February 2013 archive

Economist, author and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Dean Baker took New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman back to economics class (he may not have ever went) for his Sunday column that was “once again mass marketing misinformation on economics” and getting it “180 degrees wrong: the Friedman standard.”

Dr. Baker start off citing Mr. Friedman’s first paragraph:

It begins by telling us that Tim Cook and Apple are sitting on $137 billion that they could be investing:

“Apple is currently sitting on $137 billion of cash in the bank. There are many reasons Apple has not spent its cash horde, but I’ll bet anything that one of them is the uncertain economic and tax environment in this country. Think about how much better we’d all be if Apple, and the many other companies sitting on cash, felt confident enough in the future to spend it. These are the most dynamic companies in the world. They don’t need any government help to innovate.”

He goes on to explain how, at this time, investment in equipment and software is near pre-recession levels. He then moves on to Mr. Friedman’s wrongheadedness about consumption and the trade deficit.

Then Dr. Dean get to the real nitty gritty of how really wrong Friedman is on getting the American economy moving is this theory on investment in infrastructure and early childhood education:

Friedman just keeps getting better:

“Our choice today is not ‘austerity’ versus ‘no austerity.’ That is a straw man argument offered by both extremes. It’s about whether we phase in – in the least painful way possible – a long-term plan that balances our need to protect the most vulnerable in this generation while funding the most opportunities for the next generation, and still creating growth. We can’t protect both generations in full anymore, but we must not sacrifice one for the other – favoring nursing homes over nursery schools – and that’s what we’re on track to do.”

You have to love the line:

“We can’t protect both generations in full anymore.”

Somehow Friedman missed the fact that the problem we are facing is a lack of demand. We need people to spend more not less. How does austerity reduce unemployment and get the economy back to full employment? It hasn’t worked in Ireland, Greece, Spain, the United Kingdom or anywhere else that can be identified. How on earth does the fact that we now face a huge gap in demand mean that we are less well-situated to “protect both generations.” (Of course he doesn’t say anything about income distribution.)

Again, if Friedman could be taught some intro economics it would be hugely helpful here. Suppose Friedman gets his wish for a grand bargain and everyone working today knew that they would be seeing sharply lower Social Security and Medicare benefits in the future. All of those consumers who Friedman thinks are paralyzed by uncertainty will suddenly realize that they can be certain that they will need more money to support themselves in retirement because the Thomas Friedmans of the world have taken away their Social Security and Medicare.

As Mr. Friedman has written, he mostly travel’s by taxi. So Dr. Baker has an idea on how you can help with Mr. Friedman’s economic education if you live in New York City:

Print copies of the two graph’s the investment share of GDP and consumption as a share of disposable income;

Give then to NYC cab driver’s to give to Mr. Friedman if, and when, they pick him up.

The theory is that if enough people do this eventually Mr. Friedman will learn something about economics and we will “no longer have to see painfully wrongheaded columns on the economy in the Sunday NYT.”

I stopped reading Mr. Friedman’s columns sometime after 2006, three years into the Iraq War that was only suppose to last six months. Mr. Friedman started predicting the outcome of the war would take six months in 2003. He did it often enough that Atrios started calling the prediction a “Friedman Unit” in 2006 and it became a running joke thereafter.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

February 18 is the 49th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 316 days remaining until the end of the year (317 in leap years).

On this day in 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous, and famously controversial, novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Considered as one of the Great American Novels, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective).

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.

The work has been popular with readers since its publication and is taken as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur “nigger”, despite that the main protagonist, and the tenor of the book, is anti-racist. According to the January 20, 2011 Chase Cook/The Daily article, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn novel will be released in a new edition. Two words will be changed throughout the whole book, “injun” and “nigger” to “indian” and “slave”. The book is being changed as quoted in the article, “only to make it viable to the 21st century”.

Writing for his New York Times blog, Conscience of a Liberal, Nobel Prize winning economics professor Paul Krugman makes two salient observation about President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour to $9.00 per hour indexed to inflation. His first observation is the political “trap” for Republicans leaders who are opposed, even though a vast majority of voters support a wage increase (pdf) and that includes a string majority of Republican women but not men. Prof Krugman notes that while Republicans want you to believe that they are concerned workers might lose their jobs, he gives two examples of why this faux sincerity “won’t wash”:

1. The truth is that top Republicans have so little regard for ordinary workers that they can’t even manage to pretend otherwise. Case in point: on the last Labor Day, Eric Cantor declared,

   “Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success”.

Yep: even on Labor Day, Cantor had nothing positive to say about workers, just praise for their bosses.

2. Consider a working couple with two children, earning the current minimum wage. How much federal income tax do they pay? If I’m doing the math right, the answer is, none – they get a refund. (They pay plenty of payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc., but that isn’t supposed to count). In the minds of Republicans, this makes them lucky duckies, members of the 47 percent, part of what’s wrong with America. The GOP just can’t credibly claim to suddenly be deeply concerned about their job prospects.

Prof. Krugman’s second observation is about the economics of raising the minimum wage:

First, as John Schmitt (pdf) documents at length, there just isn’t any evidence that raising the minimum wage near current levels would reduce employment. And this is a really solid result, because there have been a lot of studies. We can argue about exactly why the simple Econ 101 story doesn’t seem to work, but it clearly doesn’t – which means that the supposed cost in terms of employment from seeking to raise low-wage workers’ earnings is a myth.

Second – and this is news to me – the usual notion that minimum wages and the Earned Income Tax Credit are competing ways to help low-wage workers is wrong. On the contrary, raising the minimum wage is a way to make the EITC work better, ensuring that its benefits go to workers rather than getting shared with employers. This actually is Econ 101, but done right: given a second-best world in which you use imperfect tools to help deserving workers, two tools together can produce a better outcome than either one on its own.

As usual, if you want comprehensive, in depth discussion without the political talking points and invective, at the same time presenting both sides, Chris Hayes and his guests on Up with Chris Hayes this past Saturday provided just that. Joining Chris to discuss the president’s proposal to raise the minimum wage were by Arindrajit Dube, assistant professor of economics at University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Lew Prince, owner of Vintage Vinyl, Inc. a small business in St. Louis, Missouri; Jennifer Sevilla Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network; and Tsedeye Geeresslasse, staff attorney of the National Employment Law Project.

Republicans and business groups have lined up in opposition to a minimum wage increase, and in doing so, they’ve repeated a talking point that has been common in Washington for decades: that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to reductions in employment. As it turns out, there’s a growing body of empirical evidence that indicates that minimum wage increases, within a certain range, have no negative impact on employment, and may actually boost worker productivity and consumer demand, providing a much-needed stimulus to the economy.

So I happen to have a very old, very fast car that I rarely use.  It’s unreliable and can leave you inconveniently stranded at your destination, unable to return home.  It’s hard to drive because of the performance suspension and to get in and out of because of the configuration (it’s nickname is ‘The Flying Penis’).  While the mileage doesn’t suck it’s nothing to brag about and there is no cargo space at all.

On the other hand it still goes like stink and provided you’ve assured yourself a suitable stretch of road is enforcement free it’s a blast at high speeds.

These are not uncommon traits in a vehicle like this, mine is in fact relatively civilized.

What’s surprising about a piece like John Broder’s is that someone who should know better about the inherent unruliness of this type of automobile complains with particular pettiness and spite about the Tesla Model S.

Now I happen to think the computer logs prove Broder a pants on fire prevaricating liar and his apologists credulous fools grasping at straws (to say nothing of his own feeble attempts to avoid Judith Millerdom), but this is not the first time.

So what motivates this vitriol against electric cars?

Well, range is a problem.  Until I read up on this I had no idea it was so limited- around 40 miles for the Volt in pure electric mode, 73 for the Leaf.  Perfectly fine for errands, not so much for trips.

But I think that more fundamentally it’s God, Guns, and Gays.

Gasoline is a dinosaur in more ways than one.  Either it disappears or we do.  Turn Left Racing is the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. (Throwball has better TV ratings).  It feeds the populist fantasy that with a little more practice or firepower you too can be a hero for people so down and out their solace is the fact that at least they’re not a ____ and there will be pie in the sky by and by, by and by, on the big rock candy mountain.  Were your life that miserable and you a little less cynical you’d cling to it too.

But it’s all an illusion, magical thinking and distractions.  The big stories today are Danica Patrick’s love life and Daytona Pole.

More measured accounts-

• The Guardian
• Washington Post
• Time Magazine

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 317 days remaining until the end of the year (318 in leap years).

On this day in 1904,  Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly premieres at the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy.

The young Puccini decided to dedicate his life to opera after seeing a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida in 1876. In his later life, he would write some of the best-loved operas of all time: La Boheme (1896), Tosca (1900), Madame Butterfly (1904) and Turandot (left unfinished when he died in 1906). Not one of these, however, was an immediate success when it opened. La Boheme, the now-classic story of a group of poor artists living in a Paris garret, earned mixed reviews, while Tosca was downright panned by critics.

Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts (originally two acts) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story “Madame Butterfly” (1898) by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco. Puccini also based it on the novel Madame Chrysantheme (1887) by Pierre Loti. According to one scholar, the opera was based on events that actually occurred in Nagasaki in the early 1890s.

The original version of the opera, in two acts, had its premiere on February 17, 1904, at La Scala in Milan. It was very poorly received despite the presence of such notable singers as soprano Rosina Storchio, tenor Giovanni Zenatello and baritone Giuseppe De Luca in the lead roles. This was due in large part to the late completion and inadequate time for rehearsals. Puccini revised the opera, splitting the second act into two acts and making other changes. On May 28, 1904, this version was performed in Brescia and was a huge success.

The opera is set in the city of Nagasaki. Japan’s best-known opera singer Tamaki Miura won international fame for her performances as Cio-Cio San; her statue, along with that of Puccini, can be found in Nagasaki’s Glover Garden.

Butterfly is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire for companies around the world and it is the most-performed opera in the United States, where it ranks as Number 1 in Opera America’s list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Chris Hayes: Joining Chris will be: Ben Jealous (@BenJealous), President and CEO of NAACP; James Poulos (@jamespoulos), producer for HuffPost Live, contributor to “Forbes” and “Vice'” Jamie Manson, columnist for the “National Catholic Reporter;” Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Saadiq Long, U.S. Air Force veteran who was barred from boarding a flight from Oklahoma to Qatar; Tyson Slocum (@TysonSlocum), producer for HuffPo Live, contributor to “Forbes” and “Vice;” Jen Daskal (@jendaskal), fellow at Georgetown University’s Center on National Security and the Law; Bill McKibben (@billmckibben), founder of 350.org, author of “EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet;” Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd), national correspondent for “The American Conservative;” Father Bill Dailey, Roman Catholic priest, lecturer in law at the University of Notre Dame Law School and Thomas More fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture; and Chief Jackie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation, member of the Yinka Dene Alliance

This Week with George Stephanopolis: Guests on “This Week” are House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough; and Dr. Ben Carson, Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins.

The roundtable debates all the week’s politics, with ABC News’ George Will; Rep. Joaquín Castro, D-Texas; Former House Speaker and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich; Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus; and Romney 2012 campaign senior adviser Stuart Stevens.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffers’s guests this Sunday are White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough; his Eminence Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington; former Governor Haley Barbour, R-Miss., and Democratic Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

The foreign policy panel guests are CBS News State Department Correspondent Margaret Brennan, the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, and Foreign Policy Magazine‘s Tom Ricks.

Panel guests discussing politics are the Cook Political Report‘s Amy Walter, the Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson.

The Chris Matthews Show: Joiing Mr. Matthews this Sunday are Michael Beschloss, Author; Nia-Malika Henderson, The Washington Post National Political Reporter; David Leonhardt, The New York Times Washington Bureau Chief; and Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report National Editor

Meet the Press with David Gregory: This Sunady on MTP the guests are new White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough; Senator John McCain (R-AZ); and retired Space Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly.

The roundtable guests are Lt. Governor of California Gavin Newsom; Founder and Chair of Good 360, Carly Fiorina; Republican strategist Alex Castellanos; and host of MSNBC’s Hardball, Chris Matthews.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are New York Senator Chuck Schumer; Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and Intelligence Committee Chairman, Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers.

Joining her for a rountable discussion are former Republican Congressman Steven LaTourette; former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain; Jeff Zeleny from the New York Times, and CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash.

Karzai says he intends to ban Afghan troops from requesting foreign airstrikes

By Richard Leiby, Sunday, February 17, 7:04 AM

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai announced Saturday he intends to ban Afghan ground forces from calling in NATO airstrikes on residential areas – even though his country’s fighters have had to rely in the past on such air power in operations against Taliban militants.

“Our forces ask for air support from foreigners, and children get killed in an airstrike,” Karzai said in a speech at a military academy here, reinforcing his often truculent posture toward the U.S.-backed international coalition that has long supported his government.

Ten civilians, including five women and four children, died in a NATO airstrike Tuesday night in a remote village in eastern Kunar province that also killed three militant commanders, one of them linked to al-Qaeda, Afghan officials said.

I’m going to put the diary below the fold.  I want it to fit on 1 page of paper for those of us who are paying for our own leaflets.

I will be distributing it to fellow citizens when the sell out 0-crat$ darling Michelle Rhee comes to Seattle on Tues., 19 Feb.

http://www.theatlantic.com/pol…

I will be distributing it at local Democratic party legislative district meetings in the next few months: the 36th (Hey Tim!), the 43rd (Hey Ed!), the 46th and the 32nd.  

MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes host, Chris Hayes discusses what we have learned this week with panel guests Dedrick Muhammad, senior economic director for the NAACP; Goldie Taylor, MSNBC contributor; Diane Schansenbach, Northwest University; and Derrell Bradford, executive director of Better Education for Kids.

Marco Rubio’s ‘Working Class’ Home Is For Sale For $675,000

Rubio failed to mention his “working class” pool home in West Miami is on the market for a whopping $675,000 — and he’s moving his family to Washington, D.C.

West Miami is indeed less posh than its southeastern neighbor, Coral Gables. But public records show Rubio and his wife paid more than half a million dollars — $550,000 in fact — in 2005 for their two-story, four-bedroom, 2,649-square foot pad, which features a double-height living area, stainless steel appliances, manicured lawn, and outdoor entertaining space. As Ameriblog points out, the surrounding streets contain more quintessentially blue collar homes, but Rubio’s cul-de-sac of 5 pool homes is a “luxury enclave,” a “little white-collar heaven” in blue collar Miami.

Stop using the “wives, mothers, & daughters” rhetorical frame that defines women by their relationships to other people.

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama said: “We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace and free from the fear of domestic violence.”

This “our wives, mothers, and daughters” phrase is one he routinely employs, but it is counterproductive to the women’s equality the President is ostensibly supporting.

Defining women by their relationships to other people is reductive, misogynist, and alienating to women who do not define ourselves exclusively by our relationships to others. Further, by referring to “our” wives et al, the President appears to be talking to The Men of America about Their Women, rather than talking to men AND women.

Please embrace inclusive language, Mr. President.

Italy’s ex-intelligence chief given 10-year sentence for role in CIA kidnapping

by Glenn Greenwald. The Guardian

Such accountability for high-level government officials is inconceivable in the US, highlighting its culture of impunity

A US State Department official on Monday “expressed concern” about what he called “a ‘climate of impunity’ over abuses by police and security forces” – in Egypt. The official, Michael Posner, warned that failure to investigate Egyptian state agents responsible for “cruel treatment of those in their custody” – including torture – creates “a lack of meaningful accountability for these actions”. Last week, I wrote that “I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of US government statements that are so drowning in obvious, glaring irony that the officials uttering them simply must have been mischievously cackling to themselves when they created them,” and this American denunciation of Egypt’s “climate of impunity” almost certainly goes to the top of the list.

After all, Michael Posner works for the very same administration that not only refused to prosecute or even investigate US officials who tortured, kidnapped and illegally eavesdropped, but actively shielded them all from all forms of accountability: criminal, civil or investigative. Indeed, Posner works for the very same State Department that actively impeded efforts by countries whose citizens were subjected to those abuses – such as Spain and Germany – to investigate them. Being lectured by the US State Department about a “culture of impunity” is like being lectured by David Cameron about supporting Arab dictators.