Random Thoughts

Via Andrew Sullivan comes an article by Rich Moran that provides an elegant, brutal critique on the direction of the conservative movement:

Classic conservative principles are timeless; immutable tenets that have inspired great changes in government over the last 400 years and spoken passionately and plainly to the needs and hopes of ordinary people. Since the end of World War II, those classical principles have informed a  devastating critique of the welfare state, presenting a reasoned and logical alternative to statism and dependency. Conservatism has stood for human liberty based on the fundamental idea of natural law; that from his first breath, man is born free.

But conservatism has gone off the rails, becoming in some respects a parody of itself. A philosophy that is all about honoring and conserving tradition while allowing for change  that buttresses and supports important aspects of the past, has been hijacked by ideologues who brook no deviation from a dogma that limits rather than expands human freedom. Conservatism has become loud, obnoxious, closed-minded, and puerile, while its classical tradition of tolerance and hard-headed rationalism has been abandoned in favor of emotional jags and a vicious parochialism that eschews debate for “litmus tests” on ideological purity.

He concludes by saying:

Until conservatives can practice some painful introspection, looking with a self-critical eye at the reasons for the debacles of 2006 and 2008, most in the movement will continue to delude themselves that simply reaffirming conservative love of small government, low taxes, and less regulation will be enough to convince a majority of Americans that they recognize their shortcomings and have changed their tune. There must be a reckoning with those who violate the very nature of conservatism by obstinately adhering to exclusionary, anti-intellectual precepts that have thrown classical conservatism over in favor of ranting, ideological tantrums.

The anti-elite, anti-intellectualism displayed by broad swaths of the conservative movement during this last election worry me the most.  The idea that the majority of this country’s major problems can be solved by the application of a little common sense may play well on talk radio, but it is blatantly false and needs to be exposed as such.  Health care reform is hard.  Fixing our economy is hard.  Properly designing a program that will lead to true energy independence while not tanking our economy is hard.

Republicans pull together to recover their party.

All of these problems cry for the attention of experts, individuals who are smarter than you or I and who can properly design the innovative solutions these problems require.  Foreign relations similarly demands the attention of experts who can properly understand the countries we are dealing with so as to conduct negotiations in a manner that is to our advantage.  Basic government services — from putting criminals in jail to cleaning up after natural disasters — require competence much more than the application of a particular ideology.

These individuals are, or at least should be, elite.  They should be the best of the best.  For the conservative movement to turn its back on the people with ideas, to actively work to alienate such individuals and throw scorn upon those who devote hard work to solving hard problems, is rightly at the core of recent electoral failures.

Paul Krugman joins the chorus of, well, pretty everyone who claimed to know something about economics before this colossal mess came about:

What Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman — and a staunch defender of free markets — actually said was, “It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring.” I agree.

The case for nationalization rests on three observations.

First, some major banks are dangerously close to the edge — in fact, they would have failed already if investors didn’t expect the government to rescue them if necessary.

Second, banks must be rescued. The collapse of Lehman Brothers almost destroyed the world financial system, and we can’t risk letting much bigger institutions like Citigroup or Bank of America implode.

Third, while banks must be rescued, the U.S. government can’t afford, fiscally or politically, to bestow huge gifts on bank shareholders.

But here’s the thing: the funds needed to bring these banks fully back to life would greatly exceed what they’re currently worth. Citi and BofA have a combined market value of less than $30 billion… And if it’s basically putting up all the money, the government should get ownership in return.

Still, isn’t nationalization un-American? No, it’s as American as apple pie.

Lately the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been seizing banks it deems insolvent at the rate of about two a week. When the F.D.I.C. seizes a bank, it takes over the bank’s bad assets, pays off some of its debt, and resells the cleaned-up institution to private investors. And that’s exactly what advocates of temporary nationalization want to see happen, not just to the small banks the F.D.I.C. has been seizing, but to major banks that are similarly insolvent.

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Why not just go ahead and nationalize? Remember, the longer we live with zombie banks, the harder it will be to end the economic crisis.

The thing with finance is that there are experts. The trouble is that once something like this becomes major news, everyone and their mother develops an opinion.  As the din rises ever louder it becomes difficult to differentiate between those worth listening to and those simply seeking further their own pre-crash political agenda.

Xin Lu, over at Wisebread, does a good job explaning why the “Buy American” clause in the stimulus bill is such a poor idea:

So the logic is that if the stimulus spent as much as possible on American products then it would narrow the trade deficit and keep more jobs in America.  However, considering that the public works portion of the stimulus bill is only about $73 billion, I doubt it would make a dent in the trade deficit.   Instead, it is fueling a lot of anger in many trade partners for little gain.

The only people who think this is a good idea are the labor unions, who are working overtime to exact their pound of flesh in exchange for helping the Democrats get elected.  The CEO of Caterpillar, which as an American manufacturing firm is one of the potential benficiaries of this clause, came out against the Buy American provision in an Op-Ed piece published in the Chicago Tribune:

Caterpillar would like to sell U.S.-made products for infrastructure projects at home and abroad. But if the U.S. sends the message that regardless of value, countries should only buy locally produced products, Cat’s exports, as well as the U.S. jobs they support, will be hurt. In some of our Illinois factories, as much as 70 percent of what we make is sold overseas.

Why anyone thinks electing judges is a good idea is simply beyond me.  I understand the need for accountability, but the populace has a tough enough time understanding general political issues well enough to elect legislators — the task of understanding nuanced legal issues is often too much.  Besides, judges are supposed to act as a check against the other branches of government — enforcing the law even when it’s the exact opposite of what people are demanding.

Further complicating the problem is that being elected is messy business.  It requires money, and that money has to come from somewhere.  Witness the case of Don Blankenship, who inserted himself into a judicial re-election campaign when his company’s profits were on the line.

In 2004, he spent $3 million on tough advertisements attacking a justice of the State Supreme Court who was seeking re-election.

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Brent D. Benjamin [the judge Blankenship supported] won that election and went on to join the 3-to-2 majority that threw out a $50 million jury verdict against Mr. Blankenship’s company, Massey Energy.

As an added bonus it turns out Blankenship is a regular sleazeball, who turned to misleading dirty advertising to defeat Justice McGraw’s re-election campaign:

Some of the advertisements said the justice had agreed to free a reprehensible sex offender.

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Mr. Blankenship’s advertisements, which said Justice McGraw had released a pedophile, were rough and arguably misleading. They concerned a youth who had been sexually abused from the age of 7 by two adult family members and a teacher before going on, at the age of 14, to abuse a younger half-brother. The youth was released on probation soon after he turned 18.

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Mr. Blankenship cheerfully conceded that his real objection was to Justice McGraw’s rulings against corporate defendants. “Being the street fighter that I am,” he said, he had instructed his aides to find a decision that would enrage the public.

In 1998 Representative Grace Napolitano made a $150,000 loan to her own campaign.  This is a fairly common practice, and you may remember Hillary Clinton making similar loans to her own campaign.  It’s essentially a bet on your own success:  money may be hard to raise now while your victory in unsure, but once you win and become powerful donors will pop out of the woodwork with offers to help you retire your debt.

What’s unique about Napolitano’s loan is that she opted to charge her campaign an 18% interest rate on the loan.  Even more irregular is the fact that today, in 2009, she has yet to pay herself back:

During a decade in Congress, California Representative Grace Napolitano has pocketed more than $200,000 of political contributions by charging as much as 18 percent interest on money she loaned to her own campaign.

The suburban Los Angeles Democrat made the $150,000 loan in 1998, when she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Through Dec. 31, her campaign committee has used donations to pay Napolitano $221,780 of interest while reducing the principal by just $64,727, a review of her Federal Election Commission filings shows.

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Napolitano cut the interest charge to 10 percent in July 2006. As of Dec. 31, the campaign owed $85,273 of principal and $5,549 of unpaid interest, according to FEC filings.

Of course, this shouldn’t be terribly surprising.  As long as they’ve been tasked with dolling out public funds, congressmen have been searching for a way to personally profit for this public service.  Now that the restrictions on lobbying are a bit more stringent, innovation like Ms. Napolitano’s may become more common.

Via Swampland.

I’m sure we’ve all seen it — that famous visual of Obama that has become an icon of sorts among the faithful:

On the left you can see the photograph the image was created from.  Now certainly plenty of people had access to Photoshop and yet were unable to produce a similarly iconic creation, so they’re no denying that the artist in question, Shepard Fairey, deserved credit for his work.  Also deserving of credit, however, is the photographer who took the original photo.  Unfortunately Fairey didn’t even see fit to put in an honorable mention for the original photographer, who was notified sometime last month by a media organization that his photo had been identified as the original source for the graphic.

AP, being a content company and a for profit entity like most journalistic endeavors, became quite interested.  So they contacted Fairey, and made him an offer:

A.P. was in the middle of settlement discussions with Mr. Fairey’s attorney last week in order to resolve this amicably and made it clear that a settlement would benefit the A.P. Emergency Relief Fund, a charitable fund that supports A.P. journalists around the world who suffer personal loss from natural disasters and conflicts.

My Fairey responded by suing the AP.