401(k) raiders likely are not trying to invest their proceeds in foreign assets. (That would be the rich dumping assets to stuff cash in tax havens.)
Third, if the stated policy aim is to keep people from selling assets, how on earth will reductions in taxes on asset sales — note that another part of the McCain plan is to increase capital losses that can be counted against income — do that? The naive incentives of the plan make it a bit easier to sell, unless McCain is offering something other than the long-term capital gains rate cut that he seems to be selling. Rich people who are sitting on long-term gains see their tax rate go, as Maynard of Creative Destruction puts it, from minuscule to infinitesimal. So maybe that gun is set to run out of ammo anyway. But when the case is made for capital gains tax cuts raising, or at least not losing, much revenue, the argument always seems to involve an element of capital gains realization timing: people time their asset sales to take advantage of the more favorable tax terms.
In any event, it is maybe not so surprising that a campaign of millionaires and lobbyists can't put together a plan that isn't a giveaway to themselves. So the clown show at a train wreck goes on...
by Tom Bozzo (noreply@blogger.com) on October 15, 2008 03:02 PM
by cactus
Some thoughts on the bail-out:
1. Goldman's market cap is about 50 billion. The gubmint is gonna buy $10 billion worth of (non-dilutive, non-voting) shares, for which it gets essentially, well, nothing. Nothing at all. Goldman will go about its business. So... Goldman is getting an infusion equal to 20% of its worth, plus a guarantee that the gubmint will replace whatever excrement it purchased with something of value. And somewhere along the line, you can bet that the gubmint will also end up doing the same favor to everyone who bought excrement Goldman sold. Even a company that sold wedgies would make a mint with that sort of gubmint help.
2. The bail-out will succeed only, repeat, only in the sense that the US succeeded in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 when Simone Ledeen and the rest of the Heritage interns were running around the country handing out trash bags full of money and giving Halliburton money for services it would never begin to render. There will be less yabbering of silly catchphrases like "but what about all the schools that were painted?" this time around, though, because the schools will be exploding when GW is no longer in office. To be extremely precise, this is what I think the success will look like: shady, undeserving characters will be enriched, young versions of the idiots who got us into the mess will launch successful careers (can you say "Kashkari"?), and the promised benefits to the American public, the schmucks footing the bill, will never materialize.
3. The reason the bail-out won't succeed, like Iraq, is that it doesn't address a real problem. Banks going under is not a problem. Bankers having incentives to make risky decisions is a problem, and this bail-out will do nothing to stop it. (Non-voting shares, remember?) My guess is that we'll find some entities (and I would bet money Goldman Sachs will be on that list) will be found to be gaming the system. There will be a tsk-tsk when that comes to light, but they will not have to pay back the gubmint for gaming the system.
4. The bigger problem, that there was a housing bubble, and that home prices cannot and should not stay as high as they have been is not addressed by the bail-out. If it ever does get addressed, it will be addressed in a counter-productive way.
5. The even bigger problem, that the American public has been stretched thin financially for years now and can't afford the sort of consumption that makes up about two thirds of the economy is also not going to be addressed by the bail-out.
I hope I'm wrong, because I don't see this coming out well. I do have a proposal, a small one. I figure if the gubmint doesn't get any say in how banks do business (exactly why is it so important to keep the "talent" that created this mess in the first place?) and foots the bill, can we at least require every bank that takes government money to include the words "Welfare Queen" in its name? I think it would be a very useful thing if Goldman Sachs were forced to call itself Welfare Queen Goldman Sachs. It might make a few members of the voting public realize exactly how the system work.
_____________________________
by cactus
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 15, 2008 01:30 PM
by noni mausa
Lifted from comments at Economist's View on a post about information cascades (following the crowd...when does the crowd start?):
I participated in a classroom project modeling the allocation of funds to community projects by a "city council" of students. There were five or six groups of us, and at the end of the allocation process we all presented our results.
In most groups, the members discussed how the money should be allocated among several choices -- senior community support, teen job training, a battered women's shelter, a swimming pool, a school breakfast program, cleanup of a local lake, that sort of stuff. In these groups, the final allocation of the money was very consistent from group to group.
I suggested a different approach in our group, similar to a silent auction. Each "councilor" was given control over a percentage of the available funds, and decided how much of his or her money should go to which project. Then we pooled our results to reach a final result that was radically different from the other groups' decisions.
A third approach I had considered (but our group agreed would take too long) was to view the projects not as competing, but as potentially a cascade where injection of funds at one point (perhaps teen jobs) could cascade down into the others (senior home support, lake cleanup, school lunch preparation) thus getting several uses out of each dollar.
My point? To a large extent the process used for deciding something determines what decisions can be made. Different process -- different decisions. Not an earthshaking concept, but it keeps being forgotten.
Noni
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 15, 2008 10:03 AM
Good article here on Obama’s amazingly organized “ground game” - the hierarchy of precinct workers and volunteers that are the lifeblood of a political campaign. Many observers have remarked on how unusually well-organized Obama’s campaign is, and on how many workers and volunteers they have out in the field - even in “battleground” states, they are swamping the McCain organization with many times as many workers in the same areas.
Obama’s campaign, like all, has a top-down structure of smaller and smaller teams extending down to the local-neighborhood level, but his goes far beyond ordinary name-taking. They have specific coordinators for canvassing, phone-calling, recruiting volunteers, collecting data, and even religious outreach - for every block of every neighborhood of every targeted state. Each is overseen by a team leader, who was selected by having proven themselves on a set of specific organizing tasks the higher-level workers assigned to them - those who passed the test had shown they could get people to turn out, and were then sent on for further training at “boot camps”, where they were given further organizing skills and insights into the campaign. Obama’s field workers are apparently given more initiative and information than in most campaigns, and they are focused at the local level as much as possible.
All of this comes straight out of classic organizing work in community groups, unions, and political movements. Most campaigns just run a “ask for volunteers and shout orders at them” organization - Obama has built a movement (one that, I suspect, will be invited to participate in other projects after the election; his campaign has also been noted for its development of an ongoing, permanent voter data base, which the Kerry campaign failed to do). Suddenly his background looks more relevant than ever - and it’s paying off with a ground organization that is killing McCain. And as that organization reaches out, others see it and want to join in. (There are repeated stories of McCain offices in hot-spot areas being totally empty even on weekdays, and closed on weekends. One couple in the story above were Bush volunteers in 2004, and were so demoralized by the lousy McCain organization, and energized by Obama, that they became district coordinators in the Obama organization this time around.)
Organizing works! And during this campaign, that standard, tired old lefty political tactic is taking back our country for us.
UPDATE: [tgirsch] Fixed broken link
by KTK on October 15, 2008 12:45 AM
October 14, 2008
No one really cares what goes on at National Review, still less its online daycare center, NRO, but it’s interesting to see how they handle their various internal schisms.
Many will recall Ann Coulter’s unhinged NRO column in which she declared that “we should invade [the 9/11 hijackers’] countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity”. It prompted widespread criticism of both her and NRO. After various awkward attempts to defend herself, in which she only dug her hole deeper, and after getting into a public hissy fit with NRO, which had been trying to distance itself from the criticism, and in which Coulter, with characteristic class, called her editors “girly boys”, she was dumped from their roster of columnists.
Many people thought that was a rare sign of decency on their part, but, also with characteristic class, Jonah Goldberg published a column offering a handful of explanations for her firing and going out of his way to explain that it was not related to her racist, murderous raving.
It was Ann who decided to sever her ties with National Review — not the other way around.
This is what happened.
In the wake of her invade-and-Christianize-them column, Coulter wrote a long, rambling rant of a response to her critics that was barely coherent. She’s a smart and funny person, but this was Ann at her worst — emoting rather than thinking, and badly needing editing and some self-censorship, or what is commonly referred to as “judgment.”
Running this “piece” would have been an embarrassment to Ann, and to NRO. Rich Lowry pointed this out to her in an e-mail (I was returning from my honeymoon). She wrote back an angry response, defending herself from the charge that she hates Muslims and wants to convert them at gunpoint.
But this was not the point. It was NEVER the point. The problem with Ann’s first column was its sloppiness of expression and thought. Ann didn’t fail as a person — as all her critics on the Left say — she failed as WRITER, which for us is almost as bad.
Rich wrote her another e-mail, engaging her on this point, and asking her — in more diplomatic terms — to approach the whole controversy not as a PR-hungry, free-swinging pundit on Geraldo, but as a careful writer.
No response.
Instead, she apparently proceeded to run around town bad-mouthing NR and its employees. Then she showed up on TV and, in an attempt to ingratiate herself with fellow martyr Bill Maher, said we were “censoring” her.
By this point, it was clear she wasn’t interested in continuing the relationship.
What publication on earth would continue a relationship with a writer who would refuse to discuss her work with her editors? What publication would continue to publish a writer who attacked it on TV? What publication would continue to publish a writer who lied about it — on TV and to a Washington Post reporter?
And, finally, what CONSERVATIVE publication would continue to publish a writer who doesn’t even know the meaning of the word “censorship”?
That’s what matters to NRO: that its columnists’ vengeful calls for assassination and forcible religious conversion (along with bizarre ranting about the “lumpen mesomorphs” at airport security counters and how she was desperate to hear bombs dropping in Afghanistan) are not written well enough - not that they’re crazed, uncivilized, or inflammatory. Openly promoting murderous religious crusades is not a problem for Jonah Goldberg (do the words “forcible conversion” evoke no cultural associations at all for that dipshit?); refusing to respond to an NRO editor’s e-mail, however, is a firing offense. And, even after that fiasco, they apparently spent several weeks negotiating with Coulter and soliciting further columns to try to make sense of her original one. Her first screed was published just two days after 9/11, and she was not publicly terminated until almost three weeks later, on October 2, 2001 - again, for reasons that, as Goldberg goes to lengths to insist, were NEVER about her hating Muslims and wanting to convert them at gunpoint. (In fact, Goldberg approvingly notes that “William F. Buckley himself has called, essentially, for a holy war” as proof of his utter lack of sensitivity on that particular point.)
So we have a baseline for NRO’s moral sensibilities: advocating holy war, assassination, imperialism, and forcible religious conversion is not beyond the pale (ha!) for them, but insulting NRO editors is.
OK. So now we know. (Commentary would be, I think, distinctly pointless.)
But this week we get another look at those moral standards as the philosophes of the National Review once more wield their swords of moral righteousness.
Christopher Buckley, son of National Review founder and obnoxious bigot William F., wrote a column for the NRO. He also wrote a completely separate column at The Daily Beast, which is a Tina Brown-edited online magazine totally unrelated to National Review. Last Friday, in his Daily Beast column, he endorsed Barack Obama for the Presidency, for predictable reasons - McCain has betrayed his own prinicples and Obama is smart and admirable.
He notes that he did not make any such comments at NRO, because one of their other columnists had received over 12,000 hostile e-mails after criticizing Sarah Palin and he didn’t want to deal, himself, with the NRO’s particular brand of open-mindedness. It was wasted effort, of course. They came and got him anyway.
“Within hours”, Buckley says, NRO was inundated with angry e-mails and subscription cancellations (Rich Lowry says it was about 100 e-mails and a handful of cancellations), all of them prompted by a column Buckley had not published at NRO. (Such is the keenness of the right-winger’s discriminatory faculties.) The complainants included some of Buckley’s fellow writers. And so the next morning Buckley e-mailed Rich Lowry at NRO and offered to resign his column there, to spare them further backlash. Lowry immediately accepted, and it was announced in Buckley’s Beast column today.
Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. . . .
So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.
Lowry, of course, is as clueless as ever. As with Coulter, he somehow tries to spin this as having nothing to do with him:
I’d like to clarify this “firing” business. Over the weekend, Chris wrote us a jaunty e-mail with the subject line “A Sincere Offer,” in which he offered to resign his column on NR’s back page and said that if we accepted, there “would be no hard feelings, only warmest regards and understanding.” We took the offer sincerely.
For an editor who claims he once fired a nasty, racist, pro-violence religious bigot because she “doesn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘censorship’”, he seems strangely ignorant of the meaning of the phrase “offer to resign”. An offer of a resignation is not a resignation - it’s an indication of willingness to stay on if the other person approves, or to leave if they say so. Buckley is out at NRO because Lowry took the affirmative step of pushing him out. It’s true that Buckley wasn’t “fired” (Lowry is reacting to a misleading headline on Buckley’s column), but it isn’t true that he left of his own accord, and it makes no sense to say “we took the offer [to resign] sincerely”. Of course the offer was sincere; it only became an actual resignation when Lowry decided Buckley couldn’t stay, but for some bizarre reason he wants to imply that it all just happened without his participation - the offer was sincere, so there was nothing he could do about it.
Aside from that nonsense, we are now in a position to calibrate an endorsement of Barack Obama on the scale of moral righteousness, as understood at NRO.
It took them three weeks to get rid of Coulter, in relation to her call, on the NRO Web site, for religious war, forcible conversion, and a program of assassinations, and then only after, and only because, she had personally insulted the NRO editors.
Buckley was pushed out of NRO 24 hours after offering a political endorsement of Barack Obama while going out of his way to insulate NRO from the issue.
So for Rich Lowry (and presumably Jonah Goldberg, though he hasn’t weighed in on the Buckley thing), endorsing Obama is vastly worse than religious war, bigotry, and racism - it requires an immediate repudiation with no opportunity to make amends as they begged Coulter to do. It’s apparently worse even than insulting the editors personally - in both cases you get fired, but in the latter case, again, it takes longer. In fact, it appears to be the worst thing anyone at National Review has ever done (at least no one else is known to have been fired faster) - a conclusion that is difficult to believe, but seems to be inescapable.
So we now have a relative scale of moral priority for National Review and its special-needs editors’ corps:
- Crusade/assassination/bat-shit violent crazy: A-OK
- Bat-shit violent crazy/bad writing: Demand apology
- Call Jonah Goldberg “girly boy”: Firing offense (wait 3 weeks)
- Endorse Barack Obama: Firing offense (immediate)
This is a group of people who would have to grow a mile in moral stature just to be able to be an embarrassment to themselves.
by KTK on October 14, 2008 11:10 PM
Good:
What do you think about Sarah Palin?
[laughs uncontrollably] I used to think that Michael Palin was the funniest Palin on Earth. What fascinates me, though, is how - people watching her on television – can they not see that she’s basically learned certain speeches? And she does them very well, she’s got a very good memory. But it’s like a nice-looking parrot – because the parrot speaks beautifully, and kind of says “Aw, shucks” every now and again – but doesn’t really have any understanding of the meaning of the words that it is producing, even though it’s producing them very accurately.
And she’s been in these training sessions with Cheney’s pals, and she’s learned these speeches, and the extraordinary thing is that so many people are taken in by it. And the truth is that Sarah Palin is no way good enough.
And if you lined up, from Europe, left-wingers, centrists, right-wingers, you wouldn’t find 10%, you really wouldn’t find 5%, who think she’s good enough to run the United States. And she’s running as the partner of a 72-year-old cancer survivor!
I mean, Monty Python could have written this! [laughs uncontrollably]
And I’m sorry, Michael Palin, to say you’re not the funniest Palin anymore, but you’re not.
Better: It was John Cleese.
Best: She’s soon to be an ex-parrot (politically speaking, that is).
H/T: Andrew Sullivan.
by KTK on October 14, 2008 08:24 PM
David Kurtz, of Talking Points Memo, catches this opening prayer at a McCain rally:
I would also add, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November. Because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it’s Hindu [sic], Buddha [sic], Allah - that [McCain’s] opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord I pray that you would guard your reputation, because they’re gonna think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. And so I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.
If it weren’t so offensive it would be funny. His ignorance is palpable (he apparently thinks “Hindu” is the name of a god, and that Buddhists pray to a god), the familiar xenophobic bigotry is well in evidence, and it reeks of childishness: he thinks his god cares who wins an election, and that elections are some sort of popularity contest between gods, a struggle to see who is “bigger”. Apparently gods have to intervene in elections (just as in football games and American Idol competitions) to “guard their reputations”, because it would be so embarrassing if their chosen candidate didn’t win. (Or, in this case, if the, supposedly, chosen Christian candidate of many non-Christians were to win, it would somehow be a victory for the non-Christian gods of those non-Christian supporters of that Christian candidate, and a loss for the god of the other Christian candidate, who is also the god of the winning candidate, but is humiliated by the victory of the one Christian rather than the other. The mind boggles at what this all means for Joe Lieberman.) He also thinks he’s in a position to give personal advice to his own god, which may not be a high-water mark for Christian chutzpah, but at least hints at what’s in store if we allow these yahoos to grab any further political power here on earth.
Of course it would be futile to expect any kind of consistency or rational thought to attach to this nonsense: If the Christian god’s reputation really is called into question by the outcome of this election, then when McCain and his fundy sheepfold get their asses handed to them in November one would, presumably, be entitled to regard that god in an appropriately lesser light, right? I mean, if McCain’s victory really does prove the greatness of McCain’s and Obama’s god, then Obama’s victory must really prove his impotence. But you’ll see no admission of that sort, you can be sure.
What we will see is more and more religion-as-competitive-sport among the beleaguered, angry, and resentful religious right, and more and more pandering to their fears and hostilities as the GOP continues to lose the middle. And as the non-Christian population increases in size and visibility, and as right-wing Christians lose the fight on their social-issue hatreds, one by one (miscegenation? lost, decades ago; mandatory school prayer? lost, decades ago; atheists-as-boogeymen? in full retreat; contraception? lost, decades ago and continuing; gay rights? lost, step by step over decades; gay marriage? in retreat; abortion? stalemate; stem cell research? stalling action, about to lose big time; gay adoption? losing; gays in military? partial retreat, about to lose it all; “Christian nation”? now a hallmark of bigotry), they gin up smaller and smaller issues to demagogue about (”Obama attended a madrassa”) and cling to sillier and sillier tribal symbols (God’s reputation in an election; “purity rings”).
When can we finally say religion has simply jumped the shark? Is it time yet? I think it’s getting close to time.
UPDATE: Jesus’ General nails it.
by KTK on October 14, 2008 03:43 PM
by Divorced one like Bush
Concerned about the cause of the Dow? Not to fear. Many have been working on it such as Glenn Greenwald.The market does not like someone who is not like them so goes the Mc Cain clan. It is possible, but then Glenn asks for proof and finds an economist of his nature who has discovered it is all due to McCain! He has produced a chart proving it.
I'm convinced. But, I'm going to wait for Cactus' review of this man's work.
by Divorced one like Bush (noreply@blogger.com) on October 14, 2008 02:15 PM
I was watching this (via TPM):
And I wondered why the wording and intonation sounded so familiar. Then I remembered this:
Relevant part of the second video begins at about a minute in, with the punch line coming at about 01:55.
by tgirsch on October 14, 2008 02:01 PM
by cactus
There seems to be a fair amount of anger in some corners about Krugman's Nobel. A few thoughts about the complaints:
1. Kary Mullis believes in astrology. William Shockley was certain that black people were inherently mentally inferior to white people. Mullis received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), the technique used to make copies of DNA. Being brilliant in one field doesn't guarantee one isn't a complete idiot in another field. So whether you think Krugman's political views are nuts, or Mullis' views on astrology and extraterrestrials is insane, or Shockley was a racist scumbag, it has nothing to do with whether they deserved the prize they received or not.
2. Most people who criticize Krugman don't seem to like the fact that he's been calling GW's policies stupid for the past eight years. Considering that none of GW's policies actually worked as advertised (remember the debt that was going to be paid down, or how the economic boom of the 90s was going to continue?), Krugman would be less, not more worthy, of a Nobel if he hadn't been railing against the stupidity.
3. I actually agree that Krugman has, at times, let his political views lead him a short way down the same path Mankiw have taken on the right. (See here for a contemporaneous comment criticizing Krugman.) But my suspicion is that the Krugman and the Mankiw paths differ on one key aspect – Krugman seems willing to attack the side he sees as the greater of two evils come what may, whereas Mankiw seems willing both to attack the side he sees as the greater of two evils and to defend the side he sees as the lesser of two evils come what may. I never met the man, but I don't expect him to be a staunch defender of any sort of stupidity coming from an Obama administration, or any other Democratic administration for that matter. My guess is he'll call bull**** when he sees it, regardless of who peddles that bull****. Its not Krugman's fault that the folks Mankiw defends are the ones most likely to peddle bull****, and it doesn't in any way invalidate Krugman's work.
4. Krugman, like the rest of us, is no doubt sometimes wrong. But many of the attacks on Krugman are for not agreeing with unprovable philosophies about how the world should work. Disagreeing with Krugman on an issue which you cannot defend with numbers and data does not make him wrong, much less invalidate the work for which he was awarded a Nobel. And if your problem is that these days Nobels aren't awarded to allergic-to-data Austrian school fellows, you should have been more upset that the prize for which such story-tellers are eligible went to Le Clézio this year.
______________________
by cactus
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 14, 2008 01:11 PM
by reader noni mausa
Vote.
I was taught, by example, how to vote. My parents got up in the
morning and dressed as though for church. The day was somehow quieter
than other days, even in a household with five kids.
We drove to the polling site and while one parent went in to vote, the
other would ride herd on us in the car, but it never took much effort
to keep us quiet. It was voting day.
Formal, sober, quietly determined, everyone in my hometown migrated to
the polls, and we kids were taught that the actual voting was both a
purely personal choice, and a secret. The secret might be shared, but
it was uncouth to ask "How did you vote?"
It was never said outright, I think, but we were shown that the vote
was sacred: "set apart for a special purpose". My parents treasured
their vote, it was at once a right, and a privilege, and an
obligation.
To add one voice to the larger voice of the nation, and together say
in some mystical way what path the nation will take, is in its own way
a religious action, full of faith and determination and patience in
the face of a flurry of mere arithmetic.
To choose not to vote is an act of negligence or even despair – both
of them equally undermine our shared nation.
I vote for meat on my neighbour's plate, not mine. For the health of
my neighbour's children, the peace of our streets, the knowledge in
our libraries and the significance and beauty of our images and songs.
I vote for the strength of the whole, not the benefit of one walled
garden at the cost of a wilderness outside.
Arithmetic is the enemy of the vote. The vote is more than a grain of
sand on a scale, it is an action in which citizens make themselves
manifest as a part of the whole. To neglect it is to become a
political ghost, moving voiceless through the world.
An old woman who told stories, who was prisoner of the Nazis, who left
her Dutch home for a new home and language and land, told this story:
"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a mouse asked a wild dove.
"Nothing more than nothing," the dove answered.
"In that case I must tell you a marvelous story," the mouse said.
"I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to
snow. Not heavily, not a raging blizzard, no -- just like in a dream
without any violence the snow silently fell.
Since I had time, I counted the snowflakes setting on the twigs
and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952 when the
next snowflake dropped onto the branch - "nothing more than nothing"
as you say - the branch broke off."
Having said that the mouse went away.
Vote.
==============
From here: Noni Mausa
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 14, 2008 10:34 AM
by reader rollomotasi, lifted from comments with slight corrections for readability and links:
I’ve been following the Tax Prof on Palin’s tax problems (they are indeed problems), and theataxingmatter site boils down the key issues very well, getting the “tax home” issue as close to right as I’ve seen with her point 1., and her last point (5.) being possibly the most important one: that the McCains’ and Palin’s release of their tax returns has been much more limited than their opponents, and possibly even selective. (Cindy McCain has released the front two pages of her 2006 return and no 2007 return to date.) A few other points re: Palin’s taxes:
1.) No one outside of a few who cannot distinguish between erroneous and fraudulent returns is claiming the Palin’s are committing tax fraud, although it appears they were being at least very agressive. Ken Houghton made a great point that the lesson to be derived is “don't let H&R Block do your taxes" (to which I would only add, “particularly when you are a governor, VP candidate or anyone else filing more than the basic Form 1040 and Schedules A or B”). Although Troopergate was significantly more egregious in terms of abuse of power imo, Time Magazine’s description of the Palin administration’s approach to Troopergate as shockingly amateurish fits well here.
2.) The Palins signed their return, which was on extension, 9/3/08, the day of her VP nomination acceptance speech. They had until 10/15 (next Wednesday) to file timely under the extension. I thought this was one of the strongest examples of the lack of vetting Palin, if one wants to include under the definition of vetting any activity that could prevent political trouble down the road. Why they didn’t take a better look at the returns before filing them (not to mention releasing them to the public) baffles me. The tax issues raised, while admittedly complicated in some instances, are not unusual and any necessary changes could have been made without controversy and sound tax positions and arguments developed as necessary by any number of certified, experienced tax professionals.
3.) Most of the discussions have centered on Palin’s tax problems, but she may have a more fundamental problem with the State of Alaska regarding reimbursements for travel by her husband and children totaling $43,000. According to this Washington Post 9/9/08 article (Page 3), the policy since the 1990’s generally has been not to pay for (reimburse) family members’ travel, with the spouse getting somewhat more favorable treatment due to some involvement in state business. The WaPo articles cites an attorney general opinion on spousal travel - rendered in 2004 but re-released by Palin without change in early 2007 - which states, “At present, spouses of administration officials may accompany the officials on the King Air if they reimburse the state the cost of the flight at the lowest coach fare available on a commercial flight for that trip.”
4.) Alaska Administrative Manual - Sec. 320.100 states, “The State of Alaska operates under an accountable plan for travel expenses as is defined in IRS Publication 463.” However, Alaska Statute - Sec. 39.20.060 states, “Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the governor and lieutenant governor are not considered employees of the state for the purpose of state personnel laws relating to hours of employment, annual leave, sick leave, overtime, compensatory time, and travel allowances. This section does not deprive the governor and lieutenant governor of the right to participate in the state retirement system or in state group insurance plans.” This is probably fodder for attorneys, but it would seem that none of the Palin’s reimbursements as governor would fall under Alaska’s accountable plan and thus all of her per diem reimbursements and her family’s travel reimbursements should have been included as compensation on her W-2 (with Schedule A itemized deductions still available to her for the portion of the reimbursements representing legitimate business expenses).
rollotomasi | | Email | 10.12.08 - 1:54 pm | #
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 14, 2008 10:33 AM
By Stormy
A new word, one for the books: Femafication. Nobel prize winner, Paul Krugman, officially coined the word in his latest op-ed piece:
All across the executive branch, knowledgeable professionals have been driven out
And the result has been disaster in every area, from the response to Katrina to the latest financial implosion.
Femafication: the act of blindly following an ideology that produces disastrous results, usually in public policy.
"Fema" is an acronym for the "Federal Emergency Management Agency" that after a 2001 attack on the Twin Towers was subsumed under the Homeland Security Department, generally responsible for protecting America from its enemies, natural or human.
The department became a boondoggle when many of its functions were privatized. (Privatization at the time was considered the only acceptable response to almost any problem.) As a result, public experts knowledgeable in disaster response left or were forced out of the agency.
FEMA's subsequent response to hurricane Katrina was a shameful episode in America history.
Femafication passed into more general use later in the century, signifying any blind ideological response that ignores scientific or knowledgeable understanding and that leads to disaster.
Femafiers, as they are now called, are not allowed to hold public office or to serve the public in any capacity if their belief system prevents them from performing their public duties.
Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury during the great financial implosion of 2008, is now known as the archetypal "femafier." See "To paulson." Other areas of public policy were similarly affected, though those areas only later produced similarly disastrous results. Paul Krugman coined the word shortly after receiving the Noble Prize in economics
by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on October 14, 2008 10:32 AM
by Afferent Input
The US Treasury will announce this morning an investment of $250,000,000,000 into the US financial system. Half of that will go into nine of the largest banks in the US. The rest will go to smaller banks and thrifts. Here are some details:
The preferred stock that each bank will have to issue will pay special dividends, at a 5 percent interest rate that will be increased to 9 percent after five years. The government will also receive warrants worth 15 percent of the face value of the preferred stock. For instance, if the government makes a $10 billion investment, then the government will receive $1.5 billion in warrants. If the stock goes up, taxpayers will share the benefits. If the stock goes down, the warrants will be worthless.
I’ve always wanted to have my very own bank...
by Afferent Input (noreply@blogger.com) on October 14, 2008 10:18 AM
October 13, 2008
The stock market rallies 900 points on Paul Krugman winning the Nobel.
Why not this is as good a reason as you often see in the popular press?
by spencer (noreply@blogger.com) on October 13, 2008 09:28 PM
"There will be lots of things to fill it back up again, Michelle." (about 3:15 in)
Still waiting.
by Ken Houghton (noreply@blogger.com) on October 13, 2008 07:18 PM
…that the NFL’s “tuck rule” is bullshit, and needs to be sent the way of H-shaped goal posts on the goal line.
That is all.
by tgirsch on October 13, 2008 06:26 PM
Is there any legitimate reason to start Jamie Moyer in the playoffs? Consider: This season, the Phillies are 0-2 when Moyer starts, and 5-0 when he doesn’t. He had one good playoff start (at Colorado of all places) last year, but I can’t imagine that the Phillies don’t have a better option to be the #3 guy. Blanton springs to mind…
by tgirsch on October 13, 2008 04:20 PM
Progrowthliberal notes fundamental confusion from the last debate on bailout priorities in a discussion with Barkley Rosser.
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 13, 2008 01:23 PM
The NYT also reports:
"The contractors are making a killing," Mr. Cantrell recalled thinking at the meeting, in 2000. "The lobbyists are getting their fees, and the contractors and lobbyists are writing out campaign checks to the politicians. Everybody is making money here - except us."
Within months, Mr. Cantrell began getting personal checks from contractors and later returned to the airport with Mr. Ennis to pick up a briefcase stuffed with $75,000. The two men eventually collected more than $1.6 million in kickbacks, through 2007, prompting them to plead guilty this year to corruption charges.
Mr. Cantrell readily acknowledges concocting the crime. But what has drawn little scrutiny are his activities leading up to it. Thanks to important allies in Congress, he extracted nearly $350 million for projects the Pentagon did not want, wasting taxpayer money on what would become dead-end ventures.
Recent scandals involving former Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California, and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, both now in prison, provided a glimpse into how special interests manipulate the federal government.
Mr. Cantrell's story, by contrast, pieced together from federal documents and dozens of interviews, is a remarkable account of how a little-known, midlevel Defense Department insider who spent his entire career in Alabama skillfully gamed the system.
Mr. Cantrell worked in a division that was a small part of the national missile defense program. Determined to save his job, he often bypassed his bosses and broke department rules to make his case on Capitol Hill. He enlisted contractors to pitch projects that would keep the dollars flowing and paid lobbyists to ease them through. He cultivated lawmakers, who were eager to send money back home or to favored contractors and did not ask many questions. And when he ran into trouble, he could count on his powerful friends for protection from Pentagon officials who provided little oversight and were afraid of alienating lawmakers.
Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican, for example, chewed out Pentagon officials who opposed a missile range Mr. Cantrell and his contractor allies were seeking to build in Alaska, prompting them to back off, while a staffer for former Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, intervened when the Pentagon threatened to discipline Mr. Cantrell for lobbying, a banned activity for civil servants.
"I could go over to the Hill and put pressure on people above me and get something done," Mr. Cantrell explained about his success in Washington. "With the Army, as long as the senator is not calling over and complaining, everything is O.K. And the senator will not call over and complain unless the contractor you're working with does not get his money. So you just have to keep the players happy and it works."
The national missile defense program has cost the United States more than $110 billion since President Ronald Reagan unveiled his Star Wars plan 25 years ago. Today, the missile defense effort is the Pentagon's single biggest procurement program.
The Army declined to discuss the Cantrell case, other than to say it had taken steps to try to prevent similar crimes from happening again.
But some current and former Defense Department officials say the exploiting of the system that preceded Mr. Cantrell's kickback scheme has had a damaging impact, slowing progress toward building a viable missile defense system by diverting money to unnecessary or wasteful endeavors. That pattern of larding up the defense budget with pet projects pushed by lawmakers and lobbyists is a familiar one.
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 13, 2008 12:00 PM
...congratulations to Prof. Krugman!
Krugman's pioneering work in trade theory and economic geography was deservedly cited.
by Tom Bozzo (noreply@blogger.com) on October 13, 2008 11:57 AM
Congressional Quarterly Politics reports:
Pentagon officials have prepared a new estimate for defense spending that is $450 billion more over the next five years than previously announced figures.
The new estimate, which the Pentagon plans to release shortly before President Bush leaves office, would serve as a marker for the new president and is meant to place pressure on him to either drastically increase the size of the defense budget or defend any reluctance to do so, according to several former senior budget officials who are close to the discussions.
Experts note that releasing such documents in the twilight of an administration is a well-worn tactic, and that incoming presidents often disregard such guidance in order to pursue their own priorities.
And with the nation’s economy caught up in a global financial meltdown, it remains unclear whether either Sen. John McCain , R-Ariz., Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill., or a Democratic Congress would support such large increases for defense next year.
“This is a political document,” said one former senior budget official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It sets up the new administration immediately to have to make a decision of how to deal with the perception that they are either cutting defense or adding to it."
Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s top budget official from 2001 to 2004, who is not involved in the current discussions, agreed.
“The thinking behind it is pretty straightforward,” Zakheim said. “They are setting a baseline for a new administration that then will have to defend cutting it.”
The fiscal 2010 portion of the estimate includes a $57 billion increase, out of which $30 billion would go for a vaguely defined contingency fund and $14 billion would go for replacing or fixing existing equipment, called reset, and modernization, the former officials said.
They added that those items reflect the Pentagon’s attempt to anticipate the end of huge supplemental war allotments that have hidden the costs of resetting and modernizing the nation’s war-torn force. Both presidential candidates have pledged to scale back supplemental war spending.
The Pentagon comptroller’s office refused repeated requests for comment on the figures outlined by the former officials stating that it was premature to discuss future budgets because they were still being worked on.
Earlier Budgets Insufficient
The new budget numbers reflect the Defense Department’s acknowledgement that the coming bow wave of ever-rising procurement costs, combined with the nonstop growth of defense entitlement spending, will render its already record- high budgets grossly insufficient in the years ahead.
But the numbers also seem to condradict the National Defense Strategy released recently by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates , which called for tough tradeoffs in spending in an environment of limited resources.
“We cannot do everything, or function equally well across the spectrum of conflict. Ultimately we must make choices,” Gates wrote.
The new estimate, which has not been publicly released, would raise the fiscal 2010 budget number announced by the administration this year from $527 billion to $584 billion, not counting operations costs for the ongoing wars.
Money to prosecute the ongoing wars is not included in the new estimate, meaning the military would still need significant supplemental appropriations in addition to the increased budget request.
Supplemental appropriations have been used to fund procurement and personnel costs that are predictable and therefore should be placed into the regular budget, said Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We’re going to have to figure out how to get off supplementals,” Mullen told a group of Washington reporters Thursday. “My strategic approach is to start to implant those things that are in supplementals that we think we’ve got to have into the baseline budget. We need to start doing that. We’re working our way through the next budget now.”
While reset and modernization funds in the new estimate are relatively non-controversial, the $30 billion contingency fund could face stiff opposition on Capitol Hill. That money, if approved, would be available to rapidly deploy active duty forces overseas in the event of an unexpected crisis.
In 2001 and 2002, lawmakers rejected attempts by Pentagon leaders to secure a contingency fund, from which they could draw money without requesting additional permission from Congress.
“The Congress always saw this from their perspective as a slush fund,” said Zakheim, “Whereas the defense department has said it needed this kind of money because it could never project what exactly would be needed in the event of an emergency.”
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 13, 2008 11:57 AM
October 12, 2008
Below are some snippets from a Chomsky's piece in the Irish Times:
The initial Bush proposals to deal with the crisis so reeked of totalitarianism that they were quickly modified. Under intense lobbyist pressure, they were reshaped as "a clear win for the largest institutions in the system . . . a way of dumping assets without having to fail or close", as described by James Rickards, who negotiated the federal bailout for the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998, reminding us that we are treading familiar turf. The immediate origins of the current meltdown lie in the collapse of the housing bubble supervised by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, which sustained the struggling economy through the Bush years by debt-based consumer spending along with borrowing from abroad. But the roots are deeper. In part they lie in the triumph of financial liberalisation in the past 30 years - that is, freeing the markets as much as possible from government regulation.
Such interventionism is a regular feature of state capitalism, though the scale today is unusual. A study by international economists Winfried Ruigrok and Rob van Tulder 15 years ago found that at least 20 companies in the Fortune 100 would not have survived if they had not been saved by their respective governments, and that many of the rest gained substantially by demanding that governments "socialise their losses," as in today's taxpayer-financed bailout. Such government intervention "has been the rule rather than the exception over the past two centuries", they conclude.
Financial liberalisation has effects well beyond the economy. It has long been understood that it is a powerful weapon against democracy. Free capital movement creates what some have called a "virtual parliament" of investors and lenders, who closely monitor government programmes and "vote" against them if they are considered irrational: for the benefit of people, rather than concentrated private power.
Investors and lenders can "vote" by capital flight, attacks on currencies and other devices offered by financial liberalisation. That is one reason why the Bretton Woods system established by the United States and Britain after the second World War instituted capital controls and regulated currencies.*
In dramatic contrast, in the neoliberal phase after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the US treasury now regards free capital mobility as a "fundamental right", unlike such alleged "rights" as those guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: health, education, decent employment, security and other rights that the Reagan and Bush administrations have dismissed as "letters to Santa Claus", "preposterous", mere "myths".
"Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business," concluded America's leading 20th century social philosopher John Dewey, and will remain so as long as power resides in "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda".
by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 09:32 PM
By Spencer
Just a little different way of looking at the data. One of the constant comments is that stock plunges like this are buying opportunities because markets always come back. Obviously, the people saying this are not including the Japanese stock market in their sample. The Nikkei 225 is now almost back to where it was in 1981 and has never made any attempt to regain its 1989 peak.
Yes, I know there were massive differences in valuations at the peaks, but the S&P 500 valuation at the 2000 peak was also completely outside the range of historic experience.
While we are in the middle of a crises and everyone's comments are centered on it, one of the more interesting things no one is talking about is how this plunge demonstrates that the shift from defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans was a major pay cut for middle class Americans. It shifted the market risks from the corporate balance sheet to the individual.
Interesting how all those writing about the growth of fringe benefits fail to bring this up.
by spencer (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 07:46 PM
by reader coberly
From a front page above the fold article in the Portland Oregonian, by Glenn Kessler of Washington Post, "explaining" the financial crisis, what to expect, and giving advice to readers:
"The increased debt load of the U.S. government will make it more difficult to finance the Social Security deficits that will emerge as more baby boomers retire in the coming decade. This may require the government to cut benefits or raise the retirement age."
Angry Bears are invited to explain what is wrong with this statement. For extra credit, tell us what can we do about it.
It appears to me that the financial crisis will be used as one more opportunity to loot the American people in the particularly cruel way of forcing them to work into deep old age by cutting their Social Security benefits below survival level.
The people who got the 700 Billion dollar bailout want it ALL. And they see a pretty good chance of getting it.
______________________
by coberly
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 06:50 PM
rdan
Here is an interactive picture/graph of consumer spending total and per capita in dollars comparing countries to each other in relation to electronics, recreation, and other major categories.
Nothing new, but a great way to teach and see the relationships.
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 06:50 PM
By Stormy
In his latest post, London Banker offers a ray of hope.
Once we hit bottom of this downturn, some years hence in all probability, we may experience a democratization of wealth and opportunity like none seen since the end of World War II when education reforms and unionisation laid the groundwork for the rise of the American and OECD middle classes. Those who have lost economic and political power during the boom years, are likely to organise and retake authority within economic and political systems during the bust years. This could provide reorientation of economic progress toward more equitable, sustainable and democratic outcomes in coming generations. I hope so, it’s the only bright spot of the week.
I hope so, too. The rich class that has seized power in the United States, with its mindless troop of religious right-wingers, has stopped at nothing to obtain its ends. It has defined and redefined what the political center means, moving it ever rightward.
Armed with lobbyists and the Bible, they made "left" a dirty word; they have approved greater and greater concentration of governmental power even as they loosen the restrictions on corporate greed. Perfect in character assassination, they claim their distorted values are divinely inspired. Claiming terrorist surround us, they refuse to see the economic terror to which we all are now subject. The angry man in McCain's latest "town" meeting rose in fury to denounce the socialists and Bill Nye.
While I suspect the event may have been planned, the event did highlight the kind of mindless rhetoric we have had to endure these last decades. He was not worried about those who are watching their life's savings vanish in a stock market twinkle. He was not worried about those who are losing their jobs or the small business now stretched thin, stretch so thin that this Christmas may indeed be a dark one. He was not worried about health care rising as incomes dwindle and savings vanish. He was not worried about those who now must work until they die--no welcomed retirement for them.
No, he was worried about Bill Nye and socialism. And McCain's audience cheered.
The center is falling apart--the center the Republicans defined, the center the Democrats have too often slavishly followed. "Left of center," what does that mean anymore?
The shadow banking system that lies outside regulation is just another reflection of the privatization of everything, from the military and Halliburton, to water and the genetic code. Along side these monstrosities is the Unitary Presidency that keeps telling us how bad government is, even as it furthers its reach into our private lives, hands out plums to its faithful, and loosens the restrictions on corporate greed. That presidency has been a long time in its fashioning.
Government can serve the people, but not when it is the hands of those who want to destroy its efficacy while increasing their own hoard of gold, not when it is the hands of people who leave government only to join the ranks of lobbyists. I speak directly here to fans of William Jefferson Clinton, he who gave us NAFTA and he who now is a well-paid lobbyist.
Government can serve the people, but not when the upper reaches of its bureaucracy is filled with the loyal and faithful, while its day-to-day workers are told that their jobs are worthless, that their jobs will soon be outsourced, that they are nothing better than leeches on society--or that, if they speak out about corruption, their lives and futures will be forfeit. Imagine having such a job. Would not you be sour and rude and difficult as well? Would you not slavishly follow the letter of the rules, forgetting the intent?
Yes, government can serve the people.
Naomi Klein claims that destruction precedes creation, that those who have risen to power worked that principle well. In that rise to power, in following the principle that private greed knows best, they have planted the seeds of their own destruction.
Let us hope that we will take advantage of their fall to construct a more humane society, a government that actually serves its purpose: The betterment of all its citizens.
by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 02:19 PM
by cactus
Hilzoy notices what everyone is worried about...
---
I hope Hilzoy doesn't mind if I steal her post in its entirety, but the last line is too good to pass up.
And Speaking Of Incoherent Policy...
No sooner did I finish my last post than I found this from Politico:
"As part of a plan to reinvigorate his flagging campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is considering additional economic measures aimed directly at the middle class that are likely to be rolled out this week, campaign officials said.
Among the measures being considered are tax cuts -- perhaps temporary -- for capital gains and dividends, the officials said."
Because what everyone is really worried about right now is how they'll manage to pay the taxes on their massive capital gains.
________________
by cactus
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 01:23 PM
I wonder whom we are saving here?
Treasury officials began canvassing banks and investment firms about the possibility of having the government buy stakes in them. The new bailout law gave the Treasury the authority to buy up almost any kind of asset it wanted, including stock or preferred shares in banks.
Industry executives quickly told Mr. Paulson that they liked the idea, though they warned that the Treasury should not try to squeeze out existing shareholders. They also begged Mr. Paulson not to impose tough restrictions on executive pay and golden-parachute deals for executives who are fired.
Mr. Paulson heeded those pleas. In his remarks on Friday, he carefully noted that the government would acquire only “nonvoting” shares in companies. And officials said the law lets the Treasury write most of its own restrictions on executive pay, and those restrictions can be lenient if they are applied to a set of fairly healthy companies.
Well, we have seen one three-page plan: "Give me the money, honey. I know what do to. Just don't hold me responsible."
Then we saw another longer plan: "Give me the money, honey. I will try to follow its fuzzy outline, but I want to be able to adapt to circumstances."
Now we see another: "Well, maybe we should buy some shares. You know, be owners--but not influential owners. We can't tread on any rich toes, gouty from all those sweets."
Damn,
Paulson thinks he is playing Hamlet, here. Cut to the chase, Hank. Either you know what you are doing or move aside.
Well, I want a voting share! And, since the largest shareholders are most probably the biggest crooks, I want to crowd them out. Let's buy enough shares to control the firms, to nationalize them, with no prospect of selling them back at a discount to some rich dude that is looking to make a future killing.
As majority stockholder, my first vote is to fire the
CEOs. Fire them the old fashion way. Let them take only personal
mementoes--you know, the picture signed by Bush or Reagan or Cheney. And I want security watching in case they try to snatch something--or they make a move towards their computers. Security guards will escort them to the street.
I want banks to serve the public not private interest.
by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on October 12, 2008 04:32 AM
October 11, 2008
Tax Prof Blog notes the following about Gov. Palin's tax returns:
Tax Profs Agree: Gov. Palin's Tax Returns Are Wrong
Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark) & Bryan Camp (Texas Tech) have independently reviewed the tax issues raised by the release of Gov. Palin's 2006 and 2007 tax returns and financial disclosure form, as well as the remarkable opinion letter issued from Washington D.C. tax lawyer Roger M. Olsen. Jack and Bryan conclude that there are serious errors in Gov. Palin's returns as filed and that she and her husband owe tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes.
Jack Bogdanski, There's No Debate: Palins Owe Thousands in Back Taxes:
There is no serious debate (at least, none that has been brought to our attention) about the fact that at least the amounts paid for the children's travel -- $24,728.83 in 2007, according to the Washington Post -- are taxable. The campaign's tax lawyer has got at least that much of the law, and perhaps more, wrong. ... The Palins, who had their tax returns done by HR Block, simply got it wrong. And the fact that the state payroll office got it wrong, too, doesn't erase the Palins' unpaid tax liability.
Bryan Camp, A Brief Analysis of Governor Palin's Tax Returns for 2006 and 2007:
The release of an opinion letter by attorney Roger M. Olsen dated September 30, 2008, has stirred up the pot once again about the accuracy of Sarah and Todd Palin’s 2006 and 2007 tax returns. Not only that, but Mr. Olsen’s letter raises a couple of new issues.
This paper focuses on five problems: three raised in the tax returns and two new ones raised by Mr. Olsen’s letter. Here’s a summary of the five problems and my conclusions, for those who want to cut to the chase. My analysis will follow.
The Palins did not report as income some $17,000 that Governor Palin’s employer (the State of Alaska) paid her as an “allowance” for her travel. Can they do that? Yes, most likely.
The Palins did not report as income some $43,000 that the State of Alaska paid the Governor as an “allowance” for her husband and children’s travel. Can they do that? No, most likely not.
The Palins deducted $9,000 on their 2007 return, claiming it was a loss from Mr. Palin’s snow machine racing activity. Can they do that? Most likely not, but more info could make the deduction OK. If any of the above issues goes against the Palins they then risk getting hit with the section 6662 penalty for “negligence or disregard of rules or regulations.”
Can the Palins avoid the section 6662 negligence penalty by claiming that they reasonably relied either (a) on the W-2’s sent to them by their employer, which did not reflect either the $17,000 or the $43,000, or (b) on their tax return preparer H&R Block, or (c) on Mr. Olsen’s opinion letter dated September 30, 2008? The three reliance defenses are unlikely to succeed, but more info may make the (b) defense a good one.
Does Mr. Olsen have any exposure to sanctions by the IRS because of his letter? I believe Mr. Olsen’s letter probably violates 31 C.F.R. section 10.35. If so, he would be exposed to possible sanctions from the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility.
There is more from Tax Prof in other areas...it will be worth pointing out other posts.
ataxingmatter carries a thorough discussion with plentyof links to other sources.
by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on October 11, 2008 09:24 PM
Right now, Hank Paulson has two choices.
or
Right now, he claims to be pushing toward the second, but isn't getting out of the cab.
by Ken Houghton (noreply@blogger.com) on October 11, 2008 04:55 PM
Professor Peter Morici points to the U.S. trade deficit as an enormous drag on the U.S. economy:
Simply, money spent on Middle East oil, Chinese televisions and coffee markers, Japanese and Korean cars can’t be spent on U.S. made goods and services, unless offset by a comparable amount of exports. Since U.S. imports exceed exports by about five percent of GDP, the trade deficit creates an enormous drag on demand for U.S.-made goods and services. Along with the credit crisis and resulting slowdown in new housing and commercial construction, the trade deficit is driving up unemployment.
Since 2001, the trade deficit has increased about $350 billion, and 3.9 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. China and other major Asian exporters of manufacturers subsidize their sales in U.S. markets by suppressing the exchange rates for their currencies against the dollar by intervening in foreign exchange markets. Were this problem resolved, the trade deficit could likely be cut in half, GDP would rise by $300 billion and about 2 million manufacturing jobs could be restored.
While I agree that "suppressing the exchange rates" does account for some of the problem, I would posit that it is not all the problem. Would allowing a free float in the exchange rates really make up for the difference in wage costs?
by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on October 11, 2008 01:44 PM
rdan
From the Toledo Blade:
It was an overlooked bombshell in breaking news cycles preoccupied with financial crisis, rescue plans, presidential politics, and a vice-presidential debate.
But what the Justice Department's exhaustive investigation and blistering report concluded about the enormous damage done to the department through improper politicization is far more troubling than even Sarah Palin in disjointed attack mode.
Investigators from both the department's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility found that political pressure did indeed drive the dismissal action against at least three of the nine federal prosecutors abruptly fired. At the time, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted the individuals were all dismissed for inadequate performance, or failure to implement the President's law enforcement agenda.
But it appears the longtime pal and adviser to President Bush was lying through his teeth. Turns out the real reason some of the top federal lawyers were removed from the job, according to the Justice Department report, was that either the U.S. attorneys had the audacity to prosecute Republicans or because they failed to aggressively prosecute Democrats.
Either way, their behavior ticked off well-connected GOP politicians who had come to expect a politically loyal Justice Department. A couple of calls from powerful New Mexico Republican officeholders helped push former U.S. attorney David Iglesias out of a job. Evidently, the top New Mexico prosecutor was remiss in his duty to produce criminal charges against Democrats in the run-up to the 2006 election.
Another U.S. attorney in Missouri lost his post over a petty complaint from Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, and still another was bumped to make room for a protÈgÈ of White House political adviser Karl Rove. There was a pervading culture of partisanship/loyalty-above-all-else in the department, recalled one of the fired attorneys.
ìNot only were my colleagues and I not insulated from politics - as we should have been in our jobs as prosecutors - but we were fired for the most partisan reasons,î Mr. Iglesias said.
But it mattered not to the Machiavellian Bush Administration that justice was compromised with appalling political interference. It operates under the premise that the ends always justify the means.
Look at the pattern.
The administration used fear about nonexistent WMDs as a means to justify the ends of invading Iraq. It outed a CIA operative to punish critics, eliminated civil rights under the misnamed Patriot Act to expand executive authority, crafted energy policy with energy companies to benefit the energy industry, and allowed the subprime mortgage mess to perpetuate to generate obscene wealth for a few.
And now there are official findings of fact about the politically charged dismissals of U.S. attorneys conducted to satisfy a White House agenda. Scandal-weary Americans may be inclined to dismiss yet another administration disgrace, but what happened at the Justice Department is too big a deal to ignore.
We're supposed to be a country that requires ìequal justice under the law,î not tainted justice under political consideration. But that's what we had under shameless administration zealots like Mr. Rove and Mr. Gonzalez.
The former administration officials allowed the most invaluable assets of the Justice Department - its integrity and independence - to be jeopardized for political ends. They permitted wholesale politicization of the
