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Monday, December 28, 2009
I know I'm being stingy but Jasper Schuringa is NOT a hero, at least as I define the word. To me, a hero is someone who risks his life to save another... and while I applaud Schuringa for his actions (and hope that if I was ever in a similar situation I would act as decisively as he did), as his actions may have kept him and the other passengers and crew from being blown to pieces... but his life - along with everybody else on the plane - was already at risk and thus he doesn't rise to the level of hero.
It's the same thing with the Hudson River pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, whose actions saved the passengers but who likewise doesn't qualify for the tag 'hero' as he didn't put his life at risk in order to save the passengers, his life was already at risk. What Sullenberger did was to save his own life, just as Schuringa did. That their actions saved a bunch of other people doesn't turn self-preservation into heroism. Sunday, December 27, 2009
According to this story, the would-be bomber was listed in a U.S. terrorism database but wasn't on the no-fly list because there was "insufficient derogatory information available".
Question: why the heck not? Why do foreigners get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to entering the United States? They have no right to enter the United States, the burden should be on them to get in and not on our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to keep them out. Forget about reaching whatever constitutes a 'sufficient' level of derogatory information, any derogatory information should have been enough to keep this guy out. Saturday, December 19, 2009
As Obamacare winds its way to passage, please remember to thank someone who did so much to make this possible: George W Bush.
If he hadn't screwed up so much in so many ways, who thinks the Democrats would have had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a commanding majority in the House? Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Of all the issues that conservatives could and should rally around, prison reform has to rank at close to the bottom of the list.
As (I believe the phrase is) 'crunchy-con' Ross Douhat writes, there are aspects of society's tendency to throw and keep criminals in jail that have negative ripple effects. But, as we are seeing with the debate over health care, fiddling with the system can have negative consequences for the masses that far outweigh any hoped-for benefits for a relative few. And just like with health care, keeping most of America safe is a far more important goal than worrying about those who 'suffer' as a consequence of a program that pretty much accomplishes its goals. And there is a second reason it is silly for conservatives, in the way Hot Air described Douhat's column, to 'make prison reform an issue'... there are far more important issues that affect many more people and in much more serious ways. Since government is (despite Obama's thinking) limited in what it can and should do, time and money spent thinking about prisons is time and money taken away from other issues. Should we focus attention - any attention - on prisons while we're at risk of terrorist attack? Should we focus on prison reform while our economy is still limping along, with hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs every month? A reasonable person, looking at the list of things that need to be done, wouldn't even think about spending time and money looking at reforming prisons. And a reasonable conservative, looking at the list of things that need to be done, wouldn't even think about recommending that we spend time and money looking at prison reform. Politicians are (at least they're supposed to be) elected to take care of issues the public wants taken care of... and, with the exception of Douhat and a few others, there just ain't much of a public outcry that we need to do something about our prisons. Looking at prisons isn't, by itself, a dumb idea. Looking at them now is. Monday, December 14, 2009
I'm not sure this is in the same category as Jim Geraghty's realization that every Obama promise comes with an 'expiration date', but as far as Obama claiming that Wall Street has an obligation to increase lending because they were rescued by taxpayers, I thought the Wall Street bailout was done BY taxpayers FOR taxpayers.
The bailout was sold as something that needed to be done, not to protect the banks themselves, but to protect us from the consequences of a tidal wave of bank failures. The bailout was sold to us on the basis that doing so preserved our jobs, retirement accounts and home values, all of which would have collapsed if AIG or Citigroup or Bank of America or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't propped up with billions upon billions of taxpayer funds Yes, the management and shareholders of those firms benefited, in that they kept their jobs and what remained of their capital investment, but preserving their positions wasn't supposed to be the driving factor in the big bailouts (note: the same rationale was used to justify bailing out GM and Chrysler, it wasn't so much that the taxpayer was bailing out those two companies, we were inoculating ourselves against the supposed terrible consequences to the economy as a whole if those companies were allowed to fail). So, having sold America on the bailout on the grounds that it was in OUR interest to do so, Obama comes along and tells Wall Street they have an obligation to repay us for something we did for our own benefit and only incidentally theirs. And in demanding banks increase their lending beyond the level they think prudent, Obama is showing a remarkable lack of ability to learn from history. The problems were largely caused by banks loaning money to people with less than stellar ability to pay it back. So unless Obama thinks there are firms with a stellar ability to pay back borrowed money who aren't getting to borrow money, then he is pushing banks to repeat the mistakes of the not-so-distant past. Friday, December 11, 2009
What do you call someone who describes themselves as a libertarian, but who calls for Congress to stick its nose into 'fixing' the BCS?
Inconsistent? A liar, as no slice of libertarianism could ever justify Congress muddling around with something as private as the way in which college football teams structure their season? Something even worse? A key principle of any political belief (whether libertarianism, liberal or conservative) is that one doesn't abandon those principles just because doing so provides something that one views as positive... and anyone who does so can not in any good faith continue to describe themselves as a libertarian. The cost of abandoning the principle ALWAYS outweighs whatever short-term benefit one can derive from the bribe. Liberals who believe the biggest threat to society is a government with unlimited power to spy on its citizens are right to protest anti-terrorist measures that they believe go to far. Conservatives who believe national security comes first should brush aside complaints that the government can eavesdrop on cell phone calls. If the federal government decided to give me a million dollars (and just because, not in return for any services, my having won the lottery, etc.), I hope I would have the backbone to turn it down. If I didn't, I could no longer describe myself as conservative, I would, apropos of the old line, have to resort to something along the line of 'I now know what I am and I've settled on the price'. For Ziegler, the price for selling out his (proclaimed) libertarian principle is a playoff system in college football. Thursday, December 10, 2009
This article reports that the November drop in the number of foreclosure filings (compared to October, filings in November of 09 were 18% than in November of last year) is due in part to (1) recently enacted mediation programs which (probably only) delay foreclosures, and (2) a firming up of housing prices which left fewer homeowners 'underwater' on their mortgages (where they owe more than the house is worth).
The first point sounds about right, both the federal government and states have put pressure on mortgage lenders to hold off instituting foreclosure proceedings. But the second point doesn't make sense. There are two scenarios in foreclosures: (1) where the homeowner loses the ability to pay the mortgage, and (2) where the house drops in value to the point where the homeowner figures it is better to walk away than to keep making payments. Let's call the former 'involuntary' foreclosures, the latter 'voluntary'. A 'firming up' of housing prices does nothing to help the first group. It doesn't matter how much their house is worth, if they don't have the money to pay the mortgage, they're going to lose the house. As for the second group, a 'firming up' aka a 'mild upswing in housing prices' is, in my humble opinion, not going to make much of a difference in whether someone voluntarily walks away from their mortgage. Imagine you bought a house for $500,000. It's dropped in value to the point where it is worth so much less than what you paid that you can't imagine every getting your money back on your investment. Key: it takes a big drop in value to turn mortgage paying homeowners into voluntary deadbeats, they're not going to choose that path because, in the above example, their house is now worth only $450,000. Their house would now have to be worth somewhat south of $300,000 for them to consider walking away from their mortgage (keep in mind that voluntary deadbeats have to think the benefits of walking away are going to be worth the costs and hassles of having their credit screwed up for the next several years). Thus, it is going to take a big drop in housing prices and a 'mild upswing in housing prices' isn't going to restore enough value (or confidence) that the calculation suddenly shifts to where it is now worthwhile to stay in the house and keep making payments. Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Rupert Murdoch makes some good points and misses a few in his op-ed column in yesterday's WSJ.
Undercutting the view of many on the right that newspaper circulation losses are a result of the newspapers' liberal editorial bias, Murdoch correctly notes that much of the decline is due to readers no longer needing newspapers for information they can now get through sources such as Craigslist, Monster.com and so on. And he also correctly notes the incongruity of newspapers bragging about the number of journalism awards they have received at the same time they have fewer readers than ever (even accounting for the loss of readers as described in the above paragraph, newspapers have fewer 'news' subscribers than they used to have). And he correctly notes that while Internet advertising on newspaper web sites is growing, it isn't ever going to be large enough to support the high costs of running a full scale newsroom. But while he is right that the future of journalism requires giving readers/viewers content that they're willing to pay for, he is deluding himself if he thinks there are more than a handful of news content providers that will be able to do that... and I wouldn't necessarily include Murdoch's News Corp. in that group. There are two pricing models that work for any business: high prices/low volume or lower prices/higher volume (the dream is to get a high price from a large number of people but that happens only in dreams). The former works for products that are (1) in demand, and at a level that exceeds supply, (2) perceived to have high quality, and (3) not easily substituted by others. The latter model applies to everybody and everything else. But even though charging a high price allows a business to survive with a smaller customer base, you still need enough people paying the high price to cover your costs... and it still costs a lot to operate a newspaper newsroom, even after the substantial cuts in staffing they have made over the past several years. And the problem for journalism is that there is no shortage of players in the industry offering very similar products. There are too many providers of virtually identical information to support a high subscription price... and that is counting only the legacy newspaper news operations (NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc), I'm not even including the news provided by the major networks and cable operations. Why pay hundreds of dollars a year for news when there's someone else pretty much giving it away? Nor are the masses going to step up and even a nominal fee to receive news... because - except in certain situations - they just don't care about it. They'll just turn to free TV. Why pay even $10 a year for news when there's someone else pretty much giving it away? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the biggest threat to traditional newspaper news operations - free TV. TV is still able to subsidize its news operations with the profits from their entertainment and sports programming, unlike newspapers which long lost their ability to subsidize their news operations with profits from classified ads. And even though the networks don't make money on their news operations, their egos refuse to let them drop that aspect of their offerings. And with TV being able to take advantage of the Internet and the wide range of devices with which to communicate to viewers, someone seeking news will have a very easy choice to make: pay some legacy newspaper news operation a fee to get news from them... or get their news from the TV news operation for free. And with viewers making very little qualitative distinctions between the news from the Washington Post and the news from ABC TV, on which side would you place your bets? Tuesday, December 08, 2009
My God, the Republicans in Congress are just clueless, clueless, clueless. They're objecting to ObamaStimulusII, which is fine, but they are doing so by focusing on Obama's plan to 'use' TARP money.
Repeat after me, repeat after me, repeat after me, the American people do not care where the money comes from, they only care about whether it will help the economy... and, in particular, their particular slice of the economy. Where the money comes from is an abstract issue that does not resonate with the American public. They don't know - nor do they care about - the particulars of federal spending. While they dislike the concept of federal deficits and the amount of federal debt, those are issues that percolate somewhere in the back of their minds, secondary to their primary concerns about their jobs, houses, health care and retirement. Thus, at best, hearing Republicans prattle on about the mechanics of how Obama is introducing Round Two makes the public wonder what the Republicans are muttering about, and at worst, it gives the Democrats ammunition for their claim that the GOP is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters (there's a reason that teabaggers aren't identifying with the GOP). Nor does it do the GOP any good to argue that, having botched the first round of stimulus, Obama isn't to be trusted with a second round. It is fine to point out that the economy is in far worse shape after the enactment of Obama's first stimulus (as well as far worse than what Obama claimed would be if the stimulus was passed)... but, with the American people fearful about the future, they aren't going to accept that Obama has forfeited the opportunity to propose a corrective round. The GOP needs to object on the basis that IT ISN'T GOING TO HELP! Argument One: even though Obama might package it differently, Round Two is going to be the same as Round One, and as we all know, it is crazy to do the same thing but expect a different result. Argument Two: Round Two isn't going to help the public; as with Round One, it is designed to benefit government workers and favored constituencies. Throwing billions of dollars to the states isn't going to help the private sector, nor is spending even more money on government infrastructure; neither is going to encourage consumers (at least those not employed by the state) to go out and start spending. Argument Three: A big reason for the fear and uncertainty is the liberal anti-business agenda liberals are pushing on Capitol Hill. The GOP needs to play off public opposition to Obamacare not just to defeat Obamacare but to also derail ObamaStimulusII. The GOP also needs to play off the threats posed by the environmental mischief the liberals are pulling. They need to tell the liberals to stop scaring banks from loaning money. With higher taxes, energy costs and fees and, despite the claims of the liberals, higher health care costs all on the near term horizon, what sane businessman is going to go and start hiring? How crazy does a consumer have to be to increase their spending over last year's level? The GOP needs to demand that the liberals back off taxing and scaring the American economy into a depression. Argument Four: The GOP needs to present some straightforward ways of boosting business and consumer confidence. And that's the key, business and consumer confidence that the future will be better than it is today. It doesn't matter how low tax rates are or how much money gets dumped into the economy, if the public views those as gimmicks or only temporary, they're not going to come out of their shell. Banks won't start lending until they think their customers will have the profits to pay back the loans. Consumers won't start spending until they're reasonably sure they will not only have a job but that their pay won't be squeezed by well-meaning but ultimately dangerous and counter-productive liberal programs. Friday, December 04, 2009
In addition to it not being a good idea to believe a guy who has a now-proven track record of lying (and, no, I'm not talking about Tiger Woods), there are many reasons to discount Obama's claims that he is working on a plan to 'jump start' hiring.
Yes, Obama, not too many months ago, sold the country that his stimulus bill was going to save the day. It wasn't too long ago that his Administration was touting the number of 'jobs saved or created' and his Vice President was crowing that the stimulus plan was working better than could have been imagined. But, as we know, his stimulus bill was - and remains - a failure. Unemployment is higher than Obama told us it would be if his stimulus bill passed. Consumers are still scared to spend, employers are scared to hire. So... having sold us a defective bill of goods the first time, he's now telling the American people that he is going to take another crack at getting it right. Well, keeping in mind the timeless adages 'once burned, twice shy' or 'fool me once, shame on me...", let me tell you why he's not going to get it right this time either, why the follow up is going to be just as useless (and possibly even counter-productive). It starts with the fact that the people he relies on are people with no real experience in the private sector. Forget about the photo-op with private sector businesspeople that he had yesterday, the plan is going to be developed by the same folks who came up with the first plan. How can people who have never hired and fired in the real world be expected to have a clue as to what will motivate managers and business owners to start hiring? Short answer? They can't. But the bigger reason (and, admittedly, this is both a variation and result of the above) for my skepticism is the basic flaw at the heart of what I call the liberal version of 'trickle down economics': taxpayer money goes to state and federal government which siphons off most of the money in the form of staffing and spending, leaving but a small slice left to trickle down to the private sector. This creates a 'reverse-multiplier' effect: each dollar of money going to government leaves but pennies flowing to the private sector. This results in a dynamic where, if, for example, $10,000 in enticements are needed for private sector employers to add a position, somewhat in the area of $100,000 first has to flow into government accounts. Each 1 million jobs in the private sector requires $100 billion... and creating jobs for the approximately 10 million or so people who have lost jobs, haven't been able to find jobs or are only able to find part time work will require $1 TRILLION in additional government spending and borrowing. Unfortunately, the consequences of federal and state governments sucking up another trillion dollars is going to seriously freak out private sector employers who, naturally and quite justifiably, fear that government is going to look to them to cover the bills... and freaked out employers are not employers who are hiring and adding staff. So the end result of Obama Stimulus Plan, take two, is going to be a whole bunch more spending at the federal and state level... and with no job growth in the private sector. I imagine there's an entrepreneur somewhere selling T-shirts "My President Spent a Trillion Dollars on a Stimulus Plan... and all I got was this lousy T-shirt".
I don't know what is in the water AP business writers are drinking but how do they seriously write that "A surprising drop in the unemployment rate and far fewer job losses last month cheered investors Friday" when the market has shed its early gains and is now in negative territory for the day?*... and just, per the AP timestamp, just 18 minutes after they released/updated their story?
UPDATE: whether the market ends up down or up for the day, my point is that at the time they wrote the story, there was precious little to indicate investors were 'cheered' by the news. * I don't know how to embed a link that sticks the Dow, but trust me, right now, it is negative. Thursday, December 03, 2009
A frequent claim from the right is that newspapers are having trouble because of their liberal slant on the news, that the drops in circulation and advertising is a result of newspapers having driven away their conservative readers.
Well then, how does one explain the conservative Washington Times having to retrench (i.e., lay off a bunch of staff) in what its rival describes as a 'bid for survival'? As I've said before, newspapers are having trouble for reasons that have very little to do with their editorial viewpoints. They're losing readers because those readers can now get free from other sources the information they used to have to pay money to get from their local newspaper. People no longer need a newspaper to scan the job listings, classifieds, movie times or sports scores. And newspapers are losing advertisers and advertising revenue because advertisers are infatuated with advertising on the Internet, and not because advertisers don't want to advertise in a liberal publication. Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Isn't it a tad odd that Obama thinks more highly of our military than do some conservative supposed pro-military commentators?
Obama is confident that our guys can wrap things up in Afghanistan in just a bit over a year and a half and hand off control to the Afghan Army. Contrast that strong sign of support with the lack of support from people like Ralph Peters, the writers at National Review and other voices from the right. Despite their long-standing reputations for being pro-military, they actually have so little confidence in our soldiers, marines and airmen that they not only won't agree in public that eighteen months is plenty of time to do the job, they're not even willing to commit to a date by which they feel the military can accomplish its mission. It's as if they, having been asked how long it will take, answer 'who the heck knows, it could take years and years'. And they criticize Obama for being not supporting the military... what chutzpah.
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