980+ mass shootings (defined by 4 or more dead, non-drug/gang/war related) in the US since Newtown. That says it all. And keep in mind that the vast majority of gun deaths do not occur in mass shootings, but the less-reported suicides and "regular" homicides.
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/02/445379809/stuff-happens-comment-creates-firestorm-for-jeb-bush
And the typical tone-deaf, uncompassionate, guns-before-people response from GOP leaders (in this case, my favorite guy to hate, Jeb). Basically after a national tragedy relating to guns: "shit happens." But when Muslims attack us: "Bomb them to hell!" I hope Jeb's rivals and the MSM call him out on this.
http://gawker.com/you-dont-pass-a-pool-fencing-law-after-a-child-drowns-1734383068
Jeb is saying we shouldn't rush to impulse legislation after a tragedy. But after a kid fell and drowned in a pool in FL, Jeb's gov't rushed to create a pool fence law. Was that such a bad thing? How many people and pets were saved by that knee-jerk reaction? Like Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow," sometime you want to think fast for your survival. Don't let the trauma fade away so you delude yourself into thinking that it's not a big problem and it won't happen again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html?_r=0
And for those who say it's a mental health issue and not a gun issue, I disagree. The vast majority of mentally ill or "weird loner" people are not violent. So unless you want to infringe on the rights of millions of innocents (in a Minority Report style preventative action), I don't see how this will help. Sure it's better safe than sorry to report to authorities if someone you know is concerning you, and those authorities have to respond to legit threats effectively (like how we're trying to deal with suicide prevention warning signs). Of course we as a society should pay more attention/resources to mental illness, hate ideology, and isolated youth. But it won't prevent most mass shootings.
Only locking up guns will do that. Some would say that the Oregon shooter purchased his guns legally and no bkgd. check would have blocked him. So maybe that's the problem: properly interpret the 2nd Amend. (how the courts did pre-NRA) and strictly limit private ownership of guns (or ammo, or both). Maybe people can still buy them, but must store them with 3rd party highly regulated gun locker companies (so it's not the evil gov't controlling our guns). In order to check out the guns, the owner has to be lojacked and have a witness legally vouch for their mental/emotional state. Maybe critics would say that such a system would leave us vulnerable to criminal attacks. Then buy a dog or mace, or support leaders/laws that address the root causes of crime like poverty, education, and racism.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment
Alternatively, some people think that the gun culture in SUI "works" because of a deep tradition of safety and personal responsibility (hard to measure). Like how strongly Americans feel about personal freedoms (and football), if we placed a similar or larger emphasis on gun safety, peaceful conflict resolution, and accident prevention, then maybe we could have our guns but not the tragedies (but we have a long way to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBIOJJkEQT4). Keep in mind that SUI's gun deaths per capita are still one of the highest in the 1st world too.
http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Thursday, September 17, 2015
I'd prefer Trump over Jeb
Because the latter just keeps proving that he is the
biggest tool in the world! At least Trump is right about money in
politics, taxing the 1%, and women's health.
Some highlights from last night:
Rand
calls out Jeb for "getting away with" smoking pot as a kid because he's
privileged, but plenty of dark skinned poor people get their lives
ruined by a drug conviction. Some highlights from last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.npr.org/sections/
And sorry I forgot to add Jeb's most pathetic move of the night: http://www.ijreview.com/2015/
Have some self-respect, man. Dubya is twice the man Jeb is (for better or worse).
Friday, August 28, 2015
"Bubble boy" Bush visits NOLA for the 10th anniv. of Katrina
I
refer to him as "bubble boy" because in the conservative dream world he
continues to seek refuge in, he did a heck of a job during Katrina. How
tone deaf and offensive; I wish the locals booed and egged him all the
way to Louis Armstrong Airport. Of course he didn't visit the Superdome,
Lower 9th, or his other "greatest hits". He didn't take press questions
either. Maybe he still doesn't have a good answer for, "Did you make
any mistakes during your presidency?"
What's next, he visits Baghdad as the conquering hero? I'm sure ISIS commanders would be happy to host him. Total a-hole. For the 5th anniv. of the Deepwater Horizons disaster this year, even BP leaders weren't dumb enough to visit the shrimping villages, not expecting the victims to shower them with appreciation for all their "restoration" work.
What's next, he visits Baghdad as the conquering hero? I'm sure ISIS commanders would be happy to host him. Total a-hole. For the 5th anniv. of the Deepwater Horizons disaster this year, even BP leaders weren't dumb enough to visit the shrimping villages, not expecting the victims to shower them with appreciation for all their "restoration" work.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Memorial Day reminder
As our leaders, media, and propagandists try to guilt trip us into
remembering and appreciating veterans this season (they bled so we can
BBQ - which is just a silly claim all around), let's also remember how
stupid some of our leaders were in getting us into and mismanaging
certain wars. Many paid the ultimate price for the mistakes of a few.
Each year when the president lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier, they should also burn a past leader in effigy (plenty to choose
from: Nixon, Bush, Cheney, Westmoreland, Custer, MacArthur, etc.).
In
the vain pursuit of glory, power, legacy, etc., they eagerly put pen to
paper (with little care about consequences and how to care for the
wounded after the war), and changed the fates of millions of families -
usually for the worse. At least in the olden days, the "best and
brightest" would offer their sons to the military as noblesse oblige and
expectations of their class. But with the advent of industrialized
warfare where anyone could be killed suddenly (and en masse) by flying
hot metal, all that changed. And with global capitalism, the powerful
could grow their empires commercially, making physical conquest (and all
its risks) obsolete. The 1% sent their kids to the Ivy League as the
future champions of industry/politics, and the poor did the fighting and
dying instead."My younger brother, a Vietnam vet, recently died. He was haunted to the end by memories of what he witnessed in the war and of "well-meaning" friends and relatives who called him a baby killer when he returned.
Now, my grandson is fighting to recover from PTSD, hearing loss, and memories of what he witnessed during 3 tours in Iraq.
Will it never end?"
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
The Senate CIA torture report
Some
of this was already known or suspected by us, but the confirmation and
surprising excesses just make me ashamed to be American. It's a black
mark on all the Americans who previously or currently fight for freedom
and human rights honorably, or in some cases they do it
smartly/peacefully so they don't need to fight at all.
Of course the CIA regurgitated the same tired lines that this disclosure will put US personnel and interests in danger overseas, and their tactics (albeit ugly) prevented attacks. Well on the first point, there is no such thing as secrecy in our social media connected world. Even if there was no Senate report, people all over the world have experienced or know of relatives and neighbors getting kidnapped, tortured, or assassinated. Do you think they don't care and just forget? They hate us for it and it breeds new security threats for the US. So don't blame the Senate for exposing what foreigners already know. The Senate is just forcing the apathetic, aloof public to look at ourselves in the mirror - which is a critical requirement of a functional free society that we may overlook.
Re: their second point, that the ends justify the means - well we know where that argument leads. Technically, it will probably make America safer if we nuke Pakistan tomorrow. Are we prepared to do that? Of course not. From a utilitarian perspective, you have to draw the line on how much evil you are willing to commit to do good, and I think our society wants to have a very low bar for that (as we should). If the outcome is good, you can rationalize and make all the excuses you want. But what if you're wrong and you failed? You committed all that evil for no gain, and we have to deal with the consequences of the evil too. The Senate report suggested that torture did generate some actionable intel, but they weren't critical pieces of intel, and in many cases that info was also obtained through more ethical means. So it was a lot of evil for very little benefits, and there were better ways to get the same benefits. Of course intel under duress is full of lies and false leads, which wasted intel resources. The CIA is a gov't agency too - so hawkish conservatives need to remember that it's not immune to similar screw-ups as we've seen at the VA, HHS, IRS, etc.
Like the recent NSA abuses, this is what
happens when we as a society get so lazy/fearful/egocentric that we let
our perceived security trump everything else, and entrust it to
sociopaths with little to no scruples or accountability (and plenty of
ulterior motives). Maybe that is not fair; I do believe that many in our
security apparatus (even the criminals) do really love America and
believe that they are doing what is best for our safety. But like Wall
Street, they fail to take a broader, longer view of what safety truly
means. Their mission at hand is not necessarily compatible to the
overall mission of the US. And maybe like US law enforcement, we give
the CIA more credit than they actually deserve in terms of brainpower
and competence. Because it's pretty scary to ponder - are our protectors
actually inept and immoral? Well it's better that we ask and find out,
rather than just hope for the best and get a rude awakening (like 9/11,
or Bay of Pigs, or Iran-Contra, and the list goes on and on).Of course the CIA regurgitated the same tired lines that this disclosure will put US personnel and interests in danger overseas, and their tactics (albeit ugly) prevented attacks. Well on the first point, there is no such thing as secrecy in our social media connected world. Even if there was no Senate report, people all over the world have experienced or know of relatives and neighbors getting kidnapped, tortured, or assassinated. Do you think they don't care and just forget? They hate us for it and it breeds new security threats for the US. So don't blame the Senate for exposing what foreigners already know. The Senate is just forcing the apathetic, aloof public to look at ourselves in the mirror - which is a critical requirement of a functional free society that we may overlook.
Re: their second point, that the ends justify the means - well we know where that argument leads. Technically, it will probably make America safer if we nuke Pakistan tomorrow. Are we prepared to do that? Of course not. From a utilitarian perspective, you have to draw the line on how much evil you are willing to commit to do good, and I think our society wants to have a very low bar for that (as we should). If the outcome is good, you can rationalize and make all the excuses you want. But what if you're wrong and you failed? You committed all that evil for no gain, and we have to deal with the consequences of the evil too. The Senate report suggested that torture did generate some actionable intel, but they weren't critical pieces of intel, and in many cases that info was also obtained through more ethical means. So it was a lot of evil for very little benefits, and there were better ways to get the same benefits. Of course intel under duress is full of lies and false leads, which wasted intel resources. The CIA is a gov't agency too - so hawkish conservatives need to remember that it's not immune to similar screw-ups as we've seen at the VA, HHS, IRS, etc.
Anyone who has worked a corporate job knows how easily it is for depts and teams to get fixated on their immediate objectives and success criteria, without considering the implications/significance on the overall company's success. I think this probably occurred at the CIA and NSA. Their narrow success criteria are "intel" and kills (in the case of the CIA), and they are the ones who get to tell their "customers" how good of a job they're doing. So without due diligence, attribution, and independent scrutiny, who is to say whether their intel and kills are actually low or high value? So of course, each morsel of info they gather is a home run, and each target they murder was an immediate threat to the US. They are incentivized to get as much info as possible, by whatever means available (and under Bush and Obama, they got the keys to the kingdom).
Sure there is some federal oversight, but most of it is classified and never gets public review. I don't think that is a very smart way to structure things. But we can't really expect the CIA and NSA to not go hog wild if we give them such freedom, mandate, and budgets. The bigger blame is on our civilian leaders who let the beast out of the cage, and the US public who failed to hold any of them accountable (until it was too late). And I doubt anyone will get fired or go to jail over the report, which adds to the tragedy.
---
Regarding points 1 and 2 I would offer a less cynical approach:
1. It will endanger Americans because the truth being
exposed is ugly. I heard some official say there really isn't a good
time to release this kind of info. So pragmatically speaking, they
should expect backlash. So not a reason to stop the release but an
accepted cost of release.
2. Whether this is true or not I can imagine an insider
wanting or needing it to be true. Not that the ends justify the means
but that the means, having been done, provided something worthwhile.
The alternative is all loss and nothing redeeming.
So hopefully some of these people are making these assertions for the right reasons instead of political ones.
----
Thx, M. Yeah as you said, there's never really a good time to
announce bad news. But if the CIA was worried about this stuff getting
out and endangering Americans, then they shouldn't have done it in the
first place. It's the act, not the revelation, that is damaging. And so
far, I haven't heard of any attacks on US targets. An optimistic way of
looking at it might be that foreigners will respect America more for
investigating its dirty laundry rather than burying/denying it like
Putin or Kim might.
Like the VA hearings a while back,
this is of course is prompting calls for a "total review" of the Agency
and cultural change, but as we know, that stuff happens slowly or
never. Congress seems upset that they were misled/not fully informed,
although the CIA denies it. No president (incl. Obama) has tried to
stand up and rein in the CIA. There was some talk that Kennedy wanted to
after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but obviously didn't get the chance (and
some believe that the CIA had a role in his death, but I don't mean to
bring up conspiracies).
---
Why are they beyond reproach? They were created by the state, and the state represents the citizenry. It's not like they're some rogue kingdom like North Korea that we have to handle with kid gloves. But I guess they do act like a "state within a state" at times.
Maybe our leaders don't have the stomach for it, but with a stroke of a pen, Congress and the President could require the CIA to expose its finances, data, and emails each year (to the right eyes of course), and we could appoint an independent watchdog that needs to be present at all high level intel and strategy meetings - and also has to approve any tier 1 action. Just knowing that someone is watching you is often enough to clean up behavior and reduce risk taking. And if this is done delicately, it won't degrade our security readiness at all. In fact, could be the opposite. Sure the CIA will bitch about it (no one likes a micromanager), but then they should have behaved better in the first place.
---
Isn't that sort of not true though? I mean the whole part that is in contention is whether and/or to what extent the CIA fed lies to the overseers. The classic who watches the watchers dilemma. So watchdog all you like there will never be a guarantee that an agency whose sole agenda is covert ops will be fully forthright with anyone but themselves. Not to say we quit and take it but these gaps in information are sort of the cost of entry to this type of game.
---
I see your point, but that is why the CIA can't be trusted to self-report truthfully (just like you have to take a defendant's testimony with a grain of salt unless corroborated by others). We have to go beyond the Congressional committees (even though they swear oaths when they testify), and have non-CIA people embedded at the Agency to watch the watchmen. It's also like SOX compliance, public companies have to hire a third-party audit firm for the accounting - they just can't tell the SEC to trust them that it's all good.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Some good links
A visit to the Bush Museum: http://www.vice.com/read/the-
A pretty impressive study about reparations for blacks,
highlighting the pernicious effects of housing inequality on top of the
more familiar US racist policies: http://www.theatlantic.com/Sunday, March 9, 2014
Cheney and the GOP criticizing Obama over Crimea
http://news.yahoo.com/cheney-
I find it ironic (but typical) that Cheney and others in the GOP (except for the Paul family libertarians) would bash Obama for being "weak" in the face of Putin's aggression in Crimea. Politicians have short memories, but I seem to recall that Bush did jack squat against Russia's overt invasion of Georgia in 2008 (and in that war, >700 people died whereas in Crimea one guy got a concussion so far). Diplomacy, not threats or military buildup, eventually led to a Russian withdrawal and UN peacekeeping mission.
After the Georgia War:
The [2008 EU] Report claimed that Russian citizenship, conferred to the vast part of Abkhaz and Ossetians may not be considered legally binding under international law. As a result, the interests of these people may not be used as a reason for starting military actions, in defense of Russian citizens living abroad.
Friday, May 3, 2013
We've already lost the war on terror
Let's
be honest, even Al Qaeda + Saddam + Kim at the apexes of their power
did not really constitute an existential threat to the US and our
interests. They are vile and inconvenient and sometime lethal and would
be better behind bars, but they can't end our way of life. The Soviets
could have ended us at a moment's notice, and we lived under that cloud
for over 30 years. We bulked up our military and engaged in plenty of
proxy dirty wars to gain some leverage, but we didn't reinvent our
entire security apparatus and turn our backs on what made us great to
try to destroy communism everywhere it bred.
But that is exactly what we have done post-9/11. The CIA
changed from an intelligence gathering outfit (that was Congressionally
prohibited from assassinating or torturing anyone, although they
probably did it from time to time) into a shadow parallel military. Both
they and the Pentagon now have Presidential authority to kill anyone,
anywhere. Obama's admin. claims that B.O. wants to be the last word on
the decisions so he can personally make sure that we are only killing
people that we really must kill. And he is the Chosen One, so we can
trust that he is making the right call every time - even though the info
that he is basing the decision on is pre-filtered and doctored by
military handlers whose career progression is based on body counts. Hey
Mr. ConLaw prof - that is why we have courts, juries, and trials to
reduce the risk of bias and error (and our courts still get plenty of
cases wrong too, even capital punishments, so how will you and your boys
do better?). Now there is no due process, no evidence sharing, just a
drone strike or a wetwork team kicking down a door in the middle of the
night. 
What kind of nation does those things? Red China - guilty on some counts but not all. Iran - ditto. Cuba - they're the Red Cross compared to us. Maybe the USSR and Nazi Germany are the only modern regimes that come close. If we have resorted to such tactics to "defend ourselves against radical Islam", then we have lost the war on terror. And now our jingoism and vengeance are coming down on Tsarnaev. He is going to get mob justice at best, and it's scary to hear the things that even some prominent politicians and media personalities are saying about what we should do to him.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/
Monday, March 21, 2011
Problems with the Libya no-fly zone
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_
Air patrols and cruise missile strikes alone won't force a well-financed sociopathic dictator to step down, especially when he knows no foreign troops will come. The opposition has to topple him and seal the deal. If the international community acted 2 weeks ago, when the rebels had all the momentum and were at the outskirts of Tripoli, then maybe we could have had a relatively clean conclusion to this tough situation and a cessation of violence now. But as we dithered, Qaddafi's better armed and trained forces beat back the rebels, and we only started to attack this weekend when the tables had turned, and Qaddafi was about to deliver his death blow to the resistance at Benghazi. We lost the initiative, and now it's starting to look intractable like our police action in Korea in the 1950s.
I know it's hard to get the UN and NATO to act quickly on anything, and the Japan quake was another major concern to address. But that's why our fumbling in Iraq and Afghanistan is so costly and will hurt us for years more; no-drama Obama is so paranoid of getting embroiled in another Middle East quagmire that he is being too timid when America would have been justified to act weeks ago. If this uprising occurred in 1995, I think Clinton would have swiftly intervened. No one wants Qaddafi around. Unfortunately neither does Al Qaeda, so maybe in his power vacuum some Islamic forces would gain some power, but it's doubtful if they would be able to control the entire country. Qaddafi has survived for 40 years partly by beating down any traces of Islamic movements, like his neighbor Mubarak.
But we don't want another quagmire that ends up biting us in the ass, right? When we toppled Saddam, it was a big boon to Iran and Al Qaeda. We messed up there because we were following a foolish strategy of remaking the region into a "kinder, gentler" Middle East that would be safe for globalization and Israel. Many Iraqis hated Saddam, but his grip on power was strong and he was basically an integral part of the Iraqi society he built around himself and the Ba'ath party. The Saddam opposition movement was comprised of a handful of corrupt, decadent, unknown exiled chumps like Ahmed Chalabi. All that was a recipe for disaster, but Bush and the neocons had blinders on. In the Libyan case, a good portion of the country has already rejected him. We won't have to install any government like with Iraq, we can let the Libyans run the show. The rebels are organized and motivated and not radical Muslims like the Mujahadeen vs. the USSR. Libya is sparsely populated with only a few coastal urban centers, it does a lot of commerce with Europe, and maintains diplomatic relations with the outside world. It is a relatively easier case for post-dictatorship nation building. We could still horribly mess up with Libya, but it's a much easier challenge than Iraq or Afghanistan.
So what are our options now? Air-drop supplies and other assistance to the rebels? Freeze Qaddafi's assets, increase sanctions, and hope we stave him out? But that hurts the innocent population too, and as we've seen with Iran, we can't effectively embargo a country the size of Texas. The rebels will run out of steam before Qaddafi's side does, he's a survivor. Maybe at best we can hope for some sort of bargained truce where Qaddafi stays in power and the rebels get a section of the country, like with Sudan. But there are plenty of problems associated with that scenario too, it will take years to implement, and who says Qaddafi won't crush the other side in a surprise attack down the road when we're no longer concerned with Libya?
Here's an opposing view arguing that liberal interventionists are basically behaving like neocons in calling for Obama to intervene in the Libya situation that we have no business meddling in:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/
Friday, December 10, 2010
More on taxes and unemployment
The fact that we use U3 unemployment as the measure of official unemployment fairly dramatically understates the actual labor slack in the economy. Looking at a measure like U6 (which is U3 unemployment plus people who've stopped seeking work for economic reasons, people who would like a job but haven't looked recently, and people who are working part-time for economic reasons but want to work full-time), that measure of unemployment is up around 17%. And the spread has increased. 3 years ago U3 was 4.7% and U6 was 8.5%. Today it's 9.8% and 17.0%. It's a lot easier to tell people they should care about austerity and so forth when you can claim unemployment is 9.8% than if you have to acknowledge it's at 17%.
Also, a pretty good graph of the effect of different kinds of economic stimulus, from Moody's a couple years ago when they were looking at this stuff the first time around: http://motherjones.
--------
Very true, thanks J. Yeah U3 is a pretty limited metric and doesn't capture real labor market conditions. I don't know why more economists and politicians don't cite the U6 data - that should shock anyone that almost 1 out of 5 able-bodied people can't find work or can't find enough work. That's about 25.5M people, and many more if you include dependents. That is a critical mass for voting leverage. Well, the unemployment rate among white collar workers is quite a bit lower, and if they and the retired are doing most of the voting, well then we know what kind of economic policies we'll get.
"Managers and college grads still are more likely to be working than Americans overall. The unadjusted unemployment rate hit 8.5% in January, compared with 4.1% for management and professional workers and 3.8% for college graduates." (I'm assuming these %s are based on U3 from 2009).
http://www.jsonline.com/
Haha, so all the tax cuts that the GOP loves (dividends/cap gains, Bush cuts, corporate cuts) deliver the least bang for buck, while all the spending they want to cut (food stamps, unemployment) are the best. When will America wake up to this? Good job to the GOP governors who refused stimulus money for infrastructure projects and such (and often those red states are the ones with the weakest economies and most crumbling infrastructure, like Gov. Jindal's Louisiana). Yeah it's totally ridiculous that companies get to report accelerated depreciation to the IRS but use more conservative depreciation measures for SEC filings. So they pay less tax and appear more profitable to shareholders?
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/09/
NPR was interviewing #3 GOP Senator Alexander yesterday (who sits on the Appropriations, Budget, Health/Labor Cmtes. so he should understand this stuff) about the tax cut deal, and the host kept prodding him to explain why it's justified that high earners get a tax cut, and in fact a disproportionately expensive cut vs. lower earners (1/4 of the amount goes to the richest 1% of Americans). Instead of an intelligent response, he parroted the cliche "We are trying to create jobs and you don't raise taxes on anyone during a recession." Then why did they oppose Obama's stimuli, which included tax breaks for businesses that hire new workers? Isn't that better than giving every rich person money even if they don't preserve/create a single job?
He also stressed that this was not a tax cut, since the taxes are currently low but are scheduled to increase. So letting the cuts expire would actually be a tax hike (I guess if the Dems let the cuts expire, the GOP plans to blast them for "raising taxes"). But that is ridiculous logic. It was a temporary tax holiday all along (since Bush and the GOP in 2000 didn't have the votes to make it permanent); the regular tax rate is the higher one. That's like me taking a vacation from work, and when I return, I complain to my boss that he's increasing my hours! I guess Alexander realized that he couldn't give a good answer to the question, so might as well kill the conversation with some misdirection. He is a lawyer after all.
It's just sad to see Obama and Summers defending this tax cut BS so fervently, and to their fellow Dems to boot. I don't really blame Obama for his actions considering the circumstances, but stop trying to polish a turd. They are actually saying that if we extend the tax cuts, we'll certainly avoid a double-dip recession. I guess the GOP isn't the only party engaged in fear-mongering.
-------------
I think the attached chart pretty much lays out the answer to your question as to why there's such intense pressure to ditch the unemployment insurance and extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. (as you might imagine, education and income are pretty highly correlated)
I was just reading a paper the other day about how much more pro-poor the US would be if elections were held on the weekends (most poor people can't get off time to go vote on weekdays like high-income people can). It's no surprise that the most conservative states often have the shortest voting hours and the most onerous voting registration requirements.
-------------
Thx, A. I wonder why community organizers don't try to mobilize the urban poor more during elections. Maybe since most cities vote liberal anyway, and minorities/lower income folks are more likely to be Dems, less of a need? I know there were allegations of people getting packed into buses from the ghetto and whisked to the polling stations, but I'm not sure if it was just propaganda, and also not sure if there's anything wrong with that.
As you said, our voting system is the most inaccessible of all modern, developed democracies. In France I believe the window to vote is several days if not weeks, India too (due to people living in remote areas maybe). In other nations voting occurs on weekends or national holidays. There is absolutely no damn reason to have an election on a work day, especially when the working poor can't get paid time off and may work 12 hours a day over multiple jobs. Plus in other nations there isn't so much red tape for registering. In many cases a voter can "register" (or whatever equivalent) on election day. Hell, even in Iraq the polls stay open Fri-Sun. But all those scenes of Americans waiting in lines all day to vote in inner-city areas is just unacceptable. Voting shouldn't be such a sacrifice, unless the system is designed to prevent those people from participating. Making voting nearly impossible for the lower class is one thing, but how do we control the influence of the rich in politics? The 1st Amend. seems to protect an individual, org, or corporation's "right" to basically contribute limitless cash to political causes, and the Supreme Court seemed to affirm that last year.
In Australia and Belgium (among others), voting is mandatory with small fines for absentees. Maybe that wouldn't fly here, but I know Arizona passed a bill to include a cash lottery as incentive to get people to the polls. We'll see how effective it will be. I wonder if even mail-in or online/phone voting would help the poor that much (Wikipedia says internet voting is already in place in the UK, France, and Switzerland, but I haven't been following that). Oregon, which has a fully mail-in voting system, is slightly better than the US average for turnout (US avg. for 2008 pres. election was 62%, OR was 67%).
http://www.slate.com/id/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://elections.gmu.edu/
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/
"Managers and college grads still are more likely to be working than Americans overall. The unadjusted unemployment rate hit 8.5% in January, compared with 4.1% for management and professional workers and 3.8% for college graduates." (I'm assuming these %s are based on U3 from 2009).
http://www.jsonline.com/
Haha, so all the tax cuts that the GOP loves (dividends/cap gains, Bush cuts, corporate cuts) deliver the least bang for buck, while all the spending they want to cut (food stamps, unemployment) are the best. When will America wake up to this? Good job to the GOP governors who refused stimulus money for infrastructure projects and such (and often those red states are the ones with the weakest economies and most crumbling infrastructure, like Gov. Jindal's Louisiana). Yeah it's totally ridiculous that companies get to report accelerated depreciation to the IRS but use more conservative depreciation measures for SEC filings. So they pay less tax and appear more profitable to shareholders?
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/09/
NPR was interviewing #3 GOP Senator Alexander yesterday (who sits on the Appropriations, Budget, Health/Labor Cmtes. so he should understand this stuff) about the tax cut deal, and the host kept prodding him to explain why it's justified that high earners get a tax cut, and in fact a disproportionately expensive cut vs. lower earners (1/4 of the amount goes to the richest 1% of Americans). Instead of an intelligent response, he parroted the cliche "We are trying to create jobs and you don't raise taxes on anyone during a recession." Then why did they oppose Obama's stimuli, which included tax breaks for businesses that hire new workers? Isn't that better than giving every rich person money even if they don't preserve/create a single job?
He also stressed that this was not a tax cut, since the taxes are currently low but are scheduled to increase. So letting the cuts expire would actually be a tax hike (I guess if the Dems let the cuts expire, the GOP plans to blast them for "raising taxes"). But that is ridiculous logic. It was a temporary tax holiday all along (since Bush and the GOP in 2000 didn't have the votes to make it permanent); the regular tax rate is the higher one. That's like me taking a vacation from work, and when I return, I complain to my boss that he's increasing my hours! I guess Alexander realized that he couldn't give a good answer to the question, so might as well kill the conversation with some misdirection. He is a lawyer after all.
It's just sad to see Obama and Summers defending this tax cut BS so fervently, and to their fellow Dems to boot. I don't really blame Obama for his actions considering the circumstances, but stop trying to polish a turd. They are actually saying that if we extend the tax cuts, we'll certainly avoid a double-dip recession. I guess the GOP isn't the only party engaged in fear-mongering.
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I think the attached chart pretty much lays out the answer to your question as to why there's such intense pressure to ditch the unemployment insurance and extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. (as you might imagine, education and income are pretty highly correlated)
I was just reading a paper the other day about how much more pro-poor the US would be if elections were held on the weekends (most poor people can't get off time to go vote on weekdays like high-income people can). It's no surprise that the most conservative states often have the shortest voting hours and the most onerous voting registration requirements.
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Thx, A. I wonder why community organizers don't try to mobilize the urban poor more during elections. Maybe since most cities vote liberal anyway, and minorities/lower income folks are more likely to be Dems, less of a need? I know there were allegations of people getting packed into buses from the ghetto and whisked to the polling stations, but I'm not sure if it was just propaganda, and also not sure if there's anything wrong with that.
As you said, our voting system is the most inaccessible of all modern, developed democracies. In France I believe the window to vote is several days if not weeks, India too (due to people living in remote areas maybe). In other nations voting occurs on weekends or national holidays. There is absolutely no damn reason to have an election on a work day, especially when the working poor can't get paid time off and may work 12 hours a day over multiple jobs. Plus in other nations there isn't so much red tape for registering. In many cases a voter can "register" (or whatever equivalent) on election day. Hell, even in Iraq the polls stay open Fri-Sun. But all those scenes of Americans waiting in lines all day to vote in inner-city areas is just unacceptable. Voting shouldn't be such a sacrifice, unless the system is designed to prevent those people from participating. Making voting nearly impossible for the lower class is one thing, but how do we control the influence of the rich in politics? The 1st Amend. seems to protect an individual, org, or corporation's "right" to basically contribute limitless cash to political causes, and the Supreme Court seemed to affirm that last year.
In Australia and Belgium (among others), voting is mandatory with small fines for absentees. Maybe that wouldn't fly here, but I know Arizona passed a bill to include a cash lottery as incentive to get people to the polls. We'll see how effective it will be. I wonder if even mail-in or online/phone voting would help the poor that much (Wikipedia says internet voting is already in place in the UK, France, and Switzerland, but I haven't been following that). Oregon, which has a fully mail-in voting system, is slightly better than the US average for turnout (US avg. for 2008 pres. election was 62%, OR was 67%).
http://www.slate.com/id/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://elections.gmu.edu/
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
We don't negotiate with terrorists, unless they're GOP senators
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/
I'm sure you've heard the news about the Obama Bush tax cut compromise deal. A neutral reporter on NPR commented on the deal saying that it seems the Republicans did not want to extend tax cuts to anyone until the rich got theirs. Obama likened it to holding the nation hostage. In his national press conference, Obama said that government shouldn't negotiate with hostage takers, but the game changes when the hostage (low to middle class America) is in imminent danger. Obama didn't want to let middle class tax cuts and unemployment benefits expire, so he acquiesced to the GOP and is urging his party to endorse the GOP plan to extend all the Bush tax cuts, even for above-$250,000-per-year earners (about 2% of Americans). The situation is further complicated by the GOP senators' threats to kill all legislation in the lame duck session until the tax cuts are extended, because they know the Dems are desperate to get things passed in December before they lose the House. It's possible that Obama agreed to the tax deal because the GOP will make concessions in other areas, but I'm not holding my breath. All this mess in Washington makes Afghanistan look like an easy problem.
But really, what is an inexperienced pragmatist who just took a political drubbing to do? We know that the Dems currently in power can appear politically clueless to the public, and the party mostly just avoids or bungles up the message war. We know that Washington today is not like the times of LBJ when a strong leader could kick some butt behind closed doors to keep the flock in line. And we know Obama is not that type of leader anyway, even if it would work. But maybe campaign concerns about his lack of executive experience and deferential leadership style were not unfounded. From the progressive perspective, Obama has whiffed on Afghanistan, Gitmo, health care, Wall Street reform, immigration, and Don't Ask Don't Tell. He's also failed to maintain the dominant status of his party in Washington. Heck, he froze pay for many already underpaid federal employees to cut spending, yet agreed to let the rich keep more of their money? What is this guy doing? Of course all of that wasn't 100% his fault, but it occurred under his watch, and he hasn't been the inspirational leader to the left that he was in 2008. Plus all the say-this-do-that is confusing and frustrating voters: Obama dissed Wall Street excess but refused to cap CEO pay, promoted the public option then said it's wasn't critical, etc. The left has plenty of reason to be disappointed with Obama and the party. He already lost the independents according to the recent election, and this may be the last straw for disgruntled liberal voters (there's even talk of Obama having a Dem primary challenge in 2012, but that's unlikely since it would basically signal a surrender to the GOP). Really, what was he to do on the tax cuts?
His advisers told him that letting the middle class cuts expire would be politically risky, and the GOP would paint it as Obama "raising taxes" in a recession. He's already paranoid after the mid-terms of being seen as a tax-and-spend guy. And maybe he does really care about the struggling families who may depend on the extra bucks in their pockets from these programs. But does he think that moderates and independents will like him again because he cut their taxes a few Benjamins? As Krugman's article described, a CBO study concluded that unemployment would rise only 0.1-0.3% if Obama let ALL the tax cuts expire. The poor have the least to lose from Bush tax cuts expiring, and they have many other more serious financial troubles to worry about. It's still rolling the dice for thousands of people in this already troubled labor market, but maybe it's better than caving to "terrorists" and setting a dangerous precedent. We don't negotiate with terrorists because that sends the message that terrorism works and it's okay to use abominable methods to get what you want. The other side will play ball. Next year with Speaker Boehner and the gang of filibuster-happy GOP senators (plus plenty of easily-influenced noob Tea Party legislators), what's to prevent them from threatening Obama again? Clinton caved under Gingrich's government shutdown and transferred the burden of welfare from DC to the states (any wonder many states are in the red now?), and that was during a good economy. What will Obama do when the GOP wants to slash welfare and other programs further in 2011, because they're supposedly such fiscally responsible folks? Yes I know welfare and unemployment benefits are economically problematic because they create a disincentive to find new work, but cutting people off overnight is not the way to fix things either.
Krugman argued that Obama should call the GOP bluff and not budge on the tax cuts. I know the Congressional Dems were working on a new bill to extend the cuts only for the middle class, so he should have dared the GOP to block it (maybe they did already?). And why not fight fire with fire? If they are threatening to block everything, Reid should fire back that the Dems aren't going to include the GOP in any future negotiations, and Obama will veto all GOP-sponsored bills. Does a parent indulge her child's tantrum, or shame and discipline him instead? Bush circumvented Congress with record use of executive orders and other devices - why can't Obama do the same? Maybe he should wake up and not "stay the course"; coalition and consensus building is over. Force and push things through now because the nation needs it. His re-election is already in jeopardy, so what more is there to lose? Bottom line, don't let the GOP get away with this conduct. It's bad for Obama, his party, and the future of America. Or if this is how the game is going to be played, there's no reason the GOP should have exclusive right to misbehave. Fire right back and cut off programs close to the GOP's frozen hearts (defense projects, aid to Israel, corporate subsidies, etc.). Stop living in the dream world where politics are civil and cooperation is possible.
Maybe in the end this will be a good thing for the Dems (hear me out). Now they've taken away the GOP's deficit card for the near future. The GOP will look like fools if they lambaste the Dems on the (somewhat unavoidable in the short term) ballooning deficit when they had a chance to cut it by $900B, and instead decided to help the wealthy. But it's up to the press and public to call them out on it, and we probably won't. Plus it's not like the rich in the US are getting tax shafted versus other G8 nations. Heck, even the richest of the rich, Buffet and Gates, are telling DC to tax the rich more (http://abcnews.go.com/
We discussed the wealth gap a lot this year, and we've already debunked the Bush rationale that more money in the rich's pockets trickles down to help the whole economy (even Dubya's father called the justification of the rich tax cuts "voodoo economics"). So Obama, go ahead and tax the rich more, even if they sick their GOP minions on us as punishment. Keep crafting bills in Congress designed to fight the recession and help working people, and dare the GOP to block them every time. If (when) they do, go around the TV news circuit and blast them for it. Take out full-page ads and hit the campaign trail if you need to. Try to cut the debt by restricting earmarks, tax loopholes, and pet projects, and dare the GOP to oppose you. At least act like you're giving an effort. They might as well try it, because nothing good awaits them on their current trajectory.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Undermining Obama's leadership
[T]he real story here is that BP had already made the decision to set aside $20 billion to compensate those harmed by this tragic disaster several days prior to the President’s speech. The true outrage is that this was never the President’s idea at all, and he should be ashamed for pretending it was for political purposes.
On Thursday, Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao told me that he pressed BP on the fund idea a month ago, inspired by the example of Exxon after its 1989 spill off the coast of Alaska. And on Friday I talked with Ray McKinney, another engineer, who is running for Congress in Georgia against Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.). McKinney stressed that there was no serious disagreement about the escrow issue, and said Democrats were concocting a political debate when all that mattered was making BP pay and investigating the disaster.
"I think what the government has done has been totally mis-focused," said McKinney. "What I hear when I turn on my radio, is a stupid statement some congressman made, and that's what everyone focuses on. There's a lot of finger pointing and a lot of blame, but everyone agrees we've got to finish the relief well and get to the bottom of why this disaster happened."
http://voices.washingtonpost.
Basically, BP had already decided on the escrow fund (an action most prudent corporations would do), and Obama and BP announced it at the White House, both for their own PR purposes.
In the end, politics as usual but hardly a "Chicago-style shakedown".
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Thx, A. Gosh, so first they're mad about the "shakedown", and now they're mad that Obama was passing the account off as his idea? In this case, I don't think the public will say, "Shame on you, Obama!" for the escrow account, even if he is trying to take more credit for the idea than deserved. I don't think many Americans outside of the oil industry or irrationally anti-Obama circles will sympathize with BP on this one. As you said, the consensus is that BP + affiliates are 100% at fault and should pay for the damages 100%. So what's the difference, $20B now or later? Sure there may be some hokey claims filed here and there (as was the case after 9/11, and many of them were paid with little investigation!), but in general I think Americans want to see John Q. Fisherman or B&B owner given a lifeline so they don't plunge into financial ruin, for the short-term at least.
I think Obama entered the White House wanting to really be taken seriously as a legit statesman and C-in-C. So he and his people did all they could to distance themselves from the Obamania idol worship. "It's not about me, it's about we, and what we need to get done for America." But now, after all the ridiculous attacks and hits to his approval rating, I think he has to confront the issue and make it about him sometimes, because it is. I know he's not a complainer, cynic, or excuse-man, but he's got to fire back at these GOP idiots who are really only interested in his downfall, no matter the cost to the nation they profess to love. He's a polite guy and a consensus builder, but by now he should see that all but a handful of GOP lawmakers want to seriously work with him.
I wish he would say, "Some Republicans are fighting me every step of the way, uselessly criticizing every minute detail of my presidency instead of working hard for big picture solutions. Some people don't want change that may compromise their fortunate position in society, so they prefer to side with big banks and polluters like BP, instead of supporting me to rein in Wall Street excesses and compensate the victims of the spill. They fabricate controversies out of false claims or completely uncontroversial issues that have major public approval. They just want to confuse you about me, so my party and I lose big in elections. I'm not a miracle worker and I make mistakes, but I am not what they say I am. America, I want you to know that I took the hardest job in the world at one of the hardest times in our history because I know this great nation's potential, and we're not there, partly because of greed, egos, and corruption in politics. 'Yes we can' only works when we work together. I hope you will recognize that some of your elected leaders don't want that. They want to see me (and us) fail so badly, that they will sacrifice all our futures for their petty 'thwart and blame Obama' game. We don't have a moment to waste, and we've squandered too many opportunities. Terrorism, health care, climate change, energy, and financial reform aren't going away, even if I'm not in office. Much of the GOP have zero helpful ideas for these global problems and sometimes even deny their existence. So instead of falling for distractions like my citizenship status, please help me put pressure on the negative influences in Washington to either get them to finally do the people's work, or send them home in disgrace like they deserve."
It is about Obama, and I can't help but conclude that the utter disrespect for his office must be partially due to race. He's not a self-made joke like Nixon or Clinton. He hasn't done anything terrible yet, and is mostly "no drama Obama". Can you imagine our generals showing such public insubordination to even a buffoon like Bush? The military loved Bush, even though he was responsible for 5,000 of their brothers and sisters dead and many more wounded, with little improvement to our national security. I'm actually surprised that McChrystal got fired, because it makes the Obama admin. look a little thin skinned, but I'd rather have an overly sensitive civilian leadership than a military that answers to no one like Pakistan.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Frost/Nixon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw6LhKCYUCQ
I recently saw Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" and was wondering if you've seen it too. I thought the actor who played Nixon (Frank Langella) was pretty poor, mostly mumbling and quasi-senile emotional. His facial and gesture acting were better. I guess they had to make it true to the play, but I don't know why they can't have Nixon talk like a normal person (which he did mostly) instead of the caricatured style he's now famous for. "I am not a crook (flabby cheeks flapping and hands raised giving the 'V for victory')!" I thought Anthony Hopkins was an awesome Nixon in Olliver Stone's "Nixon" from the 1990s; wish they could have brought him back.
They made the film too much like "A Few Good Men" with a big, dramatic "gotcha" moment (a sign of the times I'm sure), but I guess they had to spice up the interviews beyond their original, dry 12-hour form containing mostly heavy political dialogue. Though I did like the theme of how Nixon, so tortured by the fact that he never won the public approval/love that he so craved (in fact he alienated his public), and desperate to restore his honor, grew tired of the incessant denying, blame-shifting, and making excuses for everything. Even if it wasn't the politically intelligent thing to do, he needed to confess and level with the American people (and his soul). The last scene of the film (his revelation) was so over-the-top that I had to see the real interview footage for myself to cut through the BS (sorry it's not on YouTube though). Fortunately the DVD contained some of that material, and I was amazed at the similarities (when you strip away the Hollywood excesses). A shell of his former self, slow and contemplative, with distant eyes and heavy heart, he literally said that he was to blame, he let down his friends and the American people, and most importantly, our system of government - and he'd have to live with that for the rest of his life. I couldn't believe what I saw. I can't imagine a modern politician or CEO doing something even as remotely honest as that. With the Bushies, Clinton, or others, it's always "mistakes were made", "well I can't really comment on that," "we had only the best intentions", etc. The only ones who ever admit to anything are the stupid adulterers who cry in front of the cameras and tell their families and voters that they're sorry - after they repeatedly denied it and only concede once the evidence/public opinion is overwhelming, of course.
But getting back to Nixon, he really was a living Greek tragedy. Strangely I found myself rooting for him in the movie vs. Frost, even though I knew he must fold at the end for this to be a movie. He wanted those interviews to be a vindication of his actions and restoration of his legacy (and maybe even a springboard back into Washington life), and for much of the film he deftly responded to Frost's novice and weak critiques against him with misdirection, irrelevant long-winded tangents, and party-line cliches. I mean, Nixon verbally sparred with JFK, Mao, and Brezhnev; surely he could handle Frost if he wanted to. For a pure SOB and the king of deception, Tricky Dick, to be barely prodded by Frost and mostly of his own accord, rationally admit to the world that he lied, broke the law, and dishonored his office, could be one of the greatest accomplishments of his life, beyond starting the EPA, opening dialogue with China, and detente with the USSR. I guess that is a sad reflection of our times when it's such an amazing feat for a leader to admit wrongdoing long after the fact. America loves a redemption story, and of course Nixon never got that far, but living in today's cynical, insulting-of-our-intelligence political climate, it is a breath of fresh air to see a criminal admit to us, and more importantly himself, what he is. Even if he escaped jail time and other official punishments, one of the largest abusers of presidential power (maybe only behind Lincoln, but of course he had a bigger excuse) served his penance the day he put pen to paper to relinquish the throne of the most powerful person in the world.
NIXON: When a president does it that means it is not illegal (yes, he actually said that, and not on one of his secret tapes).
.......
FROST: Is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law?
NIXON: No, there isn't. There's nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect. I haven't read every word, every jot and every title, but I do know this: That it has been, however, argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we're all talking about.
http://www.landmarkcases.org/nixon/nixonview.html
Compare that to Bush and his War on Terror. The only difference is that Bush won't admit that he has exceeded the Constitution, and in fact his team of lawyers seek to reinterpret it. Wartime/national security is always the excuse. Yes, surely waterboarding Osama's driver or tapping my cell phone without a warrant, just like breaking into the DNC offices at Watergate a generation earlier, is essential to the preservation of the Republic. 30 years later, the American people, our system of justice, and our leaders are still wrestling with Nixon's shadow.
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i haven't seen the movie but it's funny how you see nixon compare to how i perceive nixon. i was home sick with mono when the watergate investigations were going on(i was only 10 at the time). nixon was the image of the old guard, the previous way of thought left behind along with solving problems with killing. but, was i wrong, but that perception of him stays with me. now, LBJ, he seemed like a tragic figure to me. still does....
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I don't know how the Beltway operates these days, but I would hope that Nixon's brand of paranoid "nemesis politics" is over. I guess under Bush II, dissenters were cast out into the wilderness and Kerry was swift-boated, but it's not like Bush was using the PATRIOT Act to nail his political enemies, so far that we know. Well, I guess he didn't have to, since 9/11 solidified his job security, the GOP controlled all 3 branches of gov't until Nov. 2006, and most of Bush's enemies were foreigners. Heh, instead of ex-CIA whack-job plumbers, it seems these days the GOP uses 527 groups and Faux News Channel to do its dirty work.
It's funny how Nixon's people railed against the "liberal establishment" at the time, maybe sowing the seeds for today's right-wing media. As if the NYT and Hollywood were conspiring to help the Viet Cong and foment campus unrest. Nixon often gave the excuse that he abused his power because the nation was in a civil war. Well maybe inside his mind, but he never tried to "bring people together" like our current president seeks to do. Maybe someone like Nixon was more comfortable in conflict. He was always so awkward with the American public, yet craved their approval. Maybe he found his element while negotiating with other SOBs like Kissinger, Mao, and Brezhnev.
At least Nixon didn't use his position to get rich and get his friends rich at the expense of the nation, at least not that I know of. He did use his position to help kill millions of poor people and topple their governments if there was a trace of leftist inklings, but so did many Cold War presidents. Like Obama, Nixon inherited a country at war and struggling with the tensions of a changing population/culture. Let's hope BHO handles our current crisis/opportunity better than Nixon.
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Two of your comments stand out in my mind, but probably because I'm thinking of all the modern portrayals of Nixon in popular culture:
"America loves a redemption story, and of course Nixon never got that far..."
"He was always so awkward with the American public, yet craved their approval."
Oliver Stone's "Nixon" really emphasizes those two points in the way Nixon is depicted in the portrayal of the 1960 election: Hopkins' Nixon is anxious, sweaty, and awkward and goes down in flames in the televised debate; he cries to Pat about how the public just won't love him. Even Hunter S. Thompson (who wrote "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72" and hated Nixon with a passion) conceded that the only time he found Nixon to be even remotely congenial was when they discussed college football on a train ride between campaign stops where HST was (somehow) granted an interview.
When I think about the fact that Nixon was an admirer of Henry J. Kaiser's healthcare experiment in California I'm left to think that Nixon was simply "too weird to live, too strange to die"...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wired for War
http://wiredforwar.pwsinger.com/
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/author-pov-wired-for-war.htm
One of Obama's campaign advisers for defense issues (P. W. Singer of the Brookings Inst.) recently published a book called Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. In an interview on "Fresh Air", Singer described the technological, political, strategic, and moral implications of this new evolution of warfare. Namely, do the "conveniences" that robotics/automation bring to modern combat affect how easily our leaders decide to wage war? Also, how wise is it to rely so heavily on this technology - what are the repercussions when it malfunctions and innocents die? Maybe due to social-ideological shifts or manpower shortages, it appears that the Pentagon has rushed to integrate automation into the military without really taking all the risk considerations into account. But that's nothing new for them, and boys will always be impatient to show off their new toys.
In rugged theaters like Afghanistan, remote-controlled Predator drones are critical for reconnaissance and air strikes. In Iraq, robots diffuse bombs, scout, and do many other tasks. Robot/drone missions in Iraq increased from zero in 2003 to 12,000 in 2008. The US military owns over 17,000 drones (5k air, 12k ground). By 2010, the Pentagon expects to spend $4.3B on such unmanned systems.
Every major technological advancement since the wheel has modified the ways that humans kill each other, so of course electronics and automation will create drastic changes. Robots can overcome some human limitations (fatigue, irrationality, variable performance, physical vulnerabilities). This can be a real help in some situations, if those robots function properly. Besides the more sci-fi models like Predator or TALON (think WALL-E with a machine gun), the majority of military automation is meant for information processing (where robots excel most over humans). Real-time, high-resolution battlefield data feeds allow decision-makers (or bureaucrats) thousands of miles from the war zone to micromanage a fight or overrule commanders on the ground. This of course creates a lot of tension and resentment among the soldiers who are risking their lives on the front lines, and the "soldiers" who watch them from afar (and may even render life-death decisions upon them without consultation).
We don't even realize how much of our national defense is already automated. Via our satellite network, computers survey and identify potential targets for attack worldwide. But the system does err, and we have ordered air strikes on what appeared to be high-value enemies (even Osama) that were actually innocent bystanders. In some cases, computers decide to shoot nearly autonomously. On-board B-52 targeting computers do 99% of the work, and the pilot just presses a button. He can't see the target on the ground and can't control the flight of the ordinance, but instead just trusts the computer. Our warships equipped with AEGIS defenses are designed to identify threats and defend the ship in case vital crew members are killed or incapacitated. But what about non-threats? One of our AEGIS ships erroneously shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The investigation concluded that the ship's crew misinterpreted or manipulated the AEGIS data feed tracking a commercial airliner, making it appear to be an attack plane. I know that a device is only as good as the people using it, but it's hard to believe that our trained sailors would be so trigger-happy in a sensitive conflict zone without some cause. Maybe trust or overconfidence in AEGIS provided that last bit of impetus to act on their paranoia.
Well, I guess it was cheaper to dismiss the incident as human error rather than call into question a multi-billion-dollar system deployed on over 80 US warships. But how much are robots augmenting, influencing, or outright replacing real-time human decision-making, and how will that trend grow in the coming years (especially with control of nuclear weapons)? Much sci-fi fiction involves machines, trusted with vital duties too important to be left in human hands, that end up going haywire. While we haven't had to battle a renegade Skynet or HAL2000 in real life, minor incidents have happened (read on). Our militaries will have to delicately balance the delegation of critical decisions among human and computer actors. If an Air Force bomber mistakenly transported nuclear warheads across the Midwest in 2007, obviously it couldn't hurt to add more automated failsafes and human-executed security procedures. But when is a computer allowed to override a human's decision in the interests of "national security"? Guide dogs are trained to disobey and protect their masters in cases of obvious harm, for example when a blind person wants to enter an intersection when it is not clear. Sadly, there is a thin line between protection and harm. But dogs, like computers, just act in accordance with their programming. If Asian hackers can crack most versions of Windows and crash the Microsoft website in their spare time, how can we trust programmers to design safe software that manages vital defense infrastructure? In an effort to make Windows Vista a more secure OS for our computers, Microsoft has made it nearly impossible for even experienced users to enact system changes to their own property. And there we see the trade-off with defense computing: it needs to be secure enough to resist enemy tampering, but it shouldn't be locked up so tight that humans can't "hit the kill switch" in time during a malfunction. Mistakes on either end could potentially spell doom.
New technologies completely redefine what it means to be a soldier, as well as the associated psychological burdens. Now a 19-year-old high school dropout in Nevada can contribute more to the Iraq war effort than a commissioned officer and veteran pilot stationed on a carrier in the Gulf... and they do. The author mentioned one unnamed soldier fitting that profile who became such an expert Predator pilot that he is now an instructor. He joined the military wanting to repair helicopters, but was found to be unqualified, so instead they sat him in front of a computer and he became a drone "ace". The author jokes that the military might now prefer to recruit computer nerds with sturdy bladders, rather than a jock with 20/20 vision and a 6-minute mile time. Needless to say, this change is not well received with the cocky Top Gun crowd in "traditional" pilot circles. For a military that is supposed to function as an integrated, cooperative unit, these new divisions and culture clashes cannot be overlooked.
The emergence of the Predator has also changed the military lifestyle. Drone pilots can literally work their craft as an 8-to-5 job, then come home to their families. "RC" soldiers don't even have to live with each other on a base, maintain off-duty discipline, and most importantly, don't have to get shot at or lose friends in battle. But this convenient duality is not as perfect as it sounds. The rate of PTSD among such drone pilots is actually higher than the average military, possibly due to the mental challenges of taking life one minute, then taking their kids to soccer practice the next. You can't just turn it on and off like a switch. There is inherent conflict between the civilian and military aspects of a citizen-soldier, and at least in a combat theater you can forget "the world", your comrades can support you, and also empathize with your problems. A Predator pilot can't really complain about his bad day to the wife and neighbors, without really freaking them out. And domestic problems or general busyness might be very bad distractions for inexperienced young men charged with huge responsibilities.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/flying-drones-f.html
Of course the military says that nothing can ever replace a brave, skilled American pilot. Tom Cruise's Maverick should be their recruiting poster boy, not Steve Urkel. But in this age of streamlining and reducing loss of (American) life, if our automated systems are performing about as well as human pilots, then why would the military continue to risk manned missions? But if they do decide to rely more heavily on RC drones or fully-automated fliers, they had better plan for the human consequences as well. As we all know, technology meant to make our lives easier often produces the opposite effect, or even introduces new problems.
Ever-increasing computing power has really blurred or destroyed the line between war games and warfare. Instead of video game makers tailoring their entertainment systems to simulate real warfare, the military is actually designing its new training and combat systems to emulate video game platforms! Maybe they figure that Sony and Microsoft have already done extensive ergonomics and performance research for their products, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Think I'm exaggerating? It's already happened: the company iRobot (makers of the cute Roomba vacuum) also make the PackBot for military scouting and IED disposal. It can be transported in a soldier's pack (hence the name), assembled/deployed in a few minutes, and literally controlled by an Xbox 360 controller. I guess if it's already available and validated, no need to reinvent the wheel.
The controller used with the latest Pacbot is modelled after video game controllers, making the system easier to use.
As we all know, automation and advanced electronics do fail. And for the more complex systems that are charged with life-death capabilities, failures are very costly. Our forces in Iraq are using machine gunner robots nicknamed "R2-D2" to shoot down incoming insurgent RPGs/mortars. During an early test, it accidentally fired on a US helicopter, but fortunately missed. In South Africa, they weren't so lucky. An anti-aircraft robot (with a 35 mm cannon that can literally vaporize human flesh) experienced a "software glitch", started shooting wildly, and killed 9 soldiers. And then what about the legal aftermath? What if the victims are civilians/foreign nationals? Prosecute the designers or the administrator? Or is it just tough luck?
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki.html
Another problem with increased use of military automation by the US is our allies/enemies will invariably follow suit. And our enemies will surely be hard at work to develop countermeasures to our robots. Since many of them are remote-controlled, our adversaries could potentially turn our weapons against us. Like torture, we can't let the genie out of the bottle and expect other nations or stateless militants to refrain. And unlike Star Wars or nuclear weaponry (WMDs that the US feels entitled to maintain a permanent advantage), robotics are much more cheaper, portable, and accessible. Already US companies are selling them to foreign governments. So an arms race of this nature would be much harder to control and stay ahead of the pack. Even the Lebanese militant group Hizbullah used simple robotics in its 2006 war with Israel (the first time in history when 2 sides used robotics against each other in a war). Just imagine how automation can change the way that "suicide attacks" are carried out.
In addition, how will enemies and neutrals perceive our increased use of robotic weapons? Western powers already take a lot of heat for "cowardly" air strikes and artillery barrages that often kill bystanders. While insurgents seek to level the field and confront our forces in small arms urban fighting, they can't do anything against our bombing. They die but we don't. They don't even get to see the whites of our eyes. It makes strategic sense, but appears quite dishonorable to some who still believe in a warrior code. We "hide" behind our technology and project our force from afar. But then again, the majority of US military deaths since 9/11 are from IEDs, which are equally cowardly by those standards. Bottom line, the more we rely on robotics (for dirty jobs or innocuous ones), the more we play to the stereotype of cold, militaristic Americans. But some of this could be mitigated with better PR and disclosure. Unfortunately most armed forces are not very skilled in those areas.
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The over-arching danger of high-tech war is that it builds on a trend making it less and less of a moral-social burden to wage war. Historically, war maims and kills scores of people, shatters families, destroys cities, disrupts economies, bankrupts treasures, and causes massive trauma that takes years to repair. But if robots can remove some of that stink, does war become a more desirable option? And Obama has followed Bush's example by maintaining that "all options are on the table".
Walking the streets of any American city today, a foreigner could hardly tell that our nation was at war (in 2 places). Compare that to Congo or Sri Lanka, where it's abundantly obvious. I suppose that is the nature of foreign wars, and why Bush said that it's better to fight our enemies overseas than in our backyards. But despite our haste to oust Saddam, our inflammatory bombings in Pakistan, and the many terrible episodes in American militarism, I hope that war can be a very solemn, serious decision for our current and future leaders. If the Pentagon told Obama that a Predator thinks it has OBL in its bombsights, but there's a chance that it's a false positive, and children are in the area - what is he going to do? High-tech war thrusts these rapid, difficult decisions on flawed, emotional people, and therein lies the danger.
Many ordinary people are not feeling the effects of our wars, which is both a blessing and a danger. Out of sight, out of mind. Yes we're losing international goodwill and hemorrhaging tax dollars in the War on Terror, but the sting from that will be hard to directly notice back home, and probably further down the road. The lowest of our society are the ones dying and enduring 15-month tours, while the middle-upper classes keep consuming obliviously (or fretting about the economy). Mostly our exposure to war is just some fancy graphics and press conferences on CNN. When war is so "painless" to wage, what is holding us back from engaging in it? Violence seems to be such an easy "solution" to the various frustrating tensions around the globe, but the costs are profound and enduring. Just because we can do something, and do it swiftly and efficiently, doesn't mean we should.
Since WWI, industrialization has permitted soldiers to kill each other from afar without even seeing each other, and now we're taking it to another level. Modern wars for resource control, imperialism, or proxy power struggles tend to be fought on third party battlegrounds with little damage to the instigating parties' homelands. And after the expiration of selective service, our modern "professional army" is mostly comprised of the poorer, minority, and uneducated demographics. The rich and powerful monopolize the decision to go to war, but now they can totally divorce themselves and their loved ones from enduring the direct suffering of war. Outliers like Pat Tillman and Beau Biden aside, no privileged American should ever want or need to fight for their country, except maybe out of machismo or aspirations for a future political career, both of which are not necessarily in our military's best interest. Some hawkish Americans like to ridicule Europeans for being wimps and appeasers when it comes to modern conflicts and terrorism. But today's Europeans are children of the WWII ashes, and many of their states still mandate military service. They understand war suffering better than us, and if they do have to fight, it hurts everyone from the top down.
We also have the Rumsfeld-advocated (but he is not the only one) approach of "sleek war", with a minimal number of boots on the ground and a huge reliance on technology to dominate asymmetrical wars. Yes technology can improve our military capabilities, increase efficiency, and reduce the loss of life. But for now, robots can't kick down doors, protect VIPs, and escort convoys through IED-mined highways, so we hire Blackwater mercenaries to fill that need, as a previous email described. We have so few "regular" soldiers now (plus recruiting shortages), that we use contractors to prepare meals, do laundry, maintain equipment, and fill dozens of other tasks that enlisted people used to do a generation ago (in addition to fighting). But when we outsource our military effort to for-profit corporations, how can we expect loyalty and commitment when things go bad? Will they sacrifice for the good of the nation as an oath-bound soldier would? The same can be said of automated systems. They are designed and marketed by companies following their own agendas that are not beholden to any national goals or set of principles. All they care about is selling the maximum number of units and service plans, not winning or preventing wars.
Defense is obviously easier for richer nations, who can afford the most advanced weapons. But what is to prevent the haves from menacing the have-nots who stand in the way of their strategic objectives? Like easy credit and the housing bubble, convenience can lead to irresponsibility. Readily available resources are often abused, especially if the abusers won't suffer direct consequences for their actions. Sometimes the only thing stopping bullies in the schoolyard is their fear of picking the wrong fight and losing. When it doesn't hurt us to hurt someone else, what is left to keep the peace? The whole rationale behind the nuclear deterrent was to make it too costly to attack a nuclear nation (or their friends), but how can a superpower be deterred? Hopefully our laws and political system serve that purpose, but still Congress voted overwhelmingly to invade Iraq in 2003. Well, one method of deterrent is disarmament, and refraining from developing new weapons. The chicken-hawks of the privileged class need to know that war isn't just about the victory parades and "Mission Accomplished" banners. And even if they do succeed, like the amazingly one-sided Operation Desert Storm, their glory was purchased by others' blood. "War as last resort" has now become an insincere political cliche, but it should still apply just for the rare circumstances where not fighting means catastrophe. And I think we will be hard pressed to come up with even a handful of historical examples where a conflict could only be resolved through war.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Treasury not buying up troubled assets and the auto bailout
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20081113/pl_bloomberg/apwpjfpf6mgu_1
``This is a flip-flop, but on the other hand, when they first proposed the thing, they didn't really know what they were doing,'' said Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital Inc. in Seattle and author of the book ``Greenspan's Bubbles.'' [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson has pushed some ``cockamamie schemes,'' he said. ``So one has to ask, does he have any clue?'' -Bloomberg.com
In September, Bush and Paulson sold the rescue package to Congress and the public as such: taking the toxic mortgage-backed securities off Wall Street's books would help restore recently lost confidence and unclog the financial sector. Uncle Sam would hold onto these investments until the economy rebounds and they turn profitable, maybe even making a pretty penny for the taxpayers. After initial resistance, Congress signed on, and up to $700B was available for Paulson to buy up whatever he felt would help the economy.
Yet two months later, how many securities has the government purchased? Yep, a big fat zero. This is partly because of the credit crisis taking priority and stocks tanking. Lending dried up, the economy was grinding to a halt, and banks requested cash infusions and lowered interest rates to try to right the ship. Like in Europe and Asia, our government also wanted to buy up shares of troubled companies to stanch the bleeding. So what about the bundled mortgages? Washington hasn't moved on those toxic securities because even the experts have no friggin' clue what those assets are worth (if anything), and who really owns them. It's too darn difficult to research and ascertain the value of those securities to decide what to buy. So instead, they just take the easy approach: pump more money in the credit markets, keep interest rates low (will the Fed rate even fall to 0%?), and hope for the best.
Paulson generally received praise for his swift, decisive handling of the financial crisis this fall (but decisiveness is only commendable when you're making good decisions). Now he said that he won't apologize for changing his approach as the facts change. That is fair, and much better than clinging to an outdated, flawed strategy. But maybe he could have handled his PR a little more delicately. The Wall Street bailout was already very controversial in Congress and more so on struggling Main Street. Some Americans still feel very outraged, and anti-fat-cat backlash is the strongest its been in decades. The taxpayers have given unprecedented authority and a gargantuan loan to Bush/Paulson to fix the economy. If the custodians of our cash appear wavering, maybe people will start to feel jerked around. It also sends mixed signals and uncertainty to the markets, which responded as expected (Dow and Nikkei lost 4-5% on Wednesday). So they don't have to pick one plan and stick with it no matter what, but at least speak plainly with us (something Paulson is not known for). Is this bailout about restructuring mortgages, increasing lending, buying up stakes in troubled companies that are "too big to fail", or taking toxic paper off private sector books? I am sure we need to do all those things, so let's have a cohesive, comprehensive plan of attack already. It's been two months, and more people's lives are being shattered each day longer that Washington flounders.
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http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12601932
"Bailing out Detroit would be a bad use of public money." -The Economist
Also, what do you guys think about Obama/Pelosi pushing for an auto industry bailout? As J and I noted in September, the Big 3 already got $25B in "loans" from a rushed spending bill in Congress, to help them modernize and get more efficient (things they promised to do years ago, but kept making SUVs instead). Now Obama is calling for another $50B in a move that would resemble Chrysler's rescue in 1979. But America and Detroit were very different back then. Auto was and still is huge, but to give you a sense of scale, UPS has more employees than the Big 3 combined. Manufacturing was a much larger sector of our economy back then, Wall Street was relatively healthier, and Chrysler had the very effective and innovative Lee Iacocca at the helm (he axed many bad car concepts, rolled out the first American minivan, and laid the groundwork for the Jeep Cherokee). I don't think the current bozo CEOs would measure up. US auto sales are way down across the board (even for Toyota), and the Big 3 are hemorrhaging money to keep their expensive operations going while their lots are chock full of unsold vehicles. They have announced new rounds of layoffs, factory closures, and reduced hours/production. But this is nothing new - Detroit has been contracting for a decade or longer ("Roger and Me"). Maybe they would have failed earlier if not for all the lobbying in Washington for huge tax breaks and other government assistance.
The rescue might sound outrageously huge, but to be fair, the entire proposed auto bailout is just 42% of what one company already got from Paulson ($120B to AIG). Though AIG had its tentacles in most of the big players in global finance, so its failure would make Detroit's vast problems look like a piece of cake. Rescuing auto will add to the bad precedent of the Wall Street bailout: companies can screw up as much as they like, and Uncle Sam will clean up the mess (as long as they demonstrate that they are "vital to the economy"). But the Big 3 are not, at least not as much as banks/credit. For years, Detroit kept saying they are this close to finishing their restructuring for modern competitiveness, and just need one last push to get over the hump. Maybe this bailout is that last push, or maybe they are willing to say anything for a handout. Sure in a perfect world we would want to help Detroit. But lending and resources are very tight now. Imagine all the good that $50B could do for expanding green industries and critical infrastructure projects (things Obama promised during the campaign), which also creates jobs and commerce. Instead of a bailout, the Big 3 can file for Chapter 11 as the airlines successfully did after 9/11. If it wasn't for the spike in jet fuel, many of our airlines might be healthy and profitable now. Auto can continue to pay their workers and maintain some operations during the bankruptcy negotiations, and it won't cost taxpayers nearly as much. Then in a few years after this recession has abated, they can emerge as leaner, stronger companies ready to compete it the new hot markets (developing nations, not saturated Western countries).
Though of course the auto industry has sentimental and symbolic value to America, and its labor unions have much political influence. But does that mean we have to use our dime to keep those screw-ups on life support? In a market economy, companies are free to fail. Yes it's true that the ripple effects will be huge (losing the Big 3 would also kill thousands of dealerships, parts suppliers, mechanics, etc.). But they are not the only show in town; foreign auto makers also have dozens of huge plants in the US and employ almost as many Americans as the Big 3. We don't have to build or buy American cars if we can't do it well. Or will auto become another taxpayer-subsidized unprofitable industry like agriculture? Already our domestic electronics and textile sectors are all but gone due to globalization - why not let auto go if the costs of supporting them are too great? It will be painful, but auto is not the only industry in deep trouble. The gambling entertainment industry (which employs more Americans than the Big 3, and generates billions in tax revenues) is also on the rocks due to restricted leisure spending in this economic downturn (I guess it's not recession-proof after all). The major casino corporations have seen their stocks drop over 50% in the last 12 months. The airlines are desperate too: Delta-Northwest merged out of survival, and even though oil dropped from $140 to $55/barrel this year, the industry will still report billions in losses. The big carriers' stocks all lost over 20% yesterday on news that Americans would be predictably curbing their travel habits next year. Who deserves a bailout and who doesn't? Who is more vital to our economy?
And what about the housing sector? Isn't that the root of many of our problems? Millions of households are still at risk of foreclosure in the next year. What about their rescue? The mortgage and housing sectors employ many more people and are a much larger chunk of our GDP than auto.
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http://marketplace.publicradio.org/
Some interesting interviews on these issues:
First, though, Henry Paulson. We've told you over the past couple of weeks that there isn't any buying up of troubled assets going on. Today, Hank Paulson made it official.
Our Washington bureau chief John Dimsdale starts us off.
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Dimsdale: Secretary Paulson was unapologetic about the change in plans. He said the purchase of bad assets would have been too slow to help banks, while the new strategy of injecting government capital will shore up banks and attract private investments.
Tape of Henry Paulson: As the situation worsened, the facts change. The thing I'm grateful for is we were prescient enough, Congress was, that we got a wide array of authorities and tools under this legislation. And I will never apologize for changing an approach or strategy when the facts change.
Paulson said he might use some of what's left in the bailout to encourage broader lending to consumers, now that credit card, student and car loans are drying up. The Department is reportedly thinking of requiring that lenders match future government payments with money they raise on their own. And John Dearie at the Financial Services Forum says forcing lenders to come up with their own capital eases the perception that the government is choosing winners and losers with its money.
John Dearie: The extent to which you can minimize government involvement by trying to leverage the government's involvement by bringing in or encouraging private capital, I think that's wise on Secretary Paulson's part.
Paulson is also under pressure to use bailout money to help homeowners facing foreclosure. He praised Fannie and Freddie's plans to set voluntary standards for banks to ease mortgage terms, but stopped short of endorsing an FDIC-backed plan to buy distressed mortgages. He said that crosses the line into a government spending program.
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RYSSDAL: I wanted to pick up on a couple of themes that John Dimsdale just laid out for us. First of all, why? Why didn't the original plan to buy up those toxic assets work?
PETROU: Well, they've never tried it. But, in part, it didn't work because it was always going to be hard. And not anticipating how hard it was going to be, Treasury was sideswiped when it figured that out and then had to quickly construct Plan B.
RYSSDAL: Was it the thing that we heard about as that plan was being floated -- that you couldn't figure out how to price these assets? You didn't know what they were worth?
PETROU: Bingo. The assets are complicated. They're hard to price. They're held by thousands of investors around the world. This isn't e-Bay here. This is tricky.
RYSSDAL: All right. Well, then, why is bank recapitalization better?
PETROU: In the long run I'm not sure it is. It's just easier. I think in time in poses significant issues, most notably the question of combining troubled banks into huge, bigger troubled banks. Or handing problems that ought better to be resolved by the FDIC over to big banks that then get weaker. But it was easier. It was quicker to corral those nine big banks, put them in a room and force the capital on them than it turned out to be to run the asset disposition and purchase process.
RYSSDAL: Here we are, two months into this bailout program and still the secretary of the Treasury said this morning that he is worried about systemic failure in the economy. Did that catch your ear at all?
PETROU: Anytime he says that, it sure does. It's pretty scary out there still.
RYSSDAL: Why?
PETROU: I think it is because we've taken the financial markets from a liquidity problem, which was where we were starting in August of 2007, and a very delayed recognition by the federal regulators and Treasury about how serious that was. Then we moved into a rapid collapse of the housing market, particularly prices and the residential market freezing up. Now we're looking at a recessionary scenario -- one thing building on the next, with a sharp drop-off in retail sales and the unemployment issues. So, that's a lot of scary reality built on top of the liquidity and market-confidence issues. And that's the problem Treasury Secretary Paulson was referencing this morning.
RYSSDAL: Let me ask you sort of a strategic question. It seems now the government's attacking this problem two ways: One, sort of top-down with the Treasury and the bailout money, and also, especially, yesterday with some mortgage relief. How did that come to pass and is one better than the other?
PETROU: I think we need all of them. We need more mortgage relief. And the plan announced yesterday with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a piece of the problem. As you all know, the FDIC is looking at another program that would involve guarantees. We're going to need still more in the mortgage sector. But we've got problems throughout the financial sector -- autos coming immediately to mind, commercial mortages. There are different tracks for each one of these asset sectors.
RYSSDAL: Where do the tracks all lead, then, Karen?
PETROU: Ah, to you and me and the rest of us as taxpayers! I hate to say it but that's where, right now, all the tracks are coming into each one of our houses.
RYSSDAL: Karen Shaw Petrou is a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics in Washington. Karen, thanks a lot.
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Yeah, the problem with bailing out the Big 3 is tough. I'm sure the US Gov't will demand their requisite pound of flesh for bailing them out (equity, limitation on executive pay, etc). The problem this time comes from the high possibility that you create zombie firms; sure, this time they only ask for $25 billion, but what about when they keep losing money and have to come asking again? Are we going to say no then?
On the other side, there is the fact that if just GM went out of business, 100,000 people lose their jobs, with a multiplier effect of maybe up to 500,000 people losing their jobs (supplier companies, etc.). If all 3 went out of business, we'd be talking about well over 1 million people. In the middle of perhaps one of the worst recessions in the last 50 years. It's a pretty steep price for creative destruction; it would no doubt further sink the economy and prolong the recession.
So ideally you'd want a company to come in and buy up GM or Ford's productive assets (like the bank bailouts); lay some percentage of the people off, but basically keep the plants and whatnot running as going concerns. But who wants to buy these turds of a company now?
It's a really tough nut to crack. I guess I'd probably come down on the side of bailout, but hardly enthusiastic about it. I'd probably bail them out but only under the agreement that they work on parting themselves out as quickly as possible...
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Well, I agree that we shouldn't "punish" the Big 3 and ancillary employees for their industry's mismanagement. But let's not be alarmist - it's not like 100% of those jobs will be lost and they'll all go on welfare. And where do you draw the line then? How do you justify saving some and not others? We have seen how the markets responded to the ambiguity of saving Bear but not Lehman. We can't possibly save them all, unless we want our future economy to be semi-private. How many other troubled industries will come crying to Washington for rescue? Just today Citi announced over 50,000 layoffs - that is half of GM. Sure that company is still solvent, and probably the move is meant to downsize from their bloated status during the financial bubble. But why should Washington care more about auto workers than those workers, or the 1.2M+ Americans (according to CNN) who have lost their jobs in the last 12 months for a variety of reasons?
Plus, we're not talking about the Big 3 disappearing. Maybe Chrysler is beyond salvation, and will be carved up and sold on the open market no matter what. But the other two will be around, just maybe in diminished form or merged, even during Chapter 11. Unlike Chrysler's rescue in 1979, the Big 3's current problems have less to do with finances. They just have a screwed-up business model and produce the wrong products for the 21st Century. Ford and GM are successful in overseas developing markets (often because they enjoy near exclusive trade rights), but other makers are catching up. They have had almost a decade to reconfigure their facilities and change their production to match demand. But they haven't yet. I know it's a pain in the ass to negotiate with the UAW, shareholders, and change is like molasses for some companies. But what is it... like Japan needs 2 years to get a car from blackboard to showroom, yet Detroit needs 8? Will another $25B in loans be able to fix that? Their problems extend far beyond executive pay.
Whatever we do, it's going to be painful no doubt, and some lives will be ruined. But it boils down to choice. Will those billions be best spent by our government on an auto bailout, or maybe other public works and economic stimulation programs that could deliver more widespread impact? Let's be honest; Michigan, Ohio, and much of the Midwest rust belt are dying economies, even if the auto industry was more robust. And auto bailout just postpones the inevitable. And even if the Big 3 have to lay off 100,000's, I really doubt that the Obama administration would just cut them loose. Already there are plans for job retraining and other assistance programs, right? And a lot of those supply chain logistics jobs can translate into many other industries. We bailed out the banks because we didn't have a choice. I don't think that is the case with the Big 3. But as you say, there is quite a strong argument to still do it. Maybe the pros outweigh the cons. We just won't be happy about it.
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