Tomorrow's NYT on Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal

The article makes clear that President Obama decided months ago that 2010 was going to be the year to repeal DADT. Which makes it all the more troubling that the Pentagon is clearly trying to derail the President's plan by suddenly calling for yet another study that will delay the repeal for years. Read the rest of this post...

The stimulus

From Ezra Klein at the Post:

The story on the stimulus is similarly depressing. At its base, the stimulus is Keynesian economics in practice. A recession hits, and individuals and businesses become scared that they're next on the chopping block, so they stop spending and start saving to protect themselves from the hard times to come. That drains demand from the economy, and without demand, the hard times get even harder. Government is the only player able to disrupt this vicious cycle. By sharply increasing its spending, it can generate demand, improving the economy until individuals and businesses are comfortable reentering the marketplace.

Key to this whole theory is that the government should act "counter-cyclically": In good times, it should save and store, and in bad times, it should spend and borrow. The exact opposite holds true for businesses and individuals, which makes the whole project pretty unintuitive.

Students in macroeconomics classes learn all this in the first week of September. After a year of trying to explain it to an economically distressed nation, however, Obama basically gave up. Instead, he bowed before the entrenched, incorrect, conventional wisdom. "Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions," he said. "The federal government should do the same.

Well, no. It shouldn't. The government should not tighten its belt until the people can loosen theirs. That's why the stimulus was a good idea, and why Obama is asking Congress for another stimulus, although this one's being called a "jobs bill." But the stimulus proved almost impossible to explain, and it was far too small, given the size of the recession. As a result, people are very worried about jobs, and they're very worried about deficits, and instead of trying to convince them that deficits make good sense until job growth is back to normal, the administration is trying to appease those fears so it can get on with the rest of its agenda.

I don't think the Obama administration tried hard enough, or smartly enough, or long enough to explain the necessity of the stimulus, or the bail outs for that matter. I've been complaining for almost a year now that they weren't fighting hard enough to promote, and then defend, the stimulus. It's not that the American people are inherently stupid. But in a vacuum, they'll believe the only idiot talking, even if he's a Republican who's spinning a lie. Read the rest of this post...

Is haggling destroying the economy?

The Post has an interesting read on haggling. As I've mentioned before, I love to haggle from time to time and see nothing wrong with it at all. In the comments section of the article I was floored to read the negative reactions against haggling. Some say it's a bad use of time, which I agree, it can be if you spend more than a minute or two on it. My haggling in Paris is fairly brief compared to say, my haggling in Tunis or Hanoi, where it can go on and on. If it's a substantial purchase, even 10% can make a difference. In the case of my bike, it was enough savings to add in a few biking accessories on the spot. Did anyone really lose there?

Another funny and incredibly silly comment was that it was taking money out of the pockets of the sales people. As a person who has made commission from sales for a few decades, the thought never once crossed my mind. Every deal that I've done eventually ends up with a purchasing director and guess what they do? They negotiate. The corporate world pays purchasing people very well to negotiate deals. They often receive substantial bonuses in addition to their salary that is based on the savings for the company. Would I rather sell at full list? Of course. But like anyone, I'd also rather have a deal in my pocket instead of the customer going to the next shop. How much is 7% or 9% commission on $0 because the client shopped elsewhere?

It's not clear why negotiating on a corporate level is acceptable and a standard part of the process yet if an individuals asks for something, it's killing the free market system. Isn't that what the free market is supposed to be about or has that idea gone away during the Republican trashing of the American economy? It's similar to the debate with health care/Big Pharma. It's normal for them to negotiate hard with vendors selling to them (as I know from experience) but to ask them to negotiate with a buyer (the government) is somehow out of bounds and offensive. Huh?

There are always going to be time wasters no matter what but is adding an extra thirty seconds or a minute or two to the process really so awful? So what if it's "only" $15 from a $150 sale. I didn't hear any of the commenters offering to hand over $15 even though it's supposedly nothing. Is it really so bad asking? Your money is your money so why would you want to give it away so easily? Our old bank charged us a fee for something that turned out to be their mistake. When they snatched our money for the penalty, it was normal and acceptable. When we complained and showed how it was their fault, the bank manager dismissed it as a "small fee so why bother?" Fine, give me the "small fee" out of your pocket then. I think that's the day we canceled our account and changed banks.

If you don't want to haggle, don't, but don't be mad with others who care about their hard earned money. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman calls FOX News 'deliberate misinformation' to Roger Ailes' face

It really is sick that an organization like FOX even exists. Even sicker is having to explain to conservatives the difference between FOX and CNN, or FOX and the NYT. They quite literally don't get the difference between trying to be objective and trying to be Republican. To paraphrase something a friend said years ago about a different topic, FOX is lucky that we don't live in the kind of country it's trying to create, because it would be the first to go.


(Hat tip FDL) Read the rest of this post...

Obama's bank tax gaining steam elsewhere

Now that the probable next PM of the UK is in agreement with the current regime, it should be a lot easier to bring others onboard as well. The bankers are all screaming though for the rest, questions still remain if this is even enough. After all, everyone saved them from crashing on the rocks which enabled them to hand out massive bonuses. If nothing else, it's a start.

Both David Cameron and Alistair Darling expressed support for Barack Obama's proposals to force banks to pay into a fund that would provide compensation in the event of the failure of a financial institution.

Cameron said at the World Economic Forum summit at Davos that he thought a so-called Tobin tax was unworkable because of a lack of international support, but said he would back an insurance levy if he became prime minister in this spring's election. "We would work for a new international levy on banks – one of the ideas being considered by the IMF – to protect the taxpayer from footing the bill for banking crises," the Conservative leader said.

The chancellor said he was working with the US on a permanent insurance levy, an idea the Treasury believes will win more support than a Tobin tax. "We are keen to work on a plan on this with other countries," Darling added.

Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Good morning.

The Sunday shows will undoubtedly be consumed with the week that was. And, it won't be just the State of the Union. Several GOP House leaders, including John Boehner on NBC and Paul Ryan on FOX, will be trying to spin themselves out of the thrashing they got from Obama on Friday.

The White House has dispatched Axelrod to NBC and Gibbs to CNN. Be great if those two can confirm that we'll see more of the Obama we saw this past week. We'd like our President to be a leader -- a leader who keeps his promises and fights for what he believes. That's not too much to ask.

As the guest host of "This Week," Barbara Walters has the "get" of the weekend. She has the first interview of Scott Brown. I saw an ABC ad for the show, which also promoted a smackdown between Arianna Huffington and Roger Ailes from FOX News. Now, I'd bet on Arianna any day. But, why the hell is ABC giving a platform to FOX and its propaganda?

Full lineup is here. Read the rest of this post...

Hey, it's the neighbor on TV

A few years ago a new neighbor moved in to the building. Anytime we bump into him, he's always quite friendly and very mild mannered. Talking with neighbors is not done quite as much here but from what we understand, he's also an actor. Last year our neighbors upstairs mentioned that they saw the neighbor on TV but we didn't imagine this. Read the rest of this post...

UK climate secretary fights back against deniers

Maybe, but talking about science might be a little too radical. And of course, fighting can be so risky and we really don't do risk. The Guardian:

The perceived failure of global talks on combating climate change in Copenhagen last month has also been blamed for undermining public support. But in the government's first high-level recognition of the growing pressure on public opinion, Miliband declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans, or that there was a need to cut carbon emissions to tackle it.

"It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.

"We know there's a physical effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to higher temperatures, that's a question of physics; we know CO2 concentrations are at their highest for 6,000 years; we know there are observed increases in temperatures; and we know there are observed effects that point to the existence of human-made climate change. That's what the vast majority of scientists tell us."

Read the rest of this post...