National Journal Magazine - The Tea Party Paradox

A pollster isolated in a prison cell for the past five years, with access to polling data but no other news, would have had no trouble spotting the breaking away of Republican-leaning independents, and she probably would have identified it as the most curious and potentially consequential change in the country's partisan structure. When, on release from isolation, she learned about the tea party's emergence, she would not have been at all surprised -- except, perhaps, to wonder why it took so long. Indeed, if the tea party movement had not arisen, something else a lot like it probably would have.

So who wins from the rise of debranded Republicans? In the short-term, almost certainly the GOP. In 2010, debranded Republicans will be voting against Democrats, and at high rates: Like Republicans, three-fourths of them tell Pew they are "absolutely certain" to vote, a figure that puts their enthusiasm 10 percentage points ahead of Democrats'.

via nationaljournal.com

That's the first half of the paradox. The second half comes in 2012, where it may be that a GOP with the tea party in the vanguard can't win nationally. Especially if Obama moves toward the middle and the economy shows some signs of recovery.

This was interesting throughout, be sure to check out the link for much more detail.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Marginal Revolution: *Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea*

*Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea*

The author is C. Bradley Thompson and this new book is in broad terms an Objectivist ("Randian") critique of neoconservatism and Leo Strauss.  Here is one summary bit:

Inevitably, the neocons are epistemological relativists (though of an anti-egalitarian nature), which is the source, as we shall see momentarily, of their moral relativism.  Because the political good in their world is mutable and always changing, the neoconservatives do not want fixed principles to which they are hbeholden, nor do they strive to be morally or politically consistent.  Their power and authority is generated and sustained by the illusion that the world is in a state of constant change and that it is governed by what Machiavelli called fortuna.  The truth or falsity of an idea is, according to the neocons, determined by its usefulness in a particular situation and for particular people.  What is true today, they argue, may not be true tomorrow if an idea or an action fails to work in new and different situations.  In such a world, there can be no certainty, no absolutes, no fixed moral principles.

via marginalrevolution.com

Be sure to check out the link for Tyler's take on politics vs. principles.

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One Million Washingtons to Tear Down Washington Commons

House OKs $1M to raze Green Bay's old downtown mall | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press Gazette

Federal funding for demolition of Green Bay’s vacant downtown shopping mall has cleared the full House of Representatives.

U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, announced today that $1 million for the mall project was included in an appropriations bill approved by the House late Thursday.

I searched the Constitution for the section that spells out how tearing down defunct shopping malls should be bankrolled by the federal government, but my search was in vain. No such section exists. Someone please alert Steve Kagen's office.

Kagen, Cranberries, & Curveballs

Kagen's ever changing stance on earmarks... - THE Party of KNOW

Here's a list of his 2010 earmark requests -- including the Cranberry Research Initiative; http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/earmarks/?fy=2010&sf=WI&df=8&st=requested. What is your response to reading this list?

The Cranberry Research Initiative is in partnership with the state of Massachusetts. Now we know what Kagen was talking about during his fundraiser featuring the Boston Red Sox.  I should have guessed it was cranberries.

The American Conservative » Is Big Government Here to Stay?

What GOP boosters studiously ignore is why the welfare state is so popular. It educates the young and through its growing political control, socializes or re-socializes adults. It not only sends us Social Security payments but also uses its power, including control of the public purse, to get us to act the way it wants. Government oversees education and behavior by how it distributes or withholds money and by how it enforces anti-discrimination codes. Public intervention in what used to be the private sector has grown furiously since the 1960s. What the New Deal brought forth pales in comparison to how public administration has exploded in the last 50 years.

Equally important, the volume of disposable income available to American families is now several times greater than what it was 50 years ago. Americans have become used to living with lots of gadgets and frills, and they expect government to furnish them with the services they don’t want to make allowances for, e.g., paying their medical expenses and the costs of their children’s education. Significantly, as fat and intrusive as government has become since the 1950s, it has taken less from taxpayers than the growth of their buying power has added in the same time period. Those regions with the highest incomes, such as Connecticut, are also the most receptive to government growth and control.

via amconmag.com

Unfortunately, the answer may very well be yes.

When opposition to Obamacare features protesters exhorting the government to get their hands off of Medicare, the battle may already be lost.

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The Instruction at This School Is Terrible - and the Days Are so Short!

I'm trying really hard not to sound wing-nutty on this one, but man it's hard.

Matthew Yglesias » Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic of American Education-Related Social Stratification

If you were to start writing a list of the problems faced by poor people in the United States of America you’d run out of paper long before you got to elite university admissions policies. Poor kids start school already behind their higher-SES peers. They are then disproportionately concentrated in low-performing schools featuring ineffective teachers. And when they’re in school is the lucky time! Every summer, the schools shut down and poor kids fall further behind their middle class peers. If they depend on the school lunch program to feed them, well then they’re out of luck come summertime on the eating front as well as the schooling front.

"Out of luck on the eating front," huh? Yglesias is a Harvard Grad, so I'm pretty sure he knows where babies come from. Don't these kids have parents?  If their parents won't feed them, aren't there laws against that?  If their parents can't feed them, isn't that what we have government assistance for?  Of course, cutting out the parent and going straight to the kids is a good plan if your ultimate goal is something other than nutrition.

Setting that aside, Yglesias notes that part of the problem is the fact that poor kids are "concentrated in low-performing schools featuring ineffective teachers."  What is the response of the Obama administration to this problem, you ask.  More time spent in those same schools!  Here is Education Secretary Arne Duncan (H/T Dad29):

“In all seriousness, I think schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year,” Duncan said. “This is not just more of the same. There would be a whole variety of after-school programs. Obviously academics would be at the heart of that. But you top it off with dancing, art, drama, music, yearbook, robotics, activities for older siblings and parents, ESL classes.”

Draw your own conclusion.  A few more years of education policy like this and most people won't even be able to do that.

The United Mistakes of America - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

America’s founders understood that all of us, including our leaders, are fallible; that errors are inevitable; and that mistakes can’t always be recognized as such in the moment.  As a result, they realized, a stable nation must not seek to eliminate mistakes but strive to tolerate them.  Almost all the founding principles of democracy – freedom of religion, freedom of speech, direct elections, political parties – reflect this commitment.

via freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

This echoes Nassim Taleb's argument that we need to forget about eliminating mistakes. We need to develop a system where the consequences of mistakes are a lot less damaging.

We need black swans that nip our heels rather than devour us.

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Steve Kagen & Financial Reform

I'm up at Fox Politics covering Kagen's misrepresentation of the recent financial reform legislation that became law.  Be sure to click through and check out the whole thing.

FoxPolitics.net - Appleton, WI News - What's really going on in the Fox Cities

Following passage of the financial regulatory reform bill Congressman Steve Kagen issued a press release touting the benefits of the bill. The only trouble is that his description of the bill's consequences don't appear to be accurate

The Case for a Carbon Tax

Marginal Revolution: Ross Douthat's case against cap-and-trade

Even if we cut government spending a lot, some taxes will have to go up. This seems like the least bad tax to raise or create, since it has some chance of producing a better outcome. It's hard to say that about most of the other potential tax boosts. I'd also cut the tax deduction for mortgage interest, of course. That too could improve the quality of outcomes....

That all said, I still don't like Waxman-Markey and in that regard I agree with Ross. The bill seems to bureaucratize the energy sector, forgo most of the revenue opportunities, produce massive time consistency problems (postpone real adjustment and then give out more permits over time), and all without getting public buy-in to the idea of higher carbon prices.

I'll also stress -- again -- that a carbon tax needs to be combined with the strong deregulation of the energy sector, and the weakening of NIMBY, in particular for wind power.

When he says "bureaucratize the energy sector" that includes creating many new opportunities for rent seeking and regulatory capture. Do we really think the financial industry did such a good job with housing that we ought to let them have a crack at energy as well?

If we decide it is important to address greenhouse gases, Waxman-Markey is not the answer.

Tea Pary Foreign Policy Update

The American Conservative » Reading the tea leaves

I want to find reason to be hopeful about the Tea Party– and hope that somewhere in its analysis of the factors bankrupting the United States is the high cost of pursuing a neoconservative foreign policy, adhered to by Obama as much as Bush. These hopes received a hard knock by reading here that a lion’s share of GOP congresspeople with Tea Party ties signed on to an idiotic resolution endorsing an Israeli military strike on Iran....Anyway, sorry to see the Tea Party folks be so easily led, though I’m not that surprised. Not only is Ron Paul not part of this nonsense, I doubt his son Rand would be either. But until the movement matures, it’s impossible to say whether it will be a neocon cheering section with middle American roots or something more promising.

Are advocates for small government at home and abroad the only constituency left in America without a political home?

Boxer Says There are Congressional Democrats in Foxholes

Senator Barbara Boxer: serving in the military is like being a member of Congress | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

At a campaign event over the weekend in Inglewood, California, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer seemingly equated being a politician to serving in the military –- and an Iraq War veteran supporting Boxer’s November opponent is calling on her to apologize.

“We know that if you have veterans in one place where they can befriend each other and talk to each other. You know when you’ve gone through similar things you need to share it. I don’t care whether you are a policeman or a fireman or a veteran or by chance a member of Congress,” the California senator said. “[Democratic Rep.] Maxine [Waters] and I could look at each other and roll our eyes. We know what we are up against. And it is hard for people who are not there to understand the pressure and the great things that go along with it and the tough things that go along with it.”

“Barbara Boxer’s disrespectful comments underscore just how out of touch she has become after her 28 years in Washington,“ Veterans for Carly Coalition Co-Chairman Lt. Commander Paul Chabot said in a press release, in response to Boxer’s comments. “Equating the experiences of members of Congress with those of brave soldiers who have fought to defend our country is just the latest example in a failed career marked by disrespect for our men and women in uniform.”

The "Don't Call Me Ma'am" video gets lots of play, but in this video Boxer tries to pit the NAACP against the National Black Chamber of Commerce.  The representative of the chamber though is having none of it:

Barbara Boxer and the Black Chamber of Commerce Leader

Don't Be So Sure It's Uncertainty

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress last week he didn’t know how strong an impact uncertainty had on the economy. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner mentioned it on the Sunday morning talk shows.

The challenge is that policy makers may not be able to do much about removing uncertainty. Economists worry that this unique recession and the squabbling in Washington may be making the future less clear than during similar stages of past recoveries.

Indeed, exactly what role uncertainty plays in business decisions is hard to gauge. The long-held notion is that executives take a “wait-and-see” stance in the face of uncertainty. Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan once said that the inability to understand external events “almost invariably induces fear and, hence, disengagement from an activity, whether it be entering a dark room or taking positions in markets.”

That assumption may be wrong, according to research done by Ruediger Bachmann of the University of Michigan, Eric Sims of the University of Notre Dame, and Steffen Elstner of the University of Munich. Their research, published on the National Bureau of Economic Research website, found no evidence that changes in uncertainty cause a wait-and-see effect, defined as a large decline in economic activity when uncertainty hits followed later by fast rebounds.

via blogs.wsj.com

This research was on economic, not political, uncertainty.

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Politicians Caught Politicking

Capper posts a video from DPW taking Scott Walker to task for spending the weekend campaigning around the state while Milwaukee is recovering from record setting rainfall. Meanwhile, the video shows Milwaukee Mayor and Democratic candidate for governor Tom Barrett featured on the local news visiting neighborhoods that had been affected by the storm.

Apparently, the video is intended to show that Barrett was on the job while Walker wasn't. I hate it to break it to the DPW, but Barrett's visit could just as easily be seen as taking advantage of a bad situation to do some political grandstanding. During a campaign, everything candidates do is seen through the lens of politics. People should be neither surprised or upset by Walker campaigning or Barrett getting attention in the press after a disaster.

We have a political system for choosing leadership, which means that a lot of time and energy will be spent campaigning. While this system certainly seems rotten at times, it is no doubt better than all the others. Does anybody really think what this country needs is a good military junta? I didn't think so.

Both sides of the political debate make these accusations (remember the President campaigning for Barbara "Don't call me Ma'am" Boxer during the oil spill?) but people really shouldn't pay any attention. Save your indignation for something that matters. Playing politics just goes with the territory.

Inside the Fog of War - Reports From the Ground in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.

The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

via nytimes.com

This will no doubt be the news of the day tomorrow and beyond. It's possible this could be so influential as to alter the course of American foreign policy or the upcoming elections.

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Sometimes it really is about you: GOP Edition

Martin Wolf Makes the Case that America's Future Depends on the Destruction of the Republican Party - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

What conclusions should outsiders draw about the likely future of US fiscal policy? First, if Republicans win the mid-terms in November, as seems likely, they are surely going to come up with huge tax cut proposals (probably well beyond extending the already unaffordable Bush-era tax cuts). Second, the White House will probably veto these cuts, making itself even more politically unpopular. Third, some additional fiscal stimulus is, in fact, what the US needs, in the short term, even though across-the-board tax cuts are an extremely inefficient way of providing it. Fourth, the Republican proposals would not, alas, be short term, but dangerously long term, in their impact.

Finally, with one party indifferent to deficits, provided they are brought about by tax cuts, and the other party relatively fiscally responsible (well, everything is relative, after all), but opposed to spending cuts on core programmes, US fiscal policy is paralysed.

Before Republicans dismiss this as baseless criticism I really think they should stop and answer this question: When we regain power will this time be different?

For all the recent talk about deficits, it's still an open question in my mind if the GOP understands that the fundamental challenge we are facing revolves around spending. Whether this spending is financed with taxes now (which they oppose) or debt now and taxes later (which didn't seem to bother the GOP during the Bush years) is just a question of financing.

Inequality is a Red Herring

OK, that title is over the top, but for some time I've felt that the focus on income inequality doesn't necessarily present an accurate description of conditions. 

From my own perspective, the income of my household now is less than the income of the household I grew up in (there were two wage earners in the household where I grew up, while now my wife doesn't work outside the home) but we seem to have just as much, and in some cases more, stuff.  We have more and/or better televisions, personal computers, cell phones.  We have greater access to food grown in the other hemisphere, which allows for the smoothing of consumption when it comes to food subject to the schedule of the harvest. Of course, stuff isn't everything, but it provides some measure of our quality of life.

My anecdotal experience is not exactly the basis for a sweeping claim about the state of American households.  This post from e21 draws a similar conclusion based on data [E.A.]:

American Households have not Stagnated | e21 - Economic Policies for the 21st Century

To be sure, inequality may account for some of the difference between household income and aggregate income. Fitzgerald estimates that Census income per person grew by 65%, while median income per person grew by around 50%. The remaining difference may be accounted for by a rise in inequality. But the important point is that households are not stagnating in the aggregate. America’s phenomenal productivity gains have reached its households.

In fact, these figures actually understate the welfare gains households have experienced in the past thirty years. Virtually every consumer product has improved dramatically in quality, and entire new industries have expanded the consumption opportunities available to households and individuals.

These are important facts to bear in mind when hearing political rhetoric that focuses on inequality and stagnation. In today’s tough economic times, this is a popular message. But it does not characterize the experience of most households. Policies that attack the wealth-generating abilities of the American economy will hurt, rather than help, those same households over the next thirty years.

No doubt there are some households that have not benefited from these productivity gains.  Identifying and then helping these folks should be the focus of public policy to help the poor.  The inequality debate seems to be little more than a distraction from this important policy goal.

The American Conservative -- When Red States Get Blue

The old aristocracy lived among people who could not hope to attain similar status and felt some obligation to provide for their assistance. American history is rife with examples of socialites advancing causes such as poor relief, better education, even efforts to squelch alcoholism through the Temperance movement. In many cases, it was wives of the wealthy who took on such social causes, free to move in the civil sphere and not yet obligated—or “liberated”—to pursue careers. But as the new meritocracy has congregated together and intermarried, it has left behind the losers of the talent sweepstakes, dividing the nation not only into Red and Blue but perceived winners and losers. The question becomes, whose responsibility is it to help the losers?

Members of the meritocracy are well aware of whom they have left behind, and rather than assuming the personal obligation of old to those less fortunate, they elect instead to pay an impersonal middleman—government—to deal with the aftereffects of what Wendell Berry has called the “strip-mining” of talent from every town and hamlet in the world. At the same time, they demand that everyone else pay up as well—what would have been personal forms of responsibility have instead been spread to the entire population, including those they purport to succor. As Christopher Lasch wrote, “obligation, like everything else, has been depersonalized; exercised through the agency of the state, the burden of supporting it falls not on the professional and managerial class but, disproportionately, on the lower-middle and working class.”

via amconmag.com

That's Patrick J. Deneen.

Ever wonder where all those Rockefeller Republicans went? Here's the answer.

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Monetary Unkown Unknowns

In the 1930s everyone seemed to think Fed policy was expansionary.  They cut rates close to zero, they dramatically increased the monetary base, they encouraged banks to hold on to more reserves.  Hoover set up a fund to help the banking system.  I’m not disputing that the Fed has done more this time.  But Bernanke himself admitted that we now know Fed policy was actually contractionary during the 1930s.  By what benchmark can the economics profession say it was contractionary then, but is highly expansionary now?  I’ve asked the question 100 times of my fellow economists and still haven’t received an answer.

The broader aggregates? OK, I admit they fell in the 1930s.  But I thought the monetary aggregates were discredited as policy indicators in the 1980s?  Now you have economists who had dismissed monetarism as a washed up doctrine suddenly clinging to the aggregates as the one piece of evidence that money was easier this time than in the 1930s.  This crisis makes economists look like a bunch of atheists who suddenly accept the Lord on their deathbed.  Well it’s too late for that, even M3 is falling now.

via themoneyillusion.com

That's economist Scott Sumner on what we don't know about monetary policy, but think we do.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was disappointed in the WSJ coverage of the news that the Fed may stop paying interest on reserves. The coverage consisted primarily of some flimsy "this will fall flat" response. Maybe the whole interest on reserves question will turn out to be a side issue in the history of this crisis, but the WSJ won't convince me of that with coverage reeking of cable TV conventional wisdom.

Go read Sumner's whole post, it is not long and non-technical. By the end you may be asking yourself whether our current monetary policy really is what you thought it was.

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Ramesh Ponnuru Offers a Conservative Agenda

Right Matters (washingtonpost.com)

Republicans are reportedly debating whether they should campaign solely on their opposition to the Obama agenda or offer an agenda of their own. My vote is for the latter.

It's fine for Republicans to spend most of their time talking about their disagreements with the president--if they win, they will spend most of their time over the next two years trying to block what they see as his bad ideas, and they will not be able to enact many of their own ideas.

But voters may reasonably ask the Republicans what policies they would prefer to Obama's, and Republicans ought to have an answer. If Republicans don't have an answer, Democrats will impute one to them.

Here, admittedly off the top of my head and in no particular order, are a few of the ideas I hope Republicans run on:

1) A tax reform that includes tax relief for parents, increased incentives to work and save, and considerable simplification of the tax code. (In other venues I have sketched out how taxes could be reformed in this way without sacrificing revenue.)

2)Repeal of Obamacare.

3) A permanent ban on federal funding of abortion.

Follow the link for the other seven. All of which will be agreeable to most of the people that I am acquainted with and that call themselves conservative.

I've argued before that repeal of Obamacare does not need to be a top priority, though I realize I'm in the minority here.  I'm skeptical that it will deliver on either cost controls or on improving outcomes. When that happens there will be a national outcry for repeal or at least a major overhaul.

I would have preferred (and still do) national health reform that a) moved us away from the employer sponsored model b)included guaranteed catastrophic coverage for everyone, including subsidies to help low income folks afford the coverage c) allowed those that were able and so inclined to buy any type of coverage they could find in an open and competitive marketplace

DCCC Will Advertise in Support of Steve Kagen

DCCC buys time in 40 districts - Alex Isenstadt - POLITICO.com

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has invested approximately $28 million worth of television air time to defend vulnerable incumbents running for reelection this fall, a senior Democratic official confirmed to POLITICO.

The television buys represent the first and second waves of Democratic advertising, the official said, and offer an early look at the districts where the party plans to focus its resources....

Here’s the full list of Democratic incumbents who the DCCC plans run ads in support of:  ...and Wisconsin Rep. Steve Kagen.

I guess all that PAC money just isn't enough. I really wish I knew which of the four GOP candidates Kagen fears the most.

One Wisconsin Now Claims Walker Will Fix Doyle's Problems

Governor Doyle and the legislature quite literally got their hands caught in the cookie jar when the state Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the transfer of money from the medical malpractice fund.

In response, One Wisconsin Now issued a press release attacking Scott Walker. I'd dismiss it as all boilerplate, but it included this howler:

[Walker would] Shift tax revenue from new car sales into the transportation fund — two-year budget cost: $1 billion.

Of course, the transportation fund is the other fund that Doyle likes to raid in order to mask continued irresponsible budgeting.

In fact, the Wisconsin State Journal article OWN cites as a source for this claim starts off with this (emphasis added):

State officials in March closed a major section of Highway 45 after discovering "dangerous deterioration" on a bridge that carries traffic through the Zoo Interchange, the state's busiest. It was the latest example of a growing problem across the state: Wisconsin's transportation system is aging.

Meanwhile, its funding system is routinely raided to pay for other programs...

and later:

Meanwhile, Wisconsin has in the past eight years raided its transportation fund for $1.3 billion to pay for other state programs. It has borrowed $1 billion to offset the loss, leaving a $300 million shortfall.

So Walker is going to put back $1billion of the $1.3 billion that Doyle transferred out of the fund. No doubt Wisconsin drivers will appreciate that in the long run.

The Fed & Interest on Reserves

Ending Interest on Reserves Won’t Help - Real Time Economics - WSJ

Financial markets are abuzz with chatter that in a bid to stimulate the economy, the Federal Reserve would suspend paying interest on the reserves banks have parked on its balance sheet.

Right now, banks hold some $1 trillion in reserves at the Fed. The reasons for doing that are many, but a key motivation is the 0.25% return they can collect. Not much, but something when the federal-funds rate is essentially at 0%.

Some economists have argued that the payment
of interest on reserves is in fact a tool of monetary policy and that the
payment of interests on reserves by the Fed is working at cross purposes to its
operations to add liquidity that started in late 2008.  Who knows,
perhaps when the history of this crisis is written the payment of
interest on reserves will be seen as a mistake because it reduced the velocity of money at a time when it seemed everyone (not you, Austrians) thought we needed to increase it (and everyone thought that is what they were doing).

The WSJ post that this comes from offers this as a reason against the possible move:

“If the Fed were to reduce the interest rate paid on excess reserves to
zero, the Day One story in the press would be ‘Fed Moves to Support
Economy,’” they wrote. “The Day Two story would be ‘Analysts Call Fed
Action Futile,’” and “that is exactly the kind of storyline Bernanke
should want to steer away from,” Wrightson strategists warned.

The Fed has a hard enough time carrying out its dual mandate of stable prices and full employment.  I really don't think we need to add "Pleasing Wall Street Analysts" to the list.  In fact, if there is one thing I fear more than the politicization of our nation's monetary policy, it is having it be in thrall to Wall St. We've already suffered through that once under Mr. Greenspan.

Tom Barrett Thinks You Are Stupid

For the first time since he was elected, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is trying to craft a city budget that doesn't raise either property taxes or major user fees - right in the middle of his campaign for governor.

Barrett and his aides say the zero-tax-increase goal isn't politically motivated and has more to do with the economy and the city pension fund than the election.

via jsonline.com

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De Pere updates master plan for downtown | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press Gazette

The downtown master plan lays out a strategy for developing De Pere on both sides of the Claude Allouez Bridge.

Included in the plan are options for creating a marketplace on the George Street Landing comparable to Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis that would also connect to the future Katherine Harper Riverwalk, as well as developing the area near the old bridge, a point of contention from several council members and citizens.

via greenbaypressgazette.com

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De Pere council to look at development plan | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press Gazette

If enacted, the plan lays out a timetable to develop the city's downtown area in such a way that the Fox River merely divides the city physically.

"De Pere's history as two municipalities with individual business districts has kept people from thinking about downtown as a single, unified city center. Instead, both banks of the river should be part of everyone's vision of their city — and people should view their wonderful, wide river as more 'canal' than 'ocean,'" the plan states.

via greenbaypressgazette.com

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The Infinite Tail Risk of Global Warming

Pascal asks the question: What is the expected value of a very small chance of an infi nite loss? And, he answers, “Infi nite.” In this example, what is the cost of lowering CO2 output and having the long-term effect of increasing CO2 turn out to be nominal? The cost appears to be equal to foregoing, once in your life, six months’ to one year’s global growth – 2% to 4%, or less. The benefi ts, even with no warming, include: energy independence from the Middle East; more jobs, since wind and solar power and increased effi ciency are more labor-intensive than another coal-fi red power plant; less pollution of streams and air; and an early leadership role for the U.S. in industries that will inevitably become important. Conversely, what are the costs of not acting on prevention when the results turn out to be serious: costs that may dwarf those for prevention; and probable political destabilization from droughts, famine, mass migrations, and even war. And, to Pascal’s real point, what might be the cost at the very extreme end of the distribution: defi nitely life changing, possibly life threatening.

via scribd.com

That's Jeremy Grantham of investment firm GMO, from his summer essay "Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes."

Cost/benefit analyses like this are what conservatives have to come to grips with on the issue of global warming. Jim Manzi has made a similar case, but come to the conclusion that the benefits are not worth the cost at this point.

Given the seeming proliferation of black swans of late, Grantham's argument is certainly worth noting.

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Ruling Interests

The American Conservative » Obamacare in Action

The resemblance between the healthcare scheme Romney designed and the one coming courtesy of Obama should put the lie to the idea that the two parties have strong philosophical differences in this area. As in banking and so many other fields, what determines policy are not ideas but interests — in this case, the interests of politicians who want to buy off voters with subsidized services and the financial interests of healthcare providers, who have plenty of lobbying clout no matter which party is in power

That's from Daniel McCarthy writing at the @TAC blog. Go read the whole (short) thing.

Brown Co., Bellevue at odds over County GV | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press Gazette

All sides agree the road is in dire need of repair, and traffic estimates suggest the road will need to be widened to four lanes between 2020-25, when it is expected to see more than 20,000 vehicles per day. That estimate doesn't include increased traffic if a bridge is constructed south of De Pere, which could complete a southern connector from U.S. 41 to Wisconsin 172 and the eastern part of the county.

via greenbaypressgazette.com

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A Roosevelt Moment for America’s Megabanks? - Project Syndicate

Now, however, a new form of antitrust arrives – in the form of the Kanjorski Amendment, whose language was embedded in the Dodd-Frank bill. Once the bill becomes law, federal regulators will have the right and the responsibility to limit the scope of big banks and, as necessary, break them up when they pose a “grave risk” to financial stability.

This is not a theoretical possibility – such risks manifested themselves quite clearly in late 2008 and into early 2009. It remains uncertain, of course, whether the regulators would actually take such steps. But, as Representative Paul Kanjorski, the main force behind the provision, recently put it, “The key lesson of the last decade is that financial regulators must use their powers, rather than coddle industry interests.”

via project-syndicate.org

That's economist Simon Johnson on the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

Johnson is a fierce critic of the influence of the large banks on our political leadership. If he is encouraged by this development then perhaps there is something good here that I just can't see.

To me this sounds more like a case where politicians get legislative language they can point to and say, look what we did, but that is vague enough not to constitute reform in any meaningful way. At the same time, such language gives powerful banking interests a new opportunity to turn the political & regulatory apparatus to their advantage. They just have to make sure they don't appear to be a "grave" risk.

Instead of shopping their regulator, now all banks need is a thesaurus.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

National Journal Magazine - A New Form Of Check and Balance

The most powerful dynamic, though, may be declining faith in both parties. As in the late 19th century, when divided government was also common, neither party has made stable progress against the most intractable problems of our time -- particularly the stagnation in wages for average families. That has contributed to an erosion of trust in Washington, reinforced over time by scandals, suspicion of special interests, and policy failures such as the 2008 financial meltdown.

In an ABC News/Washington Post survey this week, 43 percent of independents said they doubted that either Obama, congressional Democrats, or congressional Republicans could solve the nation's problems. In that environment, "Americans do not like unfettered authority given to one party," says Kenneth Duberstein, who was Ronald Reagan's White House chief of staff. The public's default switch may have flipped from centralizing authority in one party to fragmenting it.

via nationaljournal.com

Is divided government here to stay? Ron Brownstein argues it appears that way, at least for the time being.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

WI-8 Fundraising - Kagen Still Leader of the PAC

Kagen continues to dominate the race in the fundraising department. In fact, Kagen has more than twice as much cash on hand as McCormick, Ribble, Roth, & Savard combined.




The difference for Kagen is PAC money. He has raised over $630,000 from political action committees, which is about $50,000 more than he has raised in individual contributions.

So once the television ads start later this fall, be sure to keep in mind that more than 50 cents of every dollar Kagen spends comes from special interests and not from the people is he supposed to be serving.

GOP 8th District debate July 20 « Try 2 Focus

Republican candidates for the 8th Congressional District will debate at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 20, at New London High School, 1700 Klatt Road.

Sponsored by the Waupaca County Republican Party, the event is free and open to the public.

All four Republican candidates running for the seat are scheduled to participate.

Former state Rep. Terri McCormick, from Greenville, is a teacher, small-business owner and published author.

Reid Ribble is a former owner of The Ribble Group, a family of roofing companies located in Kaukauna.

State Rep. Roger Roth, from the town of Grand Chute in Outagamie County, is a homebuilder and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Marc Savard is a farmer, small businessman and former Door County Board supervisor.

The candidates will answer a field of questions from a panel of journalists, including John Faucher, County Post; Ward Wittman, Clintonville Chronicle; John Hammond, WDUX Radio; and Rich Kremer, WTCH/WJMQ Radio. Questions will also be taken from the audience.

“This is a great opportunity for people from Waupaca County and the surrounding area to actually see and hear all of the Republican candidates at one time in one place,” said Fred Zaug, moderator for the debate. “I think that by the end of the evening, everyone will have a better idea of who these people are and what they stand for.”

The primary election is set for Tuesday, Sept. 14, and the general election will be held Nov. 2. (Source: Waupaca Now)

via brvanlanen.wordpress.com

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Terri McCormick bashes bloggers in 'All Right Magazine' interview... - THE Party of KNOW

It couldn't possibly be that people don't like her because they've read her book, could it? In the spirit of full disclosure I was a paid consultant to John Gard's campaign in 2006, but the reason I don't like Terri is because of my personal interaction with her, not because of what happened back then. Get over it, Terri -- I'm not the one who can't even mention Gard's name in my book...

And these endorsements? I'd like to know once and for all if Aaron Biterman of the Republican Liberty Caucus is on the McCormick for Congress payroll. If so, I guess that endorsement wouldn't mean much. Can't comment on Terry Kohler, but the Wisconsin Conservative Digest gets no website traffic whatsoever. These endorsements are as effective as saying you're a 'Truman Scholar nominee', a statement the campaign has dropped since I discussed it on this blog...

via partyofknow.org

My advice to McCormick is to forget 2006, but it sure seems to come up over and over again.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

8th District candidate has 'economic strength' | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press Gazette

[Reid] Ribble's campaign raised more than $152,000 during the second three months of the year to give him $178,287 in available cash. The Kaukauna roofer's closest rival is Appleton consultant Terri McCormick, who has $99,253 to spend after taking in $111,000 in the second quarter. State Rep. Roger Roth of Appleton collected nearly $60,000 and starts his final push before the primary with $87,490 on hand. Small businessman and farmer Marc Savard of Sturgeon Bay lags far behind the pack with slightly more than $10,000 in the bank.

via greenbaypressgazette.com

McCormick raised more in the second quarter than Roth!

It's a beautiful weekend, so I'll be stepping away from the computer, but this definitely deserves some consideration.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Scott Walker Bloggers Still Don't Get It

I don't know much about how to increase traffic on a blog, but I do know a little something about content. This comes from not only writing this blog, but also reading quite a few blog posts on a daily basis. So it is with some authority when I say that the Scott Walker supporters who engage in blogging, both officially and unofficially, simply don't get it.

First, it was that ridiculous Scott for Gov blog, which has mercifully been shuttered. Then it was the investigation of liberal blogger and Walker-hater Capper, which, at this point, seems to have back-fired.

Now we have the official 'Team Tosa' blog. Based on what I've heard from Walker, he seems to realize that the governor is actually responsible for the whole state, not just Wauwatosa. This is a notion that is apparently lost on whomever came up with the name for the blog. Not only that, but look how they introduce it:

We hope to share with you what we, as staffers, volunteers, and supporters, are thinking, reading, and experiencing inside Scott Walker HQ in WauwaTOSA.

Got that? They don't think those of us up here in da nort' will get that Tosa is short for Wauwatosa, so they had to capitalize it. Gee, thanks. (Side note: I call dibs on the Stallis in Wonderland blog.)

One of their first posts was from Aaron Rodriguez. Arod apparently wasn't satisfied with just posting at Team Tosa. He spent a couple of days leaving ridiculous comments at Fairly Conservative, and has now taken to his own blog to denounce Cindy Kilkenny.

The only problem is, Arod can't figure out if he'd rather score points on Kilkenny or help Walker get elected. The result is a muddled mess that accomplishes neither.

Look Arod, if you want to take on Cindy, go ahead. She can stick up for herself, besides, Rule #4 says you should make some enemies. But this kind of blogging is about generating traffic, not getting your preferred candidate elected. For the record, accusing a blogger of bias isn't very effective. Blogs are supposed to be biased. Anyone who's read FC for even a short time knows that Cindy's passion is for fact-based opinions, so accusations of bias simply aren't going to get you very far.

If, on the other hand, your intention is to help Walker in his bid for governor, then I suggest you respond in a different way. Don't save your substantive response for the fourth graf. No one is interested in your serious argument following three paragraphs of character assassination.

Don't despair Arod, all is not lost. Recent polling shows that a lot of people haven't started paying attention to the governor's race. Even more important is the fact that a lot of people don't read blogs. My advice to you is that you should fight fire with fire.

When Capper writes a post like this, then respond in a substantive way. If I didn't read Capper regularly, I wouldn't know that he has a Walker fixation just this side of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and this post could seem convincing. When, on the other hand, Capper lets his Walker derangement syndrome show, then respond in-kind.

While we are at it, the Walker camp should really tell Jim Klauser to stop writing open letters. The last politically connected guys that wanted their money back all work for Goldman Sachs, and in case the Walker camp hasn't hear, the TARP remains really unpopular.

In the end, I don't think Cindy Kilkenny needs me to stick up for her, but it seems like Scott Walker does. The ironic part is that it's from his supporters, not his opponents, that Walker is in most need of protection.

A Little Newt Goes A Long Way

To me, Gingrich is the kind of guy who you hire for his smarts. After you hire him, you put him in a closet, feed him all the pizza and Coke he wants, and use about 10% of his ideas. That 10% is worth the investment because the guy is friggin' brilliant.

As to the White House?

Nope.

via dad29.blogspot.com

Boy, you never know how Dad29 really feels, do you?

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Invisible Bond Vigilantes Spotted in Europe

That may be true, says Nicolas Doze, an economic commentator with a popular French business channel. But without major reforms, Doze says the European Union will not be able to maintain its vision of a kinder, gentler way of life.

Mr. NICOLAS DOZE (Economic Commentator): (Through Translator) Our social system in France, alone, has accumulated more than 100 billion euros in debt, and it just isn't viable anymore. Today it survives thanks to one thing: France's AAA credit rating and our ability to keep borrowing to pay for the social programs.

BEARDSLEY: Doze says the Greek debt crisis has pushed European governments to do more to reduce spending in the last 10 weeks, than they have in the last 10 years. The markets have put a revolver to our head, he says.

via npr.org

Someone alert Paul Krugman!

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The Conservative Missionary, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

Liberty is an extremely important value.  Unfortunately, most libertarians act like it's the only value that really counts.  There's a lot more to life than liberty: Happiness, prosperity, equality, virtue, culture, common decency, and even survival.  Sophisticated libertarians will naturally object that liberty is great for all of these other values, too.  Often, they're right.  But not always.  Liberty and these other values sometimes conflict, and there's no reason why liberty should always prevail.

via econlog.econlib.org

This post is the first half in Caplan's discussion of why Libertarians should be Conservatives/Why Conservatives should be Libertarians.

As a recovering Libertarian myself, I found this post excellent throughout.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Everyone Lies Nobody Minds

And Erskine Bowles Worries Me too... - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

It is difficult to believe that if Speaker Pelosi or some other prominent Democrat argued for a stimulus package because the unemployment rate is 19.0 percent that the media would ignore their disconnect with reality. It is hard to understand why neither Mr. Bowles nor his co-chair, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, are not held to comparable standards of accuracy.

That's Brad DeLong approvingly quoting Dean Baker.  Baker is upset that Bowles exaggerated the amount of interest on the debt we would be paying in 2020. I believe some of our left of the cheddarsphere friends also read Baker, so I couldn't let this go unnoticed. 

I would say Nancy Pelosi's disconnect with reality is largely ignored by the media.  I'm still waiting for the 400,000 jobs she promised Obamacare would create immediately.  Hey, at this point, I bet President Obama is too.

Pelosi: Obamacare Will Supply 400000 Jobs Almost Immediately!

Time for the Right to Face Facts

ROFL: "It Wasn't Bush's Fault!" - The Market Ticker ®

The Democrats might get the "cause" wrong but they sure as hell didn't misidentify the responsible jackass. His name was George W. Bush and he was (up until Obama took office!) the undisputed KING of Ponzi Economics in the history of America.

Remember, admitting the awfulness of the GW Bush years does not in any way diminish the awfulness of the Obama years.  This post is a great reminder of that, with a bit of Clinton-ear myth shattering thrown in to boot. Go read the whole thing.

H/T Dad29

Ribble leads GOP fundraising in 8th race

With nearly $400,000 raised since the start of the year, Reid Ribble is the leading fundraiser of the Republican candidates in the 8th Congressional race.

via fox11online.com

Roth hasn't filed, so this could change. I'll be looking at the numbers and posting in the near future.

There was one comment on this item. It's clear the residency continues to dog Ribble, and is something his campaign will have to try and neutralize.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The American Conservative » Steinbrenner: Bad for New York City, Bad for America

 If Steinbrenner was a capitalist then give me socialism! He made a fortune through corporate welfare of the most egregious kind.

via amconmag.com

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

WI 4th Assembly District Candidates 2010

Marketplace Today Blog - And the candidates are …

4th District: The race to replace retiring Rep. Phil Montgomery (R–Ashwaubenon) features Republican Chad Weininger of Green Bay, independent Brad Sauer of De Pere, and three Democrats — Sam Dunlop of De Pere, Jeff Korenak of Green Bay, and Joel Montel Opperman of Green Bay.

The only name I recognize is Dunlop's who was something of a sensation in DePere when elected as an alderman. At the time he was either still a student at St. Norbert's, or wasn't much out of college.

Here are the campaign site links that I could find with a quick google search:
Chad Weininger
Sam Dunlop
Jeff Korenak

It was only based on a quick glance, but I am thinking these guys could all benefit from some tips from Todd Lohenry.

Be sure to click on the Marketplace link for a list of all the races throughout NE Wisconsin.

Everyone is Dumb Except Rupert Murdoch

So on the one hand, Fox gives social conservatives a news network filled with opinion disguised as the stories of the day and provides refuge for insightful commentators like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, and on the other hand they're home to shows that are a full frontal assault on the values of scorn, prudishness, and judgmental disapproval that social conservatives live by. And all in the name of making money.

via playgroundpolitics.blogspot.com

Don't read that paragraph too closely. The Recess Supervisor is using his patented slash & burn style to skewer Republicans once again, but not without cause!

He's absolutely right that social conservatives are being disingenuous when they laud Fox News and don't even bother to note the garbage emanating from the Fox broadcast channel.

Of course, the flip side of this is the huge swath of the country that revels in the so-called humor featured on the Fox broadcast shows while denouncing the commentary and coverage over in the news division. My message to these folks: Watching Family Guy is not subversive, not even close. If your Puritan forebears came back today, the fact that you watched an animated baby traffic in sexual innuendo and called it entertainment wouldn't even make their top 100 list of why they were certain you were going to hell.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Guest Blogging at Fox Politics

I'm up at Fox Politics.net this morning arguing that Steve Kagen doesn't have a record of putting the interests of WI-8 first:

Voters of WI-8 realize there will often be times when their interests are different from the interests of voters in Pelosi's district, but it appears this insight is lost on Kagen.

Click through and read the whole thing. While there, be sure to sign up for the daily email with links to news and views covering WI and beyond.

So Hayek Basically Had Ezra Klein’s Views on Health Care, Right?

Singapore, I think, has the closest thing to the sort of system Hayek had in mind. Among wealthy countries, it spends the smallest percentage of GDP on health care, and it gets about the best results. You know what that’s called? Efficiency. How do you get it? Competitive markets with freely moving prices under the rule of law! It’s the sort of thing you’re in favor of if you want everybody to have access to really good health care and money to spend on things other than health care.

via willwilkinson.net

I'm not a big Wilkinson fan, but this post on why no one should be confused in to thinking Obamacare is something Hayek would support is right on the money.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

It Might be Dismal, but is it Science?

Economics Professor Brad DeLong:

What is needed, in such a situation, is:

...5. expansionary fiscal policy: have the federal government print up a huge honking tranche of extra Treasury bonds and so expand the supply of "'type 2' liquid assets--and then spend the money putting people back to work.

Economics Professor James Hamilton:

So I can see who bought the $2.7 trillion in net new Treasury debt issued between 2007 and 2009. What I'm having more trouble seeing is who is going to buy the additional $8 trillion in net new debt that would be issued over the next decade under the CBO's alternative fiscal scenario.

Sources of Our Current Deficit - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

via delong.typepad.com

Supporters of President Obama like to point to this chart to bolster the "it was all Bush's fault" case. I have a two questions for these folks:

1. Candidate Obama maintained that the Afghan war was the real war, and President Obama followed through on this by expanding the war. Can the portion of the deficit related to this war now be Obama's fault?

2. If President Obama extends some of the Bush tax cuts, will his supporters go back and update these charts from "Bush-era" to "Obama-Bush Era"?

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Walker antics land him front page, above the fold – Cindy Kilkenny: Fairly Conservative

Scott Walker has more baggage than a pack mule – or is that donkey? There’s no way I’d trust the man to be governor.

via fairlyconservative.com

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The High Price of High Office

Midterms Will Be Most Expensive in History

With more than $1 billion already spent, it is expected that the 2010 contests for congressional seats will amount the most expensive midterm election in history, reports the Hill. Democratic strategists say Republican-leaning groups are ready to spend $301.5 million, largely funded by those upset by White House initiatives. In addition, a number of wealthy candidates are spending millions of their own money on campaigns. "We fully expect this will be the most expensive midterm election ever in U.S. history," said a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "Not only do we expect it to exceed the high water mark set in 2006, but this could very well obliterate that number when all is said and done." In 2006, when Democrats took control of the House and Senate, more than $2.8 billion was spent. Now CRP is estimating that the 2010 elections will cost about $3.7 billion. "We wouldn't be surprised at all if this is a $4 billion-plus election."

via slatest.slate.com

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The Case Against Stimulus: West Virginia Edition

This was the other great cause of Byrd's career: the earmark. He famously promised to be West Virginia's billion-dollar industry, and he kept his word. That's why there's the Robert C. Byrd Highway, Robert C. Byrd Freeway, Robert C. Byrd Cancer Research Center, Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center, Robert C. Byrd Federal Building, Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse, Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center, Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing and a few dozen other pork-barrel projects named for the former chairman of the Appropriations Committee. At the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, academics can study how he moved the Bureau of Public Debt to West Virginia — and made sure it remained relevant.

Meanwhile, West Virginia is still America's second poorest state. It should be Vermont with warmer weather; instead, it's Mississippi without a river. Byrd helped turn it into a welfare state, dependent on one man with a pompadour and a gavel.

via time.com

That's from a remembrance of Byrd titled, "Goodbye to the Old Gasbag" so be sure to click on the link and read the whole thing.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Successful Blogs Have Links

Conservative think-tank smackdown. Cato vs. AEI.

Having no money causes poverty. Maybe we should fix this by giving poor people money.

Peter Orszag re-tells a joke about Rush Limbaugh.

Can we build it? No. Construction Fail.

Will the Tea Party split the GOP and hand elections to Democrats?

Securing the Border

The American Conservative » Non-Dueling Studies On Immigration

1. Enforcement works. Pay no heed to those who say that you can’t enforce immigration restrictions. “If an ‘enforcement-only’ strategy is fully implemented,” says AIC’s study, “it would effectively eliminate the undocumented workforce.” According to AIC, the risk is not that enforcement would never work but that (in its view) it would work all to well. Indeed, it would “effectively eliminate” the problem of illegal immigration.

That's from a study by The American Immigration Council (AIC), a pro-immigration group! There's more at the link, such as:

Not only does AIC not mind swelling the ranks of the lowest classes, but it sees doing so as an economic imperative. Goodbye democracy, hello caste system! It now falls to “conservatives,” whose tradition is replete with annoying paeans to inequality and aristocracy, to defend equality of condition.

Lindsay Lohan, Libertarian

Lindsay Lohan Gets 90 Day Jail Sentence | Cato @ Liberty

Yesterday, actress Lindsay Lohan received a 90 day jail sentence after a judge determined Lohan had violated her probation by missing some scheduled classes. Lohan had been previously arrested on a DUI charge. Today, Lohan quotes from a Cato article that critiques the American criminal justice system for its rigid and mechanical sentencing rules. (Here are her Cato-quoting Tweets: 1, 2, 3, 4.) I have received letters from prisoners around the country who have read a Cato publication, or seen a Cato event on C-SPAN, but this is our first celebrity tweet. The Institute is now abuzz!

h/t Marginal Revolution

Matthew Yglesias » Monetary Policy Tighter Than It Appears

How loose is monetary policy right now? According to conventional wisdom, it’s very loose. After all, interest rates are low. According to Ben Bernanke’s 2004 paper, “Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment”:

A given short-term rate may thus be associated with relatively restrictive financial conditions (for example, if the term structure is sharply upward sloping and equity prices are depressed)

via yglesias.thinkprogress.org

Go read the whole (very short) thing. Monetary policy may not be as loose as many people (including some economists) think. Given that, does anyone still think we ought to try and use fiscal policy to offset a tight of monetary policy?

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

An Increase in Spending Disguised as an Advance

Brad DeLong thinks this makes sense:

Congress should pass legislation that would allow a state to simply get an “advance” on these future federal dollars expected from entitlement programs. The advance could then be used for regional stimulus, to continue state services and to hasten our recovery. The Treasury Department, which writes the checks to the states, could be assured of repayment (with interest) by simply cutting the federal matching rate by the needed amount over, say, five years. Of course, when Treasury eventually collected what it was owed, the state would have to cut spending or find new revenue sources. But that would happen after the recession, when both tasks would likely prove easier economically and politically.

His blog is called Grasping Reality with Both Hands, but in this instance his reach definitely exceeds his grasp.  This is little more than a recipe for perpetual bailouts until the point of exhaustion.

Kelly Jane Torrance at @TAC:

The Milkwaukee school board offered to avoid layoffs if it could spend less on healthcare by requiring co-pays of its employees—a healthcare cost with which virtually everyone in the private sector is familiar. But the union refused. Moore asks, Why did the union prefer to let hundreds of its members get laid off instead of accepting a compromise?

The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association was immovable on benefits in part because it placed a bet on its Democratic friends in Washington rushing to the rescue. “The problem must be addressed with a national solution, a federal stimulus package that will restore educator positions,” Pat Omar, the union’s executive director said in June

This team is toast - JSOnline

It would be easy to classify the Brewers a train wreck at this particular juncture.

Trains seldom wreck this badly, however.

via jsonline.com

Ugh! Since moving here from AZ, I have switched my baseball allegiance to the Brewers, a move that happened quite easily. I'd reconsider, but the D-backs are just as bad if not worse.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The American Conservative » How Republicans Raise Taxes

Republicans still profit from the impression that they are against high taxes. But they are not — because deficit spending ultimately means a higher absolute burden on taxpayers, even if that burden is expressed by inflation and other indirect economic costs. One could just as reasonably reverse Sowell’s fairy tale: naive, well-meaning Democrats who want to pay for programs up front and save taxpayers money in the long term are continually lured by devious Republicans into putting the charges on the federal credit card, leading to financial ruin down the line. Of course, that story is just as silly as Sowell’s, because both parties ardently adore deficit spending.

Both tell the American people that everything can be had for nothing: free healthcare, prescription drugs, retirement benefits, hundreds of  bases around the world, federal highways, subsidized education, civil servants with six-figure salaries, supermax prisons, support for farmers, NASA — all with no money down! It’s not just the Democrats; the Republicans too make Countrywide Financial seem like an honest enterprise.

via amconmag.com

If you consider yourself a conservative, you really ought to be reading the @TAC blog.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The MPS Teacher Bailout

The Milkwaukee school board offered to avoid layoffs if it could spend less on healthcare by requiring co-pays of its employees—a healthcare cost with which virtually everyone in the private sector is familiar. But the union refused. Moore asks, Why did the union prefer to let hundreds of its members get laid off instead of accepting a compromise?

The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association was immovable on benefits in part because it placed a bet on its Democratic friends in Washington rushing to the rescue. “The problem must be addressed with a national solution, a federal stimulus package that will restore educator positions,” Pat Omar, the union’s executive director said in June. The union’s strategy in recent weeks has been to stage rallies demanding a federal bailout, and it used hundreds of school kids at those rallies as political props.

As with many things, what started in California is moving inextricably eastward.

via amconmag.com

That's Kelly Jane Torrance on the @TAC blog. The post also cites figures that puts total compensation, wages plus benefits, at about $100,000.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

Steve Kagen & the Politics of Immigration

First we have WI-8 Democratic Congressman Steve Kagen opposing the Obama administration's lawsuit to stop the Arizona immigration law:

The action taken today by the U.S. Attorney General distracts our nation from addressing the real challenges we face: securing our borders, enforcing all our immigration laws, and stopping illegal immigration. Lawyers in Washington cannot secure our borders or catch those who break our laws. Arizona has asked for our help, not a federal lawsuit.

Kagen sees the short time frame between now and November and knows he will not have to cast a vote on immigration, which means issuing this statement has almost no downside. The upside is that it provides at least partial cover on an issue that will be on voter's minds right through the election. Voters in WI-8 should not be fooled. This is nothing more than political positioning. There is no doubt in my mind that if Kagen were re-elected and a Democrat sponsored immigration bill came up in the next Congress, he would support it regardless of what was in it. Kagen has demonstrated a willingness to support the national Democrat agenda, regardless how those issues impact his district.

On the other hand we have Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention interviewed on NPR:

As a leading evangelical conservative, Richard Land's credentials are impeccable. He heads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, and from that influential perch he's been urging his fellow conservatives to rethink their opposition to the immigration overhaul.

"I've had some of them appeal to me. They say, 'Richard, you're going to divide the conservative coalition.' And I said, 'Well, I may divide the old conservative coalition, but I'm not going to divide the new one.' "

Land adds, "If the new conservative coalition is going to be a governing coalition, it's going to have to have a significant number of Hispanics in it, that's dictated by demographics, and you don't get large numbers of Hispanics to support you when you're engaged in anti-Hispanic immigration rhetoric."

I heard Paul Krugman on a recent episode of ABC's This Week state that the cultural-right segment of the GOP is hostile to immigrants and that it had absolutely taken over the party. I would say that Dr. Land is pretty much emblematic of the cultural-right segment, and he sounds anything but anti-immigrant in this interview.

I'm sorry to break it to Dr. Land, but regardless of whether or not he is correct, the electorate simply isn't in any mood to agree with him. The only thing elected officials are safe to say during this election cycle is that we need to secure the borders, period. This means that Land's appeal will likely fall on deaf ears. This is where Kagen's hollow rhetoric ought to end up as well.

Hayek's Real Warning

Matthew Yglesias » Traffic Jam on the Road to Serfdom

F.A. Hayek had a lot of smart and interesting ideas, but I join Alan Beattie in finding it bizarre that the work of his that people have the most interest in promoting nowadays is The Road to Serfdom, which is based around a provocative but in retrospect clearly mistaken idea:

This would be an interesting thesis, had it not turned out to be manifestly wrong. Even Hayek himself, towering genius though he was, looks a bit silly in retrospect....

There’s a debate to be had on the boundaries between private and public. But it’s hard to have it with people who look at a state-run Swedish kindergarten and see a boot stamping on a human face forever.

Not content to simply conjure up a single straw man for destruction, this argument against Hayek enlists an entire kindergarten of straw children!

I've said it before, but it obviously needs to be repeated.  The warning in Serfdom is not about the existence of a state-run welfare apparatus.  It was a warning of the dire, and still very real, consequences of turning economic decision making over to the state for the purpose of a larger goal.  In other words, planning.  If you follow the link and read the full Beattie quote, it's like he didn't even read the Hayek quote he holds up as proof of his position.

Now if the welfare state ever grew so large that its continued existence required that the state start making economic decision, I think that Hayek's fears would be realized.  At that point, this author, and the rest of us, would have a whole lot more to worry about than someone looking silly.  To relax our guard against such an eventuality at this point would be incredibly stupid.

Productivity, Deflation, & Monetary Policy

according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics we’re more productive than ever:

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 2.8 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, with output rising 4.0 percent and hours rising 1.1 percent. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) From the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, output increased 3.0 percent while hours fell 3.0 percent, yielding an increase in productivity of 6.1 percent (tables A, and 2). This gain in productivity from the same quarter a year ago was the largest since output per hour increased 6.1 percent over the four-quarter period ending in the first quarter of 2002.

via yglesias.thinkprogress.org

My post the other day noted the concern by some that we were entering a period of deflation and how we need to reinflate to combat this. This is a position that some on the right find indefensible, noting that inflating our way out of trouble is not really a path to prosperity.

But what about monetary policy in a time of productivity growth? Isn't it acceptable for the money supply to increase to match this growth? If we were under a commodity money system and productivity rose without a corresponding increase in money, wouldn't we have more goods chasing less gold? Under these circumstances, I think, even the Mises people are OK with a monetary expansion.

I realize this is basically a bunch of questions, which makes for a lousy blog post, but I really am wondering what the implications are for monetary policy during a time of productivity growth.

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