Skip to content

Yet another book report

Monday, June 29, 2009

I just finished Dean Baker’s Plunder and Blunder, The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.

Baker is one of those economists who saw the bubble coming. He was therefore ignored at the time and continues to be ignored, much like those of us who saw the Iraq debacle coming were ignored then, and are ignored now. Nothing gets you more ignored in the halls of power than being right, particularly if what you are saying make rich and powerful people uncomfortable.

The book is short (145 pages) and eminently readable. There is no jargon. You needn’t have taken even Economics 101 to understand it.

What’s done is done, so while it’s important to understand what happened in the past, it’s more important to learn from the past and try to insure that dismal history doesn’t repeat itself. Baker has some prescriptions for avoiding a repetition of the current mess. Some are so obvious that only a Congressman or a banker could disagree. Unfortunately, Congressmen and Bankers make the laws, so most of Baker’s prescriptions have been ignored.

One of the factors leading to the recent crash is the built in conflicts of interest that affect the system. For instance, the appraisers hired by lenders to appraise property are supposed to give honest appraisals, but they quickly got the message that the lenders wanted anything but honest appraisals. Since the lenders were paying for their services, the lenders got what they wanted: dishonest appraisals. LIkewise auditors quickly learned that they would not be re-hired if they produced honest audits, so they didn’t. Baker suggests a neat structural solution. Auditors, appraisers, and other experts that are used to certify financial matters should be assigned by an independent body. The banks would pay the board for the appraisal, but the appraiser would be chosen by the board, not the bank.

Same with auditors, same with the bond rating agencies.

Unfortunately, the recently announced Obama plan does nothing about these built in conflicts. It’s a sad fact that Obama has already allowed the window of opportunity for meaningful financial reform to close. Once again, the folks that didn’t see it coming, or who profited immensely from inflicting this disaster upon us, have an outsized voice in crafting a response. People like Baker are being ignored once again.

If you’re interested in getting an account of what happened and why, from a guy who saw it coming, you can’t do better than this little book.


Filed in Economics | | Comments (0)

There are aliens among us

Monday, June 29, 2009

I think, perhaps, that I am beginning to understand the fundamentalist fear that gay marriages will somehow destroy their own.

A few days ago I pondered Jenny Sanford’s odd declaration that marriage is an enduring love is primarily an act of will. Apparently, this attitude is ingrained in the fundamentalist creed, at least the fundamentalist flavor the Sanfords prefer. Consider this statement from Sanford spiritual adviser, Warren “Cubby” Culbertson:

Culbertson also thinks that the only thing holding his friends’ marriage together right now is “their vow to God.”

“Because it’s not feelings _ it’s not emotions,” Culbertson said, the smile fading from his tanned face. “For most Christians, at some point in your marriage, if you’re married long enough, you do it because that’s what we’re called to do _ out of obedience instead of out of passion. And I think that’s where Mark and Jenny are right now.”

Now, I understand that passion only lasts so long. After a while, as Hamlet said, “the hey-day in the blood is tame”. But the dichotomy here seems a bit strange. Christians gets married out of passion, but stay married only in obedience to God. Apparently “most Christians” (or at least their spiritual advisers) are unaware that a relationship between two people can be sustained by more than sex and, to the point, more than mere obedience.

At bottom this is yet another illustration of the profound contempt in which “Christians” hold women, for the unspoken premise is that men are bound to stray once their women no longer arouse unbridled passion. They can’t conceive that a woman can be anything but an object of sexual desire; once that “passion” is gone, she’s just a ball and chain.

It must make “most Christian” marriages awful fragile, more like a chore than a rewarding experience. All those Christian men, holding on to their marriages by the tips of their fingers, the strength of their will, and their fear of the Lord. It still doesn’t provide a logical explanation for why they consider gay marriage a threat to the institution of marriage, but maybe it explains their emotional reaction. Anything that calls their god-centric view of marriage into question undermines their ability to keep God’s commandments, and stay with the wives with whom they have no other bond than mutual fear of God’s wrath.


Filed in Republicans | | Comments (0)

Why we need high speed rail

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I just got back from Maine, where we had a little mini-reunion of the guys to whom I was closest in college. We had a great time, once we got there.

But.

The most logical route from here to Maine is up 395 in Connecticut, 290 to 495 in Massachusetts, then up 95 through New Hampshire and Maine. It is, save the Connecticut portion, the route from hell. On Saturday morning the exit from 290 to 495 was backed up for miles; we finally decided (using directions from my wife’s Iphone) to exit onto a back route and navigate around the backup. It basically took us about an hour to get back onto 495 and resume the trip. From there on, the traffic was merely constantly heavy all the way to Portland, where we left the interstate.

On the way back, the traffic was absolutely dreadful. The Maine Turnpike, or most of it, and 495 are both three lanes wide. Most of the time the cars in all three lanes were a few car lengths apart. It is always like that, especially on 495. I drove that road back when I was in college, and even then it was overcrowded. 395 in Connecticut is bliss by comparison.

This being the United States, there is no way to get to Maine, or virtually anywhere else in New England, other than by car. Amtrak covers the coast, but is far too costly; it only goes as far as Boston, and is inconvenient for everyone who doesn’t live along the coast. Building more highways is no solution-they just encourage more development along their path. To paraphrase a line from Field of Dreams, if you build it, it will get filled.

Now I’ll readily concede that the trip to Maine is particularly brutal. The trip to Vermont, which only nicks high density areas, is not that bad, unless your timing is off. If you want to get to Maine without totally frazzling yourself, you have to drive in the middle of the night, and that holds true for any trip that involves New England interstates. I-95 through Connecticut, and indeed, for its whole length until you get to Northern Maine, is always overcrowded.

We need speedy, reliable and cheap rail transit. Since we now own GM, maybe we can use all our new factories to manufacture the trains and cars, and all our newly unemployed stockbrokers to lay and maintain the track. I know it won’t happen; this country is imprisoned by a “can’t do” philosophy, which has been successfully propagated by a Republican party that preaches that the government should not do what needs to be done, and that private corporations shouldn’t have to. But, we can dream, can’t we?

Epilogue: This is totally irrelevant to the subject of this post, but here’s a few pictures of what makes the horrendous trip worth it. These are taken from the dock in South Freeport, where we went to the Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster for lunch.


Filed in Rants | | Comments (0)

Friday Night Music

Friday, June 26, 2009

Who else, given yesterday’s events?

It’s actually hard to find good stuff on Michael Jackson. Embedding is disabled on all the music videos. There’s some concert footage from after he went totally off the deep end, or over the top, whichever you prefer. It also goes without saying that the no lip sync rule goes by the boards; you can’t dance like he did and sing at the same time. Anyway, I settled on this rendition of Billie Jean.


Filed in Music | | Comments (0)

Contrast and compare

Friday, June 26, 2009

At the Washington Monthly Steve Benen writes about the fact that the right may be opposing Sotomayor out of a generation old sense of grievance about the confirmation battles involving Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He suggests they take the advice that they, including Scalia, have given us about Bush v. Gore: get over it.

This may be yet another of the stark differences between the Republicans and Democrats that make it into the seat of power. Perhaps due to their affiliation with elephants, Republicans never forget. For reasons completely inexplicable, Democrats never remember. As Krugman has been pointing out lately, Democrats seem to qualify as insane, if one accepts the definition that one is insane if one continually does the same thing expecting a different result. In the case of the Democrats, they have been continually trying to “compromise” with a group that has no interest in reaching agreements, and, even worse, leading with what they consider to be a reasonable compromise position instead of starting with a strong initial position and bargaining from there. And let’s not forget about the fact that, unlike those of us on the outside, Democrats in Washington “got over” the stolen 2000 election before Bush was even inaugurated. If the Democrats were the opposition in Iran, the country would be quiescent today.


Filed in Democrats | | Comments (1)

Mark Who?

Thursday, June 25, 2009

What has a shorter attention span than the American Media?

Give up?

Nothing, and nobody.

A few minutes ago my wife and I finished last night’s Daily Show/Colbert. We were about to turn our attention to Keith Olbermann, which was being saved to my hard drive as we watched Jon and Stephen. (That way we can speed through the commercials)

A digression: I consider the Daily Show and Colbert, especially Colbert, to be fine journalism, albeit of the satirical variety. I freely admit that I watch Keith for the guilty pleasure of having my own opinions validated. We lefties waited a long time for someone to pander to us, and now that there’s someone doing it, we might as well enjoy it.

Back to the main event. Where was I? Let’s see. O, right. Short attention spans.

So, there we were, settling in to watch Keith skewer Mark Sanford some more, but alas, Sanford is so yesterday. Much to Sanford’s probable delight, yesterday’s all Sanford all the time media has morphed into today’s all Michael Jackson all the time-really all the time- media. So far as I could see as I sped through the spooled portion of the show (including the last 15 minutes of “Hardball”), there were no stories to count down. There was only one story: the death of a very bizarre, albeit hugely talented performer. Apparently Farrah Fawcett has been lost in the undertow.

So, exit Mark Sanford, stage right (at least I assume he’d exit stage right, given his choice). Sanford himself had driven Iran from the public consciousness, or at least the media consciousness.

And so it goes. If our media was a child it would be on Ritalin.


Filed in Media | | Comments (1)

An act of will

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

At times like this I realize my inadequacies as a wordsmith. What original slant could one possibly bring to the Sanford story? Sure, we all know that you couldn’t make it up, but that doesn’t help a guy in my situation. As I write, the story is already over 5 hours old, and in this internet age that’s an eon. Everything that could possibly be said has been said, except no one has yet said what will surely come out in the next day or two, which everyone will agree, once it comes out, could also not be made up.

One has to wonder where the tipping point is. Fairly or not, there’s getting to be a presumption that your average Catholic priest is a pedophile. After all, numbers don’t lie. At what point will the presumption arise in the public mind that every right wing holier than thou politician is breaking the sixth commandment, not to mention, in some cases, some strictures from Leviticus (see, e.g., Larry Craig).

But perhaps we should feel a bit of sympathy for Sanford. It can’t be is this is the level of enthusiasm you manage to evoke in your wife, who had this to say about her hubbie:

I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will…

That called to mind this colloquy from the Gondoliers (Gilbert & Sullivan, you see-I brought music in without mentioning Evita) among the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro and their daughter, Casilda, the subject being Casilda’s upcoming arranged marriage:

CAS. Well, whatever happens, I shall, of course, be a dutiful wife, but I can never love my husband.

DUKE. I don’t know. It’s extraordinary what unprepossessing people one can love if one gives one’s mind to it.

DUCH. I loved your father.

DUKE. My love–that remark is a little hard, I think? Rather cruel, perhaps? Somewhat uncalled-for, I venture to believe?

DUCH. It was very difficult, my dear; but I said to myself, “That man is a Duke, and I will love him.” Several of my relations bet me I couldn’t, but I did–desperately!

But it probably would take an effort of will to love a guy who could write this sort of drivel:

You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details…

And yes, that last line is really in his emails to his Argentinean inamorato.

Sounds like the Duchess has nothing on Sanford’s wife, since the Duchess had a much easier task.


Filed in Republicans | | Comments (1)

It’s all about us

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Tom Tomorrow puts it succinctly, as always.


Filed in Foreign Affairs, Republicans | | Comments (1)

Human Nature

Monday, June 22, 2009

According to Thinkprogress, Joe Scarborough has taken John McCain and Lindsay Graham to task for criticizing Obama’s hands off approach to the Iranian situation:

SCARBOROUGH: All we would do is undermine those people in the street, who the second that they are attached to the United States of America, the country after all that’s been known in Iran as the great Satan since 1979, we will undermine their cause … It’s so shortsighted I find it stunning. […]

What would John McCain and Lindsey Graham specifically have the president say? All of those people that are emailing in and telling me that I’m being liberal? Oh really? I’m being liberal? No I think it’s called restraint. Showing a little bit of restraint. Looking at the battlefield in front of you and not just running up Pickett’s Charge and getting gunned down. If you want to feel good about yourself — and you can only feel good about yourself by screaming about the evils of Iran — fine do that. But our leaders in Washington don’t need to do that because people will be routed in the street the second they are identified with the United States of America.

With all of which I heartily agree. But this post is not about Iran, it is about a somewhat irrational implied argument.

Now, Thinkprogress is a “progressive” site. Normally, it disagrees with Joe Scarborough. But the implied argument here is as follows: We normally disagree with Scarborough. If even he agrees with our position we must be right.

Now, this is something we all do. Left or right, it makes no difference. If a conservative finds him or herself on the same page as Teddy Kennedy, they will cite that agreement as proof positive of the justice of their position. For, after all, if even Teddy Kennedy (or Joe Sarbourough) can see the light….

In truth, this line of argument is totally illogical. If I believe that Joe Scarborough is usually wrong, then it stands to reason that I should re-examine my position if I occasionally find myself in agreement with him. After all, if he is usually wrong, there is a high probability that when he agrees with me, it is my position that is wrong, and not he that is right. But no one thinks that way. If we find ourself with a position in common with an ideological foe, we trumpet that fact as proof positive of the correctness of our position.

I should hasten to add that Scarborough happens to be right in this particular situation, not only in his position, but in the reasons he gives for his position.

For those with doubts, recall a little American history. Just before the 2004 election, Osama bin Laden issued a stern warning to the American people, warning them not to re-elect George Bush. The pundits, like the idiots they are, interpreted this as an endorsement of Kerry. The CIA, and the Bush people knew better of course. Osama, who is depraved but not stupid, knew that an attack on Bush would help Bush’s re-election campaign. Since Bush was the gift that kept on giving as far as Al Qaeda was concerned, and since Osama knew that his words would be taken at face value by the stupid American media, Osama made his endorsement in the way that he did. Obama doesn’t have the luxury to play the reverse psychology gambit, since the Republicans would skewer him at home, and because the government of Iran is very likely not as stupid as the American people or the American media. But an outright endorsement of the protestors would be seized upon by the Iranian government in just the same way as Osama’s “endorsement” of Kerry was seized on by the Republicans, except that it would be used as an excuse to not just discredit, but to oppress, the opposition. It’s not logical to argue that if even Joe Scarborough can see that, it must be true, but if even Joe Scarborough can see that, it must be true.


Filed in Foreign Affairs | | Comments (0)

A silver lining to every cloud

Monday, June 22, 2009

Thanks to my sister for sending me this.


Filed in Humour | | Comments (0)