Kevin Drum Tears a Strip

Kevin Drum is pissed. After the latest dismal job report—followed by the latest Krugman skewering—he has clearly had enough.

We are ruled by charlatans and cowards. Our economy is in the tank, we know what to do about it, and we're just not going to do it. The charlatans prefer instead to stand by and let people suffer because that's politically useful, while the cowards let them get away with it because it's politically risky to fight back. Ugh indeed.

The truly sad thing is that it's more politically risky not to fight back. David Plouffe aside, unemployment is going to have a massive effect on people's voting habits. They aren't going to give a tinker's damn about deficits or debts if the employment situation doesn't improve.

Hell, the only reason they care about either debts or deficits at all now is because a large part of the public has been convinced that cutting the deficit will help the job situation. It won't. Even the terrible economists grant that it won't. It still doesn't matter. If people are still lacking jobs, they'll "toss the bums out" no matter how solvent the government is. The politically wise move is not to give in.

Good luck convincing Washington Dems of that, though. They'll keep on following that deficit drumbeat right off the cliff, with Obama at their head. Some nutter like Bachmann will get the reins. Then the fun will TRULY begin.

Mark Fiore Blows One

So, uh, Mark? I know you're probably proud of that little cartoon you made—though I hope no kiddies see it, since that's apparently an issue—but you ARE aware that Kagan and Sotomayor and two other justices signed on with Scalia's opinion, right?

If you're going to go after Scalia for shitty decisions, you have loads of better choices than the one that crossed party and ideological lines.

Edit: Oh, and a columbine reference? REALLY? Mark Halperin just called, and he said "dick move, bro."

Mark Halperin Called the President of the United States "A Dick"

Don't believe me? Here's the little toad himself.



This is the state of America in 2011, folks. This is the state of the world.
He even joked about it. He said "do we have a seven second delay?" He thought about this. This wasn't a stupid outburst, this was PLANNED.

Mark Halperin, you just outed yourself as a fucking prick. Good job, asshat. I hope this suspension you got is permanent.

Edit: And while Greg Sargent is right that the problem is less the use of the word "dick" and more why he used the word "dick", it's part-and-parcel with a press corps that carries Republicans' water and treats Democrats with nothing but contempt. It's occasionally amiable contempt, sure, like they had for the Pelosi House and for the Clinton White House. But there's rarely any respect there, and never the sort of pants-wetting fear that they have of the Republicans and their various creatures.

I don't care that he used swears. He can call people dicks all day long. He's an asshat, they do that. What earned the suspension is the CONTEMPT.

Re-Edit: And here's David Axelrod earning the contempt, by saying all these nice things about a man who called his boss a dick.

David, he called your boss a dick. You're allowed to be mean to him. You're allowed to withhold your forgiveness, at least for a time. You're allowed to not act like his friend, because he is most assuredly NOT yours.

For once in your administration's life, treat the gutter hacks the way they deserve to be treated.

Jonathan Chait Carrying Republicans' Water??

Who'd have thunk it?

Keep in mind that the Chait-Lieberman-Coburn proposal would not only raise the age of Medicare, and not only force vulnerable seniors into a co-payment at the very point when Social Security is under assult, but would inevitably serve as starting point for the Republicans to negotiate away from. They would just pocket the advantage and scream for more, as they ALWAYS do.

Then again, should we expect anything else from someone who responded to an Evan Bayh tantrum by agreeing that "I hate a lot of left bloggers too?" One who responded to Jonah Goldberg's ludicrous whinging by pointing out all the times that he attacked (supposed) fellow progressives, so many that he (in his own words) "stopped copying links because my wrist got tired?"

(And then there's this destructive babble.)

You'd think he'd know better about trying to appease or support Republicans, or Republicans-lite like Lieberman. It doesn't matter how much he says that he hates "lefties", he's still going to get lumped in with them and attacked by the wingnuts he's trying so desperately to ingratiate himself with. It will NEVER be enough. But, hell, he'll keep on trying.

How could he not? He's with TNR. That's what they do.

Kos Sez It'll Be Bachmann

Kos did a whole thing about "Why Michele Bachmann will be the GOP nominee"

Michele Bachmann will be the GOP nominee.

Yeah, yeah—this could be wishful thinking. Bachmann would gift Obama a second term and would lead to another Democratic wave election in the House. And yeah, this assumes that Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin don't get into the race. But this is the age of Christine O'Donnell and Ken Buck. Republican primary voters don't give a damn about electability, but about casting a vote for the purest candidate.

Currently, there are three real candidates in the race—Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich is history, Rick Santorum is yesterday's news, Ron Paul is a niche product, John Hunstman has six supporters, and Herman Cain exists only to allow Republicans to say, "Some of my best friends are black!"

Of the three credible candidates, Bachmann easily wins the purity test. Romney has been on the other side of pretty much every issue of current importance to Republicans, while Pawlenty supported the individual mandate. They're toast.

But it's not just policy substance. The early GOP nomination calendar clearly favors Bachmann...

Kos then goes on to talk about the various early states and how they favor Bachmann. No idea if this will actually pan out, but it's plausible enough.

I'm very, very skeptical about Kos' declaration that this will be a gimme for Obama, though. Yes, Obama's clearly a more serious, sane candidate and certainly preferable to someone like Bachmann. But as I mentioned with the LulzSec thing, America's going through some very strange times right now. The whole reason why the GOP is acting this way is because there are a lot of rank-and-file Americans that are very angry with what's going on in their country—but whose ideology is preventing them from accepting the truth about exactly why their lives are so fucked up. It's not going away. It's only getting worse.

That anger, and that mistake, could spread all over the place. It was already responsible for the ridiculous GOP House takeover in 2010. It hasn't peaked. So why would Obama and his party be the beneficiaries? What if Bachmann strikes a chord?

Lulzsec and the Internet of Old

The hacker group Lulzsec, the ones that took down Sony, Nintendo, EVE Online, CIA.gov and the Senate's website, have just revealed what they're all about.

Dear Internets,

This is Lulz Security, better known as those evil bastards from twitter. We just hit 1000 tweets, and as such we thought it best to have a little chit-chat with our friends (and foes).

For the past month and a bit, we've been causing mayhem and chaos throughout the Internet, attacking several targets including PBS, Sony, Fox, porn websites, FBI, CIA, the U.S. government, Sony some more, online gaming servers (by request of callers, not by our own choice), Sony again, and of course our good friend Sony.

While we've gained many, many supporters, we do have a mass of enemies, albeit mainly gamers. The main anti-LulzSec argument suggests that we're going to bring down more Internet laws by continuing our public shenanigans, and that our actions are causing clowns with pens to write new rules for you. But what if we just hadn't released anything? What if we were silent? That would mean we would be secretly inside FBI affiliates right now, inside PBS, inside Sony... watching... abusing...

Do you think every hacker announces everything they've hacked? We certainly haven't, and we're damn sure others are playing the silent game. Do you feel safe with your Facebook accounts, your Google Mail accounts, your Skype accounts? What makes you think a hacker isn't silently sitting inside all of these right now, sniping out individual people, or perhaps selling them off? You are a peon to these people. A toy. A string of characters with a value.

This is what you should be fearful of, not us releasing things publicly, but the fact that someone hasn't released something publicly. We're sitting on 200,000 Brink users right now that we never gave out. It might make you feel safe knowing we told you, so that Brink users may change their passwords. What if we hadn't told you? No one would be aware of this theft, and we'd have a fresh 200,000 peons to abuse, completely unaware of a breach.

Yes, yes, there's always the argument that releasing everything in full is just as evil, what with accounts being stolen and abused, but welcome to 2011. This is the lulz lizard era, where we do things just because we find it entertaining. Watching someone's Facebook picture turn into a penis and seeing their sister's shocked response is priceless. Receiving angry emails from the man you just sent 10 dildos to because he can't secure his Amazon password is priceless. You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it. We release personal data so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it.

Most of you reading this love the idea of wrecking someone else's online experience anonymously. It's appealing and unique, there are no two account hijackings that are the same, no two suddenly enraged girlfriends with the same expression when you admit to killing prostitutes from her boyfriend's recently stolen MSN account, and there's certainly no limit to the lulz lizardry that we all partake in on some level.

And that's all there is to it, that's what appeals to our Internet generation. We're attracted to fast-changing scenarios, we can't stand repetitiveness, and we want our shot of entertainment or we just go and browse something else, like an unimpressed zombie. Nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan, anyway...

Nobody is truly causing the Internet to slip one way or the other, it's an inevitable outcome for us humans. We find, we nom nom nom, we move onto something else that's yummier. We've been entertaining you 1000 times with 140 characters or less, and we'll continue creating things that are exciting and new until we're brought to justice, which we might well be. But you know, we just don't give a living fuck at this point - you'll forget about us in 3 months' time when there's a new scandal to gawk at, or a new shiny thing to click on via your 2D light-filled rectangle. People who can make things work better within this rectangle have power over others; the whitehats who charge $10,000 for something we could teach you how to do over the course of a weekend, providing you aren't mentally disabled.

This is the Internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of satisfaction. There are peons and lulz lizards; trolls and victims. There's losers that post shit they think matters, and other losers telling them their shit does not matter. In this situation, we are both of these parties, because we're fully aware that every single person that reached this final sentence just wasted a few moments of their time.

Thank you, bitches.

Lulz Security

So they're basically Ledger's Joker, attempting to "introduce a little anarchy" as an "agent of chaos".They're highlighting just how insecure people really are online; how their information is being bought, sold, traded and used without their knowledge. They're also getting a bunch of cheap laffs in the process.

But, honestly, what they really seem to be doing is bringing the OLD INTERNET back. The one you warned your kids about and protected them from. The one where you'd be nuts to give personal information online. The one where you needed to keep your identity under wraps. Where you only did online shopping if you were absolutely confident in it. Where you had to be aware that there were Bad People out there who would mess with you for the sheer joy of it.

That Internet never really went away. It was just carefully obscured. You still aren't really safe. You still have to be careful with your credit card info. You still have to supervise your kids' activities online. You should still keep personal things off the Internet unless its necessary. You should still trust Zuckerberg's whole operation about as far as you can throw it.  You should still consider using pseudonyms unless using your real name is necessary.

I don't condone this. It isn't even close to ethical. Like the Joker, though, I'm not convinced that they care. If this shows people that they need to be a lot more careful online, it might end up doing some good.

The American Worker's Depression

Here's a chart from Talking Points Memo. It shows the American worker's share of national income.

The rebound in workers' income share after the early 2000s recession simply never materialized. As a result, this figure is now at by far its lowest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track of it in 1947.

There isn't much to add, is there? This is probably why Obama Admin people think that there's a recovery while regular joes think that America's going into a depression. For them, it has.

Krugman and the Rentiers

Sometimes, it's just better to quote.

The latest economic data have dashed any hope of a quick end to America’s job drought, which has already gone on so long that the average unemployed American has been out of work for almost 40 weeks. Yet there is no political will to do anything about the situation. Far from being ready to spend more on job creation, both parties agree that it’s time to slash spending — destroying jobs in the process — with the only difference being one of degree.

Nor is the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, acknowledged the grimness of the economic picture but indicated that he will do nothing about it.

And debt relief for homeowners — which could have done a lot to promote overall economic recovery — has simply dropped off the agenda. The existing program for mortgage relief has been a bust, spending only a tiny fraction of the funds allocated, but there seems to be no interest in revamping and restarting the effort.

The situation is similar in Europe, but arguably even worse. In particular, the European Central Bank’s hard-money, anti-debt-relief rhetoric makes Mr. Bernanke sound like William Jennings Bryan.

What lies behind this trans-Atlantic policy paralysis? I’m increasingly convinced that it’s a response to interest-group pressure. Consciously or not, policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of rentiers — those who derive lots of income from assets, who lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else’s expense.

Of course, that’s not the way what I call the Pain Caucus makes its case. Instead, the argument against helping the unemployed is framed in terms of economic risks: Do anything to create jobs and interest rates will soar, runaway inflation will break out, and so on. But these risks keep not materializing. Interest rates remain near historic lows, while inflation outside the price of oil — which is determined by world markets and events, not U.S. policy — remains low.

And against these hypothetical risks one must set the reality of an economy that remains deeply depressed, at great cost both to today’s workers and to our nation’s future. After all, how can we expect to prosper two decades from now when millions of young graduates are, in effect, being denied the chance to get started on their careers?

Ask for a coherent theory behind the abandonment of the unemployed and you won’t get an answer. Instead, members of the Pain Caucus seem to be making it up as they go along, inventing ever-changing rationales for their never-changing policy prescriptions.

While the ostensible reasons for inflicting pain keep changing, however, the policy prescriptions of the Pain Caucus all have one thing in common: They protect the interests of creditors, no matter the cost. Deficit spending could put the unemployed to work — but it might hurt the interests of existing bondholders. More aggressive action by the Fed could help boost us out of this slump — in fact, even Republican economists have argued that a bit of inflation might be exactly what the doctor ordered — but deflation, not inflation, serves the interests of creditors. And, of course, there’s fierce opposition to anything smacking of debt relief.

Who are these creditors I’m talking about? Not hard-working, thrifty small business owners and workers, although it serves the interests of the big players to pretend that it’s all about protecting little guys who play by the rules. The reality is that both small businesses and workers are hurt far more by the weak economy than they would be by, say, modest inflation that helps promote recovery.

No, the only real beneficiaries of Pain Caucus policies (aside from the Chinese government) are the rentiers: bankers and wealthy individuals with lots of bonds in their portfolios.

And that explains why creditor interests bulk so large in policy; not only is this the class that makes big campaign contributions, it’s the class that has personal access to policy makers — many of whom go to work for these people when they exit government through the revolving door. The process of influence doesn’t have to involve raw corruption (although that happens, too). All it requires is the tendency to assume that what’s good for the people you hang out with, the people who seem so impressive in meetings — hey, they’re rich, they’re smart, and they have great tailors — must be good for the economy as a whole.

But the reality is just the opposite: creditor-friendly policies are crippling the economy. This is a negative-sum game, in which the attempt to protect the rentiers from any losses is inflicting much larger losses on everyone else. And the only way to get a real recovery is to stop playing that game.

All I can add to this at the moment is to remind people that when Republicans and their lot talk about "job creators" and "spurring investment" and the like, they're really talking about policies that benefit these Rentiers. The problem, as Krugman exhaustively showed, is that these people DON'T necessarily create jobs. They can plow money into investments that create jobs, yes, but they can also plow it into arcane financial instruments, real estate bubbles, and (now) food and commodities. That doesn't benefit anybody except them; and to the extent that it hurts the economy, it doesn't even benefit them, not really.

The other stunning thing about this article is that it shows just how radicalized basically-moderate economists like Prof. Krugman have become. He's not the only example of a scientist driven to radicalism in the face of the state's capture by its most short-sighted and least competent members—climatologists are becoming more radical by the day as well—but it's rather shocking when you compare it to his old "dismal science" articles. He's all but admitting that the old lines about economic self interest are falling apart in the face of classism and cronyism.

That doesn't invalidate him. Far from it. A bit of radicalism is the only sane response in these mad times. It shows, instead, just how far his compatriots have fallen. If they're going along with these apocalyptically stupid and destructive policies, what does it say about them

Edit: He also points to the solution: if you want to get sorted out, follow Iceland's lead and default, instead of following Ireland's lead of austerity.

By the 1%

Good piece by Joe Stiglitz about income inequality in last month's Vanity Fair . Hadn't highlighted it then, but would like to do so now.

Its last paragraph makes a point worth repeating:

Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

Well put. One of the problems with America's (and the world's) growing inequality is that the elite forget that their fate is bound up in the fate of everybody else. To be altruistic isn't solely self-interest, as some economists seem to pretend, but you'd have to be pretending really hard not to realize that a certain level of community-consciousness is a smart move for even the wealthiest American.

Then again, considering their money appears to mostly go towards a mixture of lobbying and bubble-inflation, perhaps I'm giving them too much credit.

The Republicans Want to Cause a Bond Panic....

...just so that they can gut what remains of America's social safety net, and by extension its middle class.

And, as digby points out, along with Stan Collander,  the Dems appear to be perfectly willing to go along with it.

He says that just because the Republicans get their wish for a failure of a clean vote, it does not necessarily follow that they would vote for a "dirty" one either. He feels this vote is entirely a kabuki dance that's necessary (because of the polls saying people don't want to raise the debt ceiling) for the Republicans to record a "no" vote no matter what's in it.

So basically, the Democrats are sacrificing their position so that Republicans can be comfortable voting to raise the ceiling with spending cuts in a couple of months. If Collander is right, the Democrats are even stupider than usual. It's a twisted good cop/bad cop scene where the Republican base applauds its leaders for being tough guys and the Democratic base hand theirs a hankie and commiserates with their powerlessness. (And then the leadership goes out and has a cup of coffee and a donut, or in more common parlance -- Tipnronnie have a drink together.)

Digby has a point. That seems fits both bases quite nicely. The Republican base gets to celebrate a Republican victory, whereas the Democratic base gets to mourn one.

Collander does allude to an end game that seems to be making its way into the beltway ether:

Many Members publicly insist that a big “no” vote on a clean bill will have little to no effect on financial markets. But here’s another dirty little secret: There is a growing suspicion that, like what happened the day after the House rejected the Troubled Asset Relief Program in September 2008 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by almost 7 percent, such a vote could quickly change market perceptions of the situation and have a substantial negative effect on interest rates and equity prices.

It’s even possible that’s part of the plan. Former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said last week that it is going to be difficult to get Members of Congress to agree to increase the debt ceiling without some kind of “turbulence” in the bond market. A big “no” vote on a debt ceiling increase bill could easily accelerate that type of disturbance in the financial force. Indeed, it might be what’s needed to precipitate it and the leadership may be counting on that happening.It’s even possible that’s part of the plan. Former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said last week that it is going to be difficult to get Members of Congress to agree to increase the debt ceiling without some kind of “turbulence” in the bond market. A big “no” vote on a debt ceiling increase bill could easily accelerate that type of disturbance in the financial force. Indeed, it might be what’s needed to precipitate it and the leadership may be counting on that happening.

 So that's where it stands. After all the bullshit about building confidence by cutting spending, we now have a Republican party that's preparing to DEMOLISH confidence by cutting spending.  Notice the common theme, there? It isn't about building a strong economy. It's about driving taxes to zero for their ultra-monied friends and clientele, while simultaneously driving wages to rock-bottom by making people so desperate that they'll accept absolutely anything.

Digby again:

I don't know what kind of sick nihilism makes a scenario like that remotely possible, but again, I don't believe it. We are talking about Big Money here and there are a lot of things that aren't working right in this country right now, but the greed mechanism isn't one of them. I don't believe "the markets" are going along with that plan. And I don't think even the Republicans are going to take that kind of risk going into an election year.

But if these people are actually planning a financial panic in order to destroy the safety net, can someone explain to me just how it is they can possibly be considered anything but criminals? This isn't a joke. Panics have a way of getting out of hand --- it's not like you can wave a magic wand and it stops. At the very least can we at least admit that every single sentence they've ever uttered about the desperate need for market "confidence" and "uncertainty" was unadulterated rubbish? (If this happens keep an eye on the short sellers because somebody's going to make money on it and you have to assume the people who caused it are among them ...)

The Democrats can turn this clean vote against the Republicans if they want to. The polls may say that the people don't want the debt ceiling raised, but they also don't want the government shut down, Medicare to get privatized and the economy to get worse. If the Democrats have even a modicum of guts they'll relentlessly hammer this vote home for the next two months as a sign of the Republicans' willingness to do anything to destroy Medicare, even destroy the economy. There are several months of negotiations ahead and they could tie this albatross around their necks right along with the dead Ryan plan if they want to. The real question is whether they want to.

Well, that's the rub, isn't it? I disagree with digby that this is implausible. It's extraordinarily plausible, and will pay off big for the Republicans and their buddies. Going along with this program of tax cuts WILL mean that the Democrats will get punished. The Republicans will get away with selling the cuts by lying about their economic impact and because they'll retain the support of their deluded base. The Dems will watch as their base simply doesn't bother to vote. The "swing" voters won't help the Dems, either; they'll go to whichever party can promise that they won't be homeless in two years, and the Republicans will be more than happy to swoop in with supply-side horseshit about how this engineered panic will ultimately help "job creators".


It's a lie, of course.  the whole POINT of this thing is to demolish the middle class and loot the wreckage left behind for every nickel. The middle-class will be poor, the poor will be destitute, and America's income distribution will look like something out of the third world. But, hey, that's what Republicans are ABOUT, now, isn't it?

Digby's right in saying that the Dems could turn this around. The Republicans are taking it on the chin for this anti-Medicare bullshit of theirs. The Dems could absolutely savage the Republicans for using this sort of game to threaten America's economy. They probably won't do it, though. If they had THAT sort of sense, they wouldn't have gotten their asses kicked last year after a recession which should have discredited the Republicans once and for all.

Edit: And, yes, the Republicans are probably gunning for a bond panic.  They've been hoping for one for years, because rising interest rates would give them the cover they need to insist that America's turning into Zimbabwe. When the current situation just isn't supporting your story, why not create the situation yourself?

Britain Discovers David Brooks and Vice Versa

At least one Briton doesn't appear to be a fan. Daniel Knowles has what appears to be a very entertaining time ripping up Brooks' babbling paen.

It honestly couldn't be difficult no matter where you are. "Britain is working"? Really, David? The country is living proof that the sort of austerity you've advocated is absolute rubbish (as the Brits would say), and it's been convulsed by protests and, yes, out and out riots.

But Daniel, well, he knows better:

Let’s take a few choice bits, starting with the opening section. Apparently, from 1900 to 1920:

Britain faced an enormous task: To move from an aristocratic political economy to a democratic, industrial one. This transition was made gradually, without convulsion, with both parties playing a role.

Gradually? Without convulsion? I don’t know if you’re aware of this David, but most British historians believe that the First World War was pretty convulsive. And definitely not very gradual. He seems to think that Britain cast off her aristocratic rulers by a process of “constructive competition.” In fact, what happened was that we went to war, conscripted millions of young men and sent them to France to be machine-gunned. Simultaneously, our government was taken over by a clique, led by Lloyd George, which ruled autocratically from a garden shed in No 10 Downing Street. Meanwhile, a whole part of the country – Ireland – descended into civil war. Somehow, I don’t see that as a “gradual” transformation.

I'd noticed that too. What on earth would possess Brooks to opine that British history is "peaceful"?

And then there's this:

But perhaps he has a better grasp of our politics? Well, no. Take this:

Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

Prep school? I’m afraid I think Mr Brooks is referring to public school (Eton, I expect) though Boris Johnson does, of course, share a primary school with Ed Miliband. That aside, the statement is still ludicrous – is being ruled by a clique of Oxford PPEist ex-public-school boys really what you would call a functioning political culture? And if so, how does that chime with the claim that we’re “democratic”?

It is obvious why this man is popular in Westminster – he is telling us how perfect we all are. But this self-indulgent ego-boosting nonsense is just what we need to get away from. While our politicos go around slapping themselves on the backs about how utterly indescribably and uniquely brilliant they all are, the British public hates them more than ever. In fact, it’s all a little bit like that place Mr Brooks knows so much better – the United States!

This really is outrageous. So the reason why the British system is supposed to work is because the country is ruled by an incestuous mob of upper-class twits? I can see how that would appeal to Brooks, considering his day job as an apologist for America's own incestuous mob of upper-class twits. But the fact that America's twits aren't all singing from the same hymnbook isn't something to moan about, especially considering how sad and useless those hymns have been.

(How sad and useless? Just ask Paul Ryan.)

Daniel ably points out that it just means that the public hates the lot of them. That's one of the reasons for that temporary Cleggsplosion in the last election, though that's long since dead now that Clegg decided to prop up Cameron for reasons which still escape me. It's the reason why the Scottish Nationalists kicked ass in the last election. Hell, it's not even just an British thing: anti-European parties are getting votes and seats all over Europe thanks to the ECB's obsession with austerity at the expense of all else. They're at the point where the Euro itself may be endangered, and Brooks thinks that this WORKS?

Well, no. He probably doesn't. He did mention those past local elections. He focused on Cameron's numbers and steadfastly ignored the Scottish embarrassment and the way that the Lib Dems were punished for propping up Cameron. He ignores what that suggests: that a majority of Britons think that he's a disaster, barring his True Believers, and that those with another option (like, say, the Scots) are picking it. And he's ignoring the riots that have convulsed Britain, that show that those who don't like Cameron REALLY don't like Cameron, just as people REALLY didn't like Thatcher.

No, it's just Brooks. He is, once again, ignoring anything and anybody that might contradict his banal little stories. He's playing his little game of pretending that if only everybody got along and agreed with David Brooks, things would be so much better. They wouldn't—but don't try telling HIM that.

Edit: And here's Greenwald!

It has long been the supreme fantasy of establishment guardians in general, and David Brooks in particular, that American politics would be dominated by an incestuous, culturally homogeneous, superior elite "who live in [Washington] and who have often known each other since prep school." And while these establishment guardians love to endlessly masquerade as spokespeople for the Ordinary American, what they most loathe is the interference by the dirty rabble in what should be their exclusive, harmonious club of political stewardship, where conflicts are amicably resolved by ladies and gentlemen of the highest breeding without any messy public conflict.

Very elegant way of expressing it. It's funny how many Americans seem to have this really deep envy of Britain's class system. Sure, they lionize the founders and all, and they don't want a King, exactly...but wouldn't it be nice if the oiks just learned their place?

The WSJ's Convenient Whistleblower Protection

Boingboing has a good piece today about the Wall Street Journal's somewhat useless "whistleblower" site, Safehouse. By all accounts, it's not very good. It's actually insecure as hell. Even worse, though, it doesn't really protect you from much. Here's the EULA:

"Except when we have a separately negotiated confidentiality agreement… we reserve the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process, to operate our systems properly, to protect the property or rights of Dow Jones or any affiliated companies, and to safeguard the interests of others."

Law enforcement is bad enough; much of this whistleblower stuff is about authority. But the real kick to the teeth is the other part. Releasing information "to a requesting third party...to safeguard the interests of others?" The interests of who, exactly?

Think about it a little, though, and it becomes clear. This is a selective whistleblower protection scheme. If you're whistleblowing against someone that the WSJ and its owners like, then you'll get all the protection you could ever ask for. Say something about how Obama's a jerk, or upload some misleading bilge about how the Demmycrats are sizing you up for the Death Panels, or babble some horseshit about birth certificates, and not only will you get protection and anonymity, you'll get the credibility that comes with being a whistleblower for the Journal.

Say anything mean about the Republicans, the Tea Partiers, or any big corp that the WSJ has any relationship with whatsoever, and they'll hang our ass out to dry so fast it'll make your head spin. They'll probably just sit on it long enough to figure out what kind of nonsense they need to grunt out in order to discredit you. Hell, they'll probably "whistleblow" on you for that time you were addicted to Fresh kitten-kebabs back on '97.

(What's that? You've never enjoyed a nice kitty-bab in your life? Don't worry. By the time their anonymous, newly-credible "whistleblowers" are done with you, your own children will think that you can barely stand to eat anything but.)

So, no, it isn't useful, and you shouldn't trust it. It's another goddamned tool for the goddamned conservative movement. It's just another way for them to use their wealthy backers' big wads of cash to grant them legitimacy they don't deserve, and control they should never, ever have.

Casey Mulligan's Strawman and the Numbers/Words Divide

It's nice to know that being a big-time University of Chicago economist writing in the New York Times doesn't preclude you from acting like a marginal blogger and beating the holy hell out of a strawman.

So we see, today, in Casey Mulligan's piece in the Times' Economix column, where he takes cheap shots at what he calls "New Keynesianism". Trying to take down a school of thought in a few paragraphs was a dubious mission at best to begin with, but I immediately noticed that his only actual source on what New Keynesianism is was the electric goop between his ears.

Professor Paul Krugman, Keynesian extraordinaire, agrees:

I’ve been asked for reactions to Casey Mulligan’s piece about the failure of New Keynesian economics.The short answer is, he should try reading a bit of Keynesian economics — old or new, it doesn’t matter — before “explaining” what’s wrong with it. For the doctrine he’s attacking bears no resemblance to anything Keynesians are saying.

This is fairly typical of freshwater economists. They know that what the other side is saying is obviously stupid, so there’s no need to read it; they picked up enough about it talking to some guy in a bar, or whatever, to criticize it...

...he presents as “the New Keynesian position” something that is just what he imagines, on casual reflection (or, again, maybe after talking to some guy in a bar) to be the New Keynesian position.

OK, so from now on I’ll assert that the Chicago position on unemployment is that we can cure it by sacrificing goats. Hey, I heard that somewhere — no need to actually read anything they say, right?

So, yeah, strawman. Krugman goes into greater detail about why the Mulligan piece is wrong, but you could pretty much assume it was wrong going in, so no worries there.

What surprises me, though, is just how much this differs from other social sciences. Citing is sacrosanct there. You simply don't refer to an idea or a position or a theory without pointing to someone, somewhere, that defines exactly what that theory is. (Something beyond Mulligan's half-assed links to "Investopedia".) It just goes to show what Noah Smith was talking about when he decried his graduate instruction in economics as little more than getting force-fed DSGE modelling with little instruction in real-world economics and even less instruction in competing economic theories. If you think that the only thing that matters is plugging numbers into a model, why on earth would you care about silly things like citing sources? Numbers are objective! Their only source is Divine Providence!

It points to a deep, deep problem that we are starting to have as a civilization. We know numbers. We know how to manipulate numbers. We have fantastic devices of unimaginable power in manipulating numbers. Humans, though, aren't fantastic at manipulating numbers. We're good at it. Some of us are really good at it.

No, what humans are really good at is manipulating words. Even the least of us has a greater faculty with words than all but the best of us do with numbers. We know words. We're familiar with words. We're not just good at it, we're fantastic at it. Best on the planet, maybe even best in the universe. Go, us.

Since we're familiar with words, we know not to trust words. That's why we focus on things like citation. People lie and misrepresent and omit and use rhetoric and all the rest to manipulate words to their advantage. You've seen it. You may have even used it. That makes us skeptical about words. We demand sources, and citations, and literature reviews, and all that other lovely academic folderol. We know better.

So when we delve into the world of numbers, many of us—maybe even most of us—set aside that healthy skepticism. We presume that "numbers can't lie". We presume, in turn, that quantitative, formal modelling can't be a lie. It can be wrong, but even then, we presume that it's the numbers that will prove the model wrong. If the numbers fit, then it must be true, right?

It isn't true. A model is just an opinion. It's the quantitative equivalent of saying "Colonel Mustard, in the Library, with the Pipe" in a game of Clue. It might be true. It might not. Certain choices of numbers might show it to be true. Others might show it to be false. Others might mean nothing at all. It's a theory. Words, numbers, whatever, that's how theories work.

That means you can indeed lie or misinform or misdirect with numbers. Choosing one set of numbers and ignoring another set might "prove" the model you want. The process of turning qualitative factors into quantitative variables ("operationalization") might also "prove" the model you want. And, hell, if the numbers prove multiple sets of models—which happens—picking one model and ignoring the rest can also "prove" the model you want. All of these are lying with numbers. They can happen. They do happen. Constantly.

I don't think that Casey's lying with numbers. I do think that Casey doesn't really realize what he's doing. He (and many others) forget that the same sort of care that we take with theories in words also needs to be taken with theories in numbers. You have to teach and learn and cite these theories, so that you aren't vulnerable to those who attempt to lie with numbers, and you aren't susceptible to making mistakes with your number-theories that amount to unwitting lies.

Most importantly, you have to be very careful to present the theories as they are, instead of how you think they are. If you don't, you end up like Casey Mulligan: beating the holy hell out of a strawman made of numbers.

Osama's Dead, and Obama Got Him

Yep. It's true. That bastard's toast, and it was the demmycrat that was responsible.

Not even in a figurative sense, either. Go read Chris Bowers' Twitter feed. Obama was given the information back in February, chaired the meetings that set out the operation while they confirmed the location, and gave the go-ahead on Friday.

Bowers quotes officials as saying "Administration officials believe bin Laden's death will put Al-Qaeda on path of decline that will be difficult to reverse." Can't disagree there. They were already on the downslope; this is going to be a body blow that will likely be the end of the organization. We can only hope.

It's instructive, though. Eight years of Republican rule, and nothing happens. After a little over two years, it's the Democrats that get it done. It's just another reminder of how incompetent the Republicans really are. I can only hope that, when 2012 rolls around, the American people will remember that too.

(Edit: fixed tags.)

Hamas/Fatah Pact?

No idea if this is true, but according to one source, it may be that Hamas and Fatah are putting their differences behind them.

Earlier on Wednesday delegations headed by Musa Abu Marzoka, member of Hamas Politburo member, and Azzam al-Ahmad, member of Fatah central committee started talks to reach the long awaited unity deal mediated by the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Nabeel al-Arabi.

Sources close to Azzam al-Ahmad of Fatah told PNN that the deal have in fact been signed adding that al-Ahmad and Abu Marzoka will announced the deal in a press conference at 8:00 PM ( 9:00 PM local Palestinian time).

In a phone call from Cairo al-Ahmad told PNN “we have reached reconciliation deal and both Fatah and Hamas have signed it.”

According to sources in Cairo that Fatah and Hamas signed the initial deal, while other Palestinian groups will arrive in Cairo within a week to sign the deal as well.

Given that it's in the Times as well, it's probably credible.

Wow. And I'd thought the stories about Canada possibly ending up under a social democratic government were surprising. THIS could change the face of the entire region.

"Contractionary Policies, It Turns Out, Are Contractionary"

Ireland? Under Austerity, it ain't doing so well. Greece? Under Austerity, also not doing so well.

So, as is usually the case, Krugman called it. He knew that austerity wouldn't work. He predicted austerity wouldn't work. He was razzed for predicting that austerity wouldn't work. But lo and behold...austerity doesn't work.

Which means, as he pointed out, that Keynesian analysis DOES. It may not describe a world as elegant as you see in RBC models. For the world we actually live in, though, it's still the best choice.

Eliminationist Difference

Courtesy of Alicublog, we see Ann Althouse whining about how Paul Krugman is as "eliminationist" as the people he criticizes. What's the justification? Because he talks about shooting a "zombie lie" in the head.

Okay, Ann? Here's the thing. HIS comment was about a concept. It was about an idea. That's it. He's extending his zombie metaphor and referencing the way that people stop zombies.

Your commentators, on the other hand, are (just from a quick scan) suggesting that Prof. Krugman himself be raped and murdered. Not necessarily in that order. For suggesting that taxes should be more progressive.

THAT, friend, is the difference.

(Oddly enough, that isn't the part that annoys me. What truly annoys me is "democrat party". It really shows what a stupid, petty, childish bunch of passive-aggressive children these people can be.)

Happy Easter

Hope it's a good one.

Really, Matt?

Is this seriously what you have descended to? Have you forgotten EVERYTHING anybody ever told you about health care economics?

Yes, okay, Klein was arguing with Megan McArdle. That's an inherently difficult task: it's rough to debate economics and policy with someone who hasn't the faintest clue about anything—least of all economics and policy. But that's no excuse for saying "I think seniors should just be given cash instead of Medicare". There IS no excuse for that.

Harper and Iggy in 2011

Saw a traffic spike to an old piece of mine on Ignatieff from 2006. So I re-read it. And one paragraph seemed more relevant than any other...though perhaps not the one the linkers intended.

That's not to say he'd be a worse Prime Minister than Stephen Harper, of course. Stephen Harper is a zealous market fundamentalist; a neoconservative exploiting a base of social conservatives to gain the kind of autocratic power that only a Canadian Prime Minister at the head of a majority government can enjoy. We've already seen that he wants to control the government from his own desk, and the only check on his ambitions is the reality that he only controls a minority government. That's why every single thing he's done since the end of January has been turned towards winning that majority; from budgetmaking, to speechmaking, to muzzling his ministers, all of it is aimed at gaining power. Nobody knows what Harper would do with that power, but I imagine it would be to do his damnedest to remake Canada in the image of Howard's Australia and Thatcher's England. Needless to say, anybody would prefer Ignatieff to THAT.

I actually think Ignatieff has changed. I still prefer Dion or Rae to Ignatieff, but "Iggy" has moderated his tone, and has handed off the lead on foreign policy to Bob Rae.

Meanwhile, if anything, Stephen Harper has become worse. He seems to be working hard to become the most autocratic leader of any democracy in the english-speaking world. He cows his party and the public service at the same time, and lies with impunity only when he can't simply ignore you. A Harper majority would be disastrous, and the only reason anybody could possibly think otherwise is that much of Canada's media is so bizarrely right-wing—compared to the public—that they seem to welcome the prospect of a Thatcherite Canada.

Just to be clear, and I'm saying this as a once-strident Ignatieff critic: Given the choice between Ignatieff and Harper, I'd choose Ignatieff in a flash.