Winter Break update

It's been difficult finding the time to read, mull over, and write, about blog-worthy topics (especially given my high standards) since I've been home from school. As you can tell, the previous effort was a product of inebriated angst, and should probably be stricken from official record. But I am not one to censor. Let it stay. 

One issue that is fresh in my mind that deserves some discussion is more empirical than based off of rigorous assessment. Earlier in the break my family and I traveled to Manchester, Vermont, to stay at a posh 'Hotel & Spa,' an overpriced haven for the well-to-do (whose ranks do not seem to be dwindling at all) nestled in the Green Mountains on the fringes of a quaint town. 

The patrons of this pretentious rusticity were of an especially interesting ilk. Their glances were, rather than looks of acknowledgment, appraisals of worth. I felt like an especially crude and shaggy (a haircut is way overdue) piece of meat upon making eye contact with those present. Walking into a room, sitting down to eat, was more of a show for these people (think: 'see and be seen') than simply an act of rest or nourishment. 

Moreover there was a forced patience that regulated intra-patron and patron-staff interaction , an elaborate anachronistic dance of accommodation and acquiescence that made most conversations beyond trivial. Civility trumped reality. I preferred to stay silent and beyond the bounds of such customs. 

I found it repugnant to be around, and was glad to only have stayed for two nights. Please note that my family and I were able to afford the great luxury of such company because of the benefits accrued from years of credit card purchases (AMEX's 'Starwood Rewards Points'), in addition to newly acquired inheritance. While briefly in their midst, I vehemently deny membership or association with those materialist and insecure wealthy. 

Aside from this brief journey into the hideous and fabricated world of the elite, I have been biding my time by entering the mind of the late-DFW. Infinite Jest is a complex but brilliant piece of writing. The world he has created in the novel is illuminating and exciting, and I am still not yet half done. Reading this book is a humbling experience. As a writer I can only strive to match the verbal acuity DFW brought to bear. 

In closing, today is the final day of 2008. If it is your custom, I hope your Resolutions represent a subjective improvement upon the life you are living, and will come to make you a happier, healthier person. Be they 'moral' or not, let them be true for you.  

Hell

has broken through. We've been unable to hold them back. To tell you the truth, they've been encouraged in. Women.

CATO? Fail.

I was in the car today for far too long, driving back to NY a day early (to avoid the impending snow storm), and was killing time by listening to an interesting talk radio program. Yes, I listen to talk radio. Not religiously, but around D.C. you are likely to come across something interesting and thought provoking, as was the case this time. But enough of my rationalizing. 

The CATO Institute, a libertarian, a pro- free market think tank, was either presenting a report or just having a panel discussion (the signal cut out before I was able to uncover the underlying purpose of this event) where experts were sharing some of their thoughts on the (you guessed it) financial meltdown. (Note: I am going to avoid using the term "financial crisis" at all costs. Lets see how creative I can get). 

The one "expert" whose presentation I was able to listen in its entirety was categorically criticizing Keynesian economics. For those of you who have not taken ECON 101, John Meynard Keynes was a British economist who founded a profoundly important and influential branch of economics that has guided economic policy for much of the last 100 years. Keynes challenged the long standing belief in the power of the "invisible hand" to guide the market. He felt that as opposed to guide, this hand strangles the market. Man's unwillingness to manipulate the economy had consequently brought it to its knees in 1929. 

Keynes felt that the government was in a perfect position to influence how the market functioned, typically by debt-fueled spending in certain strategic sectors. As the only institution with the ability to print and dole out legitimate dollars, he believed it ought to use this power to its advantage. 

Anyways this guy went through every major implementation of Keynesian policies in the past century. Disabusing me of a long held belief, he showed that the economy under FDR (a big proponent of Keynes) did not improve from the failed era of Hoover, his predecessor. Even at the end of the 1930s, the economy had yet to recover from the crash of 1929. We must therefore attribute the economic turnaround to WWII. 

After sharing some other examples demonstrating his eery and esoteric historical acumen, including the ill fated Japanese Keynesian experiment in the 90s, this guy showed his true colors when he dropped a concluding bomb out of the blue, "the government isn't the solution to the problem, its the cause of the problem."

What? Hold on for second. I, just having taken statistics, with the "3 elements of causal inference" ingrained into my being, recognized immediately that this man had done a terrible job of proving causality. 

His point about Keynesian economics having an overblown historic legacy was well taken. But it is difficult to jump from this to the conclusion that we ought to not allow the government to intervene into the economy. 

The under-performance of Keynesian reforms does not mean the government has no place in the economy. A more reasonable conclusion would have been to discredit Keynesian policy itself --which is importantly (but apparently for some people, not obviously) just one type of government-driven fiscal policy. Ultimately this expert failed to consider the full gamut of known and yet-to-be-discovered economic policies involving governmental intervention that might prove to be an effective catalyst of economic growth. 

In these twisted and fearful times, (in addition to laying off of grandfather's hooch when loaded weapons are within reach) we ought t0 not let historical examples condition our considered response. While yes, we must learn from history, we also should recognize the uniqueness of this situation and be open to any solution with the promise of working. But by declaring "the government is the problem," this expert was unknowingly letting his CATO colleagues contaminate his cerebrum, and shutting the door on a slew of policies that -- like WWII in the '40s -- might prove to be the economic defibrillator we need. 

Adding Permanence to Policy

This months Harper's features a report by Nobel-winning economist Joe Stiglitz on the deep and gloomy fiscal ditch this administration has dug for our country. If I could sum up the article with one simple, curt quip, it would be this: things do not look good.

It is difficult to take this inauspicious financial forecast lightly. Stiglitz has one of the world's best minds on this subject, and was surprisingly overlooked as an Obama cabinet appointee (as lamented by many liberal bloggers).

While reading his analysis I could not help but notice an underlying problem with the way fiscal policy is implemented in this country. A product of our rotating democratic system, we cannot help but have mutant policies-- grotesquely different than their original form-- persist throughout consecutive administrations . The brain child of President A will -- regardless of how "good" of an idea it is-- never make it through to President B without at least some minor tweakings. I believe it is this tweaking that is partially to blame for the current financial mess.

Stiglitz mentions that research exists revealing the unfortunate fact that if Clinton's fiscal policies had continued on to this current day, we would be facing a much more managable crisis. But they didn't. Incoming administration wonks had the green light to take a perfectly reasonable set of policies-- policies which are largely responsible for the fiscal (and therefore overall) health of our society, re-work them in accordance with their own ideological preferences, and undermine gains previously made.

I understand why it is important to have general and frequent elections. At the same time, there ought to be some type of way to make certain types of policy untouchable for a certain amount of time, unless some serious reason warrants its reversal. In these instances the parties involved could take it up with the Supreme Court. My roommate, a future lawyer, noted that to work, my plan may require a Constitution amendment. Well Hell, if that's what it took to end racial segregation, or the disenfranchisement of women, then that's what its going to take to put our country back on a consistent economic path of growth. I'm okay with that.

When it comes to controversial topics like appropriate fiscal policy, each consecutive administration will inevitably be filled with minds that think differently-- that have a range of ideological beliefs about the proper and relative roles of government and the economy, of the best way to capitalize on and sustain economic growth, etc. These beliefs are reflected in the policy decisions made.

My proposal is this: When a certain type of policy is implemented, it ought to trigger a shield of immunity that protects it from being changed by the upcoming administration for a certain amount of time. This way-- and particularly with fiscal policy-- our government will enable the effects of a tax cut/hike (to take a simple example) to be evident, rather than co-opt a reasonable policy in mid-stream, predict its failure, and change it accordingly.

Afraid of being bound to suffer from an unquestionably bad policy? Thank this system for enabling you to even deduce the policy's merits. Because we were able to give the policy time and judge its merits cautiously, you can be sure that it will not be repeated.

Rather than being governed by a series of counterproductive, conflicting policies, shifting from one administration to the next, we ought to demand that certain policies (particularly with regards to fiscal health) be immune from this flawed revolving door process. A certain permanence to them would be a sign of prudential governance, and while there will be people who argue that this undermines our democratic system, my answer for them would be similar to a phrase offered by Mussolini that I am particularly taken with:

"The sanctity of an ism is not in the ism; it has no sanctity beyond its power to do, to work, to succeed in practice. It may have succeeded yesterday and fail tomorrow. Failed yesterday and succeed tomorrow. The machine first of all must run!"

Our machine-- capitalism-- is suffering from serious mechanical failure. It needs more than an oil change; the engine itself has seized. Something is needed to make the machine run again. If that means stealing a play from the dusty and unfairly disparaged playbook of fascism, then so be it. Look at where capitalism has gotten us. Are we so transfixed with the idea of potential earnings that we are blinded to some of the more obvious flaws of this system? Or, can we eliminate the subconscious connection between "governmental control" and "loathsome" that has pervaded our system, and enact policies designed for relative permanence to give them the time they need to work (or fail)?

At least then it will be the flaws of the policies themselves that cause failure, and not the capricious but doomed efforts of transient, trigger-happy politicians tweaking the prescription for an already- healing (or even asymptomatic) system.

Last Minute Push to Make Things Worse.

As if eight years of Bush policy wasn't enough, the administration is hard at work to push through last minute changes that will deleteriously alter the policy environment facing the incoming administration. Fueled by an unprecedented productivity explicable only by chemical dependence or a sheer malevolence towards the democrats replacing them, the executive branch – in two instances that I have been able to identify – is acting to intentionally complicate the world Obama will inherent as steward next month.

In one case, the New York Times reported that innocent, nature loving campers will no longer be safe from gun-toting, maladjusted hill-billies while enjoying time in national parks throughout the nation (that just so happen to be located in states with conceal-carry laws).

"The Bush administration has rushed through a last-minute gun rule that is the antithesis of common sense. The Interior Department published a rule last week that will allow loaded, concealed weapons in nearly all of this country’s national parks."

A warning, then, to our green friends: please do not make any sudden movements while in the park that might be interpreted as threatening. Avoid climbing any trees to enjoy a more expansive view, else you might be mistaken for some type of rodent. Also, make sure to dress very conspicuously (think- bright pastels), so as to never provide a nervous freak with an inkling of suspicion that you might not be human-- but rather some tasty mammal deserving of a bullet in it's fur.

The Times sums up the problem in a far less sarcastic manner:

"The parks were set aside to preserve their natural beauty and provide enjoyment for visitors. Loaded guns — concealed or unconcealed — are completely inconsistent with that purpose and with the enjoyment of visitors who do not wish to come armed."

I foresee stories of happy hippies, fresh out of school and interested in exploring the wilderness, shot down while tromping naked through the woods by some paranoid Trucker who took his kids to the park to "see the trees" but decided it might not be safe, and packed some heat.

(Side Story: The Trucker hears some rustling in the woods after finally stepping foot outside of his vehicle following hours of enjoying the sights through the murky glass of his windows. He quickly reaches inside his vest for 'Ole Betsy, his greased up .45. Catching a flash of some movement, he senses danger -- fueled by an urge to set an example for his terrified children, cowering in the back seat ("What is it Paw? A Coon?!"), he takes aim, fires. Screams of terror echo through the trees back towards our dead-eye Trucker. I didn't think Coons made noises like that, he thinks. Rabid? No, just High.)

Come on people. Is there really a need for our enlightened citizenry to be carrying around concealed weapons in national parks? While visitors to these protected places of tranquility once only had to worry about packing up their garbage to avoid inquisitive and hungry bears, one's chances of leaving the park in a body bag has risen exponentially by allowing this law to go through.

In a second (and more daunting) instance of Bush-induced obfuscation, Harper's reported that Obama's promises to shut down habeas-less Guantanamo and return some legitimacy to the term "a nation of laws, not men," have been given a serious setback by recent legal activity within the Department of Defense.

"Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, 53, a lawyer and Air Force reservist who as the top legal adviser and chief administrator of the trials, has managed to put 17 complex war crimes cases on the docket in less than 18 months. Now, Obama’s promise to shutter the facility seems to have spurred Hartmann to even greater activity. Motions and hearings are currently underway in at least half a dozen cases, and this week Gitmo authorities will host an emotional, made-for-TV moment: the first-ever visit to the trials by families of the victims of Sept. 11. Meanwhile, Hartmann’s office confirms that more terrorism trials will be announced sometime before Obama’s inauguration."

While surely one must commend the DoD for giving detainees the ability to have their cases heard in court, the fact that trials are all being initiated under the auspices of Guantanamo closure lends a firm sense of triviality and pretense to the proceedings. Dissenters of this newfound activity, DoD logic goes, cannot help but think that those detainees must be given the opportunity to stand trial, and hence must support continuation of Guantanamo's operation until these cases have been closed.

Unfortunately for the DoD, we have a free press that can see right through these specious acts of Justice who witness a palpable fear initiated by their concluding way of life that has, prior to now, given soldiers and interrogators the ability to live in relative immunity of accountability.

"After years during which prisoners were held without trial, the question is whether this surge in prosecutions and publicity is a case of due process finally starting to work—or a hurried effort designed to tie Obama’s hands as he tries to shut the facility. Once they are under way, Obama could find it politically and legally difficult to stop the controversial proceedings or shift them out of Guantanamo."

By all means, these detainees should be given the chance to have their cases heard by a judge. Those that have plotted to harm Americans should be punished. But this last-minute scramble should not delay the closing of Guantanamo. That place is the relic of a bygone era, a tribute to a way of life that Obama's election has ushered back to the Dark Ages, where it belongs. Let the detainees be held and tried in U.S. Federal Court, where all will serve as judges of the facts that have up until this point, ostensibly justified their indefinite yet scandalous detainment.

The Bush Administration, in these two instances, is perpetuating its legacy of incompetence unnecessarily-- ensuring hints of its tainted influence stick around like a foul taste lingering in the mouth of all who consume politics.

Mouthwash will hopefully come Jan 20.

Hopefully Specious Relationship

Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote, the largest majority earned by a presidential candidate since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson won 61 percent. This factoid has been spread extensively, reiterating the historic and uprecedented nature of Obama's victory.

One factoid that has not been spread as liberally (although I don't read conservative blogs, and this is likely something they'd point out) is the shameful fate of LBJ. In 1968, just four years (or one presidential term) after his landmark victory, he didn't even run for re-election because his popularity had sunk to such low levels.

Apparently, we must be wary to conclude that the initial wide margin of victory enjoyed by a president necessarily means that he will enjoy support throughout his administration or that he will continue to represent the will of those who have overwhelmingly elected him. Indeed, if history is any indicator for the future, popular presidents must not abuse their mandate and consider their initial popularity to provide them with a carte blanche to pursue pet policy interests motivated by the blind assumption that this popularity will persist indefinitely.

LBJ was doomed by Vietnam. Now, there is clearly no shortage of potential policy blunders for Obama to stumble into that will seal his fate and have historians consider him to be just another one-term wonder. I hope this does not happen, but I must acknowledge that it can.

Conflating Civil and Gay Rights

My cynical nature has long been countered by the optimistic hope that our (global and U.S.) society is characterized by continual progress, which has been most evident in the increasing acceptance and tolerance of all mankind. Consecutive generations of Westerners have had to confront the challenging and unsettling thought that people unlike them in some way are not somehow worse. A person's merit, not some other trivial quality about them, is all we should refer to when assessing their quality. First it was non-Men; then, non-Whites; now, non-Straight or non-Binary Gendered.

The fate of today's version of this acceptance battle has, to a certain extent, been put in the hand's of voters-- largely in the form of referenda. One of the more notorious of these instances of participatory (perfect?) democracy is Proposition 8, a law that Californians' passed this past November 6 which banned same-sex marriages.

Has my cherished progress been stifled? How could California -- the land of shaggy-haired surfers, hippies, Milk, and San Francisco -- be so intolerant? Adding insult to injury, it has been discovered that a preponderance of Black Californians voted for this banishment. This constituency, benefiting perhaps more so than any other from our society's historic widening of the franchise, ironically sealed the fate of Gays who wish to enjoy a similarly innocuous extension of equal rights.

Caitlin Flanagan, in a recent New York Times op-ed, attempted to wrap her head around this apparent paradox, and implicates the church -- an all-too frequent limitor of equal rights -- as a key player in convincing blacks' that Gays, unequivocally hell-bound, do not deserve the legal (and moral?) rights offered to those married by the State.

Flanagan considers this defeat of Prop 8 to be evidence of a precariousness, lingering under the surface of a strong political alliance between liberals and Blacks-- the same alliance that was largely responsible for the election of our upcoming president.

They came to the polls in record numbers to support Barack Obama, and they brought with them a fiercely held and enduring antipathy toward homosexuality: 7 in 10 blacks voted in support of traditional marriage.

While I would not go so far as to say Blacks should ignore their Church-- as religion does provide the foundation for many important lessons of morality-- they should most definitely not ignore the lessons of history. However "morally or sexually repugnant" (Flanagan's words) our Black Americans consider Gays to be, they must not be so ignorant as to forget the great distances they have come, and the importance of extending equal human rights to those worthy of the distinction "human."

In Flanagan's opinion, this fissure could be the first of many emphasizing the inherent difficulty of "creat[ing] a vast utopian society forged of many previously disenfranchised groups."

Perhaps instead of solving the economic crisis, or ending the Global War of Terror, or signing onto a binding climate control treaty, the maintenance of this alliance will be the most politically trying -- and important -- task of President-elect Obama, as he seeks to continue enjoying the support of all types of Americans.

Trenchant Thoughts on the Crisis

Concern with the economy should not be a function of how much value one has invested in it at any given time. In other words, its a weak excuse to believe that because one doesn't have a diversified portfolio, one shouldn't care about the economic crisis. This is because it affects us all, no matter what we do or where we live. I believe that most of our apathy and exasperation concerning this current meltdown stems from the way that it's presented to us; we are confronted with a gigantic, technical beast that only 'experts' (our modern equivalent to intellectual Knights in Shining Armor-- or better yet, mystic Merlin living in The Tower) can tackle.

This is unfortunate. Like I mentioned in my first post, our economy is ultimately a product of human action. Any anthropomorphic treatment it receives ("the market did this") only fuels this opacity and contributes to the feeling of helplessness that I believe is pervading our society.

Seeking to get a better sense of economic forces, taking college (and graduate) economics courses introduced me to some of the fundamental concepts of our economic system; notions that I believe should be mandatory for any undergraduate education (particularly the inevitable and perpetual battle between supply and demand). Even so, dialogue surrounding this crisis is replete with concepts that only a certain segment of the population understands (a segment that ironically is largely to blame for this shitshow). Talk of credit default swaps, mortgage backed derivatives, etc., only serves to widen the disconnect that exists between the people at the helm of the economy and those most affected by it.

A recent article recommended to me by a fellow minion-intern that was published in The Atlantic takes on this crisis from a unique perspective. It is better than anything I've read dealing with subject, if only because it avoids the technical jargon that often pervades economic articles.

Henry Blodget, an ex-financial investor turned journalist, was around for bubbles of yore (particularly the internet one that exploded at the turn of the century). His discussion centers around the nexus of economic and psychology, two disciplines that I believe are not mutually exclusive; any discussion of economics must be firmly based in an understanding of the psychologial factors that guide those who navigate through and control the market (see Herbert Simon and bounded rationality).

Blodget explains that bubbles-- including the housing one-- are an inherent quality of capitalist economies:

But most bubbles are the product of more than just bad faith, or incompetence, or rank stupidity; the interaction of human psychology with a market economy practically ensures that they will form. In this sense, bubbles are perfectly rational—or at least they’re a rational and unavoidable by-product of capitalism (which, as Winston Churchill might have said, is the worst economic system on the planet except for all the others). Technology and circumstances change, but the human animal doesn’t. And markets are ultimately about people.

After taking us through a not-so-hypothetical example of a couple victimized by the appeal of a quick buck in real estate, Blodget provides prescient insight into how we can learn to live with and accept the flaws of our capitalist system; flaws that must be understood and embraced by our incoming presidential administration if we are to have any hope of overcoming them in the short term.

Moreover, these skeletons in the closet of capitalism should be acknowledged by every person fearful of what is almost inevitable thought nowadays-- the world crumbling upon itself, and life as we know it ending -- if only to reassure us that things are not as unprecedented as they seem.

By clearly indicating that this mess was made by man, and not some intractable problem, Blodget's story of the crisis is one of the few even tangentially optimistic pieces out there on economics today.

Thanksgiving Recap

Several excellent experiences over thanksgiving break. Although lasting one day shy of a week in length, I was reminded of how unsatisfying my current living/life situation is.

Maybe it's my dislike of DC, or my seemingly never-ending enrollment as a graduate student, or the fact that it was a vacation, but spending time with my old friends and family in and around NYC is just a lot cooler than what I normally do every day.

The play, which I refer to in the previous post, was excellent, as to be expected. We sat in the front row (why my dad got these tickets, one can only guess), which turned out to be annoying because of the sheer number of cross-stage conversations that were going on. At certain intense exchanges, I found myself turning my head back and forth constantly, as if I were watching an exciting game of tennis.

During intermission an older gentleman who was there with his wife asked me out of the blue what I thought -- whether the play had made an impression on me thus far, or whether I was affected by it. I said No, that I hadn't, and followed up with asking if this was necessary for the play to have some quality to it. He seemed to feel that it did-- that the value of art could be found in its effect on the onlooker. And consequently, because of this lack of a palpable influence the play was thus far having on him, the man was dissatisfied with it.

I agreed with his interpretation, but after some thinking believe that he was looking for the wrong effect. Watching a Chekhov play is not like watching a Michael Bruckheimer movie. It's quality is not gleaned from loud explosions or passionate love scenes or violent confrontations, but the subtle idiosyncrasies of its characters. Their endearing flaws illuminate those that we hold, and their implicit, pervasive presentation is what gives Chekhov his brilliance.

The old man wanted to be affected -- he wanted to be moved. This is not asking too much of Chekov, but we must ask to be moved differently than we have been accustomed as children of materialism. The qualities of Chekhov's characters can tell us about ourselves. Though he doesn't ask us to change them, he does provide us with a mirror through which we can see that it might be valuable to do so.