Don't Just Stand There, Let's Get To It

Thomas Friedman wrote an op ed for the NYT recently that a friend, Deb, posted on Facebook. I'm glad she posted it, because it's a good read. In an even-handed piece advocating for a return to America making things, mixed with some independence from foreign influence ideas, but not the over simplistic ones you're used to hearing on the campaign trail, Friedman makes the case that we should push our economy green with a buildup to accompany the bailout:

Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let’s put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America. ... You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.

The Foreclosure "Crisis" Put Into Stark Detail

It's not that I've doubted the existence of the wave of foreclosures but sometimes it's hard to comprehend this as really being a crisis what with life seeming to go along as usual. The places we hear about being hard hit are far from my home and friends, so I don't see or hear about it first-hand. Aside from a couple of developments on which construction has seemed to freeze, there are no local signs of a problem.

This depressing news report (hat tip to Wonkette via Andrew Sullivan and others) and its images of foreclosed houses' contents being trashed really made it hit home for me. The video is worth watching, but not if you are having a bad day or want to cruise into the weekend on a high note.

Hamburgers and economics

It's good to see that the economic advisors to the McCain and Obama campaigns are focusing on the important things.

Best part:

GOOLSBEE: Wait -- when they came to a deal...
(LAUGHTER)
... John McCain wasn't there. John McCain was out to dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in Washington on a double date with his wife, Joe Lieberman and Joe Lieberman's wife. They were having a meal.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: What, does Obama eat at McDonald's every night or something?
(CROSSTALK)

GOOLSBEE: ... for a 3 a.m. phone call.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: You guys don't eat. Barack Obama hasn't eaten since the campaign started? Come on, Austan, get serious about this issue.
The bottom line is this...

GOOLSBEE: If you're having a meal where there are $35 hamburgers...
(LAUGHTER)
... and you get a 3 a.m. phone call, it's time to ask for a doggie bag and get back to work. That's what John McCain was not doing.

Best Response to Bailout Bust

No caption needed here, nicely done Barney Frank (the video is all setup for the first 43 seconds or so, then you get to the good stuff).

... meanwhile there's a whole other bailout going on

While lawmakers bartered over the terms and specifics of a proposed $700 billion bailout of the banking industry this week, a smaller bailout for the auto industry passed relatively quietly. Congress approved $25 billion (yes that's with a 'b') to help Detroit's big 3 auto makers retool their plants and finally come around to the green revolution the Toyotas and Hondas of the world started capitalizing on oh... almost a decade ago. Sweet.

Say it with me, powers that be, "Free Markets! Competition! Rah rah Rah!"

Oy!

Debates and Antics

There is a growing consensus in the blogosphere that the McCain campaign's announcement that they want to delay Friday night's debate is theater, and many are suggesting that it may be both bad theater and tactically foolish. As today unfolds it looks more and more likely that congressional representatives will come up with a compromise around the bailout plan, perhaps even before McCain can make it south to DC from his campaigning (Wait... wasn't his campaign "suspended" yesterday??) at the Clinton Global Initiative in NYC.

Wonkette throws my favorite wording onto this whole campaign theatrical fiasco in this post, where they link the debate delay suggestion to the McCain camp's hesitancy to allow Sarah Palin to do anything other than read directly off a teleprompter to crowds that have been pre-screened to be that perfect mix of 95.3% bible-thumping Republican and 4.7% cold-dead-hands-gun-gripping Republican. This snippet is 1/3 of their post, but you should really read the whole thing yourself:

"...and then once they’ve rescheduled the Palin/Biden debate, John McCain can pull another crazy stunt — announcing his own daughter is fake pregnant, maybe, or firing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or refusing to appear in public in anything but a glittering leotard — and everyone will forget all about this Palin nut and how she withers under intense questioning by Katie freaking Couric."

Views on the Bailout: Part 3

Thanks to Matt for starting up a quality series of posts related to the bailout. I found an editorial I wanted to post yesterday or the day before about the bailout, socialism, and hypocrisy but it took me a day to get it up here, so I'll add it as part 3 in this ongoing series. Thomas F. Schaller writes for the Baltimore Sun (and Salon.com) and in a rather scathing and brilliant bit of rhetoric (cause that's all we liberals really care about these days anyway) he give us the following:

To social conservatives, Darwinism is merely an unproven "theory" about how our species evolved. But "social Darwinism" is an ineluctable fact: The smart and hardworking prosper, while the stupid and lazy fail.

Yet notice how those same chest-thumping capitalists of talk radio and at the corporate-funded think tanks often fall silent in the face of fixed markets, no-bid contracts, bailouts and subsidies for the very corporations that demand less government oversight when things are going well, then turn to Washington when things go horribly wrong.

The hypocrisies abound.

Now, pointing out the hypocrisies involved here doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the question of whether or not bailing-out is an economic necessity, I suppose. Still, I think it does have a direct bearing on some of the particulars at stake this week as the congress weighs and negotiates what a bill may look like.

These issues bear into the picture on questions around executive pay and the need for oversight. This sort of governmental largess in terms of spending cannot be made without the possibility for oversight, to do so would be somewhere way beyond reckless. Again, Shaller puts it well when he says:

Those of us who work hard and pay our taxes are getting screwed. Our Christmas bonus this year? The privilege of covering the tab for greedy executives in the deregulated insurance and mortgage industries who scoff at safety nets for you but demand a safety trapeze for themselves.

Since it's looking more and more inevitable that we'll all be screwed by this to some degree, ie: the taxpayers will be footing something in the way of a bailout, let's at least have someone watching the ways in which this screwing is taking place to make sure it doesn't become slimy and despicable on top of how ridiculous (if perhaps necessary) it already is.

Views on the Bailout: Part 2

So here is a completely opposing view from Ron Paul, of Internet fame. This might surprise you, but he believes government intervention in the economy is a bad idea. Shocking right?

Here's an interesting tidbit:
Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.

This is a pretty classic conservative/libertarian/ federalist viewpoint. Well-intentioned(?) Senators in Washington pass legislation that warps the market and has unintended effects. There might be something there, but it would require a pretty massive study. Paul doesn't come close to making a real argument for that, but then it's just a piece on CNN, not really the place for Paul to get all Austrian on us.

I still think that Ron Paul may end up being the most influential candidate of this cycle... eventually.

Views on the Bailout: Part 1

Just to get it out of the way, I know pretty much nothing about the proposed bailout. I've read about it in the newspaper and heard people talking about it online, but my understanding of what's really going on is as superficial as Paris Hilton. But of course this is America and mere ignorance will not stop me from voicing my opinions, or, more accurately, repeating the opinions of smarter people.

The first opinion piece that I enjoyed is from the Times (London, not NY). It essentially argues that free-market concern about the bailout is misplaced. It's a well-written piece by someone who knows vastly more about the whole mess than I do and it is full of very British humour:

As Charles Goodhart said in the FT this week, the time to worry about moral hazard is in the boom. Worrying about moral hazard now is like “refusing to sell fire insurance just after the Great Fire of London for fear of adversely affecting future behaviour”.

I can't help but wonder, though, if it does not unfairly simplify some of the concerns that people have about the bailout. Moral hazard is surely one of the boogymen that has been invoked, but I suspect their are other legitimate worries. In any case, it is worth reading and will make for good conversation over the proverbial dinner table or water cooler.