Ever have a nightmare where you have a critically important demo in a faraway place and the equipment ends up damaged and unusable? Well, I've just lived it. Twice! In one week!
The 1st demo was supposed to be early last week in The Netherlands. We went to check the luggage, including the carefully packed robot in a custom crate, and the robot weighed in at 123 pounds. This was a surprise to us since when we received this, the packing slip said 100 pounds even. The airline wouldn't take it at any price. We even offered that one of us would stay back and put the robot in his seat. No dice. So we had to take apart the robot and put it in different suitcases. A wheel here, a power supply there, etc. We got the main crate down to around 100 pounds and they took it. Unfortunately, the removal of the wheels allowed it to slide around in its container and it arrived badly damaged.
We did, fortunately, have a video. The customer was dismayed and skeptical but decided to give us the benefit of the doubt and rescheduled for April.
So then we had our spare robot shipped to Cleveland for the second demo (and supposedly the making of a video). It arrived in good shape except that one of the hubs came loose on one of the axles. The Cleveland client had welding capabilities so we set up to weld the axles and hubs. Unfortunately, we accidentally dropped the robot on it's camera boards in the process and knocked them hopelessly out of alignment. Scratch that demo.
Man that sucked!
Well, I'm home now, and my blogging pace should pick up to the old level now. I'll also be pushing towards GG IV.
I hope you all have happy holidays! Happy belated birthday Benj!
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Monday, December 01, 2003
Did He Really Say That?
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised by the following exchange in a NY Times Magazine interview of Noam Chomsky, but I am:
NY Times: "Have you considered leaving the United States permanently?"Given his unrelenting, harsh criticism of the United States for the last forty years, I had assumed that he thought that much or all of the rest of the world was better. I stand corrected. But I have to believe that many (on the Left) who quote Chomsky routinely are choking on that statement.
Noam Chomsky: "No. This is the best country in the world."
Consumption Taxation
According to the Nation Center for Policy Analysis, our fearless leader (that'd be Bush), supports a move towards Consumption Taxation, as proposed by Jim in this blog entry. It's good to see Jim and George so closely aligned on this particular issue!!!
Here are some excerpts
Here are some excerpts
The Bush Administration supports a fundamental tax reform that would move the federal tax system away from taxing income toward taxing consumption. This is a highly desirable goal, because it will raise growth and living standards for most Americans...Additionally, according to this article, "supported by President Bush", "[w]ithout much public debate or even awareness, the United States is heading toward an almost flat tax.", which would give us a mix of consumption and flat income taxes just like Jim proposed.
Consumption taxes are less burdensome than income taxes because of the way they treat saving. Under an income tax, all returns to saving and investment - interest, dividends, rent and capital gains - are fully taxed. Under a consumption tax, they would be exempt. Consequently, saving and investment are much higher with a consumption tax than an income tax...
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Is the Deficit too Small?
No. Really. I'm not joking (well, maybe a little). From an article in the Washington Times:
This article also reminds us that as more and more worldwide economic data becomes available, it is critically important to learn from, and rely on that data, as opposed to relying on economic theory or "common sense". There will continue to be situations where there is no comparable historical data, but these situations are becoming fewer and farther between. In every case where taxes above 20% of GDP are cut, growth accelerates (with a slight lag). In every case growth eventually benefits the poor (though never as much as the rich). Therefore, if you want to help the poor, cut taxes.
The conventional wisdom is our federal government deficit is too large. However, the empirical evidence suggests the deficit might be too small. [...]Obviously, the debt itself isn't what causes superior economic performance. It's probably reduced inflows to the government (i.e., reduced taxation) which then causes both the increased economic performance and also the debt. Nonetheless, DOD (debt obsession disorder) is at this point,more of a problem than the debt itself (in my opinion).
The total federal government debt held by the public (which is the relevant number to be concerned about) dropped from 42 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1962 to a low of 25 percent in 1975, then rose to a high of 50 percent in 1993, and then dropped back to 33 percent in 2001. Currently, debt as a percent of GDP stands at about 35 percent.
Since 1963, we have had 14 years when debt has been below 33 percent of GDP and 26 years when it has been higher. Conventional wisdom is that economic performance should have been better in the years when we had less relative debt, but the facts are the opposite. Real economic growth averaged 3.47 percent in the high debt years, which was almost 1 percent higher than the 2.59 percent average growth of the low debt years.
Unemployment was also lower in the high debt years averaging 5.65 percent as opposed to 6.43 percent in the low debt years. Inflation averaged a whopping 7.6 percent in the low debt years, almost 3 times as high as the average 2.95 percent of the high debt years.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates federal debt could grow to as much as 40 percent of GDP by 2005 and then begin declining again. From 1986 to 1999, it was above 40 percent, and we did quite well during most of those years. Recent data showing both much higher economic growth and higher inflation (meaning much higher nominal GDP) than the CBO forecasted means the debt GDP ratio in fact is likely to remain almost constant. [...]
Finally, the analysis of the historical data clearly indicates that if we had properly structured tax cuts (like the first Reagan and the most recent Bush tax cuts) in 1969, 1973, 1979, 1989 and 2000 we may have avoided the recessions, with all their human misery and unemployment, that occurred the year following each of the above dates. Unfortunately, policymakers in all of those years were more preoccupied with reducing the deficits rather than keeping the economy growing.
The lesson is clear, economic prosperity can continue, even if the federal government never balances its budget, provided it keeps government spending from growing as a percentage of GDP, and has an ongoing program of removing tax and regulatory impediments to growth.
This article also reminds us that as more and more worldwide economic data becomes available, it is critically important to learn from, and rely on that data, as opposed to relying on economic theory or "common sense". There will continue to be situations where there is no comparable historical data, but these situations are becoming fewer and farther between. In every case where taxes above 20% of GDP are cut, growth accelerates (with a slight lag). In every case growth eventually benefits the poor (though never as much as the rich). Therefore, if you want to help the poor, cut taxes.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
National Direct Democracy: One Approach
I've been thinking about direct democracy at the national level and its potential benefits and problems. One of the first questions that comes to mind is "how would the government need to be restructured in order to support direct democracy?" Unfortunately, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Without identifying the potential benefits and impacts of direct democracy, it's difficult to design an optimum system. However, with out knowing what the system might be, it's difficult to identify the potential problems and determine how beneficial a directly democratic system might be. But we have to start somewhere, and I think starting with a rough outline of one way direct democracy could work is as good a place as any.
The simplest version of Direct Democracy that I can think of, and the one that requires the least change to the structure of the government and leaves most of the checks and balances which seem to work so well in place, is to leave the Executive and Judicial branches and the Senate as they are now, and to make two minor changes to the House of Representatives. The first change is that the populace can introduce legislation to the House of Representatives. The second change is that the vote of the House of Representatives is advisory only and requires a subsequent national vote to pass the legislation.
There are many ways that a system could be designed for the voters to introduce legislation to the House of Representatives. Most methods have some person or entity write proposed legislation and collect some number of millions of signatures, and if enough signatures are collected, the legislation is added to the House or Representative's agenda (in time order). We'll need to assume that those signatures can be collected electronically and that the electronic collection is verifiable and incorruptible. This may be an enormous or even insurmountable assumption and the required technology will be the topic of future essays, but for now, let's assume it can be done inexpensively and effectively. I'm also going to ignore numerous other interesting details for now.
With this approach, the House of Representatives would have an agenda of pending legislation, part of which was added to the agenda by the Representatives themselves just as it's done now, and part of which was added to the agenda by the above procedure. The Representatives debate and vote on the legislation just like they do now. However, the vote doesn't have any direct effect on whether or not the legislation passes. For each piece of legislation there is a national vote and the whether or not the legislation passes is solely dependent on the national vote.
I would suggest that the national votes be based on something similar to a typical proxy based corporate vote. At voter registration, each voter would specify their default proxy directive as having his or her vote be the same as the advisory vote of the House of Representatives, the same as the advisory vote of a given party or subparty within the House, the same as the advisory vote of one of the representatives, or an abstention. Just like a corporate proxy, the voters can rescind their proxies for a particular piece of legislation and vote directly on that legislation. Legislation that passes would continue on to the Senate just as it does now.
Clearly, if the voters never bothered to introduce legislation and everybody set their proxy default to follow the advisory vote of the entire House of Representatives, the legislative process would proceed exactly as it does now. If voters want to be more specific about their allegiance, they can pick a particular group or subgroup within the House to be their "voting advisors". And if they care about a particular issue, they can cause legislation to be produced and vote directly on that legislation.
I'm proposing this approach because it gives the voters tremendous flexibility with minimal burden and requires little change to the existing government structure. There are numerous other approaches, but I think this one is good enough to begin discussing the benefits and impacts of a national direct democracy.
The simplest version of Direct Democracy that I can think of, and the one that requires the least change to the structure of the government and leaves most of the checks and balances which seem to work so well in place, is to leave the Executive and Judicial branches and the Senate as they are now, and to make two minor changes to the House of Representatives. The first change is that the populace can introduce legislation to the House of Representatives. The second change is that the vote of the House of Representatives is advisory only and requires a subsequent national vote to pass the legislation.
There are many ways that a system could be designed for the voters to introduce legislation to the House of Representatives. Most methods have some person or entity write proposed legislation and collect some number of millions of signatures, and if enough signatures are collected, the legislation is added to the House or Representative's agenda (in time order). We'll need to assume that those signatures can be collected electronically and that the electronic collection is verifiable and incorruptible. This may be an enormous or even insurmountable assumption and the required technology will be the topic of future essays, but for now, let's assume it can be done inexpensively and effectively. I'm also going to ignore numerous other interesting details for now.
With this approach, the House of Representatives would have an agenda of pending legislation, part of which was added to the agenda by the Representatives themselves just as it's done now, and part of which was added to the agenda by the above procedure. The Representatives debate and vote on the legislation just like they do now. However, the vote doesn't have any direct effect on whether or not the legislation passes. For each piece of legislation there is a national vote and the whether or not the legislation passes is solely dependent on the national vote.
I would suggest that the national votes be based on something similar to a typical proxy based corporate vote. At voter registration, each voter would specify their default proxy directive as having his or her vote be the same as the advisory vote of the House of Representatives, the same as the advisory vote of a given party or subparty within the House, the same as the advisory vote of one of the representatives, or an abstention. Just like a corporate proxy, the voters can rescind their proxies for a particular piece of legislation and vote directly on that legislation. Legislation that passes would continue on to the Senate just as it does now.
Clearly, if the voters never bothered to introduce legislation and everybody set their proxy default to follow the advisory vote of the entire House of Representatives, the legislative process would proceed exactly as it does now. If voters want to be more specific about their allegiance, they can pick a particular group or subgroup within the House to be their "voting advisors". And if they care about a particular issue, they can cause legislation to be produced and vote directly on that legislation.
I'm proposing this approach because it gives the voters tremendous flexibility with minimal burden and requires little change to the existing government structure. There are numerous other approaches, but I think this one is good enough to begin discussing the benefits and impacts of a national direct democracy.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
And He Had a Good Shot at My Vote
Howard Dean just lost any chance at getting my vote in 2004.
After years of government deregulation of energy markets, telecommunications, the airlines and other major industries, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean is proposing a significant reversal: a comprehensive "re-regulation" of U.S. businesses.This excerpt from a Washington Post article. My company, like most high tech companies, offers stock options. Does he want to kill the entire high-tech sector? Is his goal to bring back the stagnation of the 1970s? What is he thinking?
The former Vermont governor said he would reverse the trend toward deregulation pursued by recent presidents -- including, in some respects, Bill Clinton -- to help restore faith in scandal-plagued U.S. corporations and better protect U.S. workers.
In an interview around midnight Monday on his campaign plane with a small group of reporters, Dean listed likely targets for what he dubbed as his "re-regulation" campaign: utilities, large media companies and any business that offers stock options. Dean did not rule out "re-regulating" the telecommunications industry, too.
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Hitler and Germany Versus Bush and America
This is a first draft, I'll probably hack it up and republish it over time...
A common theme across much of the world is that Bush and America has many similarities to Hitler and Hitler's Germany. I think most of the evidence being presented to backup of this theme is extremely weak. A somewhat typical example is an essay at the Common Dreams website. It's an amusing and clever radical reweighting of historical factors and finds a couple of events from before WWII that seem similar to the present time. Anti-war folk point to essays like this to "prove" that Bush is a fascist in the making. Pro-war folk roll their eyes and wonder how anybody could be so ignorant of history to believe that there is any similarity between Nazi Germany and America. I just chuckle to myself.
In my opinion, the similarities of the details between Hitler and Bush and their respective nations are few and far between. However, from the perspective of the projection of ideas, I think Hitler's Germany was quite similar to Bush's America. And both of those have a great deal of similarity to the Romans, the imperial British, and other major powers.
Allow me to explain myself.
Memetics is the study of cultural evolution. A Meme is "a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." Genes are to DNA like memes are to culture. Both genes and memes mutate and combine to form novel combinations.
A Meme Complex (MC) is a group of memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion or ideology (sort of like a chromosome). A culture is then a set of MCs. MCs exist across individuals. In aggregate, the individuals host the MCs. While a MC can exist in only one individual, it's not particularly interesting. It becomes interesting when MCs exists across a population. In this view, MCs utilize their human hosts to cause behaviors and actions across that population. In other words, the MCs are the primary actor, not the individual human thinkers.
Like genes, memes only survive if they are able to propagate to new hosts at a rate faster than existing hosts die or stop hosting them. Like a set of chromosomes in a biological entity, only memes that are part of MCs that are good at propagating survive. MCs that might be potentially good for humanity are immaterial if they are not also good at propagating. Like genes, memes have no consciousness of their own and don't care how much suffering they cause. They only "care" about propagating.
When Homo Sapiens first appeared, MC propagation was closely linked with the population growth of those hosting the MC. If the MC helped a tribe do well in reproduction and survival, the number of people hosting that particular MC increased. While there was some communication between tribes, the effect on MC propagation was probably dwarfed by the effect of population growth and migration of successful tribes.
The invention of trade about 40,000 years ago was the first major change to MC propagation. Not only were goods traded. Ideas were traded as well. The invention of trade is itself a MC which was self propagating. Inventions and cultural adaptations were able to propagate much faster because they were facilitated by inter-tribal interactions whose primary purpose was trade. Inventions like agriculture spread to much of the globe in only a few thousand years. Prior to the invention and adoption of trade, it would have taken much, much longer.
With the inventions and propagation of trade and agriculture, a much higher population and density of that population could be attained. Probably as a result, MCs involving aggressive conquest and empire building became very successful. Examples include Alexander the Great, the Greeks, the Roman Empire, and 1,500 years of European religious and secular wars and empires. Not only did the conquering MC acquire resources to support more rapid reproduction, but the conquered often adopted some or all of the conqueror's MCs. This adoption is easily seen by tracking the propagation of language and dialects throughout the world, since language itself is a significant MC.
The printing press coupled with increasing literacy enabled far more complicated MCs to be supported. The more complicated MCs supported far more complex societies, far high population densities, far more potent cultures, far more effective economies, rapid technological advance, and far more lethal weaponry and military strategies and tactics. At the end of the 20th century, a given MC could have hosts numbering in the billions, with potentially tens of millions being directed to fight and possibly die to support the propagation of the MCs. The individuals would die, but the MCs would live on and even increase their total number of hosts. In some cases, MCs lead to negative population growth (in most of the 1st world), but the total number of hosts increases since the MCs infect new hosts from the 3rd world.
Truth has never been an inherent part of MCs. If lies help a MC to propagate, then there is strong selective pressure for a MC to evolve to incorporate those lies. The printing press and big media prior to the last decade were expensive and therefore centrally controlled by only a relatively few elite people. These elites were able to set and control the debate and thus had huge influence on the propagation of memes. Because of this concentration of power controlling a primary channel of meme propagation, truth increasingly became a victim in order to further the power of the elite's control of their society's MCs.
In the last ten years, with the rapid growth of the Internet and cheap telecommunications, and increasing access to those technological developments, big media is losing its monopoly on controlling MC propagation. At the same time, a rich economy (rich because of effective MCs and luck) is able to use these technologies to project their MCs across the globe.
The American MCs are tremendously aggressive in global propagation. They are in your face, seductive, and subversive. Because they help those who adopt them produce wealth and power, they leave those who don't adopt them relatively worse off. As a result the American MCs are obliterating the rest of the MCs in the world. America has a powerful military and isn't afraid to use it, but the military's influence is inconsequential compared to the rest of America's projection of its MCs. Thus, the American MCs are currently heading rapidly toward global domination.
The WWII German MCs also evolved to attempt global domination. Because communication and media technology were less advanced, the primary channel for MC propagation was military conquest.
In this sense Hitler's Germany and Bush's America are identical. Both have evolved extremely aggressive cultural MCs that tried or are trying to propagate themselves globally, to be hosted by every person on the planet. The German MCs failed and were destroyed (parts still exist, but not the whole mix).
Islamism (as opposed to Islam, the religion) is another group of MCs that has correctly identified the American MCs as an explicit threat. For the Islamism's MCs to survive, those MCs will have to evolve so that they are able to resist the seductive nature of the American MCs. If it's not possible to resist, the Islamism's MCs will have to evolve so that they attempt to destroy the American MCs (perhaps they already have). Unfortunately, it may be that the only realistic way for Islamism's MCs to survive is to destroy the American MCs. That may require the slaughter of tens of millions of Americans and destruction of the West on a vast scale.
The West, in standing up to Hitler 60 years ago, understood that it would require devastating Germany to survive. Islamism's MCs may understand that it requires devastating America to survive. Hitler lost. We may too.
A common theme across much of the world is that Bush and America has many similarities to Hitler and Hitler's Germany. I think most of the evidence being presented to backup of this theme is extremely weak. A somewhat typical example is an essay at the Common Dreams website. It's an amusing and clever radical reweighting of historical factors and finds a couple of events from before WWII that seem similar to the present time. Anti-war folk point to essays like this to "prove" that Bush is a fascist in the making. Pro-war folk roll their eyes and wonder how anybody could be so ignorant of history to believe that there is any similarity between Nazi Germany and America. I just chuckle to myself.
In my opinion, the similarities of the details between Hitler and Bush and their respective nations are few and far between. However, from the perspective of the projection of ideas, I think Hitler's Germany was quite similar to Bush's America. And both of those have a great deal of similarity to the Romans, the imperial British, and other major powers.
Allow me to explain myself.
Memetics is the study of cultural evolution. A Meme is "a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." Genes are to DNA like memes are to culture. Both genes and memes mutate and combine to form novel combinations.
A Meme Complex (MC) is a group of memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion or ideology (sort of like a chromosome). A culture is then a set of MCs. MCs exist across individuals. In aggregate, the individuals host the MCs. While a MC can exist in only one individual, it's not particularly interesting. It becomes interesting when MCs exists across a population. In this view, MCs utilize their human hosts to cause behaviors and actions across that population. In other words, the MCs are the primary actor, not the individual human thinkers.
Like genes, memes only survive if they are able to propagate to new hosts at a rate faster than existing hosts die or stop hosting them. Like a set of chromosomes in a biological entity, only memes that are part of MCs that are good at propagating survive. MCs that might be potentially good for humanity are immaterial if they are not also good at propagating. Like genes, memes have no consciousness of their own and don't care how much suffering they cause. They only "care" about propagating.
When Homo Sapiens first appeared, MC propagation was closely linked with the population growth of those hosting the MC. If the MC helped a tribe do well in reproduction and survival, the number of people hosting that particular MC increased. While there was some communication between tribes, the effect on MC propagation was probably dwarfed by the effect of population growth and migration of successful tribes.
The invention of trade about 40,000 years ago was the first major change to MC propagation. Not only were goods traded. Ideas were traded as well. The invention of trade is itself a MC which was self propagating. Inventions and cultural adaptations were able to propagate much faster because they were facilitated by inter-tribal interactions whose primary purpose was trade. Inventions like agriculture spread to much of the globe in only a few thousand years. Prior to the invention and adoption of trade, it would have taken much, much longer.
With the inventions and propagation of trade and agriculture, a much higher population and density of that population could be attained. Probably as a result, MCs involving aggressive conquest and empire building became very successful. Examples include Alexander the Great, the Greeks, the Roman Empire, and 1,500 years of European religious and secular wars and empires. Not only did the conquering MC acquire resources to support more rapid reproduction, but the conquered often adopted some or all of the conqueror's MCs. This adoption is easily seen by tracking the propagation of language and dialects throughout the world, since language itself is a significant MC.
The printing press coupled with increasing literacy enabled far more complicated MCs to be supported. The more complicated MCs supported far more complex societies, far high population densities, far more potent cultures, far more effective economies, rapid technological advance, and far more lethal weaponry and military strategies and tactics. At the end of the 20th century, a given MC could have hosts numbering in the billions, with potentially tens of millions being directed to fight and possibly die to support the propagation of the MCs. The individuals would die, but the MCs would live on and even increase their total number of hosts. In some cases, MCs lead to negative population growth (in most of the 1st world), but the total number of hosts increases since the MCs infect new hosts from the 3rd world.
Truth has never been an inherent part of MCs. If lies help a MC to propagate, then there is strong selective pressure for a MC to evolve to incorporate those lies. The printing press and big media prior to the last decade were expensive and therefore centrally controlled by only a relatively few elite people. These elites were able to set and control the debate and thus had huge influence on the propagation of memes. Because of this concentration of power controlling a primary channel of meme propagation, truth increasingly became a victim in order to further the power of the elite's control of their society's MCs.
In the last ten years, with the rapid growth of the Internet and cheap telecommunications, and increasing access to those technological developments, big media is losing its monopoly on controlling MC propagation. At the same time, a rich economy (rich because of effective MCs and luck) is able to use these technologies to project their MCs across the globe.
The American MCs are tremendously aggressive in global propagation. They are in your face, seductive, and subversive. Because they help those who adopt them produce wealth and power, they leave those who don't adopt them relatively worse off. As a result the American MCs are obliterating the rest of the MCs in the world. America has a powerful military and isn't afraid to use it, but the military's influence is inconsequential compared to the rest of America's projection of its MCs. Thus, the American MCs are currently heading rapidly toward global domination.
The WWII German MCs also evolved to attempt global domination. Because communication and media technology were less advanced, the primary channel for MC propagation was military conquest.
In this sense Hitler's Germany and Bush's America are identical. Both have evolved extremely aggressive cultural MCs that tried or are trying to propagate themselves globally, to be hosted by every person on the planet. The German MCs failed and were destroyed (parts still exist, but not the whole mix).
Islamism (as opposed to Islam, the religion) is another group of MCs that has correctly identified the American MCs as an explicit threat. For the Islamism's MCs to survive, those MCs will have to evolve so that they are able to resist the seductive nature of the American MCs. If it's not possible to resist, the Islamism's MCs will have to evolve so that they attempt to destroy the American MCs (perhaps they already have). Unfortunately, it may be that the only realistic way for Islamism's MCs to survive is to destroy the American MCs. That may require the slaughter of tens of millions of Americans and destruction of the West on a vast scale.
The West, in standing up to Hitler 60 years ago, understood that it would require devastating Germany to survive. Islamism's MCs may understand that it requires devastating America to survive. Hitler lost. We may too.
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Mom Finds Out About Blog
A hysterically funny article from the Onion.
Here's "what to do when your mom discovers your blog" by Blogger Support.
Here's "what to do when your mom discovers your blog" by Blogger Support.
More on Iraq - al Qaeda Linkage
I wrote below that I didn't "have any clue one way or the other" regarding Bush and his administration alleged "lies" regarding links between Iraq and al Qaeda. There are two reasons for that. First, as I've pointed out several times, I seriously distrust all media. That's why I find the pair of NY Times quotes via Sullivan both amusing (to me) and tragic (for that once venerable old paper).
The second reason is that there is plenty of public information that corroborates those quotes in Jim's entry. For example, here are some excerpts from a recent article from The Weekly Standard:
The Weekly Standard is a right wing publication and supportive of Bush. I don't trust them either. They could easily made up the leaked "top secret" memo. I'm always particularly suspicious when only one journalist (or at least journal) gets to see some inside information and nobody else has access to it. Who leaked it? Why can't we see the memo itself? What evidence is there that it's real?
But the same goes for those providing "evidence" that Bush lied. It always seems to be some unnamed intelligence official providing that information. Again, who is said intelligence official? Why should we consider what they say authoritative? How do we know they had access to all pertinent information (intelligence is usually distributed on a "needs-to-know" basis so few people have access to all information)? How do we know they just weren't anti-Bush and made it up?
That's why, in my mind, the case is not yet closed whether or not Bush lied about links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The same is true regarding weapons of mass destruction, including the African enriched uranium story. If someone believes the media, the evidence is conflicting. If someone doesn't believe the media, there's virtually no evidence. If someone only believes the portion of the media that conveniently aligns with that person's views, then that person is biased.
The second reason is that there is plenty of public information that corroborates those quotes in Jim's entry. For example, here are some excerpts from a recent article from The Weekly Standard:
OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.
According to the memo--which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points--Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which in
some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.
The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent "emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials." At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, "Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al Qaeda." The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, "bin Laden wanted to expand his organization's capabilities through ties with Iraq..."
The Weekly Standard is a right wing publication and supportive of Bush. I don't trust them either. They could easily made up the leaked "top secret" memo. I'm always particularly suspicious when only one journalist (or at least journal) gets to see some inside information and nobody else has access to it. Who leaked it? Why can't we see the memo itself? What evidence is there that it's real?
But the same goes for those providing "evidence" that Bush lied. It always seems to be some unnamed intelligence official providing that information. Again, who is said intelligence official? Why should we consider what they say authoritative? How do we know they had access to all pertinent information (intelligence is usually distributed on a "needs-to-know" basis so few people have access to all information)? How do we know they just weren't anti-Bush and made it up?
That's why, in my mind, the case is not yet closed whether or not Bush lied about links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The same is true regarding weapons of mass destruction, including the African enriched uranium story. If someone believes the media, the evidence is conflicting. If someone doesn't believe the media, there's virtually no evidence. If someone only believes the portion of the media that conveniently aligns with that person's views, then that person is biased.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Where's the Data?
Jim, regarding three quotes from Bush and senior administration officials, you write that "it's pretty clear these are outright lies or at least great leaps beyond the facts." Unless you have access to all classified intelligence data worldwide, or at least what Bush and his Administration have access to, I'm baffled as to how you could possibly know that with such confidence. Especially to the confidence level that Bush should be "put in jail" for those statements. I'm not saying I'm sure he didn't lie (or even that I have any clue one way or the other). I'm just saying the evidence that he did lie is totally lacking, primarily because it's extremely difficult to prove a negative (i.e., prove that Bush and his Administration did not see intelligence that supports his statement).
You also asked, "would you want one of your kids to serve in Iraq?" I would be honored if one or both of my daughters served in the United States Armed Forces one day in a situation such as Iraq if they so choose (they're a little young at the moment).
You state "Hitler overran other nations. Saddam not only didn't overrun another nation, he didn't even have the means to do so." Ummm, doesn't Kuwait count as a nation? He tried to overrun Iran. Does that not count because he didn't succeed?
The situation in Iraq in 2002 was much more similar to the situation in Germany in 1938. Who, from that era, if they knew what the future had in store, wouldn't have supported pre-emptively attacking Hitler before he got his war machine in full swing? Yet there was less evidence at that time to support taking action against Hitler than there was supporting taking action against Saddam. At that point Hitler hadn't actually invaded any countries. Saddam had.
As Howie will vouch from our conversations one to two years ago, I wasn't particularly keen on invading Iraq at that time. But then I had a long political conversation with my Dad, who clearly remembered the late thirties. He described to me the peace protests, Neville Chamberlain's "Peace in our Time" speech, the antiwar media, the French wringing their hands and imploring and threatening Hitler not to continue violating the Treaty of Versailles (but doing nothing). He was stunned by the similarity of that time with 2002. He asked me, "when is the world going to learn that you shouldn't ever appease power hungry dictators?" I couldn't come up with a good answer to his question and since then I've supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Are there other power hungry dictators? Of course. Should we remove them from power? If they have the resources to actually achieve the power they crave, I think we should. Saddam, with his hunger for power and oil fields, was, in my opinion, the most obvious target at the time. The other power hungry dictators simply don't have the resources to wreak as much havoc as someone like Saddam.
I need clarification on one thing. Do you think that Ends can never justify Means (that are not just in and of themselves), or that in the case of the Iraq war in particular the Ends didn't justify the Means, if the Means were that Bush lied?
You also asked, "would you want one of your kids to serve in Iraq?" I would be honored if one or both of my daughters served in the United States Armed Forces one day in a situation such as Iraq if they so choose (they're a little young at the moment).
You state "Hitler overran other nations. Saddam not only didn't overrun another nation, he didn't even have the means to do so." Ummm, doesn't Kuwait count as a nation? He tried to overrun Iran. Does that not count because he didn't succeed?
The situation in Iraq in 2002 was much more similar to the situation in Germany in 1938. Who, from that era, if they knew what the future had in store, wouldn't have supported pre-emptively attacking Hitler before he got his war machine in full swing? Yet there was less evidence at that time to support taking action against Hitler than there was supporting taking action against Saddam. At that point Hitler hadn't actually invaded any countries. Saddam had.
As Howie will vouch from our conversations one to two years ago, I wasn't particularly keen on invading Iraq at that time. But then I had a long political conversation with my Dad, who clearly remembered the late thirties. He described to me the peace protests, Neville Chamberlain's "Peace in our Time" speech, the antiwar media, the French wringing their hands and imploring and threatening Hitler not to continue violating the Treaty of Versailles (but doing nothing). He was stunned by the similarity of that time with 2002. He asked me, "when is the world going to learn that you shouldn't ever appease power hungry dictators?" I couldn't come up with a good answer to his question and since then I've supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Are there other power hungry dictators? Of course. Should we remove them from power? If they have the resources to actually achieve the power they crave, I think we should. Saddam, with his hunger for power and oil fields, was, in my opinion, the most obvious target at the time. The other power hungry dictators simply don't have the resources to wreak as much havoc as someone like Saddam.
I need clarification on one thing. Do you think that Ends can never justify Means (that are not just in and of themselves), or that in the case of the Iraq war in particular the Ends didn't justify the Means, if the Means were that Bush lied?
Where Have All the Editors Gone?
Did the NY Times lay off all of it's Editors?
"President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night [at his American Enterprise Institute speech] of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a 'free and peaceful Iraq' that would serve as a 'dramatic and inspiring example' to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time." -- New York Times editorial, February 27, 2003.Is it incompetence or bias? (Hat tip Andrew Sullivan)
"The White House recently began shifting its case for the Iraq war from the embarrassing unconventional weapons issue to the lofty vision of creating an exemplary democracy in Iraq." -- New York Times editorial, November 13, 2003.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Ham 'n Cheese Please
That's as in ham 'n cheese for an omelet because an egg won't be enough. In this post Jim presents an article from The Economist to express his concerns about the economy and the contention that people are living beyond their means. Below in bold type is the admission of egg on the face.
EVER since America's stockmarket bubble burst in 2000, The Economist has argued that America faced several years of sluggish growth, if not a deep recession, as the economy worked off the excesses that built up in the late 1990s. Yet the economy has come roaring back, with GDP rising by 7.2% at an annual rate in the third quarter—its fastest sprint for 19 years. Do we look a bit silly? Indeed. But there are still big risks ahead.
The risks that concern me are geopolitical (i.e. a revolution in Saudi Arabia with damage to the oil fields) or a domestic policy shift towards austerity and away from growth (i.e. tax hikes, trade wars...). Absent those types of events, I see some key factors pointing to a broad and strong expansion taking hold. The modest improvement in credit spreads last fall followed by the big improvement last spring along with the huge positive divergence between the household and establishment employment surveys are very positive signs. Low inflation and a 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividends means that the taxation on capital formation is the lowest in over 40 years. This will be a huge positive undergirding the expansion. You will not learn the significance of this from Al Franken and the supply-side Jesus parody in his latest book.
Business investment is picking up, but ample spare capacity will continue to discourage new spending. In September, manufacturing output was running at only 73% of capacity, well below the average of 81% over the past half century. In any case, business investment is too small a share of the economy to keep it aloft in the absence of robust consumer spending.
Business spending is already picking up for the first time in 3 years. Capacity utilization has only upticked slightly from the lows. Capital expenditures usually accelerate early in a cap.ute. ramp, well before average or high levels are reached. It has happened this way before. It would surprise you to know how cap.ute. rates are produced and why the behavior I'm referring to occurs.
Debt levels are high but not unmanageable. As growth takes hold, this concern will fade.
Early last century, economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek argued that, if interest rates were held below their “natural rate� (at which the supply of saving from households equals the demand for investment funds by firms), credit and investment will rise too rapidly and consumers will not save enough.
Yes, in theory this is true. In reality, the natural rate of interest is unknowable. I wouldn't be surprised if some economist somewhere is sure that they know how to calculate it. If you want a better understanding of the monetary distortions that rippled through the economy over the last few years, have a look at this Jude Wanniski article titled The Deflation Monster. I might have sent this to Bret and HoneyBee several years ago. The Fed could still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if they don't start paying more attention to price based indicators and modify their ad hoc approach to monetary policy.
ps all of the essays at the bottom of the page at wanniski.com are worthwhile.
EVER since America's stockmarket bubble burst in 2000, The Economist has argued that America faced several years of sluggish growth, if not a deep recession, as the economy worked off the excesses that built up in the late 1990s. Yet the economy has come roaring back, with GDP rising by 7.2% at an annual rate in the third quarter—its fastest sprint for 19 years. Do we look a bit silly? Indeed. But there are still big risks ahead.
The risks that concern me are geopolitical (i.e. a revolution in Saudi Arabia with damage to the oil fields) or a domestic policy shift towards austerity and away from growth (i.e. tax hikes, trade wars...). Absent those types of events, I see some key factors pointing to a broad and strong expansion taking hold. The modest improvement in credit spreads last fall followed by the big improvement last spring along with the huge positive divergence between the household and establishment employment surveys are very positive signs. Low inflation and a 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividends means that the taxation on capital formation is the lowest in over 40 years. This will be a huge positive undergirding the expansion. You will not learn the significance of this from Al Franken and the supply-side Jesus parody in his latest book.
Business investment is picking up, but ample spare capacity will continue to discourage new spending. In September, manufacturing output was running at only 73% of capacity, well below the average of 81% over the past half century. In any case, business investment is too small a share of the economy to keep it aloft in the absence of robust consumer spending.
Business spending is already picking up for the first time in 3 years. Capacity utilization has only upticked slightly from the lows. Capital expenditures usually accelerate early in a cap.ute. ramp, well before average or high levels are reached. It has happened this way before. It would surprise you to know how cap.ute. rates are produced and why the behavior I'm referring to occurs.
Debt levels are high but not unmanageable. As growth takes hold, this concern will fade.
Early last century, economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek argued that, if interest rates were held below their “natural rate� (at which the supply of saving from households equals the demand for investment funds by firms), credit and investment will rise too rapidly and consumers will not save enough.
Yes, in theory this is true. In reality, the natural rate of interest is unknowable. I wouldn't be surprised if some economist somewhere is sure that they know how to calculate it. If you want a better understanding of the monetary distortions that rippled through the economy over the last few years, have a look at this Jude Wanniski article titled The Deflation Monster. I might have sent this to Bret and HoneyBee several years ago. The Fed could still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if they don't start paying more attention to price based indicators and modify their ad hoc approach to monetary policy.
ps all of the essays at the bottom of the page at wanniski.com are worthwhile.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Pode Lives! (and How to Use the Comments Section)
Jim mentioned that he isn't "seeing the Comments capability." That's too bad because Pode's first access is in the comments to Jim's Post!
Jim, at the bottom of your post I see:
Anyway, Pode proposes March. That works for me. I'll go out on a limb here and propose a specific date. How about Friday March 5th through Monday March 8th, 2003?
Jim, at the bottom of your post I see:
# posted by Jim @ 9:43 PM Comment (1)If I click on the word "Comment", it brings up a new window which shows all the comments and allows me to enter a new one. I think you have to have Javascript enabled for it to work though.
Anyway, Pode proposes March. That works for me. I'll go out on a limb here and propose a specific date. How about Friday March 5th through Monday March 8th, 2003?
How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Deficit (with apologies to Stanley Kubrick)
Obviously running large deficits indefinitely can cause problems, but some people can't get beyond DOD, deficit obsession disorder. This Holman Jenkins article has a good treatment of the political issue. Here are some excerpts:
Politically, voters care about budget deficits only when they feel insecure about their own jobs. The deficit then becomes an emblem of economic mismanagement (never mind the Keynesian wisdom that a growing deficit is desirable when the economy is slack, providing countercyclical demand).
What Republicans have understood, instead, is that the only effective long-term form of fiscal discipline is tax cuts.
Republicans have become the Party of Tax Cuts: that is, the party that lets you keep your own money, the party that protects the private sector from being smothered by big government. In a more sophisticated audience's eyes, it means a second thing: the party that restrains the growth of government by keeping it on the only fiscal leash that works--a k a the deficit, which maintains a constant tension between forgoing new spending or borrowing to pay for it.
Admittedly, this involves Republicans in a certain amount of self-duplicity (We don't mean this in a bad way; every party has to keep its big tent together.) Not only do Republicans take as given that Congress will spend every dime it can tax and then every dime it can borrow, until it runs up against its effective credit limit. Republicans also accept that they will behave exactly like Democrats in this matter.
Gary Becker, the Nobel economist, has made the same argument much more elegantly, showing that the strongest correlate to fiscal restraint is a rising share of the federal budget devoted to interest payments on the national debt. The picture here is not pretty if you imagine your federal government being run by farseeing grownups who plan the future meticulously and have compendious knowledge of all things.
The picture is quite pretty if you have limited confidence in managerial competence but appreciate the exquisite wisdom of the Founding Fathers, who devised a government responsive to the public mood yet constrained by checks and balances.
Politically, voters care about budget deficits only when they feel insecure about their own jobs. The deficit then becomes an emblem of economic mismanagement (never mind the Keynesian wisdom that a growing deficit is desirable when the economy is slack, providing countercyclical demand).
What Republicans have understood, instead, is that the only effective long-term form of fiscal discipline is tax cuts.
Republicans have become the Party of Tax Cuts: that is, the party that lets you keep your own money, the party that protects the private sector from being smothered by big government. In a more sophisticated audience's eyes, it means a second thing: the party that restrains the growth of government by keeping it on the only fiscal leash that works--a k a the deficit, which maintains a constant tension between forgoing new spending or borrowing to pay for it.
Admittedly, this involves Republicans in a certain amount of self-duplicity (We don't mean this in a bad way; every party has to keep its big tent together.) Not only do Republicans take as given that Congress will spend every dime it can tax and then every dime it can borrow, until it runs up against its effective credit limit. Republicans also accept that they will behave exactly like Democrats in this matter.
Gary Becker, the Nobel economist, has made the same argument much more elegantly, showing that the strongest correlate to fiscal restraint is a rising share of the federal budget devoted to interest payments on the national debt. The picture here is not pretty if you imagine your federal government being run by farseeing grownups who plan the future meticulously and have compendious knowledge of all things.
The picture is quite pretty if you have limited confidence in managerial competence but appreciate the exquisite wisdom of the Founding Fathers, who devised a government responsive to the public mood yet constrained by checks and balances.
Humor
This from a Todd Buchholz book, New Ideas From Dead Economists
In a joke from the Soviet Union, a man asks, "Was communism invented by biologists or politicians?" "Politicians, of course. Biologists would have tried it out on rats first."
In a joke from the Soviet Union, a man asks, "Was communism invented by biologists or politicians?" "Politicians, of course. Biologists would have tried it out on rats first."
Sunday, November 09, 2003
Great Guys IV
Yes, we should start thinking about Great Guys IV. While using my house as a base isn't a possibility (the wife won't tolerate it), San Diego is a good place to have the party for several reasons: reasonably good winter weather, lots of stuff to do, and, since I live here, I can optimize the experience.
Here is a possible itinerary:
Friday Afternoon and Evening: Great Guys begin arriving
Saturday: hiking and partying in the anza-borrego desert. I'm intimately familiar with this particular desert and know many really interesting and fun places.
Sunday morning: mission bay beach and boardwalk activities - rollerblading, surfing (rent boards and wetsuits)
Sunday afternoon: Black's beach (one of the most beautiful nude beaches in the U.S.) - swimming, hackey-sack, frisbee
Sunday night and Monday: Great Guys begin leaving
Other possibilities: Mexico, Hang-gliding (for beginners on Dunes down in Mexico),.
What do you think? When are you available? Use the comments section to let me know...
Here is a possible itinerary:
Friday Afternoon and Evening: Great Guys begin arriving
Saturday: hiking and partying in the anza-borrego desert. I'm intimately familiar with this particular desert and know many really interesting and fun places.
Sunday morning: mission bay beach and boardwalk activities - rollerblading, surfing (rent boards and wetsuits)
Sunday afternoon: Black's beach (one of the most beautiful nude beaches in the U.S.) - swimming, hackey-sack, frisbee
Sunday night and Monday: Great Guys begin leaving
Other possibilities: Mexico, Hang-gliding (for beginners on Dunes down in Mexico),.
What do you think? When are you available? Use the comments section to let me know...
Friday, November 07, 2003
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
Where do they come from? The jobs fairy, of course! Actually they are created and destroyed all of the time in a healthy economy. The relative rate of creation and destruction changes depending on many factors. This article from today's New York Times is so good, I'm posting the whole thing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 7, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Great Job Machine
By W. MICHAEL COX and RICHARD ALM
ALLAS
Apparently unconvinced by last week's eye-popping growth figures, economic pessimists remain fixated on the labor market. Today's release of the Labor Department's latest employment figures, we are told, will give a true picture of the pace of economic recovery.
But the monthly statistics, while relevant within the larger context of all economic indicators, don't tell the whole story of what is happening with Americans' jobs. Focusing on net employment gains or losses misses the real show, the long-running drama that drives the economy forward.
While it may seem that little progress is being made on the jobs front, beneath the surface the economy is doing what it's done for decades: orchestrating a relentless and enormous recycling of jobs and workers.
Large-scale upheaval in jobs is part of the economy; the impetus for it comes from technology, changing trading patterns and shifting consumer demand. History tells us that the result will be even more jobs, greater productivity and higher incomes for American workers in general.
New Bureau of Labor Statistics data covering the past decade show that job losses seem as common as sport utility vehicles on the highways. Annual job loss ranged from a low of 27 million in 1993 to a high of 35.4 million in 2001. Even in 2000, when the unemployment rate hit its lowest point of the 1990's expansion, 33 million jobs were eliminated.
The flip side is that, according to the labor bureau's figures, annual job gains ranged from 29.6 million in 1993 to 35.6 million in 1999. Day in and day out, workers quit their jobs or get fired, then move on to new positions. Companies start up, fail, downsize, upsize and fill the vacancies of those who left. It is workers' migration to new and existing jobs that keeps the country from sinking into some Depression-like swamp.
Yes, this disruption can be very hard on some workers who lose their employment and have trouble adapting. But in the larger sense, the turmoil in the labor market is vital to economic progress. A good part of the turnover takes place in a handful of industries, like restaurants and retailing, but to greater or lesser extent the churning grinds on across the board, in bad times and good. Tallies of net jobs lost or gained capture only a fraction of the flux in the job market. As this plays out, most workers end up better off.
Societies grow richer when new products emerge that better meet consumers' needs, and when producers adopt new technologies that reduce costs by making workers more productive. In a dynamic, innovative economy, these forces unleash waves upon waves of change. Some industries and companies prosper while others wither. Some companies find themselves with too many workers while others struggle with too few. A free-enterprise system responds by moving resources — in this case workers — to where they're more valuable.
For example, e-mail, word processors, answering machines and other modern office technologies are cutting jobs for secretaries but increasing the ranks of programmers. The Internet opened jobs for hundreds of thousands of Webmasters, an occupation that didn't exist as recently as 1990. Digital cameras translate to fewer photo clerks.
A century ago, 40 of every 100 Americans worked on farms to feed a nation of 90 million. Today, after one of history's most brutal downsizings, it takes just two agricultural workers out of 100 workers to supply an abundance of food to a nation more than three times as large. Suppose we'd kept 40 percent of our labor on the farm. Absurd, yes, but if we had, we wouldn't have had enough workers to produce the new homes, computers, movies, medicines and the myriad other goods and services of our modern economy.
Likewise, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators in 1970, when Americans made 9.8 billion long-distance calls. Thanks to advances in switching technology, telecommunications companies have reduced the number of operators to 78,000, but consumers ring up 98 billion calls. Let's face it: Americans are better off with more efficient long-distance service. To handle today's volume of calls with 1970's technology, telephone companies would need 4.2 million operators, or 3 percent of the labor force. Without the productivity gains, a long-distance call would probably cost 40 times what it now does.
Microeconomic failure is not macroeconomic failure. Quite the opposite, "failure" is the way the macro economy transfers resources to where they belong. It is the paradox of progress: a society can't reap the rewards of economic progress without accepting the constant change in work that comes with it. Efforts to soften the blows, by devising policies or laws to preserve jobs or protect industries, will lead to stagnation and decline, the biggest threat to American workers.
Job losses for farm hands and telephone operators came so long ago that they don't sting anymore. Today we see the benefits clearly and forget the costs. That's harder to do in the short term — it rightly distresses us to see newspaper photographs of laid-off industrial workers. But these are the economic forces that raise living standards.
Since 1980, Americans have filed 106 million initial claims for unemployment benefits, each representing a lost job. Facing unemployment and rebuilding a life can be hard on families, but the United States today is better off for allowing it to happen. Even with the net decline in jobs over the past three years, during the past decade total United States employment has risen to 130 million from 91 million since 1980, a net gain of nearly 40 million jobs. Productivity, measured by output per worker, increased a staggering 56.2 percent.
Some people tend to forget this. The almost daily drumbeat of reports and "expert commentary" about a so-called jobless recovery prompts the question, "What's gone wrong with the labor market?"
The surprising answer: nothing.
Job growth will come, as it always has in the past. The economy, meanwhile, is as busy as ever in shifting labor from one use to another to make the country richer and more productive.
W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm are co-authors of "Myths of Rich and Poor."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 7, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Great Job Machine
By W. MICHAEL COX and RICHARD ALM
ALLAS
Apparently unconvinced by last week's eye-popping growth figures, economic pessimists remain fixated on the labor market. Today's release of the Labor Department's latest employment figures, we are told, will give a true picture of the pace of economic recovery.
But the monthly statistics, while relevant within the larger context of all economic indicators, don't tell the whole story of what is happening with Americans' jobs. Focusing on net employment gains or losses misses the real show, the long-running drama that drives the economy forward.
While it may seem that little progress is being made on the jobs front, beneath the surface the economy is doing what it's done for decades: orchestrating a relentless and enormous recycling of jobs and workers.
Large-scale upheaval in jobs is part of the economy; the impetus for it comes from technology, changing trading patterns and shifting consumer demand. History tells us that the result will be even more jobs, greater productivity and higher incomes for American workers in general.
New Bureau of Labor Statistics data covering the past decade show that job losses seem as common as sport utility vehicles on the highways. Annual job loss ranged from a low of 27 million in 1993 to a high of 35.4 million in 2001. Even in 2000, when the unemployment rate hit its lowest point of the 1990's expansion, 33 million jobs were eliminated.
The flip side is that, according to the labor bureau's figures, annual job gains ranged from 29.6 million in 1993 to 35.6 million in 1999. Day in and day out, workers quit their jobs or get fired, then move on to new positions. Companies start up, fail, downsize, upsize and fill the vacancies of those who left. It is workers' migration to new and existing jobs that keeps the country from sinking into some Depression-like swamp.
Yes, this disruption can be very hard on some workers who lose their employment and have trouble adapting. But in the larger sense, the turmoil in the labor market is vital to economic progress. A good part of the turnover takes place in a handful of industries, like restaurants and retailing, but to greater or lesser extent the churning grinds on across the board, in bad times and good. Tallies of net jobs lost or gained capture only a fraction of the flux in the job market. As this plays out, most workers end up better off.
Societies grow richer when new products emerge that better meet consumers' needs, and when producers adopt new technologies that reduce costs by making workers more productive. In a dynamic, innovative economy, these forces unleash waves upon waves of change. Some industries and companies prosper while others wither. Some companies find themselves with too many workers while others struggle with too few. A free-enterprise system responds by moving resources — in this case workers — to where they're more valuable.
For example, e-mail, word processors, answering machines and other modern office technologies are cutting jobs for secretaries but increasing the ranks of programmers. The Internet opened jobs for hundreds of thousands of Webmasters, an occupation that didn't exist as recently as 1990. Digital cameras translate to fewer photo clerks.
A century ago, 40 of every 100 Americans worked on farms to feed a nation of 90 million. Today, after one of history's most brutal downsizings, it takes just two agricultural workers out of 100 workers to supply an abundance of food to a nation more than three times as large. Suppose we'd kept 40 percent of our labor on the farm. Absurd, yes, but if we had, we wouldn't have had enough workers to produce the new homes, computers, movies, medicines and the myriad other goods and services of our modern economy.
Likewise, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators in 1970, when Americans made 9.8 billion long-distance calls. Thanks to advances in switching technology, telecommunications companies have reduced the number of operators to 78,000, but consumers ring up 98 billion calls. Let's face it: Americans are better off with more efficient long-distance service. To handle today's volume of calls with 1970's technology, telephone companies would need 4.2 million operators, or 3 percent of the labor force. Without the productivity gains, a long-distance call would probably cost 40 times what it now does.
Microeconomic failure is not macroeconomic failure. Quite the opposite, "failure" is the way the macro economy transfers resources to where they belong. It is the paradox of progress: a society can't reap the rewards of economic progress without accepting the constant change in work that comes with it. Efforts to soften the blows, by devising policies or laws to preserve jobs or protect industries, will lead to stagnation and decline, the biggest threat to American workers.
Job losses for farm hands and telephone operators came so long ago that they don't sting anymore. Today we see the benefits clearly and forget the costs. That's harder to do in the short term — it rightly distresses us to see newspaper photographs of laid-off industrial workers. But these are the economic forces that raise living standards.
Since 1980, Americans have filed 106 million initial claims for unemployment benefits, each representing a lost job. Facing unemployment and rebuilding a life can be hard on families, but the United States today is better off for allowing it to happen. Even with the net decline in jobs over the past three years, during the past decade total United States employment has risen to 130 million from 91 million since 1980, a net gain of nearly 40 million jobs. Productivity, measured by output per worker, increased a staggering 56.2 percent.
Some people tend to forget this. The almost daily drumbeat of reports and "expert commentary" about a so-called jobless recovery prompts the question, "What's gone wrong with the labor market?"
The surprising answer: nothing.
Job growth will come, as it always has in the past. The economy, meanwhile, is as busy as ever in shifting labor from one use to another to make the country richer and more productive.
W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm are co-authors of "Myths of Rich and Poor."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Direct and Universal Democracy?
From the Straits Times (Asia):
The one-man-one-vote system could be modified in Germany to give parents an additional vote for their children if some leading German MPs have their way.Clearly my thinking is nowhere near radical enough on the subject of direct democracy. I wasn't thinking that children should vote too.
The proposal to give parents a proxy vote for their children to counter the rising power of the elderly lobby is similar to an idea mooted by Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew in the early 1990s, but which was never taken up.
Concerned that politicians would be increasingly beholden to the demands of the rapidly swelling ranks of the retired, some Germans have taken the idea of universal suffrage to its logical conclusion.
They want children to have the right to vote to counter-balance the fast ageing electorate that is resisting cuts to generous benefits.
Forty-seven MPs are supporting a cross-party motion that calls for the right to vote from birth.
The motion asks the government to amend the Constitution so that parents get a proxy vote for each child under 18.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
American Are Losing the Victory in Europe (Part II)
Apparently, the Life Magazine articles from 1946 were for real. In addition, I've discovered a couple of others.
From the Saturday Evening Post, January 26, 1946, "How We Botched the German Occupation". The article states "No wonder so many Americans are asking, 'What are we doing in Germany?'"
The 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, "Alternatives for Germany" states "The defeat of Nazism has removed one of the obstacles to the democratization of Germany; but it has not created a democratic Germany. Nor is there much basis for the belief that democracy will develop in Germany under present conditions of defeat, hunger, idleness and despair."
It's striking how familiar these articles seem. It's almost as if today's journalists just looked up these articles and rewrote them for the Iraq occupation. Perhaps things really are going badly in Iraq, but, as with Germany, I don't think we'll really know for quite a few years or even decades.
From the Saturday Evening Post, January 26, 1946, "How We Botched the German Occupation". The article states "No wonder so many Americans are asking, 'What are we doing in Germany?'"
The 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, "Alternatives for Germany" states "The defeat of Nazism has removed one of the obstacles to the democratization of Germany; but it has not created a democratic Germany. Nor is there much basis for the belief that democracy will develop in Germany under present conditions of defeat, hunger, idleness and despair."
It's striking how familiar these articles seem. It's almost as if today's journalists just looked up these articles and rewrote them for the Iraq occupation. Perhaps things really are going badly in Iraq, but, as with Germany, I don't think we'll really know for quite a few years or even decades.
Sunday, November 02, 2003
New Science Discovery
A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium". Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". You will know it when you see it.
(from Andrew Sullivan).
(from Andrew Sullivan).
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Protecting the Commons
One thing that keeps me from even claiming to be a libertarian is that I'm very skeptical that certain types of commons can be protected without government regulation. One example of such a common resource is air. Therefore, at least for the time being, I accept government regulation of the air, and I accept the loss of freedom, the growth of bureaucracy (the EPA), and the cost in taxes and lost productivity associated with it. It's unfortunate that we have to endure so many costs to have clean air, but having clean air is still worth it to me.
However, I think commons should be privatized wherever feasible, and regulation of the remaining commons should be pushed down to as localized level as possible.
However, I think commons should be privatized wherever feasible, and regulation of the remaining commons should be pushed down to as localized level as possible.
Slavery Versus Freedom
During the period immediately preceding the civil war, southern slaves were better off than their northern free counterparts by every physical measure. For example, the slaves were taller, heavier, had more daily calories to eat, had a longer life-expectancy, and had higher birth rates. This makes sense in a perverse sort of way, since slaves where "property" and their owners invested in their property to maximize utility. The northern, free blacks had nobody investing in them.
Of course, even though the southern slaves were physically better off and more comfortable, none of the northern blacks sold themselves into southern slavery to achieve that comfort. Freedom was worth far more to them than comfort. In fact, according to this:
Apparently, freedom doesn't seem like it's all that important until you don't have it anymore.
Of course, even though the southern slaves were physically better off and more comfortable, none of the northern blacks sold themselves into southern slavery to achieve that comfort. Freedom was worth far more to them than comfort. In fact, according to this:
"What slaves hated most about slavery was not the hard work to which they were subjected (most people in the rural United States expected to engage in hard physical labor), but the lack of control over their lives - their lack of freedom."While you might think that statement is blisteringly obvious, it's amazing to me how quickly people nowadays are willing to trade their freedom for a little security, whether it be support for the Patriot Act or the FDA, ignoring the evisceration of the Rule of Law, tolerance for bureaucratic meddling and high taxes, or support for soon to be bankrupt programs like Social Security or Medicare.
Apparently, freedom doesn't seem like it's all that important until you don't have it anymore.
Thursday, October 30, 2003
North Korea and the 2nd Amendment
Oh man! Excuse me while I go blow chow after reading this story regarding North Korea:
When I read stories such as these, I wish the citizens of North Korea had been armed to the hilt like Americans. Perhaps the horrors there would have happened anyway, but at least it would have been a deterrent
I'm a hypocrite when it comes to guns. I've never owned and can't see ever owning a gun. Yet I think it's very important that citizens be armed in order to avoid genocide/politocide. In my opinion, it's worth the thousands of potential extra gun deaths per year we endure.
Many people say it can't happen here. Contemplate this:
As the article points out, when the Nazis came to power, "first, they forbade Jews from owning guns or any other weapon." In other words, the confiscated the Jews' firearms. And then they slaughtered them. When the authorities come to collect your guns, it's time to go buy your gravestone (though it won't do you much good in a mass grave).
"Family members of traitors don't even get food rations. They are starved to death, "said the wife of Soon Yong Bum, a fishing boat captain.... Lee, who asked that her given name not be used, was a clerk in a government office who notarized the deaths in her town. She is a pretty young woman, 29, with tumbling hair curling to her shoulders and smooth, flawless skin that belies the hardships she has faced and struggles to explain. "We started seeing cannibalism," she recalled, pausing. "You probably won't understand."
She went on: "When one is very hungry, one can go crazy. One woman in my town killed her 7-month-old baby, and ate the baby with another woman. That woman's son reported them both to the authorities.
"I can't condemn cannibalism. Not that I wanted to eat human meat, but we were so hungry. It was common that people went to a fresh grave and dug up a body to eat meat. I witnessed a woman being questioned for cannibalism. She said it tasted good."
When I read stories such as these, I wish the citizens of North Korea had been armed to the hilt like Americans. Perhaps the horrors there would have happened anyway, but at least it would have been a deterrent
I'm a hypocrite when it comes to guns. I've never owned and can't see ever owning a gun. Yet I think it's very important that citizens be armed in order to avoid genocide/politocide. In my opinion, it's worth the thousands of potential extra gun deaths per year we endure.
Many people say it can't happen here. Contemplate this:
Consider a thought experiment suggested by Professor Robert Cottrol. Let us travel by some means back in time to the year 1900, and there convene a committee of the most exalted thinkers from all over the world. We inform them that within fifty years a great and cultured nation will try to exterminate, with near success, one of its most important ethnic, racial, or religious minorities. We now ask them to forecast who the victim group and the perpetrator nation will be. Would any predict the Holocaust?In other words, don't think it couldn't happen here. Sure it won't happen tomorrow, but from now to eternity is a long time for things to change for the worse. It could have happened already when we interned Japanese Americans during WWII. If the war had gone particularly badly, and Japan had invaded the mainland, are we sure it wouldn't have happened?
It is hard to see why anyone would. Jews as a likely victim group might have been foreseen, though other candidates would surely have ranked higher. As for potential perpetrators, surely the United States would have been high on the list, what with that proverbial culture of guns and violence that Europeans find so quaint, to say nothing of our many minorities--immigrant, indigenous and racial. Germany, the homeland of music, philosophy, mathematics, public sanitation, environmentalism, physical culture, social security, and the rule of law could hardly have figured at all."
As the article points out, when the Nazis came to power, "first, they forbade Jews from owning guns or any other weapon." In other words, the confiscated the Jews' firearms. And then they slaughtered them. When the authorities come to collect your guns, it's time to go buy your gravestone (though it won't do you much good in a mass grave).
At Least the Debate Will End Eventually
From a Washington Post article about the sun:
"... the sun will be around for billions of years yet. But it'll change. Eventually it will cool, expand and turn into a "red giant" that completely consumes the Earth -- which may finally end the global warming debate." [italics added]
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Don't Hold Your Breath...
...'cause you might turn blue - regarding seeing my logic on my direct referendum approach. It's turning out to be a lot more work than I originally envisioned to work through all the details and to read up on what's already been done. It's easily 200 hours of work and at the 1 or 2 hours a week rate that I'm contemplating it - well, you do the math.
Nonetheless, I'll post some stuff I encounter on the subject. For example, this article describes some issues and mechanisms for a national referendum. The approach is interesting, though, being an experimentalist I wouldn't even vaguely consider doing anything like this at a national level until far, far more experimentation is done at local and state levels.
Also, as I get a little farther along I can post some outlines of my logic for discussion. But I'm not there yet.
Nonetheless, I'll post some stuff I encounter on the subject. For example, this article describes some issues and mechanisms for a national referendum. The approach is interesting, though, being an experimentalist I wouldn't even vaguely consider doing anything like this at a national level until far, far more experimentation is done at local and state levels.
Also, as I get a little farther along I can post some outlines of my logic for discussion. But I'm not there yet.
Regulation,externalities and public goods
Slavery and the Civil War
My favorite books on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War are still boxed up from the move, but this is my best recollection of the relevant material. The founding fathers of this country were deeply aware of the moral problem of allowing slavery and they knew that it would have to be confronted at some point. In order to have a chance of successfully breaking away from England, the issue was put on hold. After the invention of the cotton gin changed the economics of processing raw cotton and thereby the price of cotton finished goods, the practice of growing cotton with slave labor spread widely throughout the South. Even as this was happening during the early 1800's, the Quakers were growing quite vocal about the abolition of slavery. Eventually other groups picked up the banner of abolition. Many but not all of these groups were deeply religious and various sects of the church split on opposite sides of the issue. Political deals like the Missouri Compromise continued to punt the issue.
As Bret mentioned, the government instituted and enforced laws which preserved slavery. Abolition was a hot issue of the day, but it was not the major issue behind the civil war. This country was founded as part of a tax revolt and that was the major issue behind the Civil War. The industrial North wanted the mercantilst protection of high tariffs and customs while the agrarian South wanted low trade barriers(the South paid the bills under a high tariff regime). The South said 'no mas' and threatened to secede. Lincoln decided to fight in order to preserve the existing order. It is no accident that the fighting began at Fort Sumter, a customs house. Yes, there were other issues, but they were of lesser importance. Lincoln was a very skillful politician and he timed the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to sway public opinion and demoralize the South. It freed slaves only in the states of rebellion not already under Union control. If Lincoln did not feel it was politically advantageous then abolition would have had to wait. There are also arguements that the economics of slavery were in decline and that the practice was doomed. I have not done enough study to know how valid this view might be.
This is not how these events are portrayed in junior high school history class, but I think this is quite valid. Now, how much credit do you want to give government for ending slavery?
As Bret mentioned, the government instituted and enforced laws which preserved slavery. Abolition was a hot issue of the day, but it was not the major issue behind the civil war. This country was founded as part of a tax revolt and that was the major issue behind the Civil War. The industrial North wanted the mercantilst protection of high tariffs and customs while the agrarian South wanted low trade barriers(the South paid the bills under a high tariff regime). The South said 'no mas' and threatened to secede. Lincoln decided to fight in order to preserve the existing order. It is no accident that the fighting began at Fort Sumter, a customs house. Yes, there were other issues, but they were of lesser importance. Lincoln was a very skillful politician and he timed the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to sway public opinion and demoralize the South. It freed slaves only in the states of rebellion not already under Union control. If Lincoln did not feel it was politically advantageous then abolition would have had to wait. There are also arguements that the economics of slavery were in decline and that the practice was doomed. I have not done enough study to know how valid this view might be.
This is not how these events are portrayed in junior high school history class, but I think this is quite valid. Now, how much credit do you want to give government for ending slavery?
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Wallach goes yard with the bases loaded
Bret clarifies the Joyce Rogers Brown comments:
I would have said it as follows:
where government moves in, people lose the ability to even imagine possible alternatives to solve problems without involving government, community retreats, civil society disintegrates,...
Then follows up with this:
Nonetheless, the disturbing thing to me, is that for all these things, non-government solutions aren't even imagined to be possible, much less contemplated, articulated, debated, refined, and proposed as alternatives. We are destroying our creativity and ingenuity "and our ability to control our destiny" by turning these problems over to the government. This is what I believe that Brown meant by her statement and I agree with that interpretation of it.
Yes, statism is a disease that has many ill effects. If we change course can civil society recover?
Subtleties
Many policies have subtle effects which might compound into huge effects over time. Think about the issue of school choice and vouchers. Beyond any possible improvement in education which a child might receive they would be witness to an interesting set of behaviors by the parent. Not all parents would handle their new responsiblity well, but many would. They would feel positive, hopeful and empowered to make changes if their childs' educational situation was unacceptable. They would learn to ferret out information, make decisions and change that decision if the results of the initial decision were not acceptable. This could have a profoundly positive effect on a child witnessing these behaviors. This positive effect could grow over several generations.
Another area where subtle positives could accrue would be with a flat tax. A sense of fairness and cohesion amongst the electorate could be a powerful force binding people together. Also, political signals for higher taxes and more spending or lower taxes and lower spending would be communicated much more effectively. And on it would go...
I would have said it as follows:
where government moves in, people lose the ability to even imagine possible alternatives to solve problems without involving government, community retreats, civil society disintegrates,...
Then follows up with this:
Nonetheless, the disturbing thing to me, is that for all these things, non-government solutions aren't even imagined to be possible, much less contemplated, articulated, debated, refined, and proposed as alternatives. We are destroying our creativity and ingenuity "and our ability to control our destiny" by turning these problems over to the government. This is what I believe that Brown meant by her statement and I agree with that interpretation of it.
Yes, statism is a disease that has many ill effects. If we change course can civil society recover?
Subtleties
Many policies have subtle effects which might compound into huge effects over time. Think about the issue of school choice and vouchers. Beyond any possible improvement in education which a child might receive they would be witness to an interesting set of behaviors by the parent. Not all parents would handle their new responsiblity well, but many would. They would feel positive, hopeful and empowered to make changes if their childs' educational situation was unacceptable. They would learn to ferret out information, make decisions and change that decision if the results of the initial decision were not acceptable. This could have a profoundly positive effect on a child witnessing these behaviors. This positive effect could grow over several generations.
Another area where subtle positives could accrue would be with a flat tax. A sense of fairness and cohesion amongst the electorate could be a powerful force binding people together. Also, political signals for higher taxes and more spending or lower taxes and lower spending would be communicated much more effectively. And on it would go...
Monkey in a Fez
This inteview with Mat Gleason, a LA Punk Rocker cracked me up:
Newtopia: As a resident of Los Angeles, how do you feel about the California recall election?
Mat: F**k yeah. It is funny how the spin doctors tried to make what was democracy in action seem reactionary because it did not conform to their narrow ideals. Too many Democrats are shrill, hopeless, undersexed squares. It will be funny if the Republicans are hip all of a sudden and the left is suddenly me, you and our high school English teachers lecturing about the triumph of the 60s. That is what is happening here, the Republicans are hijacking culture. And the Democrats are a bunch of squares in suits saying tsk-tsk-tsk. It is funny. I lost any hope in politics after what Clinton did to Jerry Brown in the 1992 primaries. The first issue of Coagula was a pamphleteering plea to elect Jerry Brown. Clinton was a hopeless square and now that is coming home to roost. The true intellects and creative forces in the Democratic party have been marginalized in favor of Centrist conformists, and now the Republicans are saying "Hey let's party!" and the true strengths of the Democrats are seen as fringe, risky strategies by the Democratic leaders, and the Republicans seem like visionaries, but a monkey in a fez would seem like a leader and visionary standing next to Bustamante or Davis!
Monday, October 27, 2003
Janice Rogers Brown
As mentioned below, Brown wrote:
Jim writes:
I don't think there should still be slavery, etc., and somehow I seriously doubt that Brown thinks that either, nor do I think that she implies that with her statement. In fact, this exchange illustrates to me one point I think Brown left out of her tirade. I would have said it as follows:
I think this addition is very important. We have become so used to the government doing things for us that we assume that there is no alternative. Not only is this not true, I believe this attitude is holding us back.
Have we really "had a strong, active government for over two centuries?" If so, that's news to me. I thought the government (federal, anyway) became active last century, and really didn't meddle domestically much at all in the 18th and first half of the 19th century.
A few other points. Government enforced slavery until the emancipation proclamation so I think that it's quite a stretch to give credit to government for freeing them. In other words, if government hadn't enslaved them in the first place, they wouldn't have had to free them. The same concept applies to women's right to vote.
We were actually a pretty literate nation long before government got involved, as shown by this excerpt:
And do you really think schools are better now than in say, 1950, which is prior to when the federal government began funding education? I'm not saying that they're not, but I don't think they're much improved either, and, in fact, the complaints about inner city and other schools for the poor are still the most emphatic.
The races are still quite segregated. For example, I can't remember the last time I saw a black person here in San Diego, and I can't imagine that San Diego is radically more segregated than say, Mississippi, so I think the government didn't quite succeed on the desegregation front. I have no idea why San Diego is so segregated. I'm also not saying that's okay, I'm just saying that government didn't solve that problem very well.
Lastly I didn't realize that before the ADA or other government intervention, the disabled were left to their own means. In the community I grew up in they were taken care of by their families, church groups, and other community services. It certainly is possible that the disabled were left to die on the streets in droves in other places, I just wasn't aware that that was the case.
Nonetheless, the disturbing thing to me, is that for all these things, non-government solutions aren't even imagined to be possible, much less contemplated, articulated, debated, refined, and proposed as alternatives. We are destroying our creativity and ingenuity "and our ability to control our destiny" by turning these problems over to the government. This is what I believe that Brown meant by her statement and I agree with that interpretation of it.
"where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege, war in the streets, unapologetic expropriation of property, the precipitous decline of the rule of law, the rapid rise of corruption, the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit."
Jim writes:
The results she lists do not, in general, square with our historical legacy. We have had a strong, active government for over two centuries, and, in general, the results of governmental engagement have been good. Or, are there some among you who feel that slaves should not have been freed, women should not have the vote, non-elite children should work and not attend school, the races should be segregated, the disabled should be left to their own means?
I don't think there should still be slavery, etc., and somehow I seriously doubt that Brown thinks that either, nor do I think that she implies that with her statement. In fact, this exchange illustrates to me one point I think Brown left out of her tirade. I would have said it as follows:
where government moves in, people lose the ability to even imagine possible alternatives to solve problems without involving government, community retreats, civil society disintegrates,...
I think this addition is very important. We have become so used to the government doing things for us that we assume that there is no alternative. Not only is this not true, I believe this attitude is holding us back.
Have we really "had a strong, active government for over two centuries?" If so, that's news to me. I thought the government (federal, anyway) became active last century, and really didn't meddle domestically much at all in the 18th and first half of the 19th century.
A few other points. Government enforced slavery until the emancipation proclamation so I think that it's quite a stretch to give credit to government for freeing them. In other words, if government hadn't enslaved them in the first place, they wouldn't have had to free them. The same concept applies to women's right to vote.
We were actually a pretty literate nation long before government got involved, as shown by this excerpt:
By 1820, there was even more evidence of Americans' avid reading habits, when 5 million copies of James Fenimore Cooper's complex and allusive novels were sold, along with an equal number of Noah Webster's didactic Speller - to a population of dirt farmers under 20 million in size.
In 1835, Richard Cobden announced there was six times as much newspaper reading in the United States as in England, and the census figures of 1840 gave fairly exact evidence that a sensational reading revolution had taken place without any exhortation on the part of public moralists and social workers, but because common people had the initiative and freedom to learn. In North Carolina, the worst situation of any state surveyed, eight out of nine could still read and write.
In 1853, Per Siljestromm, a Swedish visitor, wrote, "In no country in the world is the taste for reading so diffuse as among the common people in America." The American Almanac observed grandly, "Periodical publications, especially newspapers, disseminate knowledge throughout all classes of society and exert an amazing influence in forming and giving effect to public opinion." It noted the existence of over a thousand newspapers. In this nation of common readers, the spiritual longings of ordinary people shaped the public discourse. Ordinary people who could read, though not privileged by wealth, power, or position, could see through the fraud of social class or the even grander fraud of official expertise.
And do you really think schools are better now than in say, 1950, which is prior to when the federal government began funding education? I'm not saying that they're not, but I don't think they're much improved either, and, in fact, the complaints about inner city and other schools for the poor are still the most emphatic.
The races are still quite segregated. For example, I can't remember the last time I saw a black person here in San Diego, and I can't imagine that San Diego is radically more segregated than say, Mississippi, so I think the government didn't quite succeed on the desegregation front. I have no idea why San Diego is so segregated. I'm also not saying that's okay, I'm just saying that government didn't solve that problem very well.
Lastly I didn't realize that before the ADA or other government intervention, the disabled were left to their own means. In the community I grew up in they were taken care of by their families, church groups, and other community services. It certainly is possible that the disabled were left to die on the streets in droves in other places, I just wasn't aware that that was the case.
Nonetheless, the disturbing thing to me, is that for all these things, non-government solutions aren't even imagined to be possible, much less contemplated, articulated, debated, refined, and proposed as alternatives. We are destroying our creativity and ingenuity "and our ability to control our destiny" by turning these problems over to the government. This is what I believe that Brown meant by her statement and I agree with that interpretation of it.
Skidding to a Halt
Some excerpts from "We're Not Losing the Culture Wars Anymore" by Brian C Anderson:
I think the blogosphere will end up being by far the most important. Of course that may be personal bias since I don't watch TV, but the problem with TV, radio, and books is that they all have a tendency to spin and lie whether they are left, center, or right. So does the blogosphere, but because there are so many sites, and because there is google, you can get a better idea of whether or not something is true and the different spins partly cancel each other out.
This shift in the control of information is critical and revolutionary. In a democracy such as ours, especially one where the populace is heavily armed, the only route to exploit power to one's advantage and tyranny is to control information. Those that have controlled the media have controlled the information and therefore our minds for at least the past century.
We are finally being freed from this control. Now that my eyes have personally been opened, I am outraged at how badly deceived I've been in the past and how gullible I apparently am. It's not that I think I know what's going on yet. It's more that I at least know now that I don't know what's going on. At least I now have the opportunity to learn and figure it out.
In my opinion, the Democrats and the Left are going to be the first casualties. Why? Because a whopping huge majority of journalists are Democrat (greater than 90%), and even with that information advantage, in the last century the Democrats have only had small majorities in Congress and the President has been a Democrat about half the time. It's no surprise to me that as these new channels of information have increased during the past 20 years, the Republicans are gaining ground.
Many Republican politicians are gloating. Well, they better enjoy it while they can because I think that politicians of all stripes are going to be the next casualties of this information control shift paradigm. Politicians' abilities to lie and deceive with impugnity are going out the window and the populace isn't going to put up with it much longer. They will lose part of their power simply because they will be unable to control the flow of information. I will speculate that they will further lose power because we will have the ability to reign them in. We will strip them of their power and prestige and turn them into civil servants. Truly a government by, of, and for the people.
The Left's near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information - which long allowed liberal opinion makers to sweep aside ideas and beliefs they disagreed with, as if they were beneath argument - is skidding to a startlingly swift halt... Almost overnight, three huge changes in communications have injected conservative ideas right into the heart of that debate...
The first and most visible of these three seismic events: the advent of cable TV...
Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice - a "punk-rock-capitalist" entertainment corporation that publishes the hipster bible Vice magazine, produces CDs and films, runs clothing stores, and claims (plausibly) to have been "deep inside the heads of 18-30s for the past 10 years" - spots "a new trend of young people tired of being lied to for the sake of the 'greater good.'" ...
Polling data indicate that younger voters are indeed trending rightward - supporting the Iraq war by a wider majority than their elders, viewing school vouchers favorably, and accepting greater restrictions on abortion, such as parental-notification laws (though more accepting of homosexuality than older voters)...
...the rise of the Internet, the second explosive change shaking liberal media dominance. It's hard to overstate the impact that news and opinion websites like the Drudge Report, NewsMax, and Dow Jones's OpinionJournal are having on politics and culture, as re current-event "blogs" - individual or group web diaries - like AndrewSullivan, [GreatGuys,] InstaPundit, and "The Corner" department of NationalReviewOnline (NRO), where the editors and writers argue, joke around, and call attention to articles elsewhere on the web. This whole universe of web-based discussion has been dubbed the "blogosphere."
While there are several fine left-of-center sites, the blogosphere currently tilts right, albeit idiosyncratically, reflecting the hard-to-pigeonhole politics of some leading bloggers...
The third big change breaking the liberal media stranglehold is taking place in book publishing. Conservative authors long had trouble getting their books released, with only Regnery Books, the Free Press, and Basic Books regularly releasing conservative titles. But following editorial changes during the 1990s, Basic and the Free Press published far fewer conservative-leaning titles, leaving Regnery pretty much alone...
I think the blogosphere will end up being by far the most important. Of course that may be personal bias since I don't watch TV, but the problem with TV, radio, and books is that they all have a tendency to spin and lie whether they are left, center, or right. So does the blogosphere, but because there are so many sites, and because there is google, you can get a better idea of whether or not something is true and the different spins partly cancel each other out.
This shift in the control of information is critical and revolutionary. In a democracy such as ours, especially one where the populace is heavily armed, the only route to exploit power to one's advantage and tyranny is to control information. Those that have controlled the media have controlled the information and therefore our minds for at least the past century.
We are finally being freed from this control. Now that my eyes have personally been opened, I am outraged at how badly deceived I've been in the past and how gullible I apparently am. It's not that I think I know what's going on yet. It's more that I at least know now that I don't know what's going on. At least I now have the opportunity to learn and figure it out.
In my opinion, the Democrats and the Left are going to be the first casualties. Why? Because a whopping huge majority of journalists are Democrat (greater than 90%), and even with that information advantage, in the last century the Democrats have only had small majorities in Congress and the President has been a Democrat about half the time. It's no surprise to me that as these new channels of information have increased during the past 20 years, the Republicans are gaining ground.
Many Republican politicians are gloating. Well, they better enjoy it while they can because I think that politicians of all stripes are going to be the next casualties of this information control shift paradigm. Politicians' abilities to lie and deceive with impugnity are going out the window and the populace isn't going to put up with it much longer. They will lose part of their power simply because they will be unable to control the flow of information. I will speculate that they will further lose power because we will have the ability to reign them in. We will strip them of their power and prestige and turn them into civil servants. Truly a government by, of, and for the people.
MYSTICAL BELIEFS
The Sunday New York Times Magazine section had an article about the rise in cannibalism in parts of Africa. It seems that there is a resurgence in the belief that one gains power by eating the flesh and especially internal organs of a slain enemy. We sophisticates think that this is all rather primitive and mystical. The rationalistic thinking of the Enlightenment went further by considering the received truths of all religion to be mystical and unwarranted. Never mind that the major monotheistic reliqions of the past few thousand years gave most people a universal set of morals. The lost faith in a set of revealed truths has set many people in search of new beliefs. As mentioned in earlier posts, Statism, the belief in the state/government as the solution to all problems in society, is the new accepted faith for many people. I think this a big part of Diane Feinstein's complaints over the Janice Rogers Brown speech mentioned in Bret's post - Bush Judicial Nominee Slammed.
Certainly the richness of civil society in mid-1800's America marveled at by Alexis DeTocqueville in his book Democracy in America would lend considerable support to JRB's(Janice Rogers Brown) views.
There are a number of beliefs expressed explicitly and implicitly in the public forum that are essentially mystical in nature. One myth repeated over and over again is the idea that a balanced budget is the sine qua non of fiscal responsibility. I'm sure that everyone on this blog who believes this bought their house for cash, no mortgage. This view ignores the impact of the policy mix on the larger private sector, the wealth generating sector. If you want to rethink this view, spend some time looking at this website about debt,deficits and growth. There is some partisan material on this site, but if you can get past that there is much to learn. Another implicit myth is that regulations(labor,health, environmental...) involve only benefits and no costs. Isn't it wonderful that we don't have to make tradeoffs? Another myth is based on a zero-sum mentality. If an individual or a nation is wealthy then somehow that must cause other individuals or nations to be poor. Wealth generation is not a zero-sum game. Much of the thinking about helping developing economies simply ignores reality. Fortunately, the late Peter Bauer breaks through this "unreality" in much of his work. His From Subsistence to Exchange is a worthwhile read. Yet another great myth might be called "the garden of eden view". Once upon a time life was wonderful and idyllic but then the evil capitalists came along and exploited the hell out of everyone. Many people believe this but with considerable variation in degree. I'm just getting warmed up but I'll leave this alone for now.
ps Jim, I am averse to grand centralized plans but not to lots of little experiments or additional impowerment of individuals where the individuals are the decision makers
pps re taxes, even if you don't care about your tax cut, putting more resources back in the hands of individual decision makers to deal with spending, saving and investing will have a positive impact through more flexibility and diversification...
Certainly the richness of civil society in mid-1800's America marveled at by Alexis DeTocqueville in his book Democracy in America would lend considerable support to JRB's(Janice Rogers Brown) views.
There are a number of beliefs expressed explicitly and implicitly in the public forum that are essentially mystical in nature. One myth repeated over and over again is the idea that a balanced budget is the sine qua non of fiscal responsibility. I'm sure that everyone on this blog who believes this bought their house for cash, no mortgage. This view ignores the impact of the policy mix on the larger private sector, the wealth generating sector. If you want to rethink this view, spend some time looking at this website about debt,deficits and growth. There is some partisan material on this site, but if you can get past that there is much to learn. Another implicit myth is that regulations(labor,health, environmental...) involve only benefits and no costs. Isn't it wonderful that we don't have to make tradeoffs? Another myth is based on a zero-sum mentality. If an individual or a nation is wealthy then somehow that must cause other individuals or nations to be poor. Wealth generation is not a zero-sum game. Much of the thinking about helping developing economies simply ignores reality. Fortunately, the late Peter Bauer breaks through this "unreality" in much of his work. His From Subsistence to Exchange is a worthwhile read. Yet another great myth might be called "the garden of eden view". Once upon a time life was wonderful and idyllic but then the evil capitalists came along and exploited the hell out of everyone. Many people believe this but with considerable variation in degree. I'm just getting warmed up but I'll leave this alone for now.
ps Jim, I am averse to grand centralized plans but not to lots of little experiments or additional impowerment of individuals where the individuals are the decision makers
pps re taxes, even if you don't care about your tax cut, putting more resources back in the hands of individual decision makers to deal with spending, saving and investing will have a positive impact through more flexibility and diversification...
Orwell Observation
"It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool. " George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, May 1945
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Bush Judicial Nominee Slammed
From the Sacramento Bee
Well, yeah. And what's Feinstein's problem with that statement?
California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, President Bush's controversial nominee for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ran into a firestorm of criticism from Democrats ...
In her questioning, Feinstein zeroed in on a speech Brown delivered three years ago to the Federalist Society at the University of Chicago Law School that the senator said was disturbing because of its anti-government tone.
In that speech, Brown said that "where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege, war in the streets, unapologetic expropriation of property, the precipitous decline of the rule of law, the rapid rise of corruption, the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit."
Well, yeah. And what's Feinstein's problem with that statement?
It's Snowing in San Diego!
Oh wait, never mind, that's not snow, it's ash! Just seasonal fires in East County. I have about 1/8 inch of ash covering my house and yard. Oh well, looking on the bright side, last time this happened the rose bushes started producing more roses. Something in the ash must be good for them.
Update: It's asnow ash day, no school! Well, it's Sunday so there wouldn't be school anyway, but the "fall festival" at our kids school has been canceled. I've never had an ash day before.
Update: Looking up through the smoke the sun is totally red. What's more interesting is that I can see the sun spots! I guess this is a taste of what the lighting would be like during parts of a nuclear winter. Oh joy!
Update: At least one of Cassia's friends' families' houses is on fire. Fires are within 3 miles of my sister's house - she's packing it up and probably heading over. Bummer! We're pretty safe here near the beach. There is a massive freeway (I-5) between the fires and us. There's a saying in San Diego: "There's no life east of I-5" which is supposed to mean that all that's "happenin'" in San Diego occurs in the beach area. I hope it doesn't turn out to be literally true.
Update: Yes, they did evacuate my sister. Fire didn't get her house yet, but she's not allowed to return home. County schools are closed on Monday, no garbage collection, the Mayor has asked us not to go to work, ash is still falling, and the air quality is poor. Other than that, things are just hunky dory.
Update: It's a
Update: Looking up through the smoke the sun is totally red. What's more interesting is that I can see the sun spots! I guess this is a taste of what the lighting would be like during parts of a nuclear winter. Oh joy!
Update: At least one of Cassia's friends' families' houses is on fire. Fires are within 3 miles of my sister's house - she's packing it up and probably heading over. Bummer! We're pretty safe here near the beach. There is a massive freeway (I-5) between the fires and us. There's a saying in San Diego: "There's no life east of I-5" which is supposed to mean that all that's "happenin'" in San Diego occurs in the beach area. I hope it doesn't turn out to be literally true.
Update: Yes, they did evacuate my sister. Fire didn't get her house yet, but she's not allowed to return home. County schools are closed on Monday, no garbage collection, the Mayor has asked us not to go to work, ash is still falling, and the air quality is poor. Other than that, things are just hunky dory.
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Directed Change
Jim writes two statements:
Howie and I spent tremendous effort researching different trading techniques (and of course Howie is still doing it). The vast majority of the experiments were failures. Nonetheless, Howie's trading is more profitable today because of those efforts. Granted, we had (and have) the luxury of trying new things without actually committing money ahead of time. However, even if we had to commit money before testing, if we kept the experiments small, it would have still been important to try them. In fact, we wouldn't have survived without doing the research (in my opinion, Howie's opinion may differ).
Most scientific experiments fail as well. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue science. Indeed, we often learn from the failures as well as the successes. The failures are rarely publicized. Everybody knows Edison invented the light bulb, but few know that he had to try thousands of filaments before he found one that worked for even 24 hours.
And the same goes for government and social change. Certainly many or most of the things we try will fail. But without incremental experimentation, I agree that we will careen from crisis to crisis. In fact, I'd go farther than Jim. If most attempts at social change are not failing, then we're not making enough attempts.
But (and you knew there was going to be a "but", didn't you?), I think the experiments (i.e., attempts at social change) need to be well designed.
They have to be designed with the possibility of failure (since most experiments will fail). This includes minimizing the cost of failure and having an escape hatch enabling the experiment to be undone if necessary. The easiest way to minimize cost is to not do the experiment at the national level until it's been shown to work well at local and state levels. This also provides an escape hatch. If an experiment turns out to be catastrophic for some locality, the rest of the country can always bail out those affected. If a policy fails catastrophically at the national level, well, then like communism and Russia, it may take a long, long time to recover.
The results of the experiments should be quantifiable. In other words, can we measure the impact of the experiments? For example, Clinton's efforts to get welfare recipients back to work seems to have helped. There are now significantly fewer people on the dole. Would have this happened anyway? Maybe or maybe not. Perhaps an even better experiment would have been to do it in half the states. The other half would be a control group. At least the welfare experiment didn't seem to hurt.
Lots of small experiments are better than a few large experiments. First, it provides more data. Second, it enables experimental design to take into account local factors and needs. For example, a policy that would work well in Berkeley may not work so well in San Diego, may work poorly in Coral Springs, and may be a total, complete, and irreversible disaster in Mississippi.
A recurring theme in the experimental design is to devolve money, responsibility, and authority for the experiments to as local a level as possible. At the national level the cost of failure is too high, it makes it difficult to quantify the results of the experiment (since there is nothing to compare it to), and it limits the number of experiments which reduces the data and what we can learn from those experiments.
The next question is who should direct these experiments? The president of the United States? Congress? Ahnold Schwarzenegger? Mayor Willie Brown? Some combination of the above?
I think this may be where the biggest disagreement lies amongst members of this blog. I think it is extremely unlikely that any politician (current or future) in any political office (current or future) can provide the most effective and efficient leadership to promote social change. Power corrupts, and giving our politicians the power to effect significant change will corrupt them more deeply. As described by Mancur Olson ("The Rise and Decline of Nations"), Jonathon Rauch ("Demosclerosis"), Charlotte Twight ("Dependent on DC"), and even David Corn ( "The Lies of George W. Bush, Mastering the Politics of Deception"), politicians inherently deceive us for their own advantage. In other words, the change they will effect will benefit them, their families, and their cronies far more than the population. This is due to the relationship between special interests and politicians, the ability of politicians to increase transaction costs that hinder the public from limiting the politicians' ability to further his or her personal agendas, and a huge number of other factors that are described in those books and numerous other places. As a result, I would like politicians to get out of the leadership business and instead be civil servants.
So, you may be wondering what's the alternative. We don't need politicians to be leaders because we have many other leaders in our society. Paul Krugman is a leader. So is Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, Bill Gates, Victor Davis Hanson, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and so forth. There are lots and lots of leaders who are not politicians. They're smart, they debate the issues, and we listen. Because of the Internet and blogs and email and online media we provide feedback for their debate. Eventually, for a given problem, we'll agree on a possible solution and on an approach to implementing that solution.
Then we should tell the politicians what to do. And they should implement it. I have a set of essays that I'm working on that will describe the details of how this will (or at least could) happen. Because of enormously better communications capabilities, we have a huge number of options available to us regarding democracy and governance that simply weren't possible even a few short years ago. Direct democracy in a society of 300 million people is now possible, and as I will argue in future essays, desirable.
"...most... attempts to direct social change are doomed to failure, or actually create more problems than benefits."and
"...without directed change -- regardless of the odds against it -- we are doomed to careen through history from one crisis to another; and, since the crises are getting bigger due to the sheer power of humans (both individually and collectively), this is an unacceptable option."I firmly agree with both those statements. I don't believe they are mutually exclusive in any sort of way.
Howie and I spent tremendous effort researching different trading techniques (and of course Howie is still doing it). The vast majority of the experiments were failures. Nonetheless, Howie's trading is more profitable today because of those efforts. Granted, we had (and have) the luxury of trying new things without actually committing money ahead of time. However, even if we had to commit money before testing, if we kept the experiments small, it would have still been important to try them. In fact, we wouldn't have survived without doing the research (in my opinion, Howie's opinion may differ).
Most scientific experiments fail as well. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue science. Indeed, we often learn from the failures as well as the successes. The failures are rarely publicized. Everybody knows Edison invented the light bulb, but few know that he had to try thousands of filaments before he found one that worked for even 24 hours.
And the same goes for government and social change. Certainly many or most of the things we try will fail. But without incremental experimentation, I agree that we will careen from crisis to crisis. In fact, I'd go farther than Jim. If most attempts at social change are not failing, then we're not making enough attempts.
But (and you knew there was going to be a "but", didn't you?), I think the experiments (i.e., attempts at social change) need to be well designed.
They have to be designed with the possibility of failure (since most experiments will fail). This includes minimizing the cost of failure and having an escape hatch enabling the experiment to be undone if necessary. The easiest way to minimize cost is to not do the experiment at the national level until it's been shown to work well at local and state levels. This also provides an escape hatch. If an experiment turns out to be catastrophic for some locality, the rest of the country can always bail out those affected. If a policy fails catastrophically at the national level, well, then like communism and Russia, it may take a long, long time to recover.
The results of the experiments should be quantifiable. In other words, can we measure the impact of the experiments? For example, Clinton's efforts to get welfare recipients back to work seems to have helped. There are now significantly fewer people on the dole. Would have this happened anyway? Maybe or maybe not. Perhaps an even better experiment would have been to do it in half the states. The other half would be a control group. At least the welfare experiment didn't seem to hurt.
Lots of small experiments are better than a few large experiments. First, it provides more data. Second, it enables experimental design to take into account local factors and needs. For example, a policy that would work well in Berkeley may not work so well in San Diego, may work poorly in Coral Springs, and may be a total, complete, and irreversible disaster in Mississippi.
A recurring theme in the experimental design is to devolve money, responsibility, and authority for the experiments to as local a level as possible. At the national level the cost of failure is too high, it makes it difficult to quantify the results of the experiment (since there is nothing to compare it to), and it limits the number of experiments which reduces the data and what we can learn from those experiments.
The next question is who should direct these experiments? The president of the United States? Congress? Ahnold Schwarzenegger? Mayor Willie Brown? Some combination of the above?
I think this may be where the biggest disagreement lies amongst members of this blog. I think it is extremely unlikely that any politician (current or future) in any political office (current or future) can provide the most effective and efficient leadership to promote social change. Power corrupts, and giving our politicians the power to effect significant change will corrupt them more deeply. As described by Mancur Olson ("The Rise and Decline of Nations"), Jonathon Rauch ("Demosclerosis"), Charlotte Twight ("Dependent on DC"), and even David Corn ( "The Lies of George W. Bush, Mastering the Politics of Deception"), politicians inherently deceive us for their own advantage. In other words, the change they will effect will benefit them, their families, and their cronies far more than the population. This is due to the relationship between special interests and politicians, the ability of politicians to increase transaction costs that hinder the public from limiting the politicians' ability to further his or her personal agendas, and a huge number of other factors that are described in those books and numerous other places. As a result, I would like politicians to get out of the leadership business and instead be civil servants.
So, you may be wondering what's the alternative. We don't need politicians to be leaders because we have many other leaders in our society. Paul Krugman is a leader. So is Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, Bill Gates, Victor Davis Hanson, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and so forth. There are lots and lots of leaders who are not politicians. They're smart, they debate the issues, and we listen. Because of the Internet and blogs and email and online media we provide feedback for their debate. Eventually, for a given problem, we'll agree on a possible solution and on an approach to implementing that solution.
Then we should tell the politicians what to do. And they should implement it. I have a set of essays that I'm working on that will describe the details of how this will (or at least could) happen. Because of enormously better communications capabilities, we have a huge number of options available to us regarding democracy and governance that simply weren't possible even a few short years ago. Direct democracy in a society of 300 million people is now possible, and as I will argue in future essays, desirable.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Unemployment Statistics
It looks to me, that right this second, Paul Krugman is one of the top ten most famous American economists of all time. It seems to me that every 5th article or so that I've been reading, whether blog or old media, and whether left, right, or center, mentions him. His book is a best seller and his NY Times column is hugely popular. Very impressive.
I started with that introduction because I want to make it clear that I'm not going out of my way to criticize Krugman. It's just that when I follow links, I often end up at something Krugman has written, and as I've mentioned previously, usually his economic columns are (I think) pretty good.
However, in today's NY Times OpEd by Krugman, Too Low a Bar, the following made me roll my eyes:
A pretty damning indictment of Bush's domestic economic policy, don't you think? Clearly the worst since Herbert Hoover started the great depression!
But wait a second, though the statement is true, does it really have any significant meaning? Might events, economic cycles, and sheer luck converge to produce an isolated statistic to make Bush look bad? Just for amusement, let's try some other spins of the data instead. It's also true that (barring catastrophic developments not projected by anybody including Krugman), that at the end of Bush's first term, he will preside over more jobs than at the end of the first term of any other president in the history of this country (Bush at about 130M jobs, Clinton the runner-up at about 122M jobs). Or how about this. With the possible exception of Clinton, the unemployment rate will be lower at the end of Bush's first term than the unemployment rate at the end of the first term for any other president since Nixon (Ford 77: 7.5%, Carter 81: 7.5%, Reagan 85: 7.3%, Bush I 93: 7.3%, Clinton 97: 5.3%, Bush II 05: 5.3-6.3%). I'm surprised Krugman didn't point out these interesting anomalies to provide a fair and balanced look at the data.
My statements are also meaningless of course. But I think this is an interesting example of "Figures don't spin, but spinners figure" or however that old saying goes.
I started with that introduction because I want to make it clear that I'm not going out of my way to criticize Krugman. It's just that when I follow links, I often end up at something Krugman has written, and as I've mentioned previously, usually his economic columns are (I think) pretty good.
However, in today's NY Times OpEd by Krugman, Too Low a Bar, the following made me roll my eyes:
"So Mr. Snow is predicting that his boss [Bush] will be the first occupant of the White House since Herbert Hoover to end a term with fewer jobs available than when he started. "
A pretty damning indictment of Bush's domestic economic policy, don't you think? Clearly the worst since Herbert Hoover started the great depression!
But wait a second, though the statement is true, does it really have any significant meaning? Might events, economic cycles, and sheer luck converge to produce an isolated statistic to make Bush look bad? Just for amusement, let's try some other spins of the data instead. It's also true that (barring catastrophic developments not projected by anybody including Krugman), that at the end of Bush's first term, he will preside over more jobs than at the end of the first term of any other president in the history of this country (Bush at about 130M jobs, Clinton the runner-up at about 122M jobs). Or how about this. With the possible exception of Clinton, the unemployment rate will be lower at the end of Bush's first term than the unemployment rate at the end of the first term for any other president since Nixon (Ford 77: 7.5%, Carter 81: 7.5%, Reagan 85: 7.3%, Bush I 93: 7.3%, Clinton 97: 5.3%, Bush II 05: 5.3-6.3%). I'm surprised Krugman didn't point out these interesting anomalies to provide a fair and balanced look at the data.
My statements are also meaningless of course. But I think this is an interesting example of "Figures don't spin, but spinners figure" or however that old saying goes.
Understanding The Past
Instead of trying to understand events or policy debates on an ad hoc basis it can helpful to relate them to circumstances in the past. Of course this only helps if you have a realistic sense of the relevant history (I know, everybody has their own take). Revisionism often becomes part of the political game.
These provisos aside, anyone interested in economics eventually asks questions about The Great Depression. The most basic question is what the f*** happened?!?! In very simple terms, it was the culmination of the collapse of the old political order (monarchy)in Europe (also in China)and a turning away from the market order of economy on a global level. I said the culmination because the wave of change had its origins in thoughts and events of the mid-1800s. Two really terrific books dealing with this era and the sweep of events into more recent times are Against The Dead Hand and Heaven On Earth. Some of these thoughts were utopian, some were based on class struggle(Marx) others were purely rationalist. If large scale industrial companies were the newest part of the economic landscape, wasn't this the wave of the future for how to organize all of society? Many people thought so. Along these various paths of thought and action the move towards statism was underway on a global scale - a rather grand experiment or exploration.
The forces loose in the world were larger than anything that domestic policy makers could contend with and they did not have the benefit of lessons culled from the past century. That forgiving note aside, what do I think happened? The Smoot-Hawley Tariff raised trade barriers to global trade. Domestic "trade barriers" were raised through huge hikes of income tax rates as part of an obsession over balancing budgets. A long list of New Deal policies prevented the economy from undergoing adjustments that would have allowed a resumption of growth. The attempt at centralized overcontrol made things worse. Both Hoover and Roosevelt were responsible for these policies. Also, the damage done to the banks a financial system crimped the availabilty of capital. Much of this is given a reasonable treatment in this Robert Bartley column. I would highlight this disturbing excerpt:
The New Deal, that is, was not about economic recovery, but about displacing business as the nation's predominant elite. FDR harked back to the founder of his party. In his 1832 veto of renewing the Bank's charter, Jackson complained that its profits went to foreigners and "a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class." Daniel Webster replied that the message "wantonly attacks whole classes of the people, for the purpose of turning against them the prejudices and the resentments of other classes." The tradition, of course, runs strong even today in the party of Jackson and Roosevelt.
That's where my study of the matter has led me.
These provisos aside, anyone interested in economics eventually asks questions about The Great Depression. The most basic question is what the f*** happened?!?! In very simple terms, it was the culmination of the collapse of the old political order (monarchy)in Europe (also in China)and a turning away from the market order of economy on a global level. I said the culmination because the wave of change had its origins in thoughts and events of the mid-1800s. Two really terrific books dealing with this era and the sweep of events into more recent times are Against The Dead Hand and Heaven On Earth. Some of these thoughts were utopian, some were based on class struggle(Marx) others were purely rationalist. If large scale industrial companies were the newest part of the economic landscape, wasn't this the wave of the future for how to organize all of society? Many people thought so. Along these various paths of thought and action the move towards statism was underway on a global scale - a rather grand experiment or exploration.
The forces loose in the world were larger than anything that domestic policy makers could contend with and they did not have the benefit of lessons culled from the past century. That forgiving note aside, what do I think happened? The Smoot-Hawley Tariff raised trade barriers to global trade. Domestic "trade barriers" were raised through huge hikes of income tax rates as part of an obsession over balancing budgets. A long list of New Deal policies prevented the economy from undergoing adjustments that would have allowed a resumption of growth. The attempt at centralized overcontrol made things worse. Both Hoover and Roosevelt were responsible for these policies. Also, the damage done to the banks a financial system crimped the availabilty of capital. Much of this is given a reasonable treatment in this Robert Bartley column. I would highlight this disturbing excerpt:
The New Deal, that is, was not about economic recovery, but about displacing business as the nation's predominant elite. FDR harked back to the founder of his party. In his 1832 veto of renewing the Bank's charter, Jackson complained that its profits went to foreigners and "a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class." Daniel Webster replied that the message "wantonly attacks whole classes of the people, for the purpose of turning against them the prejudices and the resentments of other classes." The tradition, of course, runs strong even today in the party of Jackson and Roosevelt.
That's where my study of the matter has led me.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
New Feature
I've added a comments capability. Each post has a "comment" link. If a reader (or one of us) clicks on it, he or she can enter and browse comments. I'm thinking this might (a) facilitate discussion amongst us since it's much quicker and easier to add a comment than a whole new post and (b) make the whole blog more interactive if we invite other people to read it or point people to links. If the comments get nastily out of hand because of outsiders, I'll have to shut it down, but let's give it a try for now.
Media dreck - nothing new
As Bret points out in Americans Are Losing the Victory, media portrayal of events or circumstances can be wildly misleading. Going back even further in time, New York Times columnist Walter Duranty reported how terrific things were in Stalin's paradise.
Duranty reported that Soviet citizens celebrated their “freedom” from religion by increasing factory production on religious holidays.
"...Duranty’s 1931 pieces were “very effective renditions of the Stalinist leadership’s style of self-understanding of their murderous and progressive project.”
Though Duranty has achieved lasting posthumous fame for covering up the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 in which as many as 10 million people died, the Pulitzer was awarded for his writing in 1931.
As reported here, Duranty might be stripped of his Pulitzer.
Duranty reported that Soviet citizens celebrated their “freedom” from religion by increasing factory production on religious holidays.
"...Duranty’s 1931 pieces were “very effective renditions of the Stalinist leadership’s style of self-understanding of their murderous and progressive project.”
Though Duranty has achieved lasting posthumous fame for covering up the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 in which as many as 10 million people died, the Pulitzer was awarded for his writing in 1931.
As reported here, Duranty might be stripped of his Pulitzer.
Free vs. Unfree
One of those simplistic dividing lines that can often provide illumination in a complex world is the difference between a free and unfree society. Communism/socialism, facism and the current Islamofacism are more similar than dissimilar as various faces of totalitarianism. There have been apologists for Communists around the world but they couldn't be more wrong. In yet another example of where this all leads to, I highly recommend this Claudia Rosett column.
Here is an excerpt:
The report presents the grim individual stories of 30 defectors interviewed by Mr. Hawk in-depth, and culled from these, to further clarify the customs of the camps, is a long list of the tortures described. "Worst of all," as the report puts it, is a roster of stories detailing the routine murder of babies born to prisoners, as told by eight separate eyewitnesses. One common denominator is that when pregnant women are forcibly repatriated after fleeing to China, it is policy to murder their newborns, because they might have been fathered by Chinese men. One account describes babies tossed on the ground to die, with their mothers forced to watch. In another interview, a former prisoner, a 66-year-old grandmother, identified as "Detainee #24" to protect relatives still perhaps alive in North Korea, describes being assigned to help in the delivery of babies who were thrown immediately into a plastic-lined box to die in bulk lots. The report notes: "The interviewer had difficulty finding words to describe the sadness in this grandmother's eyes and the anguish on her face as she recounted her experience as a midwife at the detention center in South Sinuiju"--one of the sites shown in detail in the accompanying satellite photos.
This is why all forms of totalitarianism are essentially a crime against humanity.
Holding forth on the importance of freedom, here is a pretty good little piece I received in an email:
FLOTSAM & JETSAM: An Army Of Principles - From John Pugsley, Chairman, Sovereign Society
"An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. Neither the channel nor the Rhine will arrest its progress. It will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer." -Thomas Paine (engraved on the headstone of Rose Wilder Lane)
"...Paine was correct in his belief that an army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. History shows us the power of adhering to principles; the stunning advances in science and technology are based on exactly this concept. Yet, the principles of freedom have failed to attract many followers. This is a tragic puzzle considering the consistent failure of governments. In our lifetimes we have witnessed the failure of communism and fascism and the stagnation of socialism. Leaving decisions and responsibilities in the hands of individuals produces progress and peace, while transferring them to the state leads to stagnation and conflict. Why then don't all thinking people join Paine's army of principles? The failure lies in the erroneous premises on which liberty's intellectual pioneers built the case for freedom. The philosophy of liberty was built on transcendental arguments, not on science. Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson, the great synthesizer of sociology and biology, identified the problem. "If we explore the biological roots of moral behavior and explain their material origins and biases, we should be able to fashion an enduring ethical consensus. We can't start out from a transcendental, a-priori starting point."... As biology, anthropology, and genetics advance, we are discovering the truth about human nature. From this is emerging the realization that nature endows no species with rights, but, through evolution, endows them only with a specific "nature." By understanding our own nature we have the opportunity to discover principles on which a new, more rational and scientific social contract can emerge. ...the most fundamental principle is that any workable system must leave individuals sovereign over their lives and property. For whenever an individual passes his or her sovereignty on to another person or group, those given power are bound by their natures to first weigh their own self-interest, before considering the interest of the person who has entrusted them with power. Power will tend to corrupt, as it always has..."
"It's tragic that this river of logic has not swept away mankind's dependence on the state," Pugsley continues. "In spite of prose from the likes of Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, John Locke, Frederic Bastiat, and 20th century giants like von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Lefevre and Rand, we seem further away from a world where individuals are sovereign. Wars rage, tyrants rule, and in the large democracies, the masses vote themselves into bondage."
Here is an excerpt:
The report presents the grim individual stories of 30 defectors interviewed by Mr. Hawk in-depth, and culled from these, to further clarify the customs of the camps, is a long list of the tortures described. "Worst of all," as the report puts it, is a roster of stories detailing the routine murder of babies born to prisoners, as told by eight separate eyewitnesses. One common denominator is that when pregnant women are forcibly repatriated after fleeing to China, it is policy to murder their newborns, because they might have been fathered by Chinese men. One account describes babies tossed on the ground to die, with their mothers forced to watch. In another interview, a former prisoner, a 66-year-old grandmother, identified as "Detainee #24" to protect relatives still perhaps alive in North Korea, describes being assigned to help in the delivery of babies who were thrown immediately into a plastic-lined box to die in bulk lots. The report notes: "The interviewer had difficulty finding words to describe the sadness in this grandmother's eyes and the anguish on her face as she recounted her experience as a midwife at the detention center in South Sinuiju"--one of the sites shown in detail in the accompanying satellite photos.
This is why all forms of totalitarianism are essentially a crime against humanity.
Holding forth on the importance of freedom, here is a pretty good little piece I received in an email:
FLOTSAM & JETSAM: An Army Of Principles - From John Pugsley, Chairman, Sovereign Society
"An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. Neither the channel nor the Rhine will arrest its progress. It will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer." -Thomas Paine (engraved on the headstone of Rose Wilder Lane)
"...Paine was correct in his belief that an army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. History shows us the power of adhering to principles; the stunning advances in science and technology are based on exactly this concept. Yet, the principles of freedom have failed to attract many followers. This is a tragic puzzle considering the consistent failure of governments. In our lifetimes we have witnessed the failure of communism and fascism and the stagnation of socialism. Leaving decisions and responsibilities in the hands of individuals produces progress and peace, while transferring them to the state leads to stagnation and conflict. Why then don't all thinking people join Paine's army of principles? The failure lies in the erroneous premises on which liberty's intellectual pioneers built the case for freedom. The philosophy of liberty was built on transcendental arguments, not on science. Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson, the great synthesizer of sociology and biology, identified the problem. "If we explore the biological roots of moral behavior and explain their material origins and biases, we should be able to fashion an enduring ethical consensus. We can't start out from a transcendental, a-priori starting point."... As biology, anthropology, and genetics advance, we are discovering the truth about human nature. From this is emerging the realization that nature endows no species with rights, but, through evolution, endows them only with a specific "nature." By understanding our own nature we have the opportunity to discover principles on which a new, more rational and scientific social contract can emerge. ...the most fundamental principle is that any workable system must leave individuals sovereign over their lives and property. For whenever an individual passes his or her sovereignty on to another person or group, those given power are bound by their natures to first weigh their own self-interest, before considering the interest of the person who has entrusted them with power. Power will tend to corrupt, as it always has..."
"It's tragic that this river of logic has not swept away mankind's dependence on the state," Pugsley continues. "In spite of prose from the likes of Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, John Locke, Frederic Bastiat, and 20th century giants like von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Lefevre and Rand, we seem further away from a world where individuals are sovereign. Wars rage, tyrants rule, and in the large democracies, the masses vote themselves into bondage."
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