Street baller like the Rucker:
— “In fact, Boston real estate agents routinely advise young professionals and families to move to Charlestown, citing its safety.”
— Union members not so hot on voting Democratic in November.
— Possible replacements for Michelle Rhee.
— Henry Farrell on the EU’s troubles.
— Health care reform in Alberta.
— Car commuters who’ve tried congestion pricing seem to like it.
For Yom Kippur, The Clipse “Mama I’m So Sorry”.
Radical deniers of global warming science are measuring the drapes in the U.S. Capitol, planning to strip seats from supporters of President Obama’s efforts to stem greenhouse gas pollution. Exclusive analysis from the Wonk Room has identified the top Senate and House races that pit science versus snake oil this November. Meet the fossil-fueled deniers, who call science “crap” in order to defend their “Drill Baby Drill” philosophy:
“While I think the earth is warming, I don’t think that man-made causes are the primary factor.” — Ken Buck (CO-SEN) [KBDI-TV, 3/10]
“I think we ought to take a look at whatever the group is that measures all this, the IPCC, they don’t even believe the crap.” — Steve Pearce (NM-2) [Politico, 8/18/10]
“I don’t, however, buy into the whole … man-caused global warming, man-caused climate change mantra of the left. I believe that there’s not sound science to back that up.” — Sharron Angle (NV-SEN) [Climatewire, 5/26/10]
“Global warming is more a religion than a science.” — David Harmer (CA-11) [Halfway to Concord, 9/25/09]
“It’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time.” — Ron Johnson (WI-SEN) [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 8/19/10]
Seven key climate races in the Senate (with the 538.com estimated likelihood of a Republican pickup):
(92%) PA: Joe Sestak v. Pat Toomey
(72%) CO: Michael Bennet v. Ken Buck
(52%) NV: Harry Reid v. Sharron Angle
(42%) CA: Barbara Boxer v. Carly Fiorina
(33%) WI: Russ Feingold v. Ron Johnson
(30%) WA: Patty Murray v. Dino Rossi
(20% Democratic pickup) NH: Paul Hodes v. Kelly Ayotte
Eight key climate races in the House:
(76%) NM-2: Harry Teague v Steve Pearce
(63%) IA-3: Leonard Boswell v Brad Zaun
(63%) IL-14: Bill Foster v Randy Hultgren
(62%) CA-11: Jerry McNerney v David Harmer
(58%) IN-9: Baron Hill v Todd Young
(43%) FL-22: Ron Klein v Allen West
(26%) NM-1: Martin Heinrich v Jon Barela
(26%) IL-17: Phil Hare v Bobby Schilling
As a bit of counter-contrarianism to some of this blog’s recent content, let me say that one thing emerges when you meld the AFT’s massive expenditures on the DC mayor’s race with an awareness of the nefarious antics of the locksmith’s association, the tour guide guild, and the barber’s cartel is a realization that the standard center-left critique of teacher’s unions is almost 100 percent off-base.
The simple fact of the matter is that in a democracy there’s no way to prevent a bunch of people in the same line of work from forming an association to advocate on their behalf. This is especially true when you’re talking about a bunch of college-educated professionals. The American Medical Association isn’t a “union,” but it sure has done a whole bunch of stuff over the years to shape public policy in a way that’s contrary to the public interest. And in general if you look at why teachers have clout it’s for the same reasons that every other professional association has clout—it’s an organized interest that can intervene in the political system. If DC teachers get their way over the next four years it won’t be because they hold a strike, it’ll be because they helped get a sympathetic mayor elected.
And if you look at America’s “right to work” states, this is just what you see. There are still professional associations of teachers and the still lobby for stuff that they think is good for teachers and that stuff isn’t always in the public interest.
The real impact of teachers being in a union I think is that in addition to whatever teacher-specific stuff they do they also partake of the broader union consciousness. American labor unions do things that are idiosyncratic to the industry they’re in, but they’re also the cornerstones of middle class political advocacy. They stand up against cuts in Social Security benefits and they push for tough financial regulatory control. They were at the core of the coalition pushing for universal health care, and tried in vain to push the United States to adopt sensible climate legislation. You don’t see the American Medical Association or the Associated Locksmiths of America or many of the million other similar outfits doing that stuff.
U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez
Louis Caldera, former Director of the White House Military Office and United States Secretary of the Army, stated:
The DREAM Act will materially expand the pool of individuals qualified, ready and willing to serve their country in uniform. Of the 50,000 youth coming of age every year in the terrible predicament of being ineligible to work, enlist, or receive federal financial aid to attend college, many of those are not yet ready to pursue full time education. Military service is a highly appealing way to better themselves, give back to their country and earn their residency and eventually citizenship. I have no doubt many of these enlistees will be among the best soldiers in our Army.
Major General Alfred Valenzuela echoed Caldera’s call to action:
I’ve seen the sacrifice that these immigrant men and women make to this country. They come here with the dream of becoming citizens and sign up to die for the country they call home but yet are never granted citizenship. We should pass the DREAM Act so that those individuals willing to give their lives to the U.S. can also be called citizens of the U.S.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police Corps Margaret Stock reiterated her support of DREAM Act legislation:
Passage of the DREAM Act would directly benefit American national defense by enlarging the pool of highly qualified, US-educated ‘green card’ recruits for the US Armed Forces. Rather than having these US-educated young people sent back to countries they can’t remember–where they will no doubt be forced to serve in foreign militaries and other foreign organizations–they can put their talents to use for the benefit of the American people and the All Volunteer Force.
Valenzuela pointed to the moving story of Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez in an effort to highlight the desperate need for immigration reform. Gutierrez was one of the first U.S. servicemen killed in combat in Iraq. However, he was not a citizen of the country he died for. At the age of 14, Gutierrez made the 2,000-mile journey from Guatemala City to the U.S. Like many of the undocumented immigrants that politicians deride and demonize, Gutierrez hopped 14 freight trains to get through Mexico and was detained by immigration authorities. Because his parents were no longer alive, Gutierrez was made a ward of Los Angeles Juvenile Court and received permanent residency when he was 18. His foster sister stated that he “wanted to give the United States what the United States gave to him. He came with nothing. This country gave him everything.” Valenzuela presided over his funeral.
Today’s call also highlighted the stories of Caesar Vargas and Carlos Saavedra, two young men who want to give back to the U.S. by serving in the military, but can’t because they are undocumented. “Whether it is serving in the military as a JAG officer or serving in the front line as an intelligence officer to lead Marines, who themselves may be DREAMers, I want to earn my place next to the great heroes of our nation that have and are fighting to defend the bedrock principles that are embedded in our Constitution,” stated Vargas.
Newly-released data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows “that the fraction of Americans living in poverty rose sharply to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008—the highest since 1994.” With 43.6 million Americans in poverty, it’s important for progressives to look to policies that can alleviate the country’s poverty problem.
Looking to the Census data, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’s (CBPP) Arloc Sherman discovers one of these policies. Sherman finds that unemployment insurance kept 3.3 million Americans out of poverty in 2009:
An exclusive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the new survey data shows that unemployment insurance benefits — which expanded substantially last year in response to the increased need — kept 3.3 million people out of poverty in 2009.
In other words, there were 43.6 million Americans whose families were below the poverty line in 2009, according to the official poverty statistics, which count jobless benefits as part of families’ income. But if you don’t count jobless benefits, 46.9 million Americans were poor.
CBPP illustrates this number through a chart it created:
As ThinkProgress has documented, conservatives have done everything they can to delay extensions of unemployment benefits. Republicans in the Senate have repeatedly locked arms to block extending the benefits for unemployed Americans, putting the wellbeing of jobless people in peril. And as the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes, a major chunk of 2009′s unemployment benefits were funded by the stimulus bill, which “House Republicans unanimously opposed.”
Conservatives have also demonized Americans — who, in the midst of recession are unable to find decent work — who receive unemployment insurance. NV GOP Senate candidate called the recipients of jobless benefits “spoiled,” former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich complained that “welfare” was keeping Americans from wanting to seek work, and conservative TV personality and Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein said the unemployed in need of benefits are “unpleasant people…who do not know how to do a day’s work.”
Dismemberment Plan put tickets for its reunion shows on sale today and to the surprise of nobody at all, they sold out quickly. But I do think we should view it as at least a little bit surprising that we’re unsurprised by this:
After all, if you’re selling your tickets at a flat rate then a sellout means your tickets were too cheap. Of course leaving some tickets unsold is also inefficient, but it’s less inefficient than leaving customers unserved. Shortages are bad, and can be solved with higher prices. Bands and venues leaving surplus on the table mostly benefits scalpers and is part of how Ticketmaster is able to be so effective at extracting rents. It seems like the optimal strategy in the Internet era is some kind of option. Have an auction window in which everyone who wants to see Dismemberment Plan submits how much money they’re willing to pay. Then you accept the X highest bids, using a lottery if necessary to allocate spots at the low end.
The most plausible account I’ve heard is that the overall experience is better if you have some younger/poorer people in the audience and you’re making sure it’s “real fans” who are super-excited and not just random rich people. I’m not really sure how plausible this is—I think anyone willing to pay a lot of money to go see the Dismemberment Plan is probably a real fan, albeit possibly a real fan who makes a lot of money—but if it’s right then it’s really just an argument for segregated out 10-20% of the ticket pool and allocating it some other way. You could reserve discount tickets and sell them on-site exclusively at the day of the show, so only people with the commitment to wait on line can get them. The worry here would be that the real beneficiaries would be scalpers, but that same worry exists with the current arbitrary rationing scheme.
Nobody wants to be the jerk arguing for higher prices, but it seems to me that said higher prices would enhance consumer welfare. Beyond that, music fans should be eager for bands to find ways to make more money off of touring. The traditional copyright-based method of earning money by selling records doesn’t have a very bright future, but it continues to be the case that people are willing to spend good money to see their favorite bands play live. It would be a better world if the bands were more willing to take all that money instead of giving it away to middlemen.
At today’s Values Voter Summit, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) invoked the constitution to substantiate his support for retaining the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. “You don’t have a constitutional right to serve in the military. That’s a special society. You give us some of your constitutional rights when you do it,” Inhofe argued, in what could be interpreted as a rebuttal to Judge Phillip’s recent ruling in California. She found that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unconstitutional because it violated the document’s protections of free speech and due process, but Inhofe countered that these things don’t necessarily apply to the military. As Gen. McCarthy demonstrated, soldiers give up certain rights when they enter the armed forces and the institution does not have to abide by the same rules as civil society. It can and does discriminate.
Proponents of repealing DADT and Judge Phillips maintain that discriminating against gay people would actually undermine the military’s unique mission and today — on Constitution day — The Brookings Institute’s Peter Singer adds another historical layer to adds a historical point to the debate:
Just a generation ago, in the era of the draft, military service was viewed as something different. It was framed not so much as part of a discussion of political rights, but as an obligation of citizenship, a duty necessary to protect rights. In turn, going back further to the founding days of the republic, both the idea of draft, and, in turn, the idea of a professionalized force, were both anathema to many of the same writers and signers of the document. The debate over whether America should have a militia or professional Army or Navy were key point of contention during the first few presidential administrations, especially in the Jeffersonian years.
Singer argues that the nation must find a balance between protecting minority rights (Phillips’ perspective) and ensuring that the military can fulfill its mission of fighting for a common defense (Inhofe’s concerns) — a mission that’s only compromised when the Pentagon dismisses qualified, eager to serve soldiers from the military for being gay.
As he concludes, “hopefully, in the coming weeks, this is how the long overdue end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will play out, not forced by a court decision, nor once again delayed by all the horrible things Congress now suffers from not mentioned in the Constitution – poisonous partisan politics, filibusters and so forth. Rather, it will hopefully come through what the Founding Fathers hoped we would be able to achieve in the 223 years since they signed the document, a democratic process mature enough to deliberate and implement in a way that both establishes justice and ensures for the common defense.”
Part of the GOP’s election strategy this year has been to try to claim that it is the Party of fiscal conservatism. As part of that campaign, Republicans regularly repeat the mantra that in order to get the deficit under control, the federal government needs to “cut spending” (despite also calling for $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy that aren’t paid for). They argue that if they were in control of government they would do just that. But all too often, when asked what spending cuts they would enact, Republicans don’t have an answer.
Yesterday on ABC’s Top Line, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) offered an example of the GOP’s obfuscation. Calling for extending all the Bush tax cuts, Gregg said, “The issue right now is the profligate spending of this Congress and this Presidency.” But when Gregg was asked for specific cuts, he couldn’t offer any:
HOST: Help us square this then. The increase in the deficit by extending the tax cuts, seems to me there’s not enough spending cuts that can be made to make up for the deficit that we’re continuing to build up.
GREGG: We’re building the deficit because of the spending, that’s where the deficit is coming from…that massive explosion of spending is where the problem is. It’s not on the revenue side, it’s on the spending side. So why put in all this additional spending. Why don’t you just starting cutting spending first because that is where the problem is.
Similarly, CNBC host Larry Kudlow asked GOP U.S. Senate candidate in California Carly Fiornia what she would cut. All she could muster was bringing spending back to 2008 levels. Another CNBC host asked Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) last month what he would cut. “We’ve got spending to cut in the short term what we’ve got is a huge problem in the long term,” said Cantor, who repeatedly couldn’t give an answer on what he would cut when pressed by the host.
And in March, ThinkProgress asked Rep. John Boozman (R-AR) repeatedly what he would cut in order to reduce federal spending and he couldn’t identify any specifics. Watch the video compilation:
Other Republicans have tried to answer this question but have come up a bit short. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said in July that he would “would rescind the unspent stimulus funds,” which at the time, meant that he would do away with $55 billion in middle class tax cuts. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MI) suggested eliminating the Affordable Care Act, thinking it would save $1 trillion, but it would actually increase the deficit by $143 billion.
For those of you just joining us, the first entry and discussion in this series appear here. Max Gladstone, who had a provocative comment about craft and the knowledge authors provide their readers, has continued that thought here. The rules are the same: spoilers below the jump, but please don’t try to spoil beyond Part II for those who haven’t gotten that far yet. I finished the book this weekend because I got curious and anxious and raced through it, but I’ll be abiding by those same rules in my writing.
In college, I majored in something slightly ridiculous called the Special Program in the Humanities. I mention this because I think it explains a great deal of the way I approach art and criticism. Essentially, it meant majoring in great books, but in practice, it meant mashing up philosophy, art, literature, history, and religion. I took classes on the philosophy of architecture (Karsten Harries, if you’re out there somewhere, you were a huge influence), the art, literature, film and music of the Spanish Civil War, Christian mysticism, medieval Spain, the aesthetics of resistance, writing classes. I wrote my senior thesis on the aesthetics of the Devil in Athanasius’s Life of St. Anthony and Milton’s Paradise Lost with particular attention to the political strategies of both men in the Arian heresy and the English Civil War and Restoration. All of which is to say I am in love with art that brews a powerful liquor of religion, politics, art, anger and joy.
And so in some ways, this section felt written especially for me. In its narration of New Crobuzon’s religions and a few particular subcultures, Part II is both an artistic statement and an argument for why we should care about why the city survives, much less thrives.
For me, much of that argument comes in the form of Mieville’s rather charming explication of New Crobuzon’s religions. It’s fascinating, as Chris pointed out in a comment on the first post, that Mieville is a Trotskyite and a historical materialist, but that his main character, Isaac, the man who believes that “flight was a secular, profane thing: simply a passage from one part of New Crobuzon to another. He was cheered by this. He was a scientist, not a mystic,” that flight “was not an escape to a better place” (that language could easily be metaphysical or literal) is beguiled by the idea of at least one religion:
Palgolak was a god of knowledge. He was depicted either as a fat, squat human reading in a bath, or a svelte vodyanoi doing the same, or mystically, both at once. His congregation were human and vodyanoi in roughly equal proportions. He was an amiable, pleasant deity, a sage whose existence was entirely devoted to the collection, categorization, and dissemination of information. Isaac worshipped no gods…Even he, though, had a soft spot for Palgolak. He rather hoped the fat bastard did exist, in some form or other. Isaac liked the idea of an inter-aspectual entity so enamored with knowledge that it just roamed from realm to realm in a bath, murmuring with interest at everything it came across.
I also think the fundamental mysticism of the city, however unmystical both Isaac and Mieville are, is fascinating. The very first sentence of this section, ”New Crobuzon was a city unconvinced by gravity,” suggests simultaneously its irrationality and its potential. Mieville tells us that ”the architect had been incarcerated, quite mad, seven years after Perdido Street was completed. He was a heretic, it was said, intent on building his own god.” But is he mad for believing there’s something otherworldly about his creation? Or are the city authorities?
These glimpses are only part of what we get in this chapter: the world’s expanding socially, too. Most importantly for me, at least, we get to meet Derkhan Blueday, a radical journalist and art critic who is friends with both Isaac and his khepri artist lover Lin. I don’t actually think that Mieville’s description of a bohemian artist community and radical movement are particularly insightful or creative, or that his decision to situate his characters among them is a novel choice. If you’re going to give your readers educated outcasts as your main characters, or educated outcasts to hang out with and rebel via, artists and journalists are relatively logical choices in any large urban society setting. And it’s not that exceptional to have them do something sort of ironically, like go to a carnival and visit a freakshow (these folks are protohipsters, just enhanced with magic).
But the reason Derkhan works for me and appeals to me is that I think she’s an effective surrogate for Mieville’s artistic project, and in a way, a more articulate speaker for the things he’s attempting than the book itself always is. This passage, in which Derkhan and Isaac discover that the garuda they thought they were going to find in the freakshow is actually a man magically and scientifically crafted into an eagle, feathers inserted under his skin and rotting wings inextricably fused to his back through a process called Remaking, which is a major element of the novel, stood out to me in particular:
“I’m an art critic, Isaac,” Derkhan said eventually. “Remaking’s art, you know. Sick art. The imagination it takes. I’ve seen Remade crawling under the weight of huge spiral iron shells they retreat into at night. Snail-women. I’ve seen them with big squid tentacles where their arms were, standing in river mud, plunging their suckers underwater to pull out fish. And as for the ones made for the gladiatorial shows…! Not that they admit what that’s what they’re for. Remaking’s creativity gone bad. Gone rotten. Gone rancid. I remember you once asked me if it was hard to balance writing about art and writing for RR.” She turned to look at him as they paced through the fair. “It’s the same thing, Isaac. Art’s something you choose to make…it’s a bringing together of…everything around you into something that makes you more human, more khepri, whatever. More of a person. Even with Remaking a germ of that survives. That’s why the same people who despise the Remade are in awe of Jack Half-a-Prayer, whether or not he exists. I don’t want to live in a city where Remaking is the highest art.”
If you want to understand what specifically happened to cause the financial crisis of 2007-2008 (which I regard as somewhat distinct from what caused the super-gigantic depression of 2008-2009), your best guide is Gary Gorton’s Slapped by the Invisible Hand. It’s not the most entertaining book about the panic, or the most thematically ambitious, but it’s clear, to the point, and convincing.
It was also a book that made me pessimistic about the Dodd-Frank bill’s ability to actually prevent a new crisis, as opposed to merely cleaning the crisis up better. But Gorton’s new paper with Andrew Metrick “Regulating the Shadow Banking System” indicates that there may be a new hope. First note what the bill does do on this subject:
Dodd-Frank includes many provisions relevant to shadow banking; for example, hedge funds must now register with the SEC, much of the over-the-counter derivatives trading will be moved to exchanges and clearinghouses, and all systemically important institutions will be regulated by the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, “shadow” lenders in retail finance will now be subject to consistent federal-level regulation though the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau housed within the Federal Reserve.
None of that, though, really gets at the core of the shadow banking problem. But there’s more! Specifically:
[T]he law did create a council of regulators with significant authority power to identify and manage systemic risks. Financial Stability Oversight Council has the power to recommend significant changes to regulation, if such changes are deemed necessary for financial stability.
That’s followed by a footnote:
This power—crucial for the future regulation of shadow banking—is given in Section 120 of the Dodd-Frank Law. While new regulations cannot exceed current statutory authority, this authority would still allow for significant new regulation of MMMFs, repo, and securitization without the need for new legislation.
Regulatory discretion to the rescue, in other words. But only if the regulators exercise their discretion correctly. Which is a reminder that it’s pretty important for people to keep paying attention to the financial regulation issue even now that the bill is passed. There’s going to be an extended rule-writing process whose outcome can be decisive to the success or failure of the whole enterprise.
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