Month: August 2007

The Schizophrenia of Economic Populism

In his lede to set up a different topic, George Will utilizes this story about Sen. Barack Obama, from the campaign trail:

Sen. Barack Obama recently told some Iowa farmers that prices of their crops are not high enough, considering what grocers are charging for other stuff: “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?”

Want to bet that Sen. Obama’s plan to get the prices of crops higher will involve some form of government subversion of economics? Want to also bet that he’ll campaign against the Whole Foods merger because it leads to higher prices? How about the possibility (probability?) that he’ll promise to help working families who have trouble paying their weekly grocery bills?

No one cares to rise above.

I certainly share Andrew Sullivan’s “good riddance” sentiment regarding the imminent departure of Karl Rove from the White House. Seriously, good riddance. While I think Mr. Sullivan correctly summarizes the blown opportunity that Republicans allowed Rove to deliver, he incorrectly hypothesizes the damage Rove caused:

Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war – and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president’s eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.

The first two sentences are the perfect short epitaph for Rove’s tenure. But I’m not convinced that he’s turned an entire generation off the conservative label. It wasn’t too long ago that Republicans were crowing about the permanent Republican majority. Rational people could understand this for the ridiculous hyperbole it was, precisely because politics gets in the way of principles. Politicians can’t set their egos aside long enough to do what’s right. History shows almost nothing but that.

The problematic missing part is who will occupy the new political vacuum created by Rove’s mess? And that’s where the Democrats step in to demonstrate that neither side is particularly adept at statesmanship. It’s all politics, all the time. We’re not eight months into Democratic control of Congress and the surrendering to political cowardice is already rampant. Nothing will change in the likelihood that a Democrat wins the White House in 2008. The Democrats don’t have the same issues, but they are carrying their own full set of luggage. “Permanent” majority, anyone?

In the end, Rove achieved little more than the further coarsening of American political discourse. Surely he’s not the only person we can blame for this. And far too many partisans on both sides of the aisle have been perfectly complicit. The partisans will be alright, as this is all they’ve wanted anyway. It’s the newly indifferent idealist who must recover.

Tom Glavine wins #300.

I was at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium on August 22, 1987, when Tom Glavine notched his first Major League win, a 10-3 victory over the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates. Last night, Glavine won game #300, a 6-3 victory in Chicago against the Cubs. He’s only the 23rd pitcher in Major League history to achieve 300 win milestone. (He’s the 5th left-hander.) I’m not a fan of arbitrary numbers as a sign of greatness, but 300 wins is as close as possible. Cooperstown awaits.

In honor of his achievement, here’s the boxscore from his first win. (Originially printed in the August 23, 1987 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.) Note the “one flaw” noted in Glavine’s performance in that game. That “flaw” would become a defining quality.

Modesty does not explain this.

Forget the circumcision angle of this link because it’s not (directly) relevant to my point here. The commenter, Jake, is very pro-infant circumcision, and has co-authored at least one scientific (should that be in quotes?) paper challenging an argument against infant circumcision. I have no proof that Jake is JH Waskett, although I am familiar enough with Mr. Waskett’s blog commenting style to know that the linked comment fits my experience with his work. I’m certain Jake and JH Waskett are the same person.

My question is this: if Jake is JH Waskett and footnotes that article in his blog comment, does he have an ethical obligation to disclose that he is the co-author of a footnoted article in his comment? He included the footnote and did not disclose the connection. Thoughts?

“If liberals are against it, it must be good” is unintelligent nonsense.

Free Republic links to the flawed ABC News story I discussed a few days ago. There’s nothing to go on, since it’s exclusively an excerpt, so I want to highlight reader comments. A couple were intelligent but most are uninformed garbage. For example, this from user NonValueAdded:

Apples and oranges, friend. Cutting off a little skin is very different from injecting a virtually untested drug into a prepubescent child. Signed, DES baby. (Keep that in mind if you want to tell me how safe the new vaccine might be.)

When making comparisons, if one side is bad, the other side must be good. Injecting a “virtually untested” drug is much worse than the commenter’s opinion that is circumcision is just cutting off “a little skin.” It’s apparently not possible to be against both and accept that forcing either intervention on a child is fundamentally wrong. Debate must have a pro-position and a con-position.

Next, from dangerdoc:

Uncircumcised babies or their hygene [sic] motivated mothers pull the foreskin back, there is some swelling, the foreskin gets stuck in the retracted position and cuts off blood flow to the glans. I’ve never seen amputation as the result but I’ve seen some severely inflamed members and a few emergent surgeries.
…

There is risk to having an intact foreskin in the early pediatric years.

Before anything else, I refuse to respect a doctor who discusses the penis as the “member”. But to dangerdoc’s example, there is risk to having a parent ignorant of the proper care of normal human genitals in infancy. The blame in that case rests with the parent, not biology. Parents have a responsibility to care for their children. That means not retracting the adherent prepuce of an infant child. Circumcision is not a valid option for disposing of that responsibility. Every doctor should know this basic fact.

The winner in all the irrational comments, though, is Canticle_of_Deborah. First, this:

but to allow the children to make that decision when they reach age 18.

Uhh, what adult male is going to voluntarily undergo this procedure? It’s much faster and easier medically and psychologically to perform this on an infant. I’m female and I cringe for any adult man who has to have this done.

She does not, however, cringe for the infant males who don’t need it but have it done to them anyway. She also ignores that approximately 3 in every 1,000 intact males choose circumcision out of necessity or desire after reaching the age of majority. But she’s convinced that it’s better to circumcise all 1,000 at birth to save those three the cringe-factor as adults. Remember, it is medically necessary for only a subset of those three.

Still, I demand proof that it’s easier psychologically. The adult male’s ability to choose and understand the procedure is significant when compared to the infant’s inability to choose or understand. But Canticle_of_Deborah doesn’t much care for choice.

I believe there is an increased risk of urinary tract infections in uncircumcised men as well. I don’t think it’s worth delaying the procedure. Adult men are not going to have this done voluntarily.

She offers no context for the increased risk before deciding that it’s not worth waiting. Especially when adult men might choose something different for their bodies than what she would choose for their bodies.

Free Republic bills itself as “The Premier Conservative News Forum”. Cutting the healthy genitals of infants is the least conservative stance possible in the circumcision debate.

I’m joking, but I won’t be surprised if I’m prophetic.

Unsurprising news:

Lenders faced with growing piles of bad loans, even to borrowers once considered good credit risks, have clamped down on the no-money-down mortgage. The abrupt shift threatens to dash the hopes of millions of potential buyers, especially those shopping for their first homes.

Four out of 10 first-time buyers used no-down-payment mortgages in 2005 and 2006, according to surveys by the National Association of Realtors. But some lenders are now scrapping such loans completely. Others are pickier about who gets them. All figure that the more cash borrowers put down, the less likely they are to default.

This is good, of course, and should’ve been lender policy all along. But this is just proof that irresponsibility can’t last in a (mostly) free, competitive market¹. Capitalism works.

I’m curious how long it will be before some politician decries this as a policy designed to deny the poor access to the American dream, forcing him to legislate guidelines requiring lenders to offer no-money-down mortgages to disadvantaged borrowers.

¹ No, I will not be surprised if we see a Congressional bail-out of failed and failing mortgage companies. Hence, mostly.

Popular Economics versus Valid Economics

David Weigel, reporting on YearlyKos, provides this recap of a speech by Sen. Barack Obama:

Policy-wise, lots of spending, not as much “let’s stop government waste.” On health care: “If I had to design a system from scratch I’d design a single payer system.” On Katrina reconstruction: you want money, you got it.

There are (at least) two points to make on this. First, Kip’s Law says that “every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.” I think that applies here since centrally planning health care is exactly what Sen. Obama is trying to do with his “solution”.

More importantly, though, we’re not at scratch with our health care system. We have so many intricacies built in – and many of them are good – that jamming more socialist crap into the system than the government’s already forced is hardly a fool-proof plan for success. That said, if we take him at his thought process without the complicating issue of our existing system and assume he’d design a single-payer system, I’m left to conclude that he’s not particularly bright economically. I’ve already come to that conclusion, but he shouldn’t keep trying to reinforce it.

For example, Weigel reports on a blogger Q&A at YearlyKos:

1:25: Obama on deficits: “This is the most fiscally irresponsible administration in… memory.” (Obama was 8 when LBJ left office.) Would he deficit spend in order to eventually shrink the deficit? “Yes, but the question is, are we investing in the American people instead of in wars that should have never been waged?”

When a politician starts talking about “investing” in the American people, what he means is that he’s looking to take more of the American people’s money and give it back to them in packaged, limited, inefficient choices. I’d rather my representatives focus on the legitimate tasks of government and leave me with my money to invest in myself as I prefer.

Update: I changed the original title because I didn’t like it.

Legitimate is the enemy of more revenue.

I never got around to writing about the egregious fines (multi-year fines for minor infractions to “generate revenue”) for traffic offenses that went into effect in Virginia July 1st. As expected, they’ve already been struck down as unconstitutional, although not for the reason I would’ve guessed. There’s still a long path before the fines are history, but the political nature of the discussion is fascinating in exposing exactly how uninterested politicians are in leadership.

Del. David E. Poisson (D-Loudoun), who voted for the transportation package, said he expects the fees to surface in his race against Republican challenger Lynn Chapman.

“I was never a fan of the abuser fees,” Poisson said. “I spoke against them when the session ended and continue to maintain that they’re not a reliable source of transportation revenue. But it was very, very clear to me that this was, at least in the view of the majority, an essential ingredient in the overall package. Had we opposed any element of the package, it all would have failed.”

If the majority (Republicans) supported it, I don’t understand why it would’ve failed if the minority (Democrats) had opposed it. What I see is political shenanigans on both sides. Republicans wanted to get something done without raising taxes to pay for it. Democrats wanted money to spend, period. I won’t accept “I voted for it but I really opposed it.” Principles, principles, principles. This is more conspiring than opposing forces compromising.

The Subway to Nowhere.

Have we reached the point where the Washington, DC subway system is America’s subway? A local official in Fairfax, Virginia seems to think so.

A Bush administration bias against mass transit projects might be hindering federal approval of the proposed Metro extension to Dulles International Airport, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) charged yesterday.

The Federal Transit Administration is evaluating the project’s cost effectiveness to determine whether it qualifies for $900 million in federal money. The agency has expressed concern about the estimated price tag of the project’s 11.6-mile first phase, which has grown from $1.52 billion in December 2004 to as much as $2.7 billion.

A U.S. Transportation Department inspector general’s report expressed doubts last week about whether the first phase, running from Falls Church through Tysons Corner to Reston, most of which will be financed by Dulles Toll Road user fees and special taxes levied on property owners near the rail line, could meet cost guidelines under the federal New Starts program.

There are several aspects to this report. Chairman Connolly should explain why taxpayers not located in the Washington, DC metro area should fund local mass transit. Assuming the federal government comes to the same incorrect answer that Connolly has, the FTA is correct to evaluate the cost effectiveness. Specifically, it is correct to question whether or not local WMATA officials can meet cost guidelines. WMATA can’t manage the system it has to break-even. Adding more expenses and rail service to manage will not alter this fundamental incompetence.

As with every government sleight of hand, why are Dulles Toll Road users and local property owners expected to pay for this? If it’s a valuable service, shouldn’t rider fees suffice? If not, why is it being built? Tax local drivers and you’ll create subway riders who are no longer paying for the service they now use. Tax property owners and you discourage people from living in the area. That would make the rail line less necessary. Revenue goes down, but fixed costs remain. How will this succeed?

Analysis is irrelevant if you live in Connolly’s head where President Bush is to blame.

“Like a lot of this administration, we have an EPA that doesn’t really believe in the environmental mission. We have an FTA that isn’t quite comfortable with its transit mission,” Connolly said. “They would love, I suppose, to look at other options other than providing $900 million to this project.”

The EPA doesn’t care about protecting the environment because it wants to verify that this solution is the best alternative rather than just an alternative. Any politician who thinks this way should clearly not be in office where they’re free to make decisions for the common good. But that implicates them all, doesn’t it?

Republicans support the heterosexual troops.

This point didn’t fit in my first post on yesterday’s House vote, but it’s worth making:

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said passage would threaten the safety of the troops rather than protect them because the measure would arbitrarily leave units at home that had specialized skills needed in the war.

Arbitrarily? Is it arbitrary to oust gay service members from the military without any misconduct on their part? What if they have “specialized skills needed in the war”? Like Arabic language skills, for example. If we can’t translate gathered intelligence because it’s in Arabic and the persons who can tell us what it says are at home, does that threaten the safety of the troops? Should I expect Rep. Hunter to sponsor legislation to repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell? If not, why is marginalizing gay and lesbian service members more important than protecting the troops?