July 6, 2008
An excellent primer for the political season
The Heritage Foundation provides this outstanding series of charts (example to the left) reflecting various issues relating to federal revenue and spending.
Recommended reading before listening to any candidate during the upcoming political campaigns.
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June 28, 2008
U.S. Energy Policy
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June 26, 2008
Colbert on Hannity
Stephen Colbert channels Jessica Hagy in analyzing conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity.
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June 23, 2008
Clear thinking to begin the week
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June 8, 2008
Colbert v. Will
Clear Thinkers favorite Stephen Colbert finally meets his match -- syndicated columnist George Will:
By the way, check out Will's latest on Obama and McCain:
On Obama: "Obama's words mesmerize a nation accustomed to leaders who routinely use words with antic indifference to their accuracy."
On McCain: "If he really opposes torture, he will take pity on the public and master the use of a teleprompter."
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June 6, 2008
Hillary's flaw
The strangely obsolescent presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton is one of the most intriguing stories of this political season. The Financial Times' Clive Cook provides a spot on foreigner's perspective:
[Clinton's] performance last night was stunningly ill-judged, and speaks volumes about her fitness to lead—or lack of it. Under the circumstances, one can understand, maybe, a reluctance to concede. But to declare moral victory; to insist, knowing that she had lost, that she remains the stronger candidate; to start positioning herself to demand the VP slot as of right: all this was not just remarkably ungracious, it was also patently counter-productive from a strictly selfish point of view. Can’t she see that she has made it easier, not harder, for Obama to keep her off the ticket?
One of the CNN analysts debating Hillary’s non-concession speech mentioned emails coming in which said that Tuesday “needed to be her night.” At this one of the others spluttered, “It had to be her night? Obama just won!”… before, in a valuable moment of reckless honesty, referring to “the Clintons’ deranged narcissism”. Yes, I thought (recalling, incidentally, Alistair Campbell’s comment that Gordon Brown was “psychologically flawed”). Read her speech, and compare it with Obama’s. His extravagant (and tactically shrewd) praise of her; a speech addressed not just to the whole Democratic party but to the whole country; calculated, of course, calibrated—with nothing in it that was smug or self-regarding or sectarian. Contrast that with her perfunctory acknowledgement of him, followed by a recitation of her achievements and the obstacles that had been put in her way: Enough about our nominee, this is my night and I want to talk about me.
Something tells me that she is not cut out to be Obama’s deputy. If he puts her on the ticket, I think he will be making a big mistake.
Clinton's inability to compete with Obama's charismatic articulation of a vision for the country definitely worked against her in the campaign. But my sense is that the genesis of her downfall was voters' distrust of her inner Tracy Flick.
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June 2, 2008
Ron Paul, we hardly knew ye
This post from last June noted Houston-area Congressman Ron Paul's deft media touch on Comedy Central's Daily Show. Now, a year later, Jim Henley sums up the utter failure that Paul's presidential campaign became:
This fellow can’t spell "candidate," but by being willing to come out and say that Ron Paul Lost, he’s closer to wisdom than the entire staff of Takimag. The full measure of Paul’s failure isn’t even that he’s not going to be the Republican nominee. It’s that, even since everyone else dropped out of the race but Paul and McCain, he’s still been losing to Mike Huckabee in every state where the Huckster was on the ballot except Pennsyvlania (Paul was born in Pennsylvania.) Idaho is the only other primary state where he broke 10%. (He hit low double-digits in a few caucus states.) He has 35 delegates by CNN’s reckoning. Huckabee has 275 and Romney 255. With his $30 million in donations, he’s barely breaking the million-bucks-a-delegate mark. That’s ten times the much-ridiculed rate of Mitt Romney.
Paul failed to win any states, to move the GOP debate in his direction, to accrue significant delegates or to leverage his fund-raising into a third-party run. And word is he’s staying quiet about endorsing an independent because he doesn’t want the Congressional GOP leadership to strip him of committee assignments come the fall. Paul accomplished the one thing he’s always been good at: using political appeals to get people to send money. I don’t feel freer.
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May 13, 2008
Ignoring the noise from next door
The problems that the obsolescent U.S. drug prohibition policy exacerbate along the Texas-Mexico border are a frequent topic on this blog, so this Mary Anastasia O'Grady/W$J article on the latest developments in the drug war just south of the border caught my eye:
American nonchalance about drug use stands in sharp contrast to what is happening across the border in Mexico. There lawmen are taking heavy casualties in a showdown with drug-running crime syndicates. On Thursday the chief of the Mexican federal police, Edgar Millán Gómez, was assassinated by men waiting for him when he came home, becoming the latest and most prominent victim of the syndicates. [. . .]
It's no secret that the narcotics trade is like a roach infestation. If you see one shipment or dealer, you can be sure that there are many others that go undetected. That's why such brazen behavior at [San Diego State University] should be disturbing to America's drug warriors. The signs of an infestation are everywhere, making a joke of their 40-year claim that any day now they will wipe out American drug use. [. . .]
The upshot: Americans underwrite Mexico's vicious organized crime syndicates. The gringos get their drugs and the Mexican mafia gets weapons, technology and the means to buy off or intimidate anyone who gets in their way. Caught in the middle is a poor country striving to develop sound institutions for law enforcement.
The trouble for Mexico is that, even if it understands that U.S. demand is not going away, it cannot afford to cede large swaths of the country to the drug cartels. Thus Mexican President Felipe Calderón has made confronting organized crime a priority since taking office in December 2006. His attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, told me in February that the goal is to reclaim the state's authority where it has been lost to the mafias.
But after 17 months of engagement, while San Diego students party on, victory remains elusive and the Mexican death toll is mounting. Most of the drug-related killings since Mr. Calderón took office seem to be a result of battles between rival cartels. Still, the escalating violence is troubling. The official death toll attributable to organized crime since the Calderón crackdown began now stands at 3,995. Of that, 1,170 have died this year.
Especially alarming are the number of assassinations among military personnel and municipal, state and federal police officers. The total is 439 for the 17 months and 109 so far this year. Many of these victims have been ordinary police officers whose refusal to be bought off or back off cost them their lives.
But as the murder of police chief Millan makes clear, high rank offers no safety. Two weeks before he was gunned down, Roberto Velasco, the head of the organized crime division of the federal police, was shot in the head. The assailants took his car, which leaves open the possibility that it was a random event, but most Mexicans are not buying that theory. Eleven federal law enforcement agents have been killed in ambushes and executions in the last four weeks alone.
If U.S. law enforcement agencies were losing their finest at such a rate, you can bet Americans would give greater thought to the violence generated by high demand and prohibition. Our friends in Mexico deserve equal consideration.
The most troubling aspect of all this is that spillover violence toward U.S. authorities would probably just be met with beefed-up prohibition efforts. Are the vested interests who benefit from the outmoded-but-lucrative prohibition policy simply too entrenched for there to be serious Congressional consideration given to a more humane and cost-effective drug policy?
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May 11, 2008
Nixonland
George Will gives Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland (Scribner 2008), a history lesson.
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May 10, 2008
Worth a watch
For those of you interested in the vexing issues involved in application of the death penalty and child predator laws, the scene below from Boston Legal is worth ten minutes of your time (H/T David Feige). I don't agree with everything that Alan Shore says in his argument to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the scene is certainly far-fetched, but it's a thought-provoking performance nonetheless:
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May 5, 2008
Chron: Sacrifice the local economy for the polar bears
Given the editorial slant of the Houston Chronicle over the past several years, it's not particularly surprising that the editors ran this editorial calling for polar bears to be declared an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Unfortunately, it's also not surprising that the Chron editorial failed to mention that the oil and gas business -- a key source of jobs and wealth for Houston and the nation -- is likely to suffer considerable financial damage as a result of the polar bear listing push, which Hugh Hewitt notes "is not only an abuse of the ESA's original intent but also unsupported by the facts concerning the ice and the polar bears."
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April 29, 2008
Fueling food riots
Peter Gordon observed the other day that "politicians are better at creating problems than addressing them. Schools, housing, health care, transportation and others suffer from too much political attention."
Echoing that idea, Clear Thinkers favorite James Hamilton writes about one of the underlying economic reasons for food riots that are occurring in developing nations in some parts of the world:
As a result of ethanol subsidies and mandates, the dollar value of what we ourselves throw away in order to produce fuel in this fashion could be 50% greater than the value of the fuel itself. In other words, we could have more food for the Haitians, more fuel for us, and still have something left over for your other favorite cause, if we were simply to use our existing resources more wisely.
We have adopted this policy not because we want to drive our cars, but because our elected officials perceive a greater reward from generating a windfall for American farmers.
But the food price increases are now biting ordinary Americans as well. That could make those political calculations change, and may present be an opportunity for a nimble politician to demonstrate a bit of real leadership. I notice, for example, that although Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) was among those who voted in favor of the monstrous 2005 Energy Bill that began these mandates, Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ) were among the 26 senators who bravely voted against it.
Wouldn't it be refreshing if one of them actually tried to make this a campaign issue?
Sigh. Read the entire post.
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April 27, 2008
Thoughts for a Sunday
The NY Times' Adam Liptak has penned a couple of interesting articles recently (here and here) on a frequent topic of this blog (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) -- the troubling incarceration rate in the United States.
With only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. now houses almost a quarter (2.3 million!) of the world's prisoners. One in 100 adults in the U.S. is now behind bars and 751 people are in U.S. prisons or jails for every 100,000 in population. The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close to that rate of incarceration is Russia with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. England’s rate is 151, Germany’s is 88 and Japan’s is 63. Attempting to keep all of this in perspective, Pepperdine University's James Q. Wilson provides this recent op-ed that puts the U.S. incarceration rate in a more favorable light with regard to reducing serious crime.
Among other things, these incarceration numbers certainly makes one wonder why on earth we are sending folks like Jeff Skilling, the NatWest Three, the Merrill Four and Jamie Olis to prison?
Meanwhile, in this five-part LA Times debate, Reason's Jacob Sullum takes on the Heritage Foundation’s Charles Stimson over one of the main reasons for the high U.S. incarceration rate -- drug prohibition. At least in this first installment, Sullum makes a much more compelling case than Stimson. And Peter Gordon has this sage observation about the genesis of drug prohibition.
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February 27, 2008
Dick Armey on immigration
I must admit, I never thought that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey would sound like a statesman to me. I was wrong. Watch the video to find out why.
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The diversity of Texas
Yes, Texas is a diverse place. It's a part of its charm. But following on this post from yesterday, that diversity does not make it an easy place to get one's arms around.
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February 26, 2008
The importance of running a Presidential campaign
On the heels of the Frank Rich/NY Times column castigating the Hillary Clinton campaign team, one of the best business law professors in the U.S. explains why the ability to run a large political campaign is an important qualification of a President:
A virtue of our political system as it is operated today is that it ensures that no one can be elected president who cannot run a major organization. This may not be enough – Bush ran two smooth campaigns but has had more trouble running a war. But it should at least be the price of admission.
And candidates should keep all this in mind before they go bashing "big business." If the candidates can't achieve the same level of competence as the firms they bash in bringing order out of chaos, they should just stay in the Senate and let others do the more important jobs.
Read the entire post. As this Richard Murray post indicates, early voting trends in Texas do not look good for the Clinton campaign.
By the way, did you catch the following Jon Stewart crack during the Oscars?: "Away From Her is about a woman who forgets about her husband. Hillary Clinton called it the feel-good movie of the year."
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February 25, 2008
Rate Congress on free trade
Check out this excellent Cato Institute website that allows you to evaluate the voting record of each member of the past six sessions of Congress on free trade issues.
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February 22, 2008
Hillary's redemption?
It's rare that I post on politics two days in a row (or even two times in a week, for that matter), but the meltdown of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has been one of those fascinating political developments that simply begs for analysis (yesterday's post is here).
David Berg, one of Houston's best trial lawyers and a longtime Democratic Party supporter, provides this insightful op-ed in the Chronicle yesterday explaining why he switched from supporting Clinton to Obama and why Clinton is suffering in comparison to Obama:
I guarantee you, as the oldest living man in America who has actually attended a Hannah Montana concert, my daughter is completely colorblind. From what I have seen of her generation, and that of my grown sons', that is the norm, not the exception. Racial politics simply won't work; not this time — and if all that good will seeps into the wider world — perhaps never again.I wish, frankly, that the Clintons, who in many ways helped make Obama's candidacy possible, could hear firsthand how they let down so many people who cared about them and supported them through many tough years — how by their divisive tactics they have become the people and politics they deplore.
In short, I wish they could have been there Tuesday night to understand clearly how times and mores have changed and, perhaps, to understand how important it is that a new generation be given a chance.
By the way, on more mundane topics, it appears that Clinton's management ability is not what her supporters crack it up to be. $11,000 on pizza and $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts?
Meanwhile, NY Times columnist David Brooks examines the new political syndrome -- Obama Comedown Syndrome (a/k/a "OCS").
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February 21, 2008
Bashing the capitalist roaders
Does it appear to anyone else that Hillary Clinton is getting a bit desperate in attempting to salvage her campaign for the Democratic nomination? Get a load of this:
Sen. Hillary Clinton took a swipe at [investment bankers], suggesting wealthy investment bankers and hedge fund managers on Wall Street aren't doing real 'work.' [. . .]"We also have to reward work more," Clinton told a small group of Ohio residents today. "and by that, I mean, I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives. Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50 million dollars, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That's very discouraging to people." [. . .]
The line about investment fund and hedge fund managers has been introduced into Clinton's talking points as she campaigns across the economically struggling state of Ohio.
Investment bankers are certainly an easy target, but Clinton's statement that they don't do "real work" is either disingenuous or appallingly ignorant. Would Clinton say such a thing about other financial intermediaries such as real estate brokers? Investment bankers working on multi-billion dollar mergers are not all that different from real estate brokers -- they are financial intermediaries who get paid a commission for helping to originate and close deals. In short, they are being paid a fee for arranging a transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller.
And believe me, for anyone who has ever seen investment bankers work a deal, it's definitely hard work. Finding potential buyers and sellers, persuading them to become involved in a transaction, and making the deal happen amidst the myriad of risks that could undermine it is not a cakewalk. Long hours, the ability to deal with rejection, the uncertainty of the fee until the deal closes, grinding travel and pressurized work conditions are just a few of the hardships that investment bankers endure.
Inasmuch as such work is hard, it's not for everybody. Thus, with really good investment bankers in short supply, they can command high compensation. And the good ones are well worth it. Where else will a seller or buyer find someone with a comprehensive list of direct contacts among potential parties to a transaction and extensive experience getting difficult deals closed? A principal to a transaction is simply renting those contacts and experience and, although often expensive, the investment banker is worth every penny if he or she can pull a deal together for the principal.
The foregoing is pretty basic stuff, so it's alarming that a Senator from a state with more investment bankers than any other would engage in demagoguery over them. John Carney over at Dealbreaker sums up the irony quite well:
"Now being the First Lady for eight years and a Senator from a state in which you've never lived, that's real work."
And lest the Obama crowd get too over-confident with Clinton's increasingly bizarre statements, get a load of this performance by Austin lawyer, former Austin mayor and current Texas state senator Kirk Watson, who has endorsed Obama:
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February 14, 2008
The aftermath of the Clemens hearing
Many folks have been asking me about my thoughts on the Roger Clemens saga, but I am so disappointed with the abysmal level of discourse regarding the Mitchell Commission Report and the issues involved with the use of PED's in society that I find it hard to drum up much enthusiasm for addressing it. Compare the discussion of the issues from this earlier post with this live blog analysis of the questions and answers from Clemens hearing and you will see what I mean. Sort of makes you want to whipsaw the committee in the same manner as this Colman McCarthy/Washington Post op-ed, doesn't it? Art DeVany expresses similar sentiments.
Although I expressed reservations early on about the unconventional way in which Clemens' legal team has been defending the matter, I don't think the hearing measurably increased Clemens' risk of being charged criminally. In fact, in an odd way, the hearing may have actually mitigated that risk somewhat.
McNamee came across as such a manipulator that my sense is that it's doubtful that prosecutors would base a criminal case against Clemens primarily on McNamee's testimony. Thus, unless investigators come up with a conduit of the PED's who is willing to testify that the PED's were delivered to Clemens and McNamee, Clemens may avoid criminal charges. He is certainly not out of the woods yet, but the Congressional hearing probably hurt him more in the court of public opinion than it did with regard to a potential criminal case (Update: Peter Henning agrees with me).
Nevertheless, I'm not yet ready to bet on that prediction. At least without long odds in my favor.
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February 11, 2008
Vetting the Trans-Texas Corridor
This Ralph Blumenthal/NY Times article does a good job of summarizing the massive scale that is the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project:
. . . the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the state’s — or probably any state’s — history, that would stretch well into the century and, if completed in full, end up costing around $200 billion. [. . .]The plan envisions a 4,000-mile network of new toll roads, with car and truck lanes, rail lines, and pipeline and utilities zones, to bypass congested cities and speed freight to and from Mexico. [. . .]
The corridor project grew out of the 2002 governor’s race when [Governor] Rick Perry, . . . surprised transportation experts by taking ideas they had discussed a decade earlier, to little interest, and “supersizing them,” as one recalled.
The project grew to consist of four “priority segments:” new multimodal toll roads up to 1,200 feet wide paralleling Interstates 35 and 37 from Denison in North Texas to the Rio Grande Valley; a proposed I-69 from Texarkana to Houston and Laredo; I-45 from Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston; and I-10 from El Paso to Orange on the Louisiana border. But the exact routes are years away from being designated.
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February 9, 2008
Elevating form over substance
The McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill was not John McCain's finest hour. John Lott makes a good point about the utter hypocrisy of it all in connection with the Clintons' recent loan to Hillary's cash-strapped campaign:
Former President Clinton stands to reap around $20 million -- and will sever a politically sensitive partnership tie to Dubai -- by ending his high-profile business relationship with the investment firm of billionaire friend Ron Burkle. . . .Obviously Clinton has gotten a lot of money from other sources, so there is no need to single out Burkle, but Burkle obviously can't donate $10 or $12 million to Clinton's campaign. Yet, if he pays Clinton for work that isn't very obvious, Clinton can then turn around and spend it on a campaign. Does it really matter that Burkle can't give the money directly to Clinton?
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February 4, 2008
A birthday wish
Don't miss Greg Mankiw's birthday wish:
My birthday wish is for all of us to stop asking what the government can do for us today. Instead, we should focus on what we can do together to prepare the economy for our children and grandchildren. That means getting ready to care more for ourselves in old age, perhaps by retiring later, perhaps by saving more. I hope that when I celebrate my 100th birthday in 2058, my descendants won’t look upon Grandpa and his generation as the biggest economic problem of their time.
Read the entire op-ed. Salient thought for a political season.
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An uncomfortable issue for John McCain
The hypocritical and unproductive nature of government policy regarding illegal drugs has been a frequent subject on this blog (see here, here, here and here), so this Radley Balko post about Cindy McCain, John McCain's wife, caught my eye:
. . .the problem with the hypocritical practice of letting politicians’ family members get off for drug crimes that land normal people in prison is that it doesn’t seem to do much in the way of making them more sympathetic. It just hardens them into more militant drug warriors.
Read the entire post.
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January 31, 2008
The wisdom of U.S. Presidential campaigns
Much is wrong with U.S. Presidential campaigns. They last much too long, are far too expensive and the rhetoric is mostly mind-numbing.
However, for all its faults, the messy process does have a way of eliminating the candidates that need to be weeded out (see also here and here).
By the way, Megan McArdle has the New York City perspective on Giuliani's withdrawal.
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January 29, 2008
Hillary Clinton's Inner Tracy Flick
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January 28, 2008
The costs of prohibition
The nature of the problems that confront Texans and law enforcement officers who live near the Texas-Mexico border have been a frequent topic on this blog (see here, here, and here). Those problems are exacerbated by the archaic nature of U.S. drug laws (see here and here).
This must-read Scott Henson post does an excellent job of defining the parameters of the increasingly serious problems on the Texas-Mexico border.
No Country for Old Men may be fiction, but the story it tells is very real.
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January 27, 2008
A truly frightening thought
It's been comforting that John Edwards' demagoguery has not generated the type of buzz and political support that would make him a top contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. However, this Robert Novak/Rasmussen blurb ended my sense of comfort:
Illinois Democrats close to Sen. Barack Obama are quietly passing the word that John Edwards will be named attorney general in an Obama administration.Installation at the Justice Department of multimillionaire trial lawyer Edwards would please not only the union leaders supporting him for president but organized labor in general. The unions relish the prospect of an unequivocal labor partisan as the nation's top legal officer.
What would an anti-business demagogue be like as attorney general? Here's a preview (another one here). That's not the way to encourage risk-taking for job and wealth creation.
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January 23, 2008
At least he's consistent
Well, at least Rudy Giuliani behaved consistently both before and after becoming Mayor of New York City (Reason's David Weigel also provides this interesting Giuliani piece along the same lines).
Having said that, I don't think that's the type of consistency that most reasoned folks want in a U.S. President.
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January 22, 2008
Birds of a feather?
Perhaps coincidentally, I came across the following two news reports consecutively yesterday morning. First from this BBC article:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise farms, in an effort to tackle food shortages.Government controls keep food prices low in shops to help even the poorest Venezuelans feed themselves.
But some farmers prefer to sell their produce in neighbouring countries where prices are higher, leading to shortages of bread, milk, eggs and meat.
In his weekly television show, Mr Chavez said farmers doing this should have their farms "expropriated". [. . .]
On Saturday, Mr Chavez threatened to nationalise banks which did not give enough low-interest loans to farmers.
Banks are not allowed to charge farmers interest higher than 15% - even though inflation last year ran at 22.5%.
"The bank that fails to comply must be sanctioned, and I am not talking about a little fine," he said. "The bank that does not comply must be seized." [. . .]
Critics say complying with government policy could drive some businesses into bankruptcy.
Then, a little closer to home, came this NY Times article on Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's views on government control of the economy:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration.. . . Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.
She said that economic excesses — including executive-pay packages she characterized as often “offensive” and “wrong” and a tax code that had become “so far out of whack” in favoring the wealthy — were holding down middle-class living standards. [. . .]
“If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.”
She added: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.” [. . .]
“We’ve done it in previous generations,” she said, alluding to large-scale public projects like the interstate highway system and the space program. “But we’ve got to have a plan.” [. . .]
“Inequality is growing,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The middle class is stalled. The American dream is premised on a growing economy where people are in a meritocracy and, if they’re willing to work hard, they will realize the fruits of their labor.”
So, on one hand, Chavez is demonstrating that, even with the economic benefit of having high-priced oil to export, a government can still lower the living standards of its citizens if it tries hard enough.
On the other hand, Hillary does not appear to recognize that her proposals are quite capable of accomplishing the same thing within the world's most dynamic economy.
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The Thompson plan
Last week, Ironman over at Political Calculations reviewed the Giuliani income tax simplification plan. This week, he tackles the even more impressively simple tax simplification plan advocated by GOP Presidential candidate, Fred Thompson.
Of course, as if on cue, Thompson dropped out of the GOP race today.
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January 16, 2008
What's missing in the tax debate
Wouldn't it be nice if at least one of the Presidential candidates would embrace the basic reform that is really needed in the U.S. tax system? Simply simplification. Previous posts on tax simplification issues are here. Interestingly, one of my least favored Presidential candidates -- Rudy Giuliani -- has the best tax simplification proposal that I've seen so far during the campaign.
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January 14, 2008
Myths about oil are hard to dispel
Amidst the demagoguery of a U.S. Presidential campaign, it's rare to find the mainstream media willing to run Robert Bryce's common sense on energy policy and oil prices. For example:
Myth 3: Energy independence will let America choke off the flow of money to nasty countries.Fans of energy independence argue that if the United States stops buying foreign energy, it will deny funds to petro-states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. But the world marketplace doesn't work like that. Oil is a global commodity. Its price is set globally, not locally. Oil buyers are always seeking the lowest-cost supplier. So any Saudi crude being loaded at the Red Sea port of Yanbu that doesn't get purchased by a refinery in Corpus Christi or Houston will instead wind up in Singapore or Shanghai.
Refer to this article whenever you are listening to the candidates from either party start talking about energy policy. Come to think of it, while considering political choices, you should also keep handy this Bryan Caplan/WaPo op-ed entitled 5 Myths About Our Ballot-Box Behavior.
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January 8, 2008
The power of words
James Fallows hits on what I believe is a very important dynamic in Barack Obama's surge past Hillary Clinton among Democrats -- the power of words:
Words and deeds. Talk and action. Poetry and prose. Presidents obviously do best when they can do both.But only Obama captured what is unique about a president's role. A President's actions matter -- Lyndon Johnson with his legislation, Richard Nixon with his opening to China -- but lots of other people can help shape policies. A President's words often matter more, and only he -- or she -- can express them. Grant led the Union Army, but Abraham Lincoln, in addition to selecting Grant, wrote and delivered his inaugural and Gettysburg addresses. Long before Franklin Roosevelt actually did anything about the Great Depression, his first inaugural address ("the only thing we have to fear...") was important in itself. The same was true of Winston Churchill just after he succeeded Neville Chamberlain. It would be years before the Nazi advance would be contained, but Churchill's words and bearing were indispensable to Britain's recovery.
On the other hand, George W. Bush's difficulty in expressing himself publicly has exacerbated the perception of a rudderless Administration. With that constant reminder over the past seven years, I'm surprised that Clinton's handlers don't have her better prepared to express herself well in public debates. Perhaps, as with Bush, she simply lacks the public speaking gift of her husband. But I am continually amazed at how often her extemporaneous public statements are littered with the ubiquitous "you know" crutch as she gathers her thoughts. That habit, as well as her instinct to default to a government solution on virtually every issue, fuels the perception that she lacks substance.
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January 5, 2008
The Great Debaters
My younger daughter, my wife and I took in Denzel Washington's new film the other night, The Great Debaters. Although the story was somewhat formulaic and the movie certainly not perfect, we found the movie to be hugely entertaining. The acting is superb, particularly the reliable Mr. Washington and newcomer Denzel Whitaker, a delightful young actor who literally steals the show as the youngest of the college debaters. Mr. Washington, who also directed, wisely decided to tell the story through Mr. Whitaker's character (James Farmer, Jr.), and Mr. Whitaker is more than up to the task. What a talent!
Interestingly, the always-excellent Forest Whitaker plays James Farmer, Sr., the father of the young Mr. Whitaker's character in the movie. However, despite their common last name, the two are not related.
At any rate, in discussing the movie on the way home afterward, my daughter observed that it sure is a good thing that the horrific racism depicted in the movie is not condoned in American society anymore. My reply was that brutal discrimination of blacks is still not as uncommon as we like to think. Scott Henson and Radley Balko comment on the unacceptable revelations of, at minimum, prosecutorial negligence in Dallas. Where is the outrage?
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December 18, 2007
That governmental Ponzi scheme
At the end of this common sense post that mostly points out that no useful public policy is served by the government denying grandparents the right to establish Health Savings Accounts for the benefit of their grandchildren, the always entertaining Art DeVany makes the following observation about a common topic on this blog -- Social Security reform (previous posts are here):
By the way, there is no such thing as social security. There are only people who are more or less secure against contingencies. They might pool their risks against these contingencies, but there is no effective way for a society to avoid risk. As a program for risk pooling, Social Security is very ineffective. It is not insurance, it is redistribution among generations. It is a Ponzi scheme because the risk pool is allocated from one generation to another. And, it is fraught with demographic risk and political risk. It will eventually go under or have to be modified substantially by disavowing the contract between generations because it is not sustainable.
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December 17, 2007
Giuliani's ideas on transparent government
Jim Dwyer of the NY Times reports that Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's ideas about transparency in government are quite similar to his crimebuster practices.
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November 30, 2007
Say what, John Edwards?
Following on the previous post, have you heard about demagogue John Edwards' latest proposal?
A two-year ban on advertising for prescription drugs.
Paul Jacob suggests a common sense ban of another sort.
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The key issue in the 2008 Presidential race
As usual, the Onion identifies the issue with precision:
Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
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November 16, 2007
Remembering 1968
In 1968, I was a 15-year old concentrating on playing various high school sports in Iowa City, a Midwestern college town. However, even in that somewhat sheltered environment, it was impossible not to realize that 1968 was an unusually tumultuous year. This Daniel Henninger/Opinion Journal op-ed reminds us of just what a wild ride 1968 was:
In 1968, Nicolas Sarkozy was 13 years old. John McCain was 32 and Hillary Clinton was 21. Barack Obama was 7. It is not beyond imagining that the precocious Messrs. Sarkozy and Obama were alert to events in 1968, but for the first wave of baby boomers just touching adulthood that year, it was the beginning of a strange journey.Nearly any one of the events that went off in 1968 would have been enough to dominate another year. To list what actually happened that year even today boggles the mind, and spirit.
The year began with sales of the Beatles album, "Magical Mystery Tour." In retrospect, it was a premonition. In late January, North Korea captured the USS Pueblo and crew members. A week later, the North Vietnamese army launched the Tet offensive.
On Feb. 27, Walter Cronkite announced on CBS News that the U.S. had to negotiate a settlement to the Vietnam War. On March 12, Sen. Gene McCarthy defeated incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, aided by antiwar students that Sen. McCarthy called his "children's crusade." Two weeks later, LBJ announced on TV that he would not run for re-election. One week later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was only April 4.
There were race riots everywhere. On April 24, students occupied five buildings at Columbia University, protesting the war. In May bloody student riots erupted in France, likely witnessed by the impressionable Mr. Sarkozy.
On June 3, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in a New York City loft. Two days later, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In August, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia. Seven days later, antiwar demonstrators at the Democratic convention fought pitched battles with the Chicago police.
On Nov. 4, having absorbed all this, the people of the United States voted. They gave 43.4% of their vote to Richard Nixon and 42.7% to Hubert Humphrey. Alabama Gov. George Wallace got 13.5%. Four years later, George Wallace was shot while running for president. 1968 lasted a long time.
Whatever civic culture the U.S. had until the 1960s, it was now transformed. After '68, we had a new kind of political and social culture, pounding like a jackhammer into the older bedrock. The country cracked. Look at those 1968 popular vote numbers; half the country went left and half went right.
Read the entire piece.
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November 15, 2007
Edwards returns to demagoguery
After an effective television ad, the John Edwards campaign returns to Edwards' usual form of demagoguery against business interests in the ad below: