A minimalist approach to essential, transparent, accountable, flat, adaptable, responsive, solution-based government, rooted in virtuous individual autonomy, traditional values and free markets, with a bias towards reduction of government functionality, cost and scope
He who is drowned is not troubled by the rain.
Chinese Proverb
Presidential Address on Iraq: Mixed Review
I'm rather intrigued by how Obama will try to reinvent himself after the upcoming political tsunami this November. I can't see him ever admitting, like Bill Clinton did, that the era of Big Government had passed. I suspect that what he'll do is consistent with a recurring pattern of behavior: he'll pay lip service and only make marginal efforts, e.g., his handling of offshore leases (even before the BP spill) and mostly symbolic measures to cut spending and hold down federal pay increases.
Probably the biggest takeaway for me was Obama's acknowledgment of President Bush's contribution in stabilizing a situation which could have resulted in a regional war, although his praise was understated, simply referring to Bush's love of the troops, country and commitment to security, not Bush's decision to try an ultimately successful new counter-insurgency strategy. To be sure, Obama made some self-serving statements over the patriotism of dissidents and he makes a rather weak case, in my view, comparing Bush's with his own surge strategy in Afghanistan.
I do think that it is time for Iraq and Afghanistan to make the most of the unprecedented, historic opportunity that America's blood and treasure have given them. In life, there are no guarantees. I don't think it was wise for Obama to publicly discuss a timetable for withdrawal before a single new surge soldier touched down in Afghanistan.
Perhaps this speech is Obama's equivalent of Bush's famous "mission accomplished" photo opp. But it also appears to me that Obama is mostly focused on tactical vs. strategic foreign policy. Diplomatic style is certainly important, but in my judgement, Obama has the same "vision" deficit that G.H.W. Bush had. But let me end this commentary with a starting point: we have to acknowledge we do not rule the universe and cannot guarantee leadership and policies in other countries to our liking, and we have limited troops and resources which must be able to deal flexibly and responsively with more salient, compelling adversaries and risks.
The Mid-Term Elections Are Coming
Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics has an interesting post out today that "Health Care Has Endangered the Democratic Majority." Yes, the economy, the budget deficit and national debt are important, but Jay persuasively argues that the real deterioration in Democratic support came when the Democrats ignored the high unpopularity of the corrupt Senate Democratic Health Care Bill and responded to Scott Brown's (R-MA) election to Ted Kennedy's old seat by steamrolling opposition in passing the law. Most impressively is the fact that the GOP is leading or tied in all the generic ballots, including an unprecedented 10-point advantage in a recently completed Gallup poll. I don't see this reversing without a significant interim uptick in national economic indicators, which I don't believe is in the cards.
This is not to say that I'm a shill for the Republicans. I believe it's critically important that they develop something over the next 2 months like the Contract with America, a mandate for the mid-term elections that not even Obama can ignore. What I particularly want to see is a strong dose of pragmatic politics, not ideological stalemate...
Political Humor
Even more originals:
What did Speaker Nancy Pelosi tell Minority Leader John Boehner about his birthday present in her office? "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it."
A liberal invited himself to lunch with a conservative and told the waiter that he'll have what his colleague ordered. Luckily the conservative managed to grab a hot dog on his way back to the office...
You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
Doug Floyd
God and Country: A Contrarian Opinion
When I started college, I intended to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood: not necessarily a parish pastor like my maternal uncle. I was more attracted to the teaching, missionary or monastic orders, such as the Jesuits or possibly the Paulist Fathers. In fact, I had a brief introductory interview with the Jesuits while at OLL. (I may add a third blog on religious themes. I have a differing perspective in the context of Catholic tradition, as you might expect. Let's just say that I'm a sharp critic of churches trying to accommodate popular culture, I have great affection for traditional masses and chants, I place more emphasis on individual responsibility and dignity, and I believe that community-oriented actions are ancillary to and reflective of one's relationship to God. I also have befriended and have great respect for people from different religious backgrounds.)
Any regular reader of this blog knows I have a nuanced view on faith and politics. I think churches are ill-advised to intervene in political matters; matters of economics and public policy are generally beyond their distinctive competencies. I can honestly state that my pro-life beliefs preceded my research into the historically consistent condemnation of abortion throughout the history of the Christian faith. The very fact of the Hippocratic Oath shows the opposition to abortion predated Christianity.
On the other hand, we have aggressive government censorship of even modest religious displays or references (e.g., the Ten Commandments, a brief reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance, Nativity displays, etc.) It depends on context, but it's hard to believe in a pluralistic society that non-Christians consider Nativity scenes a threat to their own freedom of religion.
Probably nothing I've written gets more hostile reaction from my own socially conservative parents and siblings than my more libertarian perspective on these issues. It's similar to the "fair use" standard in terms of dealing with copyrighted material. I don't mind a brief general prayer or reference at a public event, but I think that it is an abuse of trust to promote a religious agenda to a captive audience.
I went to one of my goddaughters' high school graduation in Colorado a few years ago; the event took place on the grounds of the Air Force Academy. One of the female graduating seniors used her time at the podium to give a few minutes of testimony to Jesus Christ. There was an angry debate at my sister's home where everybody else there, including my parents, thought what the girl did was a good thing. (Somehow I think they would have had a different point of view if the speaker had been, say, Muslim.)
Shifting to the Glenn Beck event in DC over the past weekend, which I did not attend, his call to restore the Founding Father's love of God and country seem innocuous enough; what would I do next--attack Mom and apple pie? I do not like each opposing nation or stateless group presumptuously believing God is on their side in killing and maiming other people. War in some circumstances may be unavoidable, but at best it's a necessary evil. I don't like the implication if you don't agree with their concepts of God and country, you are part of the problem. This is uncivil, judgmental and divisive in nature. Americans did have the right to criticize the way Bush managed the war effort before deciding on the Petraeus strategy.
We are facing tough issues, and solving problems often involves both sides making principle-violating compromises, like GHW Bush's famous violation of his no-new-taxes pledge. For example, I've indicated I'm flexible on the issue of taxes if Americans are not ready to accept austerity measures or in conjunction with austerity measures. We owe future generations a legacy, not our bills to pay.
The issue is not whether the people who attended the rally were cohesive; it deals with the receptiveness of the same people to compromise.
Restoring honor? I don't believe it's ever been lost. It just doesn't get noticed.
Democrats Are Likely to Lose the House
I haven't located the news item from a few months back when Obama was discussing a journalist's comparison of this year with 1994, when the GOP swept into power after nearly a half century of being in the minority. Obama basically said in effect this isn't going to happen in 2010 because there's a world of difference between Bill Clinton and me. Famous last words.
How things have changed since the Democrats captured the open late John Murtha seat in Pennsylvania, above projections. Right now there's roughly a 77 seat difference. If the Republicans can flip roughly 40 seats, they recapture the House. Today's The Hill column notes that Cook's had at least a dozen seats moving from Democratic lead to toss-up over the past 2 months. Some estimates suggest that the GOP could capture from 50 to 80 seats. That's not surprising given some softening new numbers on GDP and unemployment.
Political Humor
Still more originals...
What is the liberals' favorite feast day? September 21: St. Matthew the Tax Collector.
Why don't the liberals believe the latest polls about the mid-term elections? Because the pollsters aren't counting Democrats on the graveyard shift...
He who builds to every man's advice will have a crooked house.
Danish Proverb
Caroline Heldman: Remake of 'Clueless' in Her Future?
Bill O'Reilly features a number of liberal commentators on his popular O'Reilly Factor, in particular, Alan Colmes, Marc Lamont Hill, and Caroline Heldman.
I find myself starting to tune out Glenn Beck and the FNC primetime lineup. Fox News does do a better job at providing a more balanced viewpoint, but most of the political commentary lineup is repetitious and little more than political spin by either side. I have found myself having to write far more than I would have liked about Shirley Sherrod, the Arizona Immigration Law, and the Ground Zero mosque. I find Fox covering more about the latest alleged cheap shot targeting Sarah Palin than, say, Governor Mitch Daniels' use of citizen-based metrics for government services, e.g., DMV wait times. Of course, Fox News knows if they started focusing more on substantive issues, they would probably approach the numbers of my limited readership....
In fact, I long for the sheer intelligence and wit of a William Buckley or George Will. The next thing I like on Fox after Red Eye and occasional interviews with fellow libertarians John Stossel and Andrew Napolitano (and Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday gives the best interviews in the business) are the Saturday morning business shows (from 10AM to noon, EDT). You get more of a political free-for-all with unabashed, Kool-aid-drinking Obama supporters. Yesterday I was watching but stunned to find Caroline Heldman, not an economist or businesswoman, as a guest.
Heldman's opinions were predictable as usual, and one particular point of view irritated me enough to write this commentary. The progressive groupthink opinion is that the reserve is estimated to last through the mid-2030's, so the concern about social security solvency is a "manufactured crisis". Ms. Heldman was confused on details of the big picture, so let me rephrase things I've previously stated:
In theory, a pension should throw off enough income to sustain cash flows to current beneficiaries. A similar concept is in play for one's IRA's, 401K, etc. You grow your investments, say through growth stocks, during most of your investment time frame, but ultimately you convert your stock holdings into slower-growing, solid blue chips throwing off dividends and/or the interest income of highly-rated bonds. This is not the case for social security.
Social security basically repackages current contributions from individuals and business matches, gives it to current recipients and banks the rest in Treasury IOU's in a reserve fund. These Treasury IOU's throw off a trivial amount of interest income.
Because of drops of payroll contributions as a result of unemployment and accelerated enrollments in social security (e.g., at 62 versus 65), we are now (at least for two fiscal years, inclusive) drawing down on that reserve.
This is not a legitimate pension plan. It depends on contributions of current workers to pay existing beneficiaries. That money is not being invested for the retirements of current workers. So when Ms. Heldman says there is no crisis, she's referring to the fact that the reserve is melting away, never mind the fact that Democrats can no longer depend on captive Treasury bills to paper over current fiscal overspending. The reserve melting away is a huge problem--because the end result, say if workers in the late 2030's only contribute enough to cover 60% of social security outlays, that 40% have to be made up by other means--e.g., an on-budget expenditure, increased payroll taxes, new federal debt and/or Draconian benefit cuts to recipients.
It is just incredible that Ms. Heldman is so oblivious to recent economic crises in Greece and other European countries, almost all of which are looking, unlike the US progressives, to defer retirement eligibility and other measures meant to shore up shaky finances. I enjoy the give and take of legitimate academic debate, but when you get Kool-Aid drinkers whom simply dismiss a serious issue, it's time to cut off the mike.
Did the Stimulus Bill Help the Economy?
David Lynch of USA Todaywrites of a comprehensive study on the stimulus by two prominent economists, Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics, and Alan Blinder, not liberal economists (in fact, Zandi supported McCain). The study argues that stimulus act created 2.7 million job, added nearly half a trillion to the GDP and probably kept unemployment down by 1.5 percentage points than it would have been otherwise. (However, it should be noted that they correctly noted that the majority effect had more to do with efforts by the Fed to keep liquidity in the banking system; they estimate that without the unpopular bank measures that unemployment could have exceeded 16% by now.)
I can predict that Robert Gibbs and other Obama Administration officials will try to promote any attempts by economists to support the $860B (estimates vary over more recent costs of the original $787B measure) and their assertions of the efficacy of the so-called recovery act's mish-mash of stretched-out minor tax cuts, unemployment compensation, state bailouts, and certain infrastructure investments.
I don't think much of this exercise of economists arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I have not performed academic research in the area of economics, but I've done interdisciplinary research and follow a number of relevant disputes. The basic idea behind a stimulus is that government can stoke a lackluster economy with a carefully cultivated spark, which ripples through the economy with larger effect than the original stimulus.
One of these disputes is over the multiplier factor, which I've cited in a few past posts. Anyone who follows this blog on a regular basis knows I am sympathetic with the viewpoint of Professor John Taylor, whom is skeptical of the alleged multiplier effect by most government efforts during the Great Depression and in last year's stimulus bill. (Taylor attributes most of the recovery we've seen mostly to a pickup in business investment, something that certainly wasn't a focus of the stimulus bill.) Zandi counters that government spending has more of a multiplier effect given low interest rates and slack resources.
We ultimately can't argue counterfactuals: would the sky have fallen down if we had taken an alternative approach to Ben Bernanke of the Fed, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others? To be honest, I'm convinced that government was part of the problem, not the solution. It wasn't clear to me during the crisis why Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail while others were given a lifeline. "Seat of the pants" firefighting contributes to fear, uncertainty and doubt clouding the perspective of business leaders.
But the fact is, we have to make an assessment based on the nature of the stimulus. Since when is rewarding bloated state governments spending beyond their means virtuous? What about all the companies that went bankrupt during the recession? Are their workers less worthy than government workers? As to the tax cuts, what about the evidence that consumers were mostly banking their tax cuts, which did zero to stimulate the two-thirds of the economy based on consumer spending? You could make more of an argument for infrastructure spending, but the fact of the matter is that over a year since the passing of the stimulus package, just under two-thirds of the allocated money has been spent. The economic value of infrastructure spending is in the details. For example, expansions of crowded beltways around DC or Los Angeles or the construction of new power plants would be better than, say, high-speed railways.
I have been arguing for some time that a truly effective stimulus plan would have been smaller, more focused, balanced (including business incentives to hire and invest) and broad-based, not this eclectic cherrypicking strategy focusing chiefly on funding policies aimed at key Democratic talking points and constituencies, e.g., teacher and other public employee unions and environmentalists. A broad-based approach would have provided unemployed people the best chance to find work similar in nature to what they had been doing. That's my point of view, and I'm sticking to it.
Political Cartoon
More originals:
How did the baker keep other House Democrats from sneaking an early piece of Speaker Pelosi's birthday cake? The top of the cake read "Government Spending"...
What do you call a schoolyard bully whom steals other kids' lunch money to spend as he wishes? A future Democrat.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we can never give enough of is love.
Henry Miller
"Cash for Clunkers" Revisited: The Law of Unintended Consequences
Consider the following chart of year-over-year used car prices from Edmunds:
We would need more information than these data to draw conclusions; for example, a saturation of used cars during the clunkers program could have had dampening effect on used car prices, and there probably has been a reduced supply of larger SUV's or other high-price vehicles, say coming off lease or rental car companies. It could also reflect changes in consumer behavior; for example, some people who would normally in the new car market are looking to save money because of the fragile economy and bidding up the prices for used cars, or maybe consumers are trying to save money by holding onto their vehicles longer and hence there aren't as many trade-ins available. And, of course, the clunkers program intentionally retired some vehicles which contributed to a reduced supply. To some extent, I expect steadier gas prices, enabled by suppressed demand, has renewed demand for cars that did not sell well during the oil squeeze in 2008. (I should note that consumers piling back into fuel-thirsty vehicles may find themselves regretting their decision. Barack Obama has not supported a goal of national self-sufficiency in fuel production.)
The point is--the "Cash for Clunkers" program created unnecessary distortions and uncertainty in the market segment. The policy goal (of stimulating the purchase of more fuel-inefficient cars) was poorly conceived and executed; it had a limited-term period, which was unfair for people not in the market to purchase new vehicles at the time and did zero to contribute towards the alleged fuel efficiency push after the program expired and/or ran out of money. Others got a tax credit for a car they were planning to purchase anyway, which means the tax break was an unnecessary giveaway by a trillion-dollar deficit government. Why is it the year after we hit $4.50 a gallon in gas, we needed the government to throw money at us to purchase marginally more fuel-efficiency vehicles? Shouldn't the operational savings of more fuel-efficient cars serve as an intrinsic purchasing factor?
What did this policy do to motivate automaker behavior? They had limited production lines for the temporarily popular, artificially-inflated consumer demand for more fuel-efficient cars. These business executives know better than to permanently raise production of vehicles whose sales may slump after you take away the limited-availability spiked federal punch, made possible without the informed consent of future taxpayers. All the progressive Democrats did was to enable producers to protect their margins on more fuel-efficient vehicles in a challenging economy.
What should the Democrats have tackled? More serious issues like a regressive fuel tax used to cover the costs of public transit ways. Do the Democrats expect cash-strapped young adults, just out of school possibly with large loans to pay off, or lower-income Americans to purchase $40K Chevy Volts? Chances are, they'll purchase a used car and/or live in apartments without electrical outlets in parking areas (I know I did). Why should they pay the fair share of highway costs of Volt owners? We need to have some way of providing a more equitable tax policy, e.g., a tax on relevant car batteries. To be sure, progressives would quickly scotch such an idea since they want to reward those yuppies buying Volts with the progressive bumper sticker: "We did our part" (to do the politically correct green thing...)
The fact is that progressive Democrats zealously guard their politically favored tax breaks without equal protection with the same fervor they criticize in terms of conservatives wanting to protect the political compromise underlying the Bush tax cuts. We've seen this kind of one-sided political response before: for example, Barack Obama seriously undermined the political compromise underlying 2007 immigration reform by helping to knock out two crucial Democratic concessions in terms of a temporary work visa program and more emphasis on merit-based criteria, e.g., knowledge of English, professional credentials, entrepreneurial skills, etc.
Speaking of Another Progressive "Badge of Honor"...
You know that government Medicare commercial starring an elderly Andy Griffith? He, just like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have some nice surprises for senior citizens in the progressive facelift of government healthcare. Now any senior citizen who believes, with doctors currently subsidizing most of the elderly on Medicare, that hundreds of billions of dollars of Medicare cuts underwriting the current government expansion in health care isn't going to affect accessibility and quality of health care, he or she is in a state of denial. No, in fact Andy wants to sell them on "free" annual checkups. Do people seriously believe that checkups are no cost? I'm not arguing against the fact that early diagnosis of a catastrophic health condition will more than pay for itself, not just in terms of treatment, but also in extending affected patient lives. But doctors have bills to pay; it's like trying to squeeze a balloon. If they can't charge you for checkups, they have to mark up other services.
But of particular interest to conservatives is a point that Republicans constantly raised--fraud. It's sold, of course, as protecting senior citizens from fraud--not the taxpayer. Why did it take government operations decades to discover fraud when security is an obsession for American banks and other businesses? You might as well ask why it took the government years to discover duplicates in social security numbers or why the government was mailing stimulus checks to dead people...
I have another program in mind--the much-typed $5B weatherization program under the stimulus bill, which Vice President Biden promoted, once again, this week. Now why the federal government needs to subsidize something to do something that people should be doing out of their own vested interest to hold down energy costs, I'm not sure. There's some vaguely fleshed-out notion that lower-income people can't get the financing to do weatherization without government meddling, despite the fact that electric/gas and home heating costs take a significant bite out of their budgets. Where does it end? Perhaps lower-income people don't get home security systems, flood insurance, pest control services, home repairs, etc.
There does seem to be some rationalization of promoting a green agenda in terms of energy self-sufficiency and national and economic security. In fact, I am very concerned about a shortfall in terms of America's energy imports and the prices of these imports are artificially low given the cost of the nation's military to guarantee safe transit from America's suppliers. But weatherizing one home at a time, at the expense of the overextended American taxpayer, just like the Obama Administration propping up with borrowed money boutique energy sources which altogether account for single-digit percentages of American energy production, is a weak, ineffective way to get to the goal of energy independence. I have no issue with the basic concepts of energy conservation, but I believe that the most effective path to get there is by unleashing the power of the private sector with regulatory streamlining and more globally competitive tax rates, not the ineptness and glacial slowness of the government conglomerate.
The weatherization program is a good example to make my point. Last February, the GAO reported that only 9000 out of a projected goal target 593,000 homes due by March 2012, at a first year expenditure of roughly half a billion dollars. Biden now indicates that nearly a third of the homes had been retrofitted, but there have been a number of problems reported, including spending delays, mismanagement, and inefficiencies cited by auditors and experts, no homes in Alaska to date have been retrofitted, Delaware's program has been suspended since May because of suspected fraud, Texas' largest program contractor had been cited for shoddy work on over half of the jobs it has completed, and California's inspector general found dozens of contractor employees caulking homes had not been trained.
It sort of reinforces the American taxpayer's faith in the competence of progressive government, don't you think? I'm sure the Democrats will find some way to try to blame all of this on George W. Bush.... In the meanwhile, I don't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about retired Sheriff Andy Taylor's assurance that the Obama Administration is on top of Medicare fraud; in fact, I'm sure defense attorney Ben Matlock would find some way to get his clients off.
Political Humor
Still more originals:
Remember when, at the height of the Bee Gees' popularity and saturation of the airwaves, WXLO had a "no Bee Gees" weekend? I'm still waiting for my first "no Barack Obama" weekend....
Democratic politicians are like teenagers, their dads and money: the candidates like Obama's fundraising, but would rather not be seen in public with him....
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
Epictetus
The Blagojevich Holdout Juror Talks
One of the more fascinating things about the Blagojevich story is the inexplicable way that Fox News Channel, of all media outlets, is presenting him in a sympathetic way. I've heard multiple media conservative personalities, including Sean Hannity, explicitly oppose a retrial, blaming US Attorney Fitzgerald for blowing the case (except for a solitary conviction on an ancillary charge) and thinking the government has already spent too much time and money. For some odd reason, Blagojevich seems eager to appear on Fox, but that could simply be consistent with his narcissism. Fox News dotes on Blago the same way they do Sarah Palin; in my opinion, they have a thing for dysfunctional charismatic populists; I've never heard Fox News ever push either politician with tough questions.
As an aside, I neglected to mention it weeks ago, but Sarah Palin's baffling charm in the lower 48 isn't shared by Alaskan voters, with a Rasmussen poll back in May showing some 48% saying they would not vote for Palin for President (with 11% undecided). Net negative ratings from her own home state?
Blagojevich has been spinning the mistrial for lone holdout juror, JoAnn Chiakulas, as a personal exoneration. Ms. Chiakulas isn't quite sure Blagojevich's attempts to abuse his power as governor to appoint Obama's successor to his Senate seat for some sort of personal advantage (political contributions, job offers for himself or his wife, or political concessions) rise to the level of corruption; she believes that Blago is just an eccentric blowhard. I don't mean to criticize Ms. Chiakulas; I'm sure that she was sincere in her views, but I also think she doesn't understand the nature of corruption. I personally don't think she would have convicted him short of seeing Blago directly take money for the Senate seat. Eleven people voting to convict across multiple counts suggests that Fitzgerald has a strong case and simply ran into a bad luck of the draw in jury selection.
Stick a Fork in It: I'm Done with Charlie Crist: Marco Rubio (R-FL) for US Senate
I have made it clear that I would have preferred to see Governor Crist win the Republican nomination; early last year, conservatives were on the ropes following a devastating, historic election that all but gave Obama and progressive Democrats a blank check, and Florida's popular Republican governor seemed to be the only real shot the GOP had to keep the open seat. Then came the Tea Party after the Democrats tried to pass one morally hazardous law too many. Crist in particular outraged Tea Party conservatives by endorsing the stimulus package which had less than a handful of GOP votes in all of Congress. In fact, I did not like Crist's enthusiastic embrace of stimulus bill dollars for Florida. But I was concerned that the intra-party squabble would allow the Democratic candidate to divide and conquer conservatives and take the seat.
After defending Crist many times in past posts, I've become increasingly disenchanted with his veto of education reforms, his open flirtation and hints he might caucus with the progressive Democrats, and his flip-flop on oil drilling in the Gulf, in the aftermath of the BP oil spill. The final straw to me was when Crist tries to spin that he "misspoke" during an interview when he claims that he would have voted for the corrupt Senate Democratic Party Health Care Law.
I have come to the reluctant conclusion that Crist is little more than a political opportunist with no fundamental core conservative values. I had been hopeful that Crist would have been a pragmatic legislator, helping to close bipartisan differences in the attempt to get things done for the American people. On the other hand, Marco Rubio has remained steadfast in his conservative positions, and I'm impressed with how he, as a Latino, has handled difficult issues, like the Arizona immigration law. I wish Crist well in his future endeavors, but not as a US senator from Florida.
Political Humor
More originals:
What does a liberal bring to an autograph signing? A blank check.
What do liberals look for in a man? A bulge in the back pocket.
The first characteristic that people look for in a leader is honesty.
Don A. Sanders
Can You Hear the Copters Overhead?
With manufacturing barely treading water, the worst housing market news in decades, GDP growth expected to slide to a 1.4% or so rate, and temporary hiring, a leading indicator of job growth, beginning to slow, Wall Street is eagerly awaiting what "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke ("toss money out a helicopter if necessary") has to say at Jackson Hole tomorrow. Will he once again try to flood the financial system via quantitative easing (i.e., purchasing things like bonds in the hopes of dropping long-term interest rates). I'm not sure I like that idea: it comes across like pushing on a string as a number of investors in a volatile stock market are already piling into Treasuries, pushing up prices; I think Bernanke would be pushing on a string, I suspect he may be considering other types of troubled assets. The single best thing he could do is to jawbone the President on making serious cuts in federal spending, deferring any tax hikes, and reducing the uncertainty introduced by convoluted regulations.
The editor/publisher of US News & World Report added a subtitle to today's column: Current federal budget trends are capable of destroying this country. Mort mentions polls showing a bipartisan group of people think that banks have been the principal recipient of government recession policies. I disagree; the principal recipients of TARP funds were AIG, the GSE's and the auto companies (GM and Chrysler).
Clearly the haste of passing the $862B stimulus bill made government waste, including subsidies of fiscally irresponsible states, trivial tax distributions which more likely than not were saved versus spent, questionable white elephant projects (e.g., a high-speed train in Florida which will never cover its operating costs), and pushing-on-a-string distributions (e.g., an initial intent to give iPod's to encourage questionnaire completion by some Florida district school: how can we justify spending our grandchildren's money on that?) Mort cites recent polls showing the American people solidly against a rumored second stimulus plan from Obama and growing importance of the deficit and government spending as an issue.
Many economists recommend both holding down tax hikes and deferring spending cuts. I strongly disagree with the latter. It depends, of course, on the nature of the spending, but spending is not inherently virtuous. Otherwise, we should hire millions of people to dig holes and fill them up again.
I somewhat differ from Mort Zuckerman on the question of extending the Bush taxes on the top 2% of high-earning workers, at least in terms of timing (not while the economy is weak). If you concede that point from the get-go, the other side takes it as a given, considering it a down payment on their spending. But, depending on the circumstances, I would be willing to consider modest tax hikes--if spending is seen as bare-bone and we are imbalanced. I do like the way he addressed social security, including cost-of-living adjustments, flattening certain benefits for wealthier Americans, and higher age eligibility. Mort is more of a pragmatic conservative (like me); I wish that he had run for Gilliband's Senate seat (early held by Hillary Clinton).
Political Humor
Some originals:
Miss Mexico, Jimena Navarrete, won this week's Miss Universe contest in Las Vegas. But she won't be driving home through Arizona: the state doesn't accept the legal status of her reign.
Why did Obama cross the road? The teleprompter was on the other side.
Musical Interlude: The American Songbook
Dinah Shore*, "Skylark"
(* My collection features Anita O'Day on vocals. I trust that the reader finds Dinah Shore's take on the standard worthy.)
The way of the world is to praise dead saints and persecute living ones.
Nathaniel Howe
Joe Biden's "Summer of Recovery"
Remember when the Vice President was predicting last spring that we would soon be adding 250,000 to 500,000 jobs a month? As soon as a program goes off the federal tit (e.g., cash for clunkers, home mortgage assistance, etc.), the relevant sector gets killed--like a 27% drop in existing home states last month. We're seeing GDP growth go from 5% to 3% to 2% ... Have no fear, because Joe Biden assures us that "no doubt we're moving in the right direction."
But I'm getting fed up with the constant Bush bashing and the outright lying by the Vice President: "For eight years before we arrived, Mr. Boehner and his party ran this economy and the middle class into the ground. They took the $237 billion surplus they inherited from the Clinton Administration and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit, and, in the process, quadrupled the national debt – all before we had turned on the lights in the West Wing."
I'm not happy with the Bush record on spending, but this is materially false. First of all, it was a GOP Congress--not Clinton, whom achieved those budget surpluses. Second, it's the Democratic Congress, not President Bush, whom left the country with a $1.3T deficit is fiscal year 2009. And the fiscal 2008 deficit was about $450B. The only plausible explanation for how they come up with a $1.3T number is to make Bush fully responsible for the entire 2009 fiscal year, when in fact, Bush served just under a third of the fiscal year, but the Congress did not pass a budget until April 2009--roughly 3 months after Bush left office--and the budget passed without a single Republican vote.
Let's next go to the fiction that Bush "quadrupled the national debt". If you go to TreasuryDirect, you will find, even after the GOP Congress put Bill Clinton on a fiscal diet, Clinton went from about $4.1T to $5.7T, roughly $1.8T--which the Democratic Congress over the 2 fiscal years ending next month will probably end at about $2.7T. Bush did add just under $5T over 8 years--almost doubling the national debt, but far below quadrupling it.
Here's some political advice, Mr. Biden: stop griping about the difficulty of the fragile economic recovery and pointing fingers. Obama and you ran for the jobs you have. Most voters understand excuses when they hear them.
MilkCowGate?
Feminist groups are incensed at former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, currently on the President's bipartisan commission looking at social security and other budget items, because he snapped at a liberal critic making a colorful reference to the sacred cow of American politics, social security, calling it a milk cow with 310 million tits.
The NOW president remarked, "The ugliness of his disrespect for women is matched only by his dogged determination to dismantle Social Security by cutting benefits or increasing the retirement age." Dismantling social security by putting the program on better fiscal footing? I don't think so...
Political Humor
"President Obama is on vacation. This is his sixth vacation. He’ll have plenty of time for vacation when his one term is up." –David Letterman
[Millions of other Americans are on vacation. The only difference is, Obama's vacations are paid...]
“A year into Obama’s first term in office, unemployment is higher, the national debt is higher and there are more soldiers serving in Afghanistan. When asked about it, Obama was like, “Well, technically that is change.” – Jimmy Fallon
[And there still is hope: the mid-term elections...]
A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. – Wayne Gretzky
House Minority Leader John Boehner Takes On the Obama Administration: Thumbs UP!
Every once in a while I like to see what the opposition is saying. A regular reader of this blog knows that I started reading St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica before I graduated high school. (I used to serve daily mass on base, and the chaplain gave me his copy). Aquinas had a very distinctive style of first presenting the arguments of the opposing position as clearly and forcefully as possible; one knew he would refute the arguments, but one of my favorite pastimes was to anticipate his counter-arguments.
I read earlier today a critical piece on the Huffington Post regarding John Boehner's (R-OH) speech; I originally intended to rant about the piece, when I remembered the advice of my mentor Fr. Lonergan: "Don't make [some philosopher] out to be an idiot." I don't want to give the piece more pageviews than it deserves, but suffice it to say that, unsurprisingly, progressives are in a state of denial and unrepentant: it's the same old same old: class warfare; the Bush Administration was spendthrift and was negligent, even antagonistic to regulation, "causing" the recession...
Earth to progressives: there's not much the GOP could do to stop Obama and the progressives from implementing whatever was necessary to jumpstart the economy. If the progressives were correct, massive federal deficits and overregulation should have improved the economy. When Bush left office, official unemployment was under 8%; more than 3 million jobs have been lost on Obama's watch. The Dems have gone back to Bush bashing, because they have no constructive solutions.
John Boehner came out demanding the termination of the remaining top members of the President's economic team, in particular economic advisor head Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He wants to cut--back to 2008 levels--domestic spending, continue the Bush tax cuts next year, and lessen the regulatory burden on businesses. A couple of points here: first, I think Boehner is correct that Obama would be better served with more business executive experience at top levels of his administration. Second, I think his promised domestic budget cuts are a good start but need to be broadened across all government expenditures.
McCain Wins a Tough Primary for Renomination
In a world that has seen incumbent senators (Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Arlen Specter (D-PA)) drop, it looked like McCain might be ripe for an upset against anti-immigrant rival and former Congressman JD Hayworth, not unlike Joe Lieberman, particularly as immigration became a red hot issue in Arizona. But McCain pulled it out tonight with almost 60% of the vote. Some wonder if he can reprise his role as a cross-party negotiator after being pushed to the right for the nomination. Congratulations, Senator!
Happy 40th Anniversary, Sir Elton John!
Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of his first American concert. Any regular reader of this blog knows that "Blessed" is my favorite Elton John song, with "The One" a close second. But I don't think he's cut a single I don't like. The following two videos are high on my Elton John short list (along with, of course, Elton's signature song, "Your Song"). Given my frequent criticisms of gay marriage, one may find it odd that I would promote a gay singer and like "The Last Song", which focuses on a straight father coming to reconcile with his gay son, dying of AIDS. But I recognize the indisputable scientific evidence of a natural basis for sexual orientation, am committed to the Bill of Rights, have been in favor of legal protections of committed gay relationships and do not have an issue with gays serving in the military. I am not aware of any gay friends or relatives, but I would like to think that my friendship or love for them would be unconditional.
Political Humor
More originals: my own progressive light bulb jokes....
How many progressives does it take to screw in a light bulb?All of them. The first inspects the light socket, the second decides whether the bulb is energy-efficient enough, the third decides the price the vendor can charge for the light bulb, the fourth introduces legislation to distribute one light bulb with each package of government cheese, the fifth taxes everyone whom screws in their own light bulbs, the sixth calls the union electrician, and the rest take turns waiting for the electrician.
How long did it take progressives to replace a light bulb? 10 years. For eight years they blamed the darkness on George Bush, and then it took 2 years to figure out the Chinese instructions that came with the light bulb they bought with stimulus money.
The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for the deliverance from fear. It is the storm within that endangers him, not the storm without.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Congressman Ron Paul's (R-TX) Statement on the Ground Zero Mosque: Thumbs UP!
There are a few reasons I want to bring this statement to my readers' attention: first, one of the interesting things about the Ground Zero mosque kerfuffle is that former Presidential candidate's son Rand, the GOP nominee to succeed retiring Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY), is using this issue and others to differentiate himself from his libertarian/conservative father.
Second, it's interesting to parallel his statement with past comments I've made on the subject. For example, I specifically mentioned the Kelo decision, which dealt with property rights. I have similarly made several references to political minority rights guaranteed by the Constitution. I have also attacked populism, while Ron Paul has used the term 'demagoguery'. I think Ron Paul, as usual, is overstating his case; I do believe that the rhetoric against the mosque is disingenuous and certainly empathizes with fears of an alleged link between terror acts and Islam.
Third, he makes an interesting point that progressives are being hypocritical in their sudden appreciation of property rights by a political minority.
Where do I differ from Congressman Paul? For one thing, I don't agree with any attempt to rationalize Al Qaeda's motives behind the terror attacks, e.g., American foreign policy. I think his attempt to link the the Al Qaeda attacks to a traditional American ally, Saudi Arabia, is provocative. I also believe that he is oversimplifying the circumstances resulting in the liberation of Iraq.
I am more of a pragmatic libertarian/conservative. I have become increasingly disenchanted with the neoconservatives and what I regard as questionable assertions of the link between honorable service in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and our way of life and an aggressive policy to promote our political system. I am concerned about the effects of guilt by association in the Ground Zero mosque kerfuffle, which plays right into the hands of Islamic radical propagandists and their recruitment efforts. I think a disproportionate amount of our manpower and resources is being spent on peripheral interests and leaves us exposed to more serious threats. I believe that we need to streamline our foreign policy and learn to choose our military and diplomatic efforts better and smarter.
Political Potpourri
It's been a while since I've done one of these signature features of my posts. I like to review RealClearPolitics, but the Hill also has an interesting campaign blog. The current page focuses on Boozman (R-AR) beginning to pull away from incumbent Senator Lincoln; in addition, Rossi, (R) the former gubernatorial candidate from the state of Washington, has flipped incumbent Senator Murray's lead, and Toomey (R-PA) is also beginning to open up a lead over Joe Sestak. I've also noticed that the Ohio Republican candidates for governor and senator have begun to open up a modest lead. I suspect in part this may reflect recent weakening in economic numbers, including a record monthly deficit and an uptick in the official unemployment rate and new unemployment applications..
Political Humor
A couple of original jokes:
What do you get when a progressive gives you his two cents' worth on the economy? Pocket change.
How do you know when you're playing the game of 'Clue' with a progressive? He always says 'George Bush did it'.
The most important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous. Margaret Fontey
Texas College Transparency Law: Thumbs DOWN!
Given the fact I've often discussed transparency, it may sound that I, as an ex-professor, would oppose a unanimously-passed Texas higher education transparency bill (in May 2009, effective this fall) ostensibly to provide better consumer information to students and their parents, sounds self-contradictory or hypocritical, but there are specific contextual areas where I disagree with state representative Lois Kolkhorst (R). I don't disagree with the idea of transparency but with its implementation in this bill.
I'll present a more detailed analysis shortly, but I am disturbed with the current kerfuffle between legislators and faculty groups on the law. I disagree with both of them. As to the legislators: anytime a legislature passes something unanimously, it should be considered with caution: for example, a law has been watered down so much that it's meaningless or perhaps there is a level of political correctness where it is risky to oppose it.
-- Comments on the Kerfuffle
I want to point out that there is an elephant in the room nobody is discussing--like how progressive faculties have decided to create academic disciplines out of political ideology like minority and feminist studies and force students to take such courses. In some colleges, Western civilization course requirements or classic literature courses have been supplanted by progressive reading lists of nominal minority authors. [On the other hand, that's how I was forced to attend this lecture being delivered on campus by Alex Haley, then an obscure author, before the famous TV series Roots. I was spellbound as he discussed his Eureka moment in Africa, having traced his lineage and hearing the tribal historian utter the name of his ancestor.]
There is a question of the public right to know professors' salaries, the rights of a student or parent to know what the courses are on the detail, and the qualifications of the professors to teach the students, etc. How could anyone object to Mom and apple pie? It sounds like common sense, right?
Wrong. First of all, a student applies to a university based on any combination of a number of factors--maybe it's reputation (e.g., Ivy League), cost, proximity, available slots for a chosen major or professional degree, etc. For example, one of my nieces attended a private college in South Dakota because she found waiting lists for nursing programs in her home state of Colorado were oversubscribed. There are relevant facts you can get about schools from sources like US News & World Report. A lot depends on one's post-graduate plans; for example, there may be statistics on job offers and salary ranges for a particular program, acceptance rates at graduate degree programs, etc.
A professor who only teaches a few students (most likely a research professor)? What you might not get is the number of grants he or she is pulling in, other quality professors or students he or she is attracting to the program, the professor's connections to top corporations or venture capitalists, the number of dissertation committees he or she is sitting on, the contribution he or she is making to the program's reputation, etc. For example, I don't think you could argue that the best use of Albert Einstein's time would have been teaching college freshmen analytic geometry. Keep in mind I'm not defending all professors teaching 6 hours a semester. But it is a lot easier to query how many courses and/or students a professor is teaching than understanding the big picture.
Second, in many cases there are independent accreditation programs (e.g., AACSB for business schools), where college programs are scrutinized for some of the very things that Rep. Kolkhorst is suggesting, e.g., the curricula, faculty qualifications, etc. Does the typical parent or student have the competence to evaluate faculty, courses and programs? Let's be honest: not really. We have to depend on assessments by others whom are more familiar with the discipline and can independently and expertly analyze that faculty member's scholarship. Yes, I may be interested in my doctor's bedside manner from patients via the web, but when it comes to trusting him with my life, I'm looking at his graduation from an accredited medical school, his board certifications and any relevant actions by medical review boards, e.g., license revocation.
Third, I am concerned by privacy and due process rights. Yeah, right: government employees have no right to privacy: but public disclosure of salaries can result in friction among co-workers: that's why private-sector companies usually don't do it. I understand that the public doesn't want to discover that faculty are making Bell, CA city manager type money-- $800K a year (I always wondered why my CPA baby sister at one point aspired to be a city manager....) It would be more useful to discuss the department median or mean and maybe identify those individuals making above a certain compensation band.
[I'll never forget that the ardent feminist professor working in the next office at UWM was absolutely obsessed by how much I was making, obviously worried that UWM offered me more money than she was making. I refused to discuss it--hey, I was making over $650/month, my graduate student stipend for teaching 2 courses a semester. She vowed that I couldn't stonewall her investigation, because it was available through the state of Wisconsin. She later returned, with a smirk on her face, telling me my salary; she was obviously pleased to learn she was making more than me. And when the senior faculty met to divvy up the overall 2% increase, I got rewarded for 3 major article acceptances and decent teaching evaluations with something like a 1.5% increase. Those are the kind of perverted results which occur when progressive educators run a business school.]
The other point involves due process and an improper, unethical inclusion of comments: why should a professor have his professional reputation stained by an anonymous slanderous remark from a bitter student with an ax to grind? There is no independent validation of or accountability for spurious allegations. True, you can't stop someone from trying to ruin your reputation, but there are slander and libel laws.
The Other Side. Mr. Keener talks about two principal objections raised by certain faculty groups: that it was demeaning to have to present their credentials and other course related information to the little people, and the real intention is to identify red meat for culturally conservative groups, presenting a potential threat to academic freedom.
I disagree with both counts. I think the public has a right to know. I wouldn't have a problem putting my curriculum vita on a website, but I would point out that when it comes to articles published by faculty it's fairly easy to identify articles and book chapters. (I'm particularly proud of a couple of annual national conference papers I wrote for Decision Sciences Institute that Google doesn't seem to pull up.) I don't think it's helpful to try to block access to that information because it has the appearance of trying to hide something.
I think a better point to make is that the information isn't really that useful to people, and they could make some unwarranted inferences about, say, one teacher having more students in the same course than another teacher. They also may not know about the relative prestige of a peer-reviewed journal.
I'm a little more sympathetic to the academic freedom argument (although I don't regard the Ward Churchill incident to be a case of academic freedom). A university should be a place to freely debate controversial ideas in one's discipline without fear of reprisals. For example, I once wrote an unpublished article criticizing a widely-used measure for computer user satisfaction in the MIS literature; the peer reviews took the nature of nasty personal attacks, and the article was rejected. I understand the fact that several academics had a vested interest in the use of the measure (e.g., previously published research).
My own mother doesn't quite understand why Fr. Lonergan in my social philosophy course included, among readings, writings of Karl Marx. There's a difference between researching a point of view and advocating that point of view. Most professors know where to draw the line and usually want to distance themselves from public advocacy because it undermines their credibility as an academic researcher.
I think, for instance, cultural conservatives who try to stage a boycott of a professor's classes simply because he or she presents controversial ideas would be doing something both unethical and futile. You cannot censor ideas you disagree with.
There is no doubt that a progressive professor, whom abuses his grade authority by punishing economic libertarians and other conservatives simply for the fact that they disagree with him or provides a hostile, intimidating environment to prevent expression of viewpoints contradicting his own, has breached professional ethics.
-- Personal Comments
First, I have an issue with student evaluations and/or comments; I've had mixed results from my own past evaluations, but many people may not be aware that the universities where I taught principally rated courses on subjective versus more specific/objective criteria (including, but not restricted to, the quality and amount of information learned in the course, their confidence about this course as serving as a prerequisite for higher-level courses, the quantity and quality of relevant course assignments, the competence of the professor teaching the course, the fitness of the course to career objectives, the fairness of classroom tests relative to the information presented during class, or the topical nature of information presented in the course (particularly in my discipline, MIS and related rapidly changing high technology disciplines). Instead, the anonymous ratings, applicable in my experience, were cursory and subjective in nature on less than a handful of questions, such as the overall evaluation of the course and the professor and a comparative assessment. I'm convinced performance criteria of these type are not useful from standard methodological criteria (i.e., reliability and validity) and may not serve much more than a surrogate measure of a professor's personal popularity and/or reputation.
Now I suspect that my fellow conservatives may be surprised, even astonished at a free-market libertarian suggesting caution over the release of consumer information. After all, in the real world, you can't control what other people say behind your back. I'm well-aware of the fact that there are websites like ratemyprofessors.com. But, for instance, anecdotal comments are not statistically valid and can reflect personal animosity towards a professor. It was embarrassing to have my colleagues and deans read an outlier comment, say, referencing my personal hygiene. I've had students whom have concocted conspiracy theories over my tougher course standards; others whom have complained that they were A and B students, barely confident they were passing my course (involving the development of new skills, like computer programming), and suggesting I had unrealistic standards compared to their prior teachers; and (Newt Gingrich will like this) they were making an A in their history class with a fraction of the workload--if I was such a great teacher, it would be a lot easier for them. I've cited before in blog posts I had one student whom argued he had learned more in my class that in any other course, but I didn't deserve any of the credit because he did it on his own. (Imagine, parents: you raise your kids so they can function independently, but they argue you deserve none of the credit because they did it all by themselves. In my view, the proof is in the pudding. In this case, the tyrannical professor somehow got more out of him than all his other professors, so OF COURSE the student is going to rate him a below-average professor...)
There are comments that do provide valid feedback, but they don't fall in the typical university's evaluation schemes. When I was a visiting professor at Illinois State, my colleagues were jealous of my publication record and used to defensively assert that they could have publications, too, but unlike research-oriented professors, they put their students first in terms of time and effort. What self-serving hubris and presumptuousness! I was teaching a software design course at the time, talking about object-oriented programming and other current topics in IT arena. One of my students wrote in his evaluation something to the effect, "I'm a graduating senior and how is it this is the first course I've had where the professor is actually talking about things I see in trade publications?"
I also reported in a prior post a rare encounter of meeting one of my former students (while I was a teaching fellow at UH). I was shopping for a new suit and this young salesman came up to me, addressing me by name. (I sometimes have trouble recognizing clean-shaved former students in suits.) He introduced himself, telling me he had in fact raised my name in conversation at lunch that day. I cringed; he was in the first class I taught, and the perfectionist I am, I started reflecting on my mistakes and how I would redo the class today. He laughed and said, "You know, I hated your guts while I was taking the class. But I wouldn't change a thing. I learned more in your class than any other class I've had at UH, and I can honestly say I never had a real college exam until I took one of yours." (I suspect the feedback was genuine, because he didn't have to admit he once hated my guts...)
But, of course, there has always been word of mouth by students. I quickly befriended a pre-med student at the University of Texas; I remember how we went out to see the Tower lit orange when the baseball team won the College World Series. Joe was exceptionally bright, but he left nothing to chance when it came to grades: he would routinely check the grade distribution of professors for upcoming courses and choose the "easiest" professors. I never really did; I always liked pushing myself. I remember taking this speech course at OLL on a pass-fail basis; I loved performing these soliloquies, e.g., from George Bernard Shaw. The professor pulled me aside, expressing frustration that I had registered pass-fail, because she wanted to give me an A for the course. I took an undergraduate upper-division philosophy class at UT over the summer (I didn't have other choices I could apply towards my minor). The professor called me out after class one day; I didn't know what it was about, but he quickly told me that the paper I had submitted was graduate school quality and didn't understand why I was taking that class...
On the other hand, I've had some professors whom have won teaching awards; in particular, I recall one starting off the graduate seminar I was taking by saying he was still in the process of learning the class material himself, that we would be learning the subject together. If anything, that seemed to endear him with other class members. (Don't get me wrong; sometimes professors teach new courses and material. I don't think that a professor needs to be an authority on each and every thing. I do believe that a professor has to be honest about his or her limitations and not try to bluff students. But I'm personally concerned by a class structure which implies seat-of-the-pants presentation.)
Going back to the GIGO (garbage-in, garbage-out) of teaching evaluations as I've experienced, I don't mind for properly measured teaching outcomes, including more useful criteria (say, a standardized test reflecting course objectives, success in follow-up courses, etc.)
Second, I would caution students and parents syllabi, like curriculum vitae, can be hyped beyond context, and sometimes a professor has to deal with unexpected issues. For example, I have mentioned in past posts how I discovered that some 90% of the students entering my UTEP database management course did not have a fundamental understanding of data structures, covered in a prerequisite course. Effectively, I had to teach two courses for the price of one; many students felt that they were being overloaded. It was not in my pay grade to evaluate whether the lecturer whom taught them was abiding by course requirements and objectives. What I often found was that I had a wide cross-section of students--some could do my assignments in a half hour, others couldn't do them in over 13 hours. You have to strike a realistic balance between those groups. I wouldn't want to be interrogated over why I was teaching data structures if it wasn't in my published syllabus. What you can do is sometimes influenced by factors beyond your control. For example, in one of the first database courses I took, everybody in the course had to take an incomplete, because the relevant college database kept crashing with limited uptime, leaving us inadequate time to complete our projects.
What the parent or student in particular needs to know is if there are relevant cross-university curricula standards and how consistent their program of study is relative to those standards. It's also useful to note about recency of course materials, particularly when you are dealing with emerging sciences and technologies.
Third, I'm concerned about the relevance of criteria in certain contexts. For example, class counts can be misleading if we are talking about a necessary doctoral seminar for a small number of eligible students. In research-oriented courses, we may discuss important recently-published journal articles. I found I was constantly changing textbooks in my rapidly evolving MIS discipline, and the workload of preparing new lectures and computer assignments can be staggering. It's not like Shakespeare scholars suddenly uncover a new batch of plays each semester. You can attempt to provide a broad framework of objectives, but I often found myself late in my office typing up my lecture notes for the next day or devising some test data for assignments. The last thing I need is my time taken up with lawyers questioning my level of detail, the timing of deliverables, etc.
Fourth, I do not deny the fact that there is cost inflation. I remember reading recently where this junior professor in the business college at Texas A&M was making $130K. That was probably triple what I had been making as a professor; I know inflation has increased, but.. (Not to mention a number of professors have outside consulting opportunities, unlike my experience.) But each year or two, the state legislature passes a budget; what's the argument? We need to give the people the knowledge they need to force us to put state universities on a tight budget? The answer is for state legislatures to play bad cop with out-of-control university budgets.
I will now say something that will make all professors, President Obama, students and parents hate me with a passion: I think higher education is in its own bubble, not everyone attending college should be there, and part of the cost bubble has to do with generous financial aid packages, not unlike all those mortgage bankers putting money in the hands of risky applicants, allowing them to bid up the prices of homes to an unsustainable level.
--Concluding Remarks
In theory, I agree there should be improved transparency to ALL government operations; universities should not be singled out. We need to ensure safeguards are in place to protect due process rights of professors and potential threats to a university's function as a free market of ideas. We should be careful that release of certain private data (e.g., compensation) is done in such as way as not to create morale issues in university departments. We have to have realistic expectations about level of detail in a course syllabis, particularly for new or revised courses for a professor or courses in rapidly changing disciplines. Citizens should understand the underlying data (e.g., student evaluations) may be intrinsically flawed because of poor methodology. Other factors, such as class size, may reflect a variety of factors: limited enrollment because of the nature of the class (e.g., the pipeline of eligible doctoral students may be smaller this year), a new professor is just establishing himself or herself and there may not be enough information, etc.
I don't believe the Texas law addresses my concerns, and it raises more questions than it answers; I want faculty members focusing on their teaching, research, and service, without having to devote significant amounts of time in response to the transparency process. As a student, I never really needed the level of course detail this legislation requires. On many faculties, for a particular course, there might be only one faculty member teaching that semester. (For example, I never got a chance to teach the core MBA MIS course because my colleague Bob "owned" the course.) The issue isn't quantity of data but quality and usability of data. I think the public would be better served by strengthening independent/internal audit functionality and relevant accreditation processes and improving intra-state and cross-state comparative statistics. I also think that the people of Texas would be better served by consolidating centers of excellence and improved, more usable comparative information on intrastate academic programs and costs.
Yet Another Reason For America To Fire Pelosi As House Speaker
Obama and his fellow progressive leadership make it very difficult for me to agree with them: among other things, I have supported Obama on Haiti relief, I have disagreed with Arizona's immigration law, and from the jump I was supportive of allowing Muslims the right to worship in the proximity of Ground Zero, one of the infamous sites associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (On the other hand, when has Obama addressed local union vows to prevent any construction of the mosque?)
Speaker Pelosi's unconscionable attempt to intimidate dissidents' constitutional right to express their opposition to the mosque by threatening an investigation is morally unacceptable and an abuse of power. I disagree with the dissidents and have publicly criticized the Republicans of playing with fire on the issue, noting it contradicted Bush's honorable post-9/11 pleas not to engage in guilt by association by reprisals against Muslim Americans, not involved in the tragic events.
Sunday Talk Soup
Mitch McConnell did a great job talking to David Gregory's hair, as Gregory tried to do the same thing as he did with John Boehner recently, by replaying former Fed Chair Greenspan's reluctant concession (which I think was a mistake and played to progressive talking points) that the Bush tax cuts don't pay for themselves. (Note, which of course the liberal host will never acknowledge, that Greenspan was not asked whether the Bush tax cuts should be continued in the short term, i.e., past the end of the year.) Mitch McConnell correctly noted that we don't raise taxes in the middle of a soft economy and raising taxes on job creators--which is what the Bush tax cut end would mean in practical terms--is counterproductive when you are trying to stimulate job growth.
Let me further point out to David Gregory's hair two critical points: First, it is rather hypocritical, don't you think?, for the Democrats to raise the issue with respect to the less than 25% of the Bush tax cuts which go to the people that pay the lion's share of income taxes, but not to the more than 75% which go to middle-class taxpayers. You can't have it both ways, David Gregory's hair. Either you raise taxes across the board or you extend tax cuts across the board.
Second, you fail to point out that current Fed Chairman Bernanke over a month ago at a House committee meeting (I guess Gregory's fellow news correspondents failed to tell him...) that he favored extension of the tax cuts, at least given the context of the current soft economy.
Political Humor
A poll says the number of Americans who drink alcohol is at an all time high at 67 percent. It's good to see the majority of Americans finally agree on something. - Jim Barach
[I haven't confirmed the rumor I started just now: there's a new college drinking game, patterned after the "Hi, Bob" game of the eighties: it's called the "Bush Bash". Basically, you down a beer or shot every time you hear Obama bash Bush until the mid-term elections. Most college students are totally wasted by noontime...]
People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.
Samuel Johnson
Luxembourg Won the Reader Race Yesterday
I love numbers. So I'm fascinated by odd facts of my pageview statistics. For example, I've had an equal number of pageviews from China and Taiwan. In the BRIC race, readership is negligible, but to date it's China, Brazil, India and Russia. [I went to Brazil twice (São Paulo) for a few months of work in 1995; I talked about Feijoada Wednesdays and Saturdays, Churrascaria, and one of my favorite soft drinks, guaraná Antarctica. I've worked with more Brazilians than I've gotten pageviews...] But the overwhelming bulk of my international readers originate from Denmark, over 3 times as many as the runner-up, the UK, and South Korea is a distant third. So, my dear readers from Denmark, how are you going to respond to the gauntlet being thrown down by Luxembourg? Of course, the readership from my distant ancestral homeland of France is negligible; out of principle they are probably going to ignore me until I start writing posts in my first language.
Of course, I have my own issues reaching my American readers. I use terminology they've often never heard of being raised in an intolerant progressive education system: moral hazard, self-actualization, the law of unintended consequences, accountability, thriftiness, initiative, courage, hard work, civility, patience, discipline, responsibility, performance, perseverance and integrity. America deserves better than grandstanding, empty rhetoric, political spin, scapegoating and red meat or bumper sticker politics.
Obama's Procrustean Economy Policy: A Reflection
I remember when I was in sixth grade, one of my passions was reading Greek and Roman mythology. One of the archetypal legends involved Procrustes, the sadistic son of Poseidon. Procrustes had an iron bed in his guest quarters; if the visitor was too short, Procrustes would stretch him to fit the bed, but if the visitor was too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length from his limbs.
In short, I view Obama's policy as essentially Procrustean in nature, based on an ideological goal of equality in outcomes. Obama wants to stretch the outcomes of lower-income people, and he is willing to cut the disposable income of job creators and other economically successful individuals to do it. It may first seem that the analogy doesn't hold: after all, many lower-income people welcome the idea of getting something for nothing. Remember the infamous "Obama money" scramble in Detroit for stimulus handouts? (Let's us remind folks that the Obama mansion in Chicago is not located in the hood, and that $787B came from our grandchildren, not Obama's pocket.)
No, the point is more subtle. As faithful readers of my blog know, I love quotes. One of my favorite quotes is from the Roman poet Horace: "Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant." For example, I have a brother-in-law whom has enjoyed a long career as an IT manager in the telecommunications industry. His position was eliminated a few months back in a corporate downsizing. I have no doubt he could make a good living by rejoining the corporate rat race or as a consultant, but he decided to try his hand as an entrepreneur. (He is selling premium Texas steaks at very competitive prices over the Internet.)
I have hung out my own shingle as an IT professional. Some people may think it's easy given the fact that I have a PhD and MBA or used to work for Oracle. But I never had industry contacts and the profession was notoriously anti-intellectual when the recession in the early 1990's ended my academic career. (For the first few years, I left the doctorate off the resume, and even over the past year I was advised by a professional recruiter to lose it from the end of my resume. Even the UH Alumni association has been sending me mail referencing my MBA degree. I was puzzled and asked them why they weren't referencing my capstone degree. She explained that most business school graduates prefer to promote their MBA.)
I had to deal with the prejudice against ivory-tower academics allegedly unable to cope with the reality of a practical world, recruiters whom worried that I would jump as soon the academic job market bounced back, and employers whom proudly refused to hire me into the mid-level professional ranks, boasting that they promoted from within, and that I would have to compete against my former students for entry-level positions. I've gotten my own gigs primarily from former clients whom chased me months after I left based on very limited-term engagements. One of my IT manager clients told me he learned more from me in 2 days than in 6 months of working with my former employer's other DBA's. Several managers claim I'm the best DBA they've ever worked with. I know of at least 2 projects where the prime contractor was in danger of losing the contract until I came on board mid-project and stabilized the situation.
Nobody, including my fellow conservatives, objects to emergency aid--for example, someone's house just burned down and they have limited savings. But I would rather see the Red Cross show up at the door than "heck of a job, Brownie". I personally think it's better to get a place of stay with a relative or a friend than the arbitrary assistance of a government bureaucrat deciding the nature and extent of what you're entitled to. Before social security, there was not an epidemic of senior citizens dying of hunger and homeless or with untreated medical issues. Parents often went to live with one of their children, and doctors donated or heavily discounted their services.
The issue for us is when temporary assistance turns into a long-term assertion of entitlement and the heavy damage is done by fostering an intrinsically corrupting nature of dependency on government goods and services. I won't go into specifics but there have been times in the past when I qualified for certain government programs and refused to apply out of principle. I don't have a "let them eat cake" philosophy. But over the years, I've had to make adjustments--I've made concessions on salary, location, hours, rate and/or benefits, I've done the road warrior gig working long hours, on holidays, nights, holidays and weekends (literally eating at a fast food place or diner at midnight) without a penny in overtime or bonuses, hour-plus commutes are more typical, and I've moved several times.
The point is, the government has to be very careful it does not foster a dependency trap. It's one thing to lend or give a man a fishing pole. But it's up to the man to find another pond or stream if it's been overfished, and he needs to learn from the example of master fisherman--their bait, their techniques and when or where you fish. I remember the last time I went fishing with my youngest brother several years ago near Panama City, FL. Neither my brother nor I are very experienced; we were on a fishing vessel with several other people, and I'll never forget this woman of color fishing next to us. My brother and I were pathetic compared to this lady; it seemed like she got bites of good-sized fish within seconds of casting her line time and again, while we struggled during the outing to land a handful of small fish. I never felt like I was entitled to a portion of her catch. I have no excuses--I was fishing from the same boat. At the same time, I don't have self-esteem issues over losing to an experienced female fisherman, any more than I would feel bad about getting a basketball shot blocked by a player a foot taller than me: I don't have unrealistic expectations over my performance. What I do know is that if my livelihood depended on catching fish, I would be willing to research and do whatever it took to attain the kind of expertise that woman had.
A year ago last month, Obama said the following to a Michigan crowd:
Now, my administration has a job to do, as well, and that job is to get this economy back on its feet. That's my job. And it’s a job I gladly accept. I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama’s economy.’ That’s fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe.
So what did he say at a Senator Murray fundraiser this week?
Eighteen months ago I took office after nearly a decade of economic policies that had given us sluggish growth, sluggish job growth, falling incomes, falling wages and a record deficit.
Well, let's look at the facts, Mr. Obama. The cut cuts of Reagan and Bush correlated with only two months of job losses from 1983 through mid-1990 and an unbroken string of job growth from September 2003 through the end of 2007, and one could argue that they inherited a much tougher hand than Obama: Volcker broke the back of inflation by raising interest rates--up to 20%. George W. Bush inherited a stock market cash, quickly followed by 9/11 and the financial scandals. So what exactly do you mean, Mr. Obama? In contrast, Clinton inherited a government emerging from a recession and the fiscal drag of the Cold War, and found his tax-and-spend agenda blocked by 6 of 8 years with a GOP-controlled House. The record deficit? First, it was a Democratic Congress which presided over the beginning of the recession in December 2007--and the entire duration to this day. Second, the Democrats, other than wanting to cut defense spending in the middle of two wars, mostly criticized the spending of Republicans as too little, not too much.
I will grant that I've been sharply critical of the Bush Administration's record on spending. But the audacity of someone whom is criticizing the deficits under Bush is incredible: in fact, the Dems refused to pass a budget for the 2009 fiscal year until after Bush left office, and we are seeing close to $2.7T addition of the national debt over the last 2 fiscal years inclusive, ending next month. That's better than half of the national debt that George Bush inherited.
Economists tell us it may take 6 months or longer for fiscal policies to show up in the economy: fine, Mr. Obama. You've had 19 months in office. You've come up with invented statistics like "saved jobs". You can't even spell the word "austerity". So of your words "My job is to get this economy back on its feet. That's my job....My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe." Don't tell me words don't matter. The fact is--you and your party don't have any clue on what to do with the economy other than to spend money that's not yours to spend, and despite your best efforts to throw money at the problem, it hasn't worked.
So here's a clue, Mr. President: you need a paradigm shift in your thinking. This cherrypicking approach of trying to reward politically favored businesses (e.g., green energy companies) and groups (police and teachers) isn't working; you have to work on simplifying your message and broaden your policy aims. You have to think from the perspective of a business in order to target jobs. What do businesses hate? Uncertainty. [Stick to a limited, focused agenda, and stop signing 2000-page bills into law.] Dubious spending policies that all but guarantee a raise in taxes. Globally uncompetitive tax rates. Next year tax hikes on income and investments. Increased payroll taxes or new benefit mandates effectively raising the costs of hiring workers. Aggressive attempts to unionize workers, which doesn't give management the flexibility it needs to meet the challenges of the global economy. Costly taxes, regulation, and reporting requirements. Government meddling in companies and industries. Protectionist trade policies.
Now addressing Mr. Cusak's point: "Congressional Republicans have not spent much time talking about how they would govern differently than Bush did". I really don't think that's true. Minority Leader John Boehner has signaled willingness to cut a deal on tough issues like social security and more openness for minority party rights in the House. The GOP has distanced itself from the economic interventionist and government growth policies of Bush and Obama. Whereas it would not be good political strategy to target austerity measures in advance of an election, it is clear that the GOP, which achieved a budget surplus a third of their years in power, has more credibility than the Dems, whom have achieved a budget surplus zero percent of the time over the past 40 years. The GOP is already talking about common-sense measures that Obama has failed to implement--like hiring freezes.
Political Humor
NASA made a big announcement at a press conference this week. They said that they've created a magnetic device that can levitate mice. Then NASA's spokesperson said, "If you don't let us go to Mars, this is the kind of stupid crap we're going to do." - Conan O'Brien
[Ladies who stand on chairs at the sight of mice: more evidence of your hard-earned tax dollars at work. No doubt Obama, sensitive to PETA concerns, decided to make putting mice on equal footing a top priority... Might I suggest the alternative of employing a journeyman magician whom can perform the same trick for a lot less money?]
Musical Interlude: The American Songbook
Nat King Cole*, "Nature Boy"
(* Annie Ross' interpretation is in my collection, but the song was first a major hit by Nat King Cole in 1948. I trust the reader will find this substitution worthy.)
