iCount

by Tilman Tacke and Robert Waldmann



We don't know if someone else has noticed this amazing fact: in a cross country regression, the ratio of public health care spending to GDP is negatively correlated with the infant mortality rate as one would expect, but the share of private health care spending in GDP is positively correlated. In a simple regression with including only log per capita GDP (corrected for PPP) as an additional explanatory variable, both coefficients have large t-statistics.



The positive coefficient on private health care spending becomes insignificant when other variables are included, but it does not become negative. The result is not due to the USA which is an extreme outlier in private health care spending over GDP.



The result is not simply due to a correlation between high public spending and low income inequality as it holds when log per capita GDP is replaced by log per capita income of each of the lower 4 quintiles (this is our original regression hence the low number of countries in the sample).





The simplest regression is here



71 observations R-Squared = 0.841



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

log infant mortality rate | Coef. Std. Err. t

-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------

log real per capita GDP | -.7207554 .0762341 -9.45

public heath spending/GDP | -.1229777 .0394853 -3.11

private heath spending/GDP| .1139472 .0365645 3.12

year | -.0375508 .0500452 -0.75

_constant | 84.50556 100.034 0.84

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by Robert (noreply@blogger.com) on September 08, 2008 03:28 PM

by cactus



Back in January, I had a post entitled Why is the Economy in Trouble? Seriously, Why is the Economy in Trouble?. If I may quote myself extensively (and I may!!):

[W]hy is the economy in a state where even rational people are talking about the need for stimulus only a few years after we've had large individual income tax cuts, big cuts on taxes on repatriated corporate income, and continued year after year tax cuts on the estate tax. And let's not forget that the Fed has bent over backward to help GW. Take a look at real interest rates since GW took office - has any president gotten anything even remotely resembling this sort of help since stagflation was vanquished?



So in plain English, we've had a heck of a lot of what we're told is fiscal stimulus and a heck of a lot of monetary stimulus since GW took office.

…

And yet there's still trouble. This administration (and its cheerleaders) have been wrong about everything they've told us about the economy. They promised rapid growth and to pay down the debt. In 2007, the surplus was going to be so big that there wouldn't be enough retiring bonds to pay off. By 2010, debt was to be 6.5% of GDP. That was their first economic plan.



A recession came - they blamed it on Clinton and 9/11 and pushed through tax cuts, and more tax cuts. It was a light recession... short and shallow. But apparently enough so that debt would grow rather than shrink, despite all the help from the Fed. And for some reason, growth was anemic. So they pushed more tax cuts. And growth was still anemic. Eventually, in mid - 2003, the economy started to pick up again. There was much trumpeting of horns and pontificating and gloating. We've had average real growth for a few years plus a big run-up in the debt, and now we're back to worrying about a downturn again? Now? So soon after their wonderful remedy produced what Kudlow called the Goldilocks economy?



Which raises a question... what are they going to blame it on now? Clinton has been out of office too long, its been more than six years since 9/11, Congress has given them just about everything they wanted, and the Fed could not be more cooperative. (In fact, anyone could see the Fed helped so much for so long, it created its own problem... which is where we are at this point.) So what is left? Why the very short, very sub-par expansion? If its not Clinton, and not 9/11, and not the Fed, and not some big problem from abroad, then what? Random chance? For no particular reason, this happened now? Or is it their economy, their policies?



My guess is that they'll find some other reason, something other than their own actions and remedies and prescriptions. Because as far as GW and his cheerleaders are concerned, this situation gives them an excuse to peddle some more of their failed remedies and inane prescriptions. After what we've seen since January of 2001, a decent man would not go before the American public with a smirk on his face and tell us we need more tax cuts. But GW will. And decent people would not see the smirk and hear the call for more of the same and support it. But the cheerleaders will.

I guess now, a few months later, we see that GW isn't the only one who goes before the American public and tells us we need more tax cuts. But the question stands – if tax cuts are beneficial, why has the economy performed so poorly for seven and a half years?



This is not a business cycle thing – its not like the economy did well for part of his term and we're now in a trough. GW is on currently on track to finish his term with an annualized growth rate of around 1.3% of real GDP per capita. Since Ike took office, Ike, Ford and Bush Sr. produced growth rates that were that dismal. But Ike was diligent about paying down the debt, Ford had to contend with an Oil Crisis and disco, and Bush Sr. got hosed by Alan Greenspan.

GW has had everything his way for a very long time, he got to implement the policies he wanted, he got help from the Fed, and he didn't seem to worry about deficits. So, after all of this, I ask again, why has the economy performed so poorly since GW took office? What gets the blame? Something other than policy must, or McCain wouldn't be peddling more of the same.

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 08, 2008 10:20 AM

by CoRev and Rdan



Let's compare the two candidates policies, major component by major component. It will not be easy because they are both extensive but modestly detailed. Furthermore, you the reader will have to do some work by reading their plans. So let's get started with "Energy" because it is, to my mind the core of what must happen to implement most of their other policies. Here are the specific links to the candidates Web sites policy on energy in alphabetical order.

McCain

Obama



McCains preamble:

Our nation's future security and prosperity depends on the next President making the hard choices that will break our nation's strategic dependence on foreign sources of energy and will ensure our economic prosperity by meeting tomorrow's demands for a clean portfolio. John McCain has made the necessary choices - producing more power, pushing technology to help free our transportation sector from its use of foreign oil, cleaning up our air and addressing climate change, and ensuring that Americans have dependable energy sources. John McCain will lead the effort to develop advanced transportation technologies and alternative fuels to promote energy independence and cut off the flow of oil wealth to repressive dictatorships like Iran.



Major components of McCain's energy policy

-- Expanding Domestic Oil And Natural Gas Exploration And Production

-- Taking Action Now To Break Our Dependency On Foreign Oil By Reforming Our Transportation Sector

-- Investing In Clean, Alternative Sources Of Energy

-- Protecting Our Environment And Addressing Climate Change: A Sound Energy Strategy Must Include A Solid Environmental Foundation

-- Promoting Energy Efficiency

-- Addressing Speculative Pricing Of Oil



Obama's preamble:

Obama’s comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:

* Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump

* Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.

* Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.

* Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.

* Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

* Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.



Major components of Obama's energy policy

-- Provide Short-term Relief to American Families

-- Eliminate Our Need for Middle Eastern and Venezuelan Oil within 10 Years

-- Create Millions of New Green Jobs

-- Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050

-- Barack's environmental plan

-- Barack's plan to crack down on excessive energy speculation



CoRev put this together. If other sources are available please link in comments. I am sure there are good data sources as well. Tom would also be good at this. There will still be posts on campaign spin.

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 08, 2008 10:01 AM

At the cost of tens of billions to the American taxpayer, the U.S. government will bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both private companies created by Congress. Back in March,

Because of the widespread perception that the government would intervene if either company failed, they can borrow money at lower interest rates than their competitors. As a result, they have earned enormous profits that have enriched shareholders and managers alike: from 1990 to 2000, each company’s stock grew more than 500 percent and top executives were paid tens of millions of dollars.

...In a March meeting, Freddie Mac’s chairman, Richard F. Syron, bolstered those fears by saying the company would put shareholders’ interests first.

What is the nature of the bailout, whose investment is protected and whose investment is not?



Update: Market Watch



Consider the description of the bailout from the: New York Times:

Investors who own the companies’ common and preferred stock will suffer. Holders of debt, including many foreign central banks, are expected to receive government backing. Top executives of both companies will be pushed out, according to those briefed on the plan. [italics mine]

Now consider the following from MarketWatch,

The top five foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie long-term debt are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. In total foreign investors hold over $1.3 trillion in these agency bonds, according to the U.S. Treasury's most recent "Report on Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities."

China alone holds $376 billion in bond holdings.

Unless I am misreading something, foreign central banks will be protected, including China's...and the America taxpayer will foot that bill.

Secretary Paulson has been busy of late reassuring foreign central banks that they will be protected.

In recent weeks, Treasury officials have been reaching out to foreign central banks and other overseas buyers of securities or debt sold by the two companies, to reassure them of the creditworthiness of these instruments.

In one such conversation, at the end of August, the Treasury sought to reassure the Bank of Mexico, according to a person familiar with the matter, of the soundness of agency securities held by the bank. Treasury officials have also had similar conversations with Japanese investors who are buyers and holders of agency debt.

The collapse of Fannie and Freddie is being heard around the world. Although both presidential candidates may not be giving it the real attention it deserves, both have heard the collapse.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, has said his goal is to make the companies "go away" and to push for regulation that "limits their ability to borrow, shrinks their size until they are no longer a threat to our economy and privatizes and eliminates their links to the government." Sen. McCain supported giving Treasury the authority to backstop the firms but has said any use of taxpayer funds should be combined with an ouster of management and a ban on lobbying by the companies.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, has said the companies are a "weird blend" and that "if these are public entities, then they've got to get out of the profit-making business, and if they're private entities, then we don't bail them out."

The meaning and ramifications of this collapse cannot be unravelled in a single post--or a hundred posts. Mismanagement, corporate greed and excess need examining.

Once again, the U.S. taxpayer will be asked to shoulder another mountain of debt. Once again, the taxpayer has become the prop of last resort as poorly managed entities become too big to fail. How long this can continue is the question.

Everything seems broken. No one seems to be safely in charge. Instead, I imagine public officials--Bernanke and Paulson-- racing frantically from meeting to meeting, making assurances, looking for the next band-aid.

John McCain wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to shrink so that their size no longer is a threat. Would he say the same thing about Bear Stearns, albeit it is far smaller? Should Bear Stearns not have been allowed to grow so large? How do we shrink such a massive entities? Remember, they hold over $5 trillion in mortgages. Do we hold a fire sale? And would he apply the lobbying rule to other large companies? After all, they now have a heavy hand in writing the regulations that govern them. (The Medicare Part D fiasco is evidence of just how influential the pharmaceuticals were in deciding just what regulations were best for them.) Is it big government that is the problem--or big corporations that run the government?

Obama wants Fannie and Freddie out of the profit-making business. Is America ready for nationalizing such institutions? Is Obama? And could we have afforded a total collapse of Bear Stearns? Can the government simply allow such things to happen if the consequence for the nation is dire?

And how does the next president reassure our foreign creditors that the U.S. will pay its bills?

While we may be dismayed that foreign central banks will receive "government backing," we do not have much choice.



Yu Yongding, former advisor to China's central bank, put the matter bluntly:

``If the U.S. government allows Fannie and Freddie to fail and international investors are not compensated adequately, the consequences will be catastrophic,'' Yu said in e-mailed answers to questions yesterday. ``If it is not the end of the world, it is the end of the current international financial system.''

Foreign central banks have been propping up the U.S. economy:

Foreign central banks have financed the United States to keep their export sectors -- heavily dependent on U.S. consumer spending -- humming. But they now must weigh the benefits of providing the United States with such "vendor financing" against the rising costs of keeping the current system going.

Yu Yongding is not making a threat; he is stating a fact.

If foreign central banks stop financing U.S. debt (there are no free rides), then the U.S. is in a world of hurt. As Brad Setser notes:

...in fact, the economic and financial risks that arise from the U.S. current account deficit (and the resulting dependence on foreign financing) have not been exaggerated. If anything, they have received too little attention -- and are set to grow in the coming years.

Well, "the coming years" may be sooner, not later. For the U.S., the consequences may be immediate inflation as Treasury attempts to makes its offerings more palatable. The dollar will plunge. And these are just for starters.

The party is over. Sorry that most of you working stiffs missed it. Oh, by the way, here's the bill.

As Paul Krugman said:

I used to think that the major issues facing the next president would be how to get out of Iraq and what to do about health care. At this point, however, I suspect that the biggest problem for the next administration will be figuring out which parts of the financial system to bail out, how to pay the cleanup bills and how to explain what it’s doing to an angry public.

Although the American public is not exactly happy with the economy, it has no idea of the depth of the problems. Most people think the government's check writing ability is infinite.

Well, the government is broke and broken.

As far as I can see, neither candidate is willing to tell us frankly just how dire our difficulties are--and to whom we owe money. We have off-shored much of our manufacturing sector in the name of efficiency and profits, ignored our energy needs, and allowed our financial institutions to rape and pillage the countryside. Some have grumbled and tightened their belts; others have smiled and fattened their wallets; yet others have just watched and written studies on entrepreneurial innovation.

Regardless of who wins the upcoming election, the next president will faced enormous problems and a lot of anger...and not much in the way of solutions.

Right now, there are no easy answers.

by Stormy (noreply@blogger.com) on September 08, 2008 12:56 AM

I just loved this comment over at Jay Bookman’s blog, on Representative Lynn Westmoreland’s asinine explanation for his calling Barack Obama “uppity” at least three times (”I’ve never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of ‘uppity’ is ‘affecting an air of inflated self-esteem — snobbish.’ That’s what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up.”).

By Chet Hayes

This morning I called Westmoreland’s office

Them: Good morning, Congressman Westmoreland’s office.

Me: Good morning, I would like to make a public comment.

Them: Yes, sir, what is your comment?

Me: I would like to compliment Congressman Westmoreland on his comments yesterday about Barack Obama. We need more people like him to call a spade a spade. You crackers in Georgia must be very proud.

Them: [long pause] Sir, there’s no need to be insulting.

Me: I’m sorry, but how did I insult you?

Them: There is no need to call me a cracker.

Me: I’ve never heard that term used in a derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of “cracker” is “a thin, crisp biscuit.” That’s what we meant by cracker when we used it in the city where I grew up.

Them: Well, that’s not how you meant it.

Me: Oh, so what you’re saying is that you don’t like being called names. Now you know how it feels.

Them: [another long pause] Sir, I have to take another call.

As Bookman comments: “I wonder what they call that line of defense in PR school. I propose we name it the ‘My client is stupider than dirt’ defense.”

by KTK on September 07, 2008 10:31 PM

Greg explains the politics:

Four years later, however, Senator Obama enters the picture with, apparently, a different point of view. He has not been coy about wanting to use the tax code to redistribute income more aggressively. He has proposed modest tax cuts (about $1,000) for numerous middle-class Americans, cuts to be financed by much higher taxes on the richest few percent of the population. When all of Senator Obama’s proposed tax increases on the rich are added up, the top marginal rate on wage income would be nearly 50 percent. But for dividend income, Senator Obama has proposed only a modest increase in the top tax rate, to 20 percent from 15 percent. That is, the personal income tax would continue to tax dividends at a far lower rate than ordinary income. This decision must surprise many of his Congressional supporters. But it should be making President Bush smile. In light of Senator Obama’s stand, the politics of dividend taxation may take some surprising twists. Senator John McCain wants to maintain the current tax rate of 15 percent on dividends (while cutting the corporate tax), but it is a good bet that if Senator McCain is elected president, while Congress remains Democratic, Congress won’t give the Republican president what he wants. They would instead let the Bush tax cuts expire, returning the dividend tax for high-income taxpayers to about 40 percent. By contrast, if Mr. Obama is elected, Congressional Democrats will be less likely to balk at his proposed 20 percent dividend tax rate and thus embarrass the new president from their own party. This leads to one of the great ironies of the political season. On the issue of dividend taxation, Barack Obama may be the candidate with the best chance of preserving George Bush’s legacy.

Earlier in this op-ed, he made the case why dividend taxation had distortive incentive effects and then stated this about the 2003 debate to reduce the dividend tax rate to 15 percent:

Many Democrats pointed out, correctly, that the most immediate beneficiaries were rich. The poor don’t own much dividend-paying stock. Middle-class families hold more equities, but they often do so in retirement accounts, which are already tax-preferred. Wonkish arguments that a better allocation of resources would improve the overall economy were dismissed as “trickle-down economics.”

The improvement in incentives might have had a small benefit to the overall economy but the fairness issue is still a critical one. But maybe President Obama can achieve improvements in tax progressivity at lowers costs to efficiency.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 10:14 PM

Hat tip to Anonymous for the Wapo article.

In January 2007, as years of loose mortgage lending were about to send the nation's housing market into devastating decline, Fannie Mae chief executive Daniel H. Mudd wrote a confidential memo to his board.



Discussing the company's successes, Mudd said one of Fannie Mae's achievements in 2006 was expanding its involvement in the market for subprime and other nontraditional mortgages. He called it a step "toward optimizing our business."



A month later, Fannie Mae outlined plans to further expand its activities in the subprime market. The company recognized the already weak performance of subprime loans but predicted that they would get better in 2007, according to another Fannie Mae document.



Internal documents show that even late in the housing bubble, Fannie Mae was drawn to risky loans by a variety of temptations, including the desire to increase its market share and fulfill government quotas for the support of low-income borrowers.



Since then, Fannie Mae's exposure to loosely underwritten mortgages has produced billions of dollars of losses and sent its stock price plummeting, prompting the federal government to prepare for a potential taxpayer bailout of the company. This month, Fannie Mae reported that loans from 2006 and 2007 accounted for almost 60 percent of its second-quarter credit losses.



Fannie Mae documents from the period, obtained by The Washington Post, paint a picture of a company with the dual incentives of fostering affordable housing and making money, and of one caught between the imperatives of increasing its market share while avoiding excessive risk. In a bid to juggle these demands, the company's executives took on risks they either misunderstood or unduly minimized.

Update: Hat tip to Walker for for the wisdom of Tanta

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 10:12 PM

Atrios says:

Reading through what's been released I still don't really get a sense of the important details. "Who eats how much shit" is the big question and it isn't entirely clear.

As the old saying goes, if you're sitting at a table, and you don't know who gets to eat how much sh**, guess who gets to eat the most.

by Afferent Input (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 10:01 PM

In the last installment of this Social Security series we kind of dug into some of the details of unfunded liability, what it was and what it wasn't and most importantly where the incidence occured: in the past or in the future. Backwards Transfer is Back. In the course of that I think it became pretty clear that none of that liability really was the consequence of overpayments to what Social Security calls 'past participants' that instead it was all due to a gap between future cost and future income for 'current participants'. But in the course of that discussion the role of 'future participants' fell through the crack when instead the numbers have some surprising implications. But before getting to that I want to back up and consider Unfunded Liability more broadly.



Traditionally Social Security has judged solvency over the short term (10 years) and the long term (75 years). Which seems reasonable enough, 75 years being a period that will capture the retirement years of pretty much any current worker. The metrics of solvency were typically expressed as percentage of payroll or percentage of GDP. In 2003 the Reports introduced new measures of solvency which expressed the gap between income and cost in Present Value dollars over the 75 year window and indeed over the Infinite Future. The first set of numbers just divides this into periods: first 75 years, 75 years to Infinite Future, and total and expresses it in dollars.

2003: $3.5 trillion, $7 trillion, $10.5 trillion

2004: $3.7 trillion, $6.7 trillion, $10.4 trillion

2005: $4.0 trillion, $7.1 trillion, $11.1 trillion

2006: $4.6 trillion, $8.6 trillion, $13.4 trillion

2007: $4.7 trillion, $8.9 trillion, $13.6 trillion

2008: $4.3 trillion, $8.3 trillion, $13.6 trillion

What do these numbers tell us? Well not much really. Generally you would expect the unfunded liability over the first seventy five years to increase simply because of normal population growth, we will have more people overall in year seventy-six than we do in year one, as we drop the latter and add the former we can expect an uptick in liability which right now is about .06% of payroll. The relatively small changes from 2003 to 2004 and 2006 to 2007 can be explained in this way. On the other hand the bigger movements from 2005 to 2006 or 2007 to 2008 turn out on examination to be the result of additional changes in assumptions, in the first case in assumed interest and in the latter changes in assumptions about immigration. But other than that the numbers don't really give us much guidance except perhaps to wonder why the future numbers from year 76 on, representing as they do the Infinite Future are not even larger. To get insight into this we need to move to a more granular analysis. Which comes under the fold.



The Table numbers vary a little bit between reports with what was Tables IV.B7 and IV.B8 in earlier Reports become IV.B6 and IV.7 but all are titled Present Values of OASDI Cost Less Tax Revenue and Unfunded Obligations for Program Participants[Present values as of January 1, 2008; dollar amounts in trillions] People who read the last post may remember that the Trustees break down "Program Participants' in kind of an odd way:

'Past participants' would seem to be that group of people who formerly drew benefits but no longer do. In short the dead.

'Current participants' are defined as everyone fifteen and older and so include all current workers and current retirees.

'Future participants' are defined as everyone under fifteen plus those not yet born. The table assigns dollar figures to these groups as follows:

Row 1 = "Present value of future cost less future taxes for current participants" (Over the next 100 years)

Row 2 = "Less current trust fund"

Row 3 = "Equals unfunded obligation for past and current participants" (Note that in this case the contribution of past participants is likely positive overall)

Row 4 = "Plus present value of cost less tax for future participants for through the infinite future"

Row 5 = "Equals unfunded obligation for all participants through the infinite future"

This result can be expressed as an equation. So what does it look like over the same period as above? (Figures in trillions)

2003: $11.9 - $1.4 = $10.5 -$.0 = $10.5

2004: $12.7 - $1.5 = $11.2 -$.8 = $10.4

2005: $13.7 - $1.7 = $12.0 -$.9 = $11.1

2006: $15.1 - $1.9 = $13.3 + $.1 = $13.4

2007: $16.5 - $2.0 = $14.4 - $.8 = $13.6

2008: $17.4 - $2.2 = $15.2 - $1.5 = $13.6 (rounding is Trustees')



What does this tell us? Well actually quite a bit. The increases in column one are mostly I think to be explained by current demographics, fewer people entering the workforce compared to the large cohort of Boomers leaving. And column two is just showing the effects of a Trust Fund in current surplus with column three being the simple sum.



But it is column four that is most interesting to me. Biggs looks at that and sees future participants paying more in taxes than they are projected to get in benefits. I suggest that is the wrong way to look at it, instead turn it around. In 2003 future participants, then defined as all people born after 1988, taken as a whole could expect their benefits to be fully funded by their taxes. Which is to say that long term Social Security is projected to return to pay-go with a surplus and that all of the problem is in fact confined to the next 100 years.



This has some profound implications for policy. Under current projections Social Security is set to pay out 78% of the scheduled benefit starting in 2041, an amount that will shrink to 75% at the end of the 75 year window. But at that point the very youngest of the 'current participants' of 2008 will be 90 and the impact of that cohort will be fading rapidly and we can reasonably expect it will go to zero right at the end of the hundred year period. Meaning that any fixes we choose to put in over the next couple of decades could be reversed later on with no damage to the long, long term outlook for Social Security. In actual practice there is no way we could limit the impacts of any medium term fixes to the current batch of current participants, some of the earlier cohorts of future participants will no doubt be called to sacrifice along with existing current participants. But there is a light at the end of that long tunnel. And if over the next couple of decades we can beat the current economic projections and so reduce the growth of column one and three we can make that light brighter and brighter.



In the light of the above equations Social Security's unfunded liability is more akin to a fixed term mortgage than an infinite burden. We can and should take some efforts to pay it down quicker while knowing that given regular payments it goes away some time in the next hundred years anyway. As the post title notes, that liability is effectively bookended.

by Bruce Webb (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 06:44 PM

Stephen Colbert, on Wednesday:

Republicans are the true party of change. Remember, they were the ones who changed the rationale for the war. And, they change the meaning of words. Words like “freedom,” “enhanced,” and “justice department.”

Ha! That’s funny, I don’t care who you are.

by tgirsch on September 07, 2008 06:16 PM

According to commenter digglahh, the announced attendance of Wednesday’s Carolina Mudcats - West Tenn Diamond Jaxx game was 1,314. This picture, which I took at the game, begs to differ:

Click image for full-scale view.

Now, to be fair, there were probably about 150 people in the club level and luxury boxes behind me, as well as another 30 or so milling around the concourses. But I think this image shows why sporting events always use paid attendance rather than gate attendance.

For what it’s worth, the home Diamond Jaxx got crushed, 7-1.

by tgirsch on September 07, 2008 04:16 PM

I have seen lots of liberals making the case that she is not. Some of these arguments get really tedious and confusing but perhaps the most succinct one comes from a fellow resident of Wasilla named Anne Kilkenny:

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.



The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing. While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.



As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state. In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

Spend and borrow – the fiscal conservatism of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and now McCain and Palin.



Update: Barack Obama blasts Palin on her earmark record:

"Don't be fooled," Obama told the crowd surrounding him in a large barn. "John McCain's party, with the help of John McCain, has been in charge" for nearly eight years. "I know the governor of Alaska has been saying she's change, and that's great," Obama said. "She's a skillful politician. But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up." McCain has vowed to wipe out earmarks, which are targeted funding for specific projects that lawmakers put into spending bills. As governor, Palin originally supported earmarks for a controversial $398 million Alaska project dubbed the "bridge to nowhere." But she dropped her support after the state's likely share of the cost rose. She hung onto $27 million to build the approach road to the bridge. Under Palin's leadership, Alaska this year asked for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects from one of McCain's top adversaries: indicted Sen. Ted Stevens. That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress for the current budget year. Other states got just $34 worth of local projects per person this year, on average, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based watchdog group.The state government's earmark requests to Congress in her first year in office exceeded $550 million, more than $800 per resident.

I guess to supporters of McCain-Palin, reality has a liberal bias and facts are sexist.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 09:55 AM

Via Drs. DeLong and Black, the WaPo reports that this version of the S&L crisis will repeat the mistakes of the last one:

Instead of giving each company a big capital infusion upfront, the government could make quarterly injections as the companies' losses warrant, the sources said. This would be an attempt to minimize the initial cost of the rescue. [emphasis mine]

And why are they doing this? Who gets protected while the hemorrhaging continues?

The value of the companies' common stock would be diluted but not wiped out, while the holdings of other securities, including company debt and preferred shares might be protected by the government.

So who are the major individual holders of the stock? Why, the directors of the company, the five of whom listed hold over 2.1 million shares.



That is, the same people who were tasked with ensuring that the company was well run—and have failed miserably at it—are being saved by the form of the bailout, while the cost—again, judging by the lessons of the slow-motion S&L meltdown—will be increasing for the taxpayers.



The next time someone asks me if I believe in "free-market capitalism," I'm going to ask if they believe in the Easter Bunny.

by Ken Houghton (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 01:17 AM

The GOP’s latest stupid stunt is to circulate a story about how they “rescued” a bunch of flags from the Democratic convention hall and are now distributing them to their supporters to show how much better Americans they are than the Democrats. As the Democratic organizers point out, it simply means they are thieves: the flags were leftovers that were being stored for use at rallies and other events later, and someone took them without permission, then lied about it. This is of a piece with the earlier, idiotic rash of GOP-sponsored stories about Obama’s lack of a flag lapel pin, who says the Pledge of Allegiance most often, which corner of an Obama pamphlet some blue and white stars were found on, and other forms of Republican ritual patriotic mating display (slogans on coins, military parades, public references to - but not material support for - veterans, and so on).

The flag has long since become a fetish object for the right wing - it has been embued with significance in and of itself, not merely as a symbol of something. The right wing reacts to the symbol as if it were the object symbolized - they treat it as having the value inherent in the thing it refers to, rather than as a reminder of it. (The Fox News story about the stolen Democratic flags referred to them as “orphans”.) And this, too, is a part of their tendency to fetishize everything they don’t want anyone to question or think about rationally: the fetus, veterans, “security”, “freedom” (”. . . you had freedom to; now you have been granted freedom from. Don’t underrate it!”), God and organized religion, capitalism, and all the other props of their Potemkin philosophy.

It’s time to reclaim reality - to see things as they are and talk about their meanings, rather than being stampeded into genuflecting before the ever-changing puppet show of tokens and symbols the right wing flashes for the purpose of provoking and dictating reactions they then manipulate for their own benefit.

There is a story about the time, a few years ago, that McDonalds Corp. produced some paper cups bags with pictures of the flags of the nations of the world involved in the World Cup soccer finals on them. The Saudi flag has a few words in Arabic text on it, taken from the Koran. Muslim law holds that no part of the Koran may be desecrated or destroyed. Some fetishizing fanatic claimed that throwing away the paper cups bags after use - with their tiny blob of unreadable ink depicting words on a depiction of a flag depicting part of a religious text - would constitute desecration of the Koran. After much nervous negotiation, McDonalds had to ritually dispose of the entire production run of cups bags under religious supervision and promise never to do it again.

Unquestionably, the LGF/Michelle Malkin freak-mob that is constantly howling about “dhimmitude” would be aghast at this stupid and heavy-handed browbeating by way of the irrational worship of trivial inanimate objects. But they are the same people who take exactly the same attitude toward religious and political symbols they find useful for their own cause. In fact, of course, what they object to is not the irrationality of it - that would certainly be a boldly ironic stance on their part. What they object to is somebody else’s symbols and values being treated with respect. But we can do better than that. We can point out that any treatment of a symbol as valuable in itself is missing the point. Symbols refer to other things. It is those other things that are of value. We use the symbols because we value the things they refer to, but it is a mistake to treat the symbols as equivalent to the things they denote. Protestants often accuse Catholics of making this mistake by filling their churches with statues and icons, but for some reason they can’t seem to make the leap to recognizing their own behavior toward flags, pins, songs, uniforms, and the other political-rally gewgaws they love to mesmerize themselves with.

Flags are just paper or cloth. They symbolize something, but so do words on paper, pictures, logos, bunting, and all the rest of the valueless ephemera that accompany political rallies. They’re not (usually) historical artifacts, personal mementoes, or otherwise unique, and unless they are they don’t need to be treated as anything other than what they are - cheap paper or cloth. They can be disposed of, when need be, without fear and without ritual. (The Flag Code says otherwise, but it is useless verbiage - which no doubt explains why it’s not part of the criminal law, and is legally unenforceable.) Flags can be used symbolically, including by destruction, but so can printed words, pictures, logos, and such. Not every action involving a flag, or a pamphlet, or a picture or logo or what not is symbolic, and not every one needs to be responded to as symbolic. When a response is required, it should be directed to the message implied by the symbol, not the act of symbolism - to do otherwise is, again, to treat the signifier as the signified, and to reduce your own things of value to the substance of worthless paper or cloth.

You cannot insult a flag - it has no feelings. You cannot desecrate a flag - it is not sacred. And the sooner we stop treating flags as persons, or nations, or objects of worship, we can move on to treating the other desiderata of the political landscape at their true value. We can start to talk about the things that matter, and not the symbols of the things that matter: soldiers’ lives and veterans’ care and comfort - not uniforms and flags; moral personhood and the locus of moral rights and interests - not “pre-born citizens” and “snowflake babies”; the real differences between women’s lives and bodies and those of embryos or fetuses - not abstractions so vague they exist only as slogans; the rights and freedoms actually available to citizens - not colors on some Homeland Security daily fever chart, or the unknown machinations of secret tribunals passed off as “due process”; the resources and guarantees actually claimable by the sick or elderly - not the “freedom” of “private accounts” that consists of playing the stock market with your healthcare or pension; our politicians’ actual plans and policies - not what they wear or the slogans they chant.

That transition would be deadly to the party that trades in falsehood and superficialities, but for some reason the party that caters to the reality-based community can never seem to stand up and say “Enough is enough”. (Obama is now wearing flag pins.) More to the point, I guess, the country that repeatedly elects the party of lies, falsehood, ignorance, superficiality, and incompetence - that allows itself to be stampeded with bizarre doomsaying about gay weddings and orphan flags - will not say to their politicans “We want the truth, we want detail and substance, we want to know what you actually intend to do and what we can expect from that”.

Maybe they don’t want that. They’re certainly willing enough to be treated as stupid - to, literally, be given flags to wave and to wave them on command and to think they are thereby playing some role in the guidance of a great and powerful nation - to be told that their vote should be determined by superficialities and symbols, and to allow it to be. But if we could stop the nonsense, insist on things being taken at their true worth, reject fetishism and sloganeering and self-delusion, we might have a real government, responsive to a real democracy.

Update: Corrected description of McDonalds incident.

by KTK on September 07, 2008 01:15 AM

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball report for Newsweek and Josh Marshall has more. It was the cover-up of Watergate that drove Richard Nixon from the White House. John McCain has yet to be voted into the White House and this is just another reason why he never should be.



--------------------------



(rdan here...) Hat tip to Andrew for the Democratic party vetting from 2006 here.



Comments have been frozen and hidden because main posters do not add to the frenzy. Congrats to anyone showing restraint.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 12:56 AM

James Hamilton has a nice post noting why he would say we are in a recession and linking to a lot of very smart economists who are saying the same thing. All of these economists pay tribute to the tough task faced by the NBER Business-Cycle Dating Committee which has not officially declared that we are in a recession – at least not yet. But I suspect Teams McCain and Obama will both start talking about fiscal policy cures for the rise in the unemployment rate – or the drop in the employment-population ratio if you prefer.



I haven’t seen anything recent from Lawrence Summers on this but let me speculate what he might say – as I think he often gets these things quite right. Summers strikes me as a long-term deficit hawk for the same pro-growth reasons that I am. Something to do with increasing national savings – which of course the Reagan-Bush43-McCain wing of the Republican Party seems to think has it all backwards. We deficit hawks tend to favor countercyclical monetary policy that lowers interest rates to encourage investment (and yes net exports via dollar devaluation) when aggregate demand is weak. But the Federal Reserve has played that lever and some of us are concerned that it alone will not be enough.



So as the politicians want to pander to the public with promises of both more spending and tax cuts too, let’s try to figure out which set of fiscal policies can do the best job of giving timely, targeted, and effective short-term fiscal stimulus and at the same time tell Wall Street that we are serious about long-term fiscal responsibility. This policy prescription used to be called Rubinomics and I submit that it worked well for the Clinton Administration. But then Summers was one of his excellent economic advisors – to which President Clinton did listen to carefully.



McCain wants tax cuts – lots of them. Some of them are temporary tax cuts (gasoline tax rebates) which a lot of economists would argue have little bang for the back. But McCain is also advocating making George W. Bush’s tax cuts permanent. Whoops – that’s the complete opposite of what Rubinomics would call for. It would reduce national savings and long-term economic growth and could even hurt forward looking investors types such as those folks on Wall Street. The McCain recipe is a lot like the Reagan and Bush43 recipes and the evidence is that these recipes work poorly.



Obama is calling for an acceleration of public investment projects, which could give a large bang for the buck and perhaps more timely bang for the buck. But I’m not ready to say President Obama would be a repeat of what President Clinton did back in 1993. Candidate Obama wants to tell all but the very rich they get a tax cut. Then again candidate Clinton made that promise back in 1992. But at least candidate Obama is proposing less fiscal irresponsibility than candidate McCain and is willing to say some folks will have to pay more in taxes. Candidate Obama is also surrounding himself with economic advisors who are actual economists. McCain’s idea for economic advisors include Carly Fiorina and Phil Gramm.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 12:50 AM

CoRev says:



Dan, may I suggest an open thread that allow us to list the various policy issues and then discuss them.



I would start with:

1) Economic

2) Energy

3) Jobs [and I consider 1,2 & 3 to be closely interlinked]

4) Fiscal

--- Balanced Budget

--- Taxes

5) National Security



It is hard to divorce any one policy or subpart from its economic impacts. Maybe that's why we are all on this open discussion Econ blog.



Rdan replies:



Yes, I will try it as a way for right and left to stay on issues. We have plenty of representation. Is it possible when even people like Mary McArdle, others are assigning interns and other people are assigning TAs to monitor comments. This is a ferocious assault for control by people self-absorbed or suspended values of honesty.



It is the kind of thing to test one's beliefs in the honesty people can be capable of, and the kind of restraint that threatens even the staunchest self-control.



Possible?? I do not know. Some of us are pretty touchy and loaded like tight springs. For you, intrepid rightside of center, I will respect your request and try this as an experiment. Someone will certainly bust in to disrupt the flow and others can claim injury...if so it will not work.



If people stay on topic I or others can delete obvious offenders and no one will miss the deletions if no one responds. Any other ideas from readers?



Start with jobs, trade?? I realize this can be simply "asking for it".

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 12:43 AM

BLS reports:

The unemployment rate rose from 5.7 to 6.1 percent in August, and non-farm payroll employment continued to trend down (-84,000)

The household survey indicated a 342,000 decline in employment, which led to:

The employment-population ratio fell over the month to 62.1 percent in August, down 1.3 percentage points from its most recent high of 63.4 percent in December 2006.

This 62.1 percent employment-population ratio for August compares to a 62.4 percent ratio for July and explains the jump in the unemployment rate since the labor force participation rate was unchanged. It also represents the lowest level since September 2003.



Even before this bad news, David Altig was presenting employment data that would suggest we are in a recession. As Spencer notes – Team McCain is shying away from this issue.



Update: pgl..." Well we must have a lot of traffic with the number of comments here approaching 90 but it's odd that none of them address the employment report for August, which was what this post was about"



(rdan here....sorry to grab the post pgl, but something is going on that is very different, and will stop. The currents of irrelevant comments is across the spectrum it would seem, with the 'lefties' starting this one. Except gang members have no political cover and will simply be considered threadbreakers. If anyone on either side of the divide respects Angry Bear, please just duck the off topics. Order gets restored this weekend.)



(Open thread is cancelled today because I will not waste a Friday evening monitoring food fights. Since this is a group practice we will take a day or two and solve the problem. To regular readers my apologies...the format will work, just growing pains from attentive desparadoes)

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 07, 2008 12:16 AM

Could July have been the bottom in auto sales?





Auto sales jumped from 12.6 million in July to 13.7 million in August.



Auto sales are nearly 20% below trend as compared to 30% below trend at the 1981 bottom and 16% below trend at the 1991 bottom.



So, just maybe July was the bottom.

by spencer (noreply@blogger.com) on September 06, 2008 01:55 PM

When George W. Bush brags about: (1) increasing Federal funding of drugs and increasing defense spending; (2) giving us or money back in the form of a tax “cut” (actually deferral); and (3) reducing the deficit all at the same time, my reply is that he must be practicing some advanced level of fuzzy math. McCain’s 2008 campaign is also based on this fuzzy math but Anne Kornblut notes that McCain’s fuzzy math extends to Palin’s sale of her jet:

One of the most compelling anecdotes in Sarah Palin’s repertoire is that she auctioned off the Alaska governor's jet on eBay after taking office -- a swift move made by a reformer hoping to clean up the excesses of her predecessor. In fact, the jet did not sell on eBay. It was sold to a businessman from Valdez named Larry Reynolds, who paid $2.1 million for the plane -- shy of the $2.7 million purchase price -- according to news reports at the time. Reynolds contributed to Palin's campaign in 2006. What happened? It appears that, as she promised during her bid for governor, Palin did try to sell the plane on eBay, but there was only one serious bid, in December of 2006, and it fell through. The Westwind II was sold about eight months later, achieving her goal of ridding the state of a luxury item. But that hasn't stopped Palin, or John McCain, from implying -- or asserting outright -- that Palin sold the jet on the Internet. "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor, and sold it on eBay -- and made a profit!" McCain declared in Wisconsin at a campaign stop Friday.

Kornblut suggests Palin had a loss equal to $0.6 million so how does McCain think she made a profit? Oh wait a second – Reynolds also contributed money to Palin’s campaign. Is McCain saying there was some side deal between the Governor of Alaska and this Valdez businessman? I think Team McCain has some explaining to do here.



Hat tip to Will Thomas who also notes that whether this was sold on eBay is “nitpicking” but McCain should be more careful with what he says.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 06, 2008 01:38 PM

The NYT reports:

WASHINGTON — Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday called in top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants, and told them that the government was preparing to place the two companies under federal control, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 06, 2008 09:42 AM

As I watched the GOP convention talk about personalities rather than policies – and of course there was their air that McCain is someone morally superior to Obama for some odd reason – a set of thoughts kept filtering up but the words failed me – until I read what Greg Sargent said so well:

But why do we have to accept the idea that he's also modest and reticent to discuss his own suffering? Why do we have to grant both his heroism and the superior character underlying his supposed reluctance to discuss the experiences that he just talked about in front of a TV audience of millions?



The McCain campaign and the GOP want this campaign to be about one thing: The compared character and experience of the two men running. But elections are also about another niggling detail: What each one is promising to do as president -- that is, their promised agenda and proposed policies.



McCain says he'll do some stuff. Obama says he'll do other stuff. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American people back the program that Obama is promising. Shows like the one you watched tonight are designed to make you forget this.

McCain is offering his character -- hardened by extraordinary suffering -- but is also promising to put that character in service of accomplishing...very little different than what we've had at the hands of his predecessor.



Obama, too, is offering his biography. And his experiences, while not as overtly dramatic, nonetheless do have resonance for millions and millions of Americans. We're supposed to see his experiences as less heroic than his opponent's, and that's fine -- Obama hasn't passed through the same fires McCain has -- but Obama's experiences carry weight and resonance for huge chunks of the population.



Ultimately, though, the choice isn't only between two biographies. It's also between a set of promises and aspirations. Obama is offering a series of policy changes -- pulling out of Iraq; changing America's posture towards the rest of the world; changing the way foreign policy is discussed in this country; overhauling the tax code; engaging in genuine energy reform -- that McCain isn't offering. Obama may or may not be able to deliver on these promises. But at least he's promising to attempt them.



Shows like tonight's are meant to persuade you that the election isn't about such choices. Instead, you're supposed to imagine that the election is a choice between two stories. Between two protagonists. That's not what it's about at all.

We got more really bad news from the labor front. So how would each candidate address this macroeconomic issue? Oh yea – McCain sees it as an excuse for more and permanent tax cuts for the rich. The one he had the good sense to vote against in 2001 did not do so well but now he wants more of the same.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 06, 2008 02:00 AM

If you are a poll geek (like me), a couple of pretty good sites to bookmark are www.pollster.com (be sure to check out their daily trend analysis - it’s a bit tricky to get to but you can find it)  and also www.electoral-vote.com/

by Ted on September 05, 2008 08:58 PM

In a surprise to absolutely no one, FactCheck.org confirms that Palin’s speech was largely bullshit.

by tgirsch on September 05, 2008 07:24 PM

So, it turns out that nice green lawn that floated behind McCain during part of his speech is the front lawn at Walter Reed.  Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California that is.  Looks like someone made a mistake with that image selection.

With all the money and effort that goes into these campaigns, I am amazed when something like this happens.  Another example would be the stupendously silly pre-presidential seal that the Obama campaign trotted out (it only lasted one appearance in public).  How hard is it to give these things a sanity check?

 

by Ted on September 05, 2008 06:15 PM

Steve Waldman graduated Columbia the year after Barack Obama. His brother Mike was Bill Clinton's chief speechwriter. So when Steve Waldman declared his suspicion that John McCain would get the highest percentage of the Jewish vote of any recent Republican, with a link that indicated it could put Florida solidly in the Republican column, I took him seriously.*



Via Gary Farber's ex-girl friend,** I see the Sarah Palin nomination has caused him to recant this, reasoning (correctly, one suspects) that Jews prefer to vote for people they don't trust instead of people who want them killed:

When Isaac was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment--you can't miss it.

Or who refer to your most Orthodox members as "butchers."***

Then I noticed, right out of the corner of my eye, five yeshiva bu[t]chers. Now, that's the ultra-orthodox young seminary students. Maybe you've seen the pictures, you know, with the black hats and the black coats, and the side curls, you know. And they were walking towards us with a look of grim determination on their faces, and I knew we were in trouble....And I'm thinkin', "That's it. We're gonna get martyred right here on the streets of Jerusalem."

And who then reiterate that you are not the Chosen People until you are Christian:

Our Father in heaven,



We stand before You as a people who've experienced Your grace, and we acknowledge that that grace was first extended to our people through Your people, the Jews; that there is not a one here in this room who would know Jesus and serve Him if there had not been a Jew, generations ago, that spoke Jesus' name to our people. Father, that comes full circle and we wish to extend Your grace back to Your people. And we pray and we ask that as a result of this time here, and as a result of this offering, there will be people among the Jews today who come to say the name "Jesus" with faith.



In His glorious name we pray, amen.

Now Steve Waldman may be—probably is—correct when he says "the standard preaching of many evangelical churches will be frightening to some Jews, just as the standard preaching of many African American churches were scary to whites." And when he quotes Sarah Palin's pastor saying, "You either receive the King that God has appointed for all mankind or you reject Him. There's no neutral ground on that—none," he clearly takes that as scary rhetoric.



But there is a difference between scary, "yeah us!" rhetoric, and being openly declared second-class citizens, or outright described as "butchers." Or, as Brad DeLong so aptly put it:

John McCain wants to nominate his friend Joe Lieberman for vice president, is told that he cannot, and so he backs down and instead nominates somebody who takes their children to a church where they teach that suicide bombers in Tel Aviv are righteously executing God's vengeance on Israel for rejecting Jesus Christ.

*That several people in private conversation have suggested doubts about Obama from a Jewish perspective supports the premise.



**Among other things. She's also a long-time friend of my wife's.



***Waldman posts the transcript as "buchers," but bucher is Hebrew for "bookstores," and it seems more probable, in the context, that this is a typo.

by Ken Houghton (noreply@blogger.com) on September 05, 2008 05:58 PM

The employment report shows more of the same and no sign of an economic improvement.



Compared to other economic cycles this is looking like an extended shallow near recession.



But that may be the most bearish scenario.



Every time employment has fallen below its year ago level the US has experienced a recession and both employment measures are below their year ago level. Neither measure is showing any sign of bottoming.

Hours worked tell the same story. The monthly drops have been running at about a 1% rate and this months data is in line with that trend.

Interestingly, the Republican convention clearly read the mood of the country and they decided to campaign against the Republican party.

by spencer (noreply@blogger.com) on September 05, 2008 01:40 PM

by reader noni mousa, doing regular citizen reseach for us all



Alice in Co-payland



Now and then some tiny little headline, like this from the Orlando

Business Journal, catches my eye and gives me that old Alice in

Wonderland feeling. Have a quick look:



Biz journal says:

Survey: Most companies will increase health care costs

Orlando Business Journal



Fifty-nine percent of companies intend to keep down rising health care

costs in 2009 by raising workers' deductibles, copays or out-of-pocket

spending limits, according to a survey by the Mercer consulting firm.



On average, health care costs will rise by an estimated 5.7 percent

next year for both workers and their employers. That is equal to this

year's increase and a 6.1 percent hike in 2007. ..

This only looked weird to me because I live in Canada. So if you didn't

see what I saw, let me remind you they aren't keeping down health

care costs -- they're shifting a chunk of the cost to employees

(those deductables and co-pays) in order to keep down the cost of

health insurance. Insurance agents are not allowed to practice

medicine, I am sure.



And oh, for added funniness, this was just below the story online:

Related News:



* Ex-federal prosecutor named to insurance brokerage board

* Here's a novel way to speed up warehouse leasing

---------------------------

by noni mousa

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 05, 2008 10:25 AM

Does Liz Sidoti know John McCain lied here?

For all his talk of reaching across the aisle, McCain got in his jabs at Obama. After all, there are only two months until Election Day. He said Obama would raise taxes, close markets, increase government spending, eliminate jobs. He criticized Obama on energy, health care, and education policies.

Dean Baker recognized the lies:

Senator McCain claimed that Obama's proposal would force people into a health care plan run by government bureaucrats. This is not true. Senator Obama's plan would give people the option of buying into a publicly run Medicare-type plan, but this would only be an option. Under Senator Obama's plan, no one would be forced to join the public plan, they would be free to stay with their current plan if they chose. Senator McCain also misrepresented his plan on taxes for ordinary people. He claimed that he would not raise taxes, but his health care plan would raise taxes for tens of millions of middle income workers. McCain proposes making employer payments for health care taxable income. This will be a substantial tax increase for many workers. It also would have been appropriate to note this misrepresentation since Senator McCain has made low taxes so central to his campaign. As a rule AP is not hesitant to criticize presidential acceptance speeches. The headline for its article on Senator Obama's speech was "Obama Spares Details: Keeps Up Attacks." It is worth noting that most other news accounts seem to have ignored Senator McCain's misrepresentation of Obama's position on this important issue.

During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush told a lot of lies and the press failed to note how dishonest his campaign was with respect to important policy issues such as government spending and taxes. The result? Bush became President. The same playbook is in force during this election and it seems our press is still incapable of calling dishonesty when they see it.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 05, 2008 10:18 AM

At the RBC.





(rdan here...Tom and I agree this thread is done. I cannot lock it and show comments, but must simply close it for blogger reasons)

by Tom Bozzo (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 09:24 PM

http://www.extremewisdom.com/?p=1358



Any interest in putting it on the Bear?



I'll be doing a fill-in on someone else's slot today from 3-5P CST at

www.wkrs.com.



I'd love to have your readers call in.



Bruno Behrend

Host - Extreme Wisdom Radio Show

Weekdays 10 AM-Noon on 1220 WKRS

www.extremewisdom.com

Listen Live - http://1220wkrs.com/pages/93518.php

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 08:22 PM

Jim Rutenberg reports on Team McCain’s attempt to silence real journalism:

Those there that night now feel as if they are living in some sort of alternate reality in the Xcel Energy Center here, where Mr. McCain is to accept the Republican nomination on Thursday. The convention has already included some of the most intense attacks against journalists by a campaign in memory, with Mr. McCain’s aides accusing them of biased, sexist and generally unfair coverage of his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. In the first three days here, Mr. McCain’s aides have sent out news releases criticizing individual reporters for their coverage. They have canceled an interview with Larry King of CNN to protest what they viewed as unfair questioning of a spokesman by Campbell Brown. They have dismissed as “fiction” an article in The New York Times about the process of vetting Ms. Palin. And Mr. McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, has accused journalists here of pursuing a “mission to destroy” Ms. Palin with “a new level of viciousness.” If there is one mission Mr. McCain wants to accomplish at his convention, it is to galvanize conservative voters who have shown signs of depression this year. Traditionally, one surefire way to do that has been to attack the “elitist,” mainstream news media. And Mr. McCain’s campaign has made its anti-news-media message central to the convention program here. In her first speech before a prime-time national audience Wednesday, as the crowd booed the word “media,” Ms. Palin said, “Here’s a little news flash for those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion — I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.” The accusations of unfairness rebounded around the conservative talk show and commentary circuit, with the conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, for instance, writing that Ms. Palin “could become a transformative political presence,” and that therefore the “American left” and Mr. Obama’s campaign “are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.” But, seeming to undermine the campaign’s argument that questions about Ms. Palin stem from bias, Ms. Noonan was heard on a live microphone on MSNBC answering a question about Ms. Palin’s experience: “Most qualified?” she said. “No.” Using a barnyard epithet, she said Mr. McCain had chosen Ms. Palin more for her personal story. “Every time Republicans do that,” she said, “they blow it.” A former McCain strategist, Mike Murphy, agreed, saying, “The greatest of McCain is no cynicism, and it is cynical.” Ms. Noonan later apologized for the epithet on The Journal’s Web site and said she liked Ms. Palin. Some of the friction with the news media was a natural outcome of Mr. McCain’s choice of a relatively unknown running mate, sending the press corps to vet her and raise questions about whether Mr. McCain had done so thoroughly enough. But his aides said the reporting had included inaccuracies and unfair approaches. They pointed to the cover of Us Weekly, which features a photograph of Ms. Palin and the words “Babies, Lies and Scandals.” Us is owned by Jann Wenner, a supporter of Senator Barack Obama. A cover in June featured Mr. Obama and his family with the headline, “Why Barack Loves Her.” “We’d vastly prefer to criticize our opponent’s record before we ever criticize the media’s,” said Tucker Bounds, the spokesman who scrapped with Ms. Brown of CNN. “But there has to be attention given to the fact that reporters are not being responsible brokers of information.” But the campaign’s attacks on the news media have been viewed by journalists and some strategists here as also serving tactical needs. Among them are to build a case that Ms. Palin is a victim of sexism, to change the subject, or, in the words of Leonard Downie Jr., the executive editor of The Washington Post, “to put boundaries on the press’s pursuit of the Palin story.” That Mr. McCain is behind these emphatic attacks has startled many, especially those journalists who have known Mr. McCain longest. “Probably no one in American politics over the last 20 years has had a closer relationship with the national press than John McCain,” said Albert R. Hunt, the executive Washington editor for Bloomberg News.

Those of us who thought the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004 were the most dishonest points in American politics we’d see in our lifetimes were simply wrong – Team McCain lies at every turn and then attacks the media when the truth might be raising its head.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 06:55 PM

Man, do I love The Daily Show:

How do you know if a Republican is applying a blatant double-standard? His or her lips are moving…

by tgirsch on September 04, 2008 01:15 PM

OSO tacks another tack: What's up?





Summary: Real negative interest rates rob people. The US has endured

five periods of real negative interest rates since 1954 - two of which

have occurred since 2002. It was the 2002-2005 period of negative

interest rates which saw the expansion of the housing bubble. Now that

it has popped, is the current bout of negative interest rates going to

limit the recession or will it make it worse?





Quotes:

----------------

While I agree that the subprime crisis and the credit crunch that has

followed has a deflationary effect, I also believe that high oil prices

and a low US Dollar have created an inflationary environment as well.

More than that, I believe that the net effect of these crises will end

up on the inflationary side of things. Moreover, I can see a

stagflationary environment (5% inflation plus 5% unemployment)

developing over the course of the year.

----------------

It seems reasonably clear from this latter graph that Greenspan's rate

cuts after the tech boom went way too far. The early 80s rate cuts and

the early 90s rate cuts were far more staggered, while the 2001 cuts

were like jumping off a cliff. It could be argued, therefore, that

America's monetary policy, post-2001, has been dangerous, imbalanced

and, well, incompetent. Not only was inflation allowed to exceed

interest rates, but it created a bubble that, when popped, has resulted

in yet another period of negative real saving.



In other words, what caused the problem is being used to solve it.

----------------

The US economy has only diced with negative real rates five times since

1954: 1957-1958, 1974-1980, 1994, 2002-2005 and 2008 (the last one is

ongoing). The fact that the last two have occurred so quickly is what is

so unusual.



Let me explain again what the problem with negative interest rates are:

They punish people for saving while rewarding them for spending; they

punish people for lending and reward people for borrowing; they punish

people who are judicious and reward those who are careless. In short,

negative real interest rates are a recipe for economic disaster.



This, in turn, is one reason why I have argued for years that central

banks, including the Fed, should focus clearly on reducing inflation.

Employment, which is of vital importance to society, and businesses, who

make the decision to employ people, both need economic growth. But

economic growth, to be sustainable over the long term, needs to have low

inflation and positive real interest rates.

----------------

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 11:38 AM

Global Economic Analysis makes a case for interest rates being high based on a different definition of a mainstream definition of increase in money supply and inflation. Mish uses a 'basket of goods' explanation and housing. Maybe someone can pick this up.



Of course, Noni's post makes a simpler statement but clear for non-experts.

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 10:20 AM

Bruno Behrend at WKRS updates us:



Since we were last in contact, the campaign to get a Constitutional Convention in IL is basically consuming my life. I've gotten my first book out (co-written), and I'm working to get a "yes" vote to reform this horribly corrupt state.



The reason I'm taking the time to tell you non IL folks about this is that the political class of IL (both left & right) has banded together to prevent reform, and while we have a compelling non-parti an case for reform, no one in IL seems to be interested.



You'd find it ironic (but maybe not) that our allies in this fight are mostly Alinsky-ite lefties who want to break the gridlock and corruption. All the corrupt Unions and Business interests have raised $2 mil to stop a yes vote.



If either of you are dialed into a good source of lefty money (Soros, et al), I can promise you that I will use every dime of it to destroy the IL Republican Party, as the convention issue/process has the chance of doing. There are no contribution limits in Illinois, so one big donation could do the trick.



I've attached a pdf of our book. If you want to donate, go to Yes for Illinois.



I'm going broke doing this, but I'm enjoying cleaning the clocks of the pasty white business hacks and over-powered teacher unions lackeys they send to debate me.



Bruno

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 10:17 AM

UPDATED 2 Sep 2008: Add West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (AA)

UPDATED 23 July 2008: Add Huntsville Stars (AA)

UPDATED 25 June 2008: Add Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and New York Mets

UPDATED 27 April 2008: Add Kansas City Royals.

UPDATED 20 May 2007: Add Philadelphia Phillies.

I’m a sports fan, and I “collect” stadiums (stadia?). Especially major league baseball, NFL football, and NHL hockey. My goal, before I die, is to see a baseball game in the home stadium of every MLB team. It would be an added bonus if I could do the NHL and NFL venues, but right now, I’m focusing primarily on baseball.

Problem is, I keep forgetting where I’ve been, and losing count. Therefore, mostly for my own reference (and because I expect few others to be interested), I’m posting a list of venues attended below the fold. I’ve ordered them in roughly the order in which I first visited them, to the best of my ability to recall.

However, if you have comments concerning favorite (or least favorite) venues, feel free to leave them.

List after the fold…

MLB: (20 venues in 15 cities for 17 home teams [one since moved]; 16 of current 30 teams, 53% complete)

1. Milwaukee County Stadium, Milwaukee Brewers (Defunct)
2. New Comiskey Park, Chicago White Sox
3. Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati Reds (Defunct)
4. Bank One Ballpark, Arizona Diamondbacks
5. Olympic Stadium, Montreal (Defunct)
6. Miller Park, Milwaukee Brewers
7. Coors Field, Colorado Rockies
8. Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati Reds
9. (Old) Busch Stadium, St. Louis Cardinals (Defunct)
10. Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs
11. Tropicana Field, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (Shithole)
12. Ameriquest Field, Texas Rangers
13. (New) Busch Stadium, St. Louis Cardinals
14. AT&T Park, San Francisco Giants
15. McAfee Coliseum, Oakland A’s
16. Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Phillies
17. Kaufman Stadium, Kansas City, Royals
18. Fenway Park, Boston, Red Sox
19. Yankees Stadium, New York (Bronx), Yankees
20. Shea Stadium, New York (Queens), Mets

NHL: (6 venues in 6 cities, 6 home teams, 20% complete)

1. The Arena, Carolina Hurricanes
2. United Center, Chicago Blackhawks
3. Fleet Center, Boston Bruins
4. Gaylord Entertainment Center, Nashville Predators
5. Air Canada Centre, Toronto Maple Leafs
6. HP Pavilion, San Jose Sharks (Playoff game)

NFL: (6 venues in 5 cities, 4 home teams)

1. Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans Saints (Pre-season)
2. Milwaukee County Stadium, Green Bay Packers (Defunct)
3. Tampa Stadium, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Defunct)
4. Lambeau Field, Green Bay Packers
5. Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati Bengals (Defunct)
6. Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati Bengals (Pre-season)

NBA: (1 venue)

1. Bradley Center, Milwaukee Bucks

IHL/AHL: (2 venues in 2 cities)

1. Bradley Center, Milwaukee Admirals
2. Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati Cyclones

PCL (AAA): (1 venue)

1. Autozone Park, Memphis Redbirds

Southern League (AA): (2 venues in 2 cities)

1. Joe Davis Stadium, Huntsville Stars
2. Pringles Park, West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (Southern League North Division playoffs)

NCAAF Div 1: (1 venue, 0 home teams)

1. Liberty Bowl (Southern Miss vs. Utah, and Boise State vs. Louisville)

NCAAF Div 3: (1 venue, 1 home team)

1. Van Male Field, Carroll Pioneers

by tgirsch on September 04, 2008 04:50 AM

Notice the comments at the end of the video by CNN's Campbell Brown. Palin has military command experience? McCain has reportedly cancelled Larry King Live and future CNN appearances. Anyone know anything?

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 04:40 AM

The Republicans actually have the audacity to have the Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission as a speaker.



I can not imagine a single institution in the US that is more anti-free market than the Texas Railroad Commission.

by spencer (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 02:36 AM

Main posters have the capacity to edit their own post threads, but will identify themselves when they do. Rdan's little red fire engine will identify itself appropriately as well, so is not to blame for everything unless identified. Site owner id remains his.

by rdan (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 02:20 AM

The spend-and-spend record of former mayor Sarah Palin gets better and better as reported by the Washington Independent. But I should let McCain’s trolls that hang out at this blog know I learned about this from Josh Marshall so they can complain that Josh is a liberal. After all – reality has such a liberal bias!



Update: Steve Benen reports on some unscripted and amazingly candid remarks from conservative Peggy Noonan about the selection of Sarah Palin to be McCain’s running mate. Let’s just say Peggy is not happy. Too bad we don’t have more such honest moments from the GOP representatives in Minnesota. Palin was an awful selection – just admit it. It’s not too late to replace her.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 02:05 AM

Bloomberg reports that Phil Gramm is still at it:

If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for,'' the former Texas senator told attendees at a Financial Services Roundtable event in Minneapolis on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.

Team Obama responds:

The man who wrote John McCain's economic plan further insulted struggling Americans by suggesting that if they are not attending the Republican Convention, they are not only whiners, but economically illiterate.

Guess what else Gramm helped John McCain with:

At today's event, Gramm also defended McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. ``We went through a process of vetting all possible candidates,'' narrowing it down to three before choosing Palin, he said.

There was a vetting process? Really? The word is out – this vetting process was about as sloppy as anything I’ve ever seen. The issue for many of us is not how unqualified Sarah Palin is to be Vice President. The issue is the lack of judgment of John McCain – as exemplified by his selection of a running mate he knew very little about. But let me turn the microphone over to Brad DeLong:

There has been a lot of chatter about how the Palin decision shows the unfitness of John McCain. It equally shows the unfitness of McCain's staff. When you have a rash and impulsive boss, you compensate by staff work. You examine the leaves of the strategy tree in advance, knowing that nine times out of ten the work will be unnecessary--but the tenth time it will be very necessary indeed. John McCain's staff did not do that.

Update: Joshua Green describes the Eagleton Scenario:

Barring a dramatic reversal, Sarah Palin will formally become the Republican vice presidential nominee Wednesday night. Since Friday, when the pick was announced, news surrounding Palin has been almost uniformly negative: the initial focus on her lack of experience quickly gave way to reports of her involvement in the Troopergate scandal, the “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark, an Alaskan separatist party, a 527 group organized by recently indicted Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, and, on Labor Day, her teenage daughter’s pregnancy … With reporters and opposition researchers crawling through Alaska, and with the McCain campaign having dispatched its own team of lawyers to re-vet Palin, Republicans are wondering what shoe might drop next. If further revelations prove damaging enough, McCain could decide to replace Palin or she could choose to withdraw. While such an event seems unlikely given her popularity in some quarters of the party—Jacob Heilbrunn has suggested that social conservatives would view her ouster as “political infidelity”—her rocky reception makes the “Eagleton scenario,” and how it might unfold, a subject of more than academic interest. Interviews with Republicans and legal experts today shed light on how the process could play out. At any point before tomorrow night, McCain could simply replace Palin. But once she formally accepts her nomination, he’ll no longer have the power to do so unilaterally. According to Ben Ginsberg, the former general council at the Republican National Committee, Republican rules stipulate that the 168 members of the national committee would need to ratify any replacement to make it official.

Maybe McCain will keep Palin. After all, the damage to his campaign has already been done. Dumping her will cause even more damage. This is sort of like that stupid decision on March 19, 2003. Once we invaded Iraq, we were stuck with the quagmire.

by PGL (noreply@blogger.com) on September 04, 2008 12:26 AM

The Yahoo! headline says most of it: GMAC slashing workforce; reducing mortgage lending.



I discussed the GMAC problems at Marginal Utility almost eighteen months ago. Things haven't gotten much better since then. But some of the Mortgage Industry players have changed partners:

Lender GMAC Financial Services said Wednesday it will close all of its 200 retail offices and lay off about 5,000 employees as part of plan to reduce its mortgage lending and servicing because of the housing market downturn.



The majority of the layoffs are slated for GMAC's mortgage lending division, Residential Capital LLC, known as ResCap, and will reduce work force at the unit by 60 percent, the company said.



"While these actions are extremely difficult, they are necessary to position ResCap to withstand this challenging environment," Tom Marano, ResCap's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "Conditions in the mortgage and credit markets have not abated and, therefore, we need to respond aggressively by further reducing both operating costs and business risk."

Tom Marano—who knows mortgages and the mortgage market inside and out—was, prior to his moving to ResCap, the head of mortgage origination at Bear Stearns.

by Ken Houghton (noreply@blogger.com) on September 03, 2008 10:04 PM

Nobody should watch this. It’s just terrible.

At YouTube; H/T to Ann Althouse.

by KTK on September 03, 2008 08:13 PM

Newsweek (blog), via TBogg:

Do