I haven’t read Freedom, but I did follow SEK and Scott Lemieux’s discussion over at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the novel. And I was struck by Scott’s observation by how the advance coronation of the novel interfered with his reading of it: “once you’ve abandoned the idea that Freedom is a Masterpiece of American Literachoor, it can be enjoyed as an engaging if very uneven minor novel.”
I think the search for a Masterpiece of American Literature, or more specifically, the Great American Novel, is generally amusing. The idea that we have the judgement and foresight to know greatness when we see it, and to predict the longevity of any single work into the ages, is patently sort of silly. We can know if we respond to literature, if we think it’s strong, but absent some sort of Harry Potter-like phenomenon, we can’t know if something is important at the level of the culture. And even with a phenomenon like Potter, we just can’t be sure that something will last beyond our lifetimes.
But more importantly, I tend to think America is too big for the Great American Novel to exist. Maybe the country was small enough once, though the divisions between New England, the South, and the mid-Atlantic were always considerable. America’s essence is in its sprawl, its ungovernableness, its quarrelsome and competitive diversity, its flux and evolution. We can have a Great American Library. But any Great American Novel is bound for obsoleteness, for incompleteness.
New Year’s Weight Loss Advice
It’s come to my attention that many people make New Year’s resolutions to lose weight. I didn’t do that in 2010, but I did weigh almost 250 pounds on March 1, 2010 and this morning I weighed 180 pounds which goes to show that it’s possible to lose weight. So I thought this might be an opportune day to share some advice.
Bachmann And Ron Paul Liken Insurance Mandate To Forcing Americans Into Harry Potter Movie
The Hill’s Jason Millman points out that “House Republicans, including Tea Party favorites Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Ron Paul (Texas)” have filed an amicus brief urging the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn U.S. District Court Judge George Steeh’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the individual mandate provision in the Affordable Care Act. In October, Steeh was the first of two federal judges “to rule that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to require individuals to purchase health insurance.” The lawmakers’ brief claims that if the federal government can force Americans to purchase health insurance coverage, it “would have the power to force citizens to engage in any activity that might conceivably affect commerce in some way” — including seeing the new Harry Potter movie:
The same logic can be used to justify virtually any other mandate Congress might care to impose—even a mandate requiring everyone to see the most recent Harry Potter movie. After all, just about everyone participates in the market for entertainment. Choosing not to go to the movies is just “an economic decision to try to pay for [other entertainment] services later.” Id. Health insurance is undoubtedly an important good. But it has no unique characteristics that transform failure to purchase it into an “economic activity.”
The difference, of course, is quote stark. We don’t have to see movies in the same way that we need access to quality health care. Not seeing Potter won’t kill you, skipping a doctor’s visit might. Entertainment costs also don’t create any kind of cost-shift and are not something we finance through insurance because movies are a predictable expense that are paid for in relatively small installments.
Health care costs, on the other hand, come at you out of the blue and can be enormous. While a young person may choose to forgo coverage in their 20s, eventually she or he will become sick and will need medical attention. Without the mandate, that individual will either be denied coverage because she or he is too sick (remember, if you lose the mandate, the insurance regulations go with it ) or they’ll be priced out of the market. A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million adults — or 36 percent of those who applied for coverage in the individual market — were denied insurance “because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years.” Left uninsured, those 12 million Americans will skip critical doctor visits or avoid treatment, allowing a small medical problem to become a chronic medical condition in need of medical attention. If she or he doesn’t have health insurance, the costs of care are shifted throughout the system – picked up by the government and private premium payers.
Incoming House Energy chair Fred Upton flip-flops: “I dont think we have to regulate carbon”
Fox News of all places calls out Rep. Upton (R-MI) for his flip-flop, as ThinkProgress reports in this cross-post (with video):
Allen West: Obama Should Put His Life On The Line When He Visits Afghanistan
The New York Times magazine interviewed Rep. Allen West (R-FL) last week and asked West if he considers President Obama to be “a good leader.” “Not really,” West replied. The Florida congressman then went on to explain his reasoning — that Obama is weak because his recent trip to Afghanistan was shrouded in secrecy:
NYT: Do you think those in the military respect him?
WEST: I don’t know, you gotta ask guys in the military, but I will tell you this: I think that going in in the middle of the night doesn’t show leadership.
NYT: Are you referring to that recent three-hour trip to a base in Afghanistan? He needs to consider his own safety, doesn’t he?
WEST: Leaders lead by example, and if I’m asking my young men and women to go out there and put their lives on the line, I should be willing and able to do the exact same thing. As I told my soldiers when I was commander in Iraqin 2003, the most expendable person in our battalion was me.
So it seems as if West thinks that, in order for Obama to be deemed a good leader, he either needs to fly into a battlefield in Afghanistan during broad daylight or perhaps even pick up a rifle and join the fight.
Obama did make a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan last month, but he didn’t arrive “in the middle of the night” as West claimed. But Obama is, of course, the President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military, thus his trip was indeed “wrapped in a tight cocoon of secrecy and security,” as were recent visits to Afghanistan by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus’ trip to Pakistan last year.
As the Times noted, President Bush traveled to Iraq under a veil of secrecy to visit troops for Thanksgiving in 2003 and made three other visits to Iraq and Afghanistan throughout his presidency that weren’t broadcast to the public for security reasons. When asked about Bush’s secret trips, West dodged. “I’m not saying that’s right, either,” adding, “I’m saying that my understanding of leadership is a little bit different. Leadership is about being a servant first.”
Pending Commercial Real Estate Doom
There’s an organization with a floor in the same building as CAP/AF called the “Institute for International Finance” and I sometimes wonder what it is they do. According to Gillian Tett they release alarming reports about commercial real estate. She starts with the observation that there’s been a lot of “extend and pretend” in the CRE world and continues:
[L]ook at some numbers compiled by the Institute of International Finance, the Washington-based banking lobby group. The IIF calculates that in March 2008, there was about $25bn worth of pre-crisis investment grade commercial real estate in distress. By March this year, however, that number had exploded to $375bn (and has probably swelled since).
Thus far, the banks have “dealt with potential delinquency problems in part by extending loans until 2011-13”, the IIF notes. Or, in layman’s terms, they have swept it under the carpet. But while this avoided defaults, the IIF reckons that about $1,400bn of CRE loans must be refinanced before 2014. Alarmingly, “nearly half of these are at present ‘underwater’, ie have mortgages in excess of the current value of the property”, it adds.
What’s more, while homeowners have been subjected to major moral suasion campaigns to get them to avoid strategic defaults, commercial property is owned by rich businessmen who’ll be expected to act like rich businessmen and try to maximize profits. The big losers here are likely to be European banks, as well as America’s gigantic “small banks” sector. Of course if we get adequate action to try to push growth back up we may be able to mitigate some of this.
Ryan Plans To Use Unprecendented New Budget Power To Propose Cutting Popular, Important Programs
As various parties pointed out last week, the new House rules proposed by the incoming Republican majority would endow House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) with what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities characterized as “stunning and unprecedented” new powers to set federal spending limits that are binding on the House. As David Dayen explained, the rule change is “really a way for a budget resolution to pass without anyone having to take a vote on it,” and then House appropriators will be bound by whatever spending level Ryan thinks is appropriate.
It seemed likely that Ryan’s first step would be to embrace the spending limit set out in the House GOP’s “Pledge to America,” which calls for immediately reducing non-defense discretionary spending to the 2008 level. In a statement, Ryan has now confirmed his plan is exactly that:
When we get those projections, as outlined in the House Republicans’ Pledge to America, I plan to file a discretionary spending limit that would take non-security spending back to its pre-bailout, pre-stimulus spending levels. Other Federal spending and revenue levels will be established as outlined in the Congressional Budget Office’s forthcoming baseline, with the adjustments provided in the Rules package to prevent taxes from rising and to make possible a repeal of the costly health care overhaul.
The second half of Ryan’s pronouncement is a sneaky way of saying that the new rules exempt repeal of the Affordable Care Act from the budget restraints, since repealing the Affordable Care Act will actually increase the deficit.
As I’ve explained quite a few times, a literal reduction in all programs to the 2008 level is going to take a huge chunk out of vital and popular programs and agencies like Pell Grants, federal highway funding, the National Park Service, federal education funding, cancer research, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI. And every exemption that the GOP offers means that a larger chunk must be taken out of everything else to get total spending to the arbitrary 2008 level.
Of course, no matter what cockamamie scheme the House GOP adopts to empower Ryan as budget overlord, the Senate can’t be bound by House rules. Thus, anything that the House passes will still be subject to negotiations with the Senate. But still, the new rules would leave the House Budget process in the hands of a lawmaker whose ideal budget privatizes Social Security and Medicare, and reduces taxes on the richest 10 percent of households while raising them for the other 90 percent.
RNC Candidates: Marriage Is ‘Foundational In Our Lives,’ But Gay People Should Be Excluded
During today’s RNC debate, all four candidates vying to replace current RNC Chairman Michael Steele reiterated their opposition to expanding marriage rights to gay and lesbian people, insisting that marriage can only be defined as a union between one man and one woman. The frontrunners for the position — Steele and Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus — also walked a tight rope of sorts, arguing that while marriage formed the foundation of American society, culture and history, excluding gay people from that all-important institution did not deny “dignity” to the LGBT community:
– MICHAEL STEELE: “It’s foundational to who we are as a nation, how we define ourselves as people…not to the exclusion of others, not to diminish anyone’s individuality, but to say in a very supportive way that the family unit, the family concept, is an ideal that we aspire to.”
– REINCE PRIEBUS: “It’s foundational in our lives… I don’t believe anybody should be denied dignity in this discussion, everyone should be loved. But at the end of the day, I believe that marriage — through the sanctity of marriage — should be between one man and one woman.”
– ANN WAGNER: “It is the true fabric of our society.”
– SAUL ANUZIS: “I think very straight forwardly, marriage is both a religious and a cultural institution that has existed for over 2,000 years…I think that our both belief in our kind of activity to promote marriage and promote the nuclear family is an important distinction that we have in America versus almost every other country in the world.”
– MARIA CINO: “I believe in traditional family.”
Watch it:
Public support for marriage equality is growing, however, despite the Republican party’s strong stance on the issue. Five states and the District of Columbia have expanded marriage to gay people and support for marriage has exceeded the 50 percent mark in at least 17 states. An AP-National Constitution Center Poll from September also found that 52% of Americans believe that the federal government should “give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex.”
As Vice President Joe Biden said late last month, “the country is evolving.” “I think there’s an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage,” he predicted. President Obama, however, still has not said that he supports same-sex marriages.
RNC Candidates: Marriage Is ‘Foundational In Our Lives,’ But Gay People Should Be Excluded
During today’s RNC debate, all four candidates vying to replace current RNC Chairman Michael Steele reiterated their opposition to expanding marriage rights to gay and lesbian people, insisting that marriage can only be defined as a union between one man and one woman. The frontrunners for the position — Steele and Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus — also walked a tight rope of sorts, arguing that while marriage formed the foundation of American society, culture and history, excluding gay people from that all-important institution did not deny “dignity” to the LGBT community:
– MICHAEL STEELE: “It’s foundational to who we are as a nation, how we define ourselves as people…not to the exclusion of others, not to diminish anyone’s individuality, but to say in a very supportive way that the family unit, the family concept, is an ideal that we aspire to.”
– REINCE PRIEBUS: “It’s foundational in our lives… I don’t believe anybody should be denied dignity in this discussion, everyone should be loved. But at the end of the day, I believe that marriage — through the sanctity of marriage — should be between one man and one woman.”
– ANN WAGNER: “It is the true fabric of our society.”
– SAUL ANUZIS: “I think very straight forwardly, marriage is both a religious and a cultural institution that has existed for over 2,000 years…I think that our both belief in our kind of activity to promote marriage and promote the nuclear family is an important distinction that we have in America versus almost every other country in the world.”
– MARIA CINO: “I believe in traditional family.”
Watch it:
Public support for marriage equality is growing, however, despite the Republican party’s strong stance on the issue. Five states and the District of Columbia have expanded marriage to gay people and support for marriage has exceeded the 50 percent mark in at least 17 states. An AP-National Constitution Center Poll from September also found that 52% of Americans believe that the federal government should “give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex.”
As Vice President Joe Biden said late last month, “the country is evolving.” “I think there’s an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage,” he predicted. President Obama, however, still has not said that he supports same-sex marriages.
Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.
Peak Oil
In the requests thread, a number of people wanted me to comment on “peak oil.” The main thing I have to say about this is that I don’t totally grasp the alleged significance of reaching a global production peak. It seems to me that to generate the conclusion of big time oil price spikes you only need the assumption that oil production will grow at a persistently slower rate than the world economy.
That seems to me to basically describe our current situation. I think there’s insufficient attention paid to the possibility that if the US/EU/Japan were to return to anything resembling full employment the response would be a giant oil price spike leading to a new recessionary contraction in highly oil dependent economies (i.e., the USA).
You’ve always got to distinguish, though, between shorter-term and longer-term impacts. The technology exists right now to build automobiles that are radically more fuel efficient than the average car on the road today in the USA. Oftentimes this technology is known as “buy a lighter vehicle” to say nothing of hybrids, etc. Cars are expensive, so in the short-term a price spike just leads to hardship and recession. But in the medium-term persistent high prices will lead to more efficient vehicles and in the longer-term persistent high prices will lead to even more R&D on electric cars. So in the long-run, you could say I’m an optimist about resource scarcity. What I’m a pessimistic about is air travel, which seems much more doomed than people generally realize.
What I’m also a pessimist about is climate change. The “easiest”/laziest policy response to persistently high oil prices is to freeze in place all our current policies that explicitly or implicitly subsidize sprawl, car ownership, and car use and then slather a bunch of subsidies for electrification of the vehicle fleet on top of that, with the electricity provided by dirty coal-fired plants. Note that if your electrification subsidies spur sufficient increases in the demand for electricity, it’ll be possible to pair generous subsidies for renewable electricity with increased demand for coal, thus “solving” the political economy problem without really solving anything.
As you know, my preferred approach would be to instead attack this problem at the root—land use regulations that lead everything to be inefficiently far apart and that prevent the built environment to adapting to changes in objective economic conditions.
