Cogitamus

Ross Douthat, Will Wilkinson, and the Meaning of Life

Ross Douthat takes on Will Wilkinson (the callow versus the shallow?) in the online equivalent of a late night dorm bull session on whether life has and can have meaning in the absence of god.  Wilkinson posits that life must have meaning because it sure seems meaningful, Douthat finds this insufficiently intellectually robust (opting instead for meaning via thousands of year old stories told by ancient peoples, reduced to writing in non-contemporaneous accounts, and subject to subsequent random additions, deletions, and mistranslations via committee).  Douthat argues that it is of great consequence whether our life choices occur within C.S. Lewis's Christian Universe or Richard Dawkins' godless cosmos -- to which I say of course -- who wouldn't rather hang out with a talking Christ lion than some tendentious atheist? 

It's all very vigorous stuff -- hell, Wilkinson's appears on a site modestly called the "big think."  I always thought Camus to be the most concise of writers, but clearly he wasted a hundred or so pages in penning The Myth of Sisyphus.

Wilkinson's argument does have the classic superficiality one expects from libertarians -- sort of a "50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong" approach to life's meaning.  The fact that most people believe their lives are meaningful doesn't make it so -- anymore than the fact that a resounding majority of Americans believe in a personal Christian God makes Douthat's vision so.  These matters run a little deeper than a public opinion survey. 

Douthat is one of those people who, like Jennifer Fulwiler,  the atheist convert who prompted this exchange, cannot really imagine living a happy (and seemingly meaningful life) in a universe in which his special soul does not have the opportunity to exist forever.  Wilkinson, on the other hand, confronts the void with all of the aplomb of one of those obnoxious business gurus, encouraging "epistemic best practices."  After all, we live in an era where there is a lot of neat stuff to buy -- how could life be meaningless if there are all manner of Apple products to consume and flat screens have never been cheaper -- Wilkinson no doubt appreciates that, as Roy would put it, ours is truly an age of wonders.          

Fulwiler, who converted to Catholicism, is less than intellectually rigorous and seems to have been a bit of a mess psychologically (my Juris Doctor suggests that she may have had a bout with pretty severe post-partum depression prior to her conversion experience).  First, she conflates the absence of god to a universe in which people are in essence fleshy robots (some of us more fleshy than others) driven by random neuron firings.  We go from a world without god to one of complete biological determinism.  I don't think even the most annoying evolutionary biology types would go this far.  Second, she finds compelling the notion that "Jesus founded just one Church before he left the earth, and that he instilled it with supernatural power so that it would accurately articulate the truth about what is good -- and therefore about what is God -- for all times and places."  I find that this notion is a tough sell to your average hard-minded skeptic.  Lastly, she finds the Catholic Church's teaching against contraception to be logically compelling, indeed, "airtight," as she describes it.  (I'd suggest that she read Garry Wills Papal Sin to get a better sense, from a still devout Catholic, of just what a flimsy edifice this particular papal diktat is.)  As a result of this latter point, Fulwiler appears to have taken chances with her life and health by eschewing birth control.  Beware the zeal of the convert. 

Personally, I remain pretty comfortable with post-war existentialism.  We were born in the void and will surely die there too, but we can choose consciously to live our lives as though they are meaningful, we can revel in life's beauties and wonders, which are surely as real as death, and we can embrace solidarity with our equally doomed brethren with whom we share the planet for our short stay here.  We can make such limited life as we have more meaningful and more beautiful through our actions -- and that should be enough.  

Sunday Open Thread

 

"Mansion on the Hill" - The National

I really like this cover of the Springsteen song -- I heard it on an E Street Radio segment with the great name "Cover Me."

It was a busy holiday weekend with the boy back in town, the eating to excess, and a surprising amount of housework -- probably a strategic error given how unseasonably balmy it's been here -- it is 64 right now, which is really quite nice for November 27th.  We saw "The Descendants" and "My Week with Marilyn," both of which I quite liked and thought extremely well acted.  It is interesting to watch George Clooney make himself look more ordinary -- largely through body language and a less than flattering wardrobe.  Michelle Williams, on the other hand, is pretty successful transforming herself into the impossibly iconic Monroe.  We also rented a terrific English film on Friday night -- "Made in Dagenham" -- about a strike by women machinists at a Ford plant over the issue of getting pay equal to that enjoyed by men.  It's the kind of film that is almost never made in the U.S. anymore -- you'd have to go back to the era of "Norma Rae" or "Matewan" I guess to find anything comparable.  Anyway, it's well worth a look.

- Frank Bruni, who is proving to be an enormous waste of time on the NY Times Op-Ed pages, has a classic "both sides do it" piece, anticipatorily bemoaning the lies that will be slung in the upcoming presidential race.  Its initial focus is on Romney's deceptive ad in which Obama is said to be afraid to talk about the economy.  In the end, though, it is Obama who in Bruni's eyes, told a comparable lie about John McCain.  Well, other than the fact that the McCain campaign admitted that they did not really want to talk about the economy in the home stretch of the 2008 election.  It is, as always, completely equivalent on both sides. 

- It will be interesting to see if the endorsement by the notoriously right wing Manchester Union Leader is of any help to the Gingrich campaign.  Dave Weigel points out the mixed record that New Hampshire's largest newspaper has had over the last 35 years.  I feel like we are mired in the "phony war" phase of the GOP primary season right now -- I am anxious to see what happens when the lunatics actually start voting. 

Time to pay a few bills, walk Stanley and then settle down to watch the Patriots.

What's going on with all of you? 

Happy Thanksgiving and Open Thread

 

"Now be Thankful" - Richard and Linda Thompson

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I am feeling particularly thankful to not be traveling today or this weekend generally.

Sorry for the light posting -- work has been rather intense.  I hope that all of you have a splendid holiday.

I hope to post something of substance later today after the turkey hangover has subsided.  Right now I am being beckoned to perform domestic chores, so in the interest of promoting harmony I will sign off. 

What's going on with you?

Talking Points for Turkey Day

We are all oh-so-fond of the political discussions that seem to emerge when relatives and family friends of widely varying political views get together, aren't we?  (I'd donate $1000 to any legitimate charity right now if, in return, the good Lord would guarantee that every Thanksgiving dinner for the rest of my life would be politics-free.  And that would just be my opening bid.)

So, what do we say when the relatives spout crazy things they've heard from Fox?  Here's a few:

1) No, the crash wasn't caused by Barney (Frank), Fannie, Freddie, or the 1990s amendments to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. 

The real estate bubble was worldwide.  Not to mention, even here at home, it applied to high-end real estate as well as subprime, and commercial real estate as well as residential. 

2) Yes, the GOP really is sabotaging our economy, either intentionally or through stupidity.

Right now, we've got literally trillions of unmet infrastructure needs.  Some are sexy ones, like Atrios' SUPERTRAINS, but many of them are unsexy stuff like water, sewer, highway, and bridge repairs.  And it's impossible to imagine a better time to address them.  The Federal government can borrow money at negative rates relative to inflation - it'll take less real dollars to pay off the debt in 10 years than we'll get from borrowing it.  And because the Western world's economy is depressed, raw materials and labor are about as cheap as they'll ever be. 

If you knew your house would need a new roof in the next 2-3 years, and you knew you'd never be able to replace it as cheaply as you could now, and you could borrow the money interest-free for 10 years to replace it, wouldn't it make sense for you replace the freakin' roof now, even if you were unemployed?  That's pretty much the situation we're in now as a nation.

Plus, of course, spending the money on infrastructure repair and improvements right now would put people back to work and get the economy going again, while if we wait until times are good (whenever that's going to be), spending on those repairs will just crowd out private investment. 

Obama has proposed an infrastructure spending program that's very modest relative to our needs.  And the GOP refuses to even let it be discussed in either house of Congress.  How stupid (or possibly malevolent) is that?

3) Social Security is not in trouble, and doesn't need 'reforming.'

It's fully funded into the 2030s.  We've got more immediate problems.  And really, the best thing for Social Security's long-term prospects is a booming economy: the Clinton boom pushed back the date at which the Trust Fund would run out by about 14 years.

And if they don't think the Trust Fund is real, then the fact is that Social Security currently pays for itself through the dedicated tax, and (if the economy doesn't tank further) will continue to do so for some time.

Finally, what else are most old people going to live on?  Company-funded pensions are going the way of the dinosaurs, unfortunately, and Social Security will be what most elderly people live on, going forward.  Its costs will top out at 6% of GDP.  If we can't afford 6% of our national wealth to ensure that people who are too old to work have a tenable income, WTF is wrong with us?

4) Raising the Medicare age won't save money.

OK, it'll save some tax dollars, but not as much as you'd think.  People within a couple of years of Medicare age are already postponing medical treatment, to the extent they can, until they're 65 and Medicare will cover them.  By which time they're older and sicker, and treatment costs more money, because that's what happens when illnesses go untreated.  Raising the eligibility age to 67 will cause more of the same to happen.

And to the extent that it saves tax dollars, it simply dumps an even greater cost on the elderly (or on their insurance if they have any), because if they can get treated privately, they'll get charged a lot more than Medicare would.  So it's basically a gain for the insurance companies, and a loss for the rest of us.

And yes, Medicare needs fixing - though it's solvent for several more years.  There are a number of attempted fixes embedded in (wait) Obamacare - comparative effectiveness research and the like.  The GOP calls these 'death panels.' 

What the GOP wants to do is simply spend less money on medical care for the elderly and indigent, by providing them with less care.  Every other country in the Western world provides universal health care to their citizens, and at 40-60% of what we spend on medical care.  If we can't do the same, why not?  Are we not the greatest country in the world? 

5) Fixing the economy will undoubtedly aid some undeserving people. 

No doubt - but the choice is between aiding a handful of the undeserving (along with all the rest of us), and enduring a crappy economy with 9% unemployment, 17% un- and under-employment, and little if any growth in the economy, for years to come.  Let's have some common sense here, OK?

That's a start, anyway.  I'd shoot for something more extensive, but the kid's awake and wants some attention.  Time to be a daddy.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

The Shame of UC-Davis

Being the son of a cop I am probably a little more sympathetic to the difficulties of police work than many on the left.  My father ran a riot squad for a number of years in the late 60s and into the middle seventies and got hurt a number of times -- hit by a brick at an anti-war riot in Harvard Square, struck multiple times with a steel pipe during a prison riot in the early seventies, hit with a bottle at a race riot at a South Boston beach in the mid-70s.  These were extremely volatile affairs involving sometimes thousands (and tens of thousands) of angry people or, in the case of the prisons, hundreds of people who were not exactly strangers to violence.  My father was always proud to have never have hit anyone with a stick no matter how rough these situations got. 

So I was anxious to hear his reaction to the UC Davis pepper spraying and not at all surprised when he characterized it as "excessive," "unnecessary," and "cowardly."  He dismissed outright the notion that this action was (or should be) in conformance with standard police training -- at least as he had taught it -- and he spent years involved in training, something about which he was a zealous enthusiast.  He noted that when he had dealt with these kinds of non-violent demonstrations by college students during the Vietnam era, he typically tried to meet with student leaders in advance and talk about what was happening and what would occur, assuring them if they did not attempt to hurt his men that no one would hurt them.  If students engaged in passive resistance tactics he would have four of his men take them by the arms and legs and carry them away from the scene.   

As Peter Moskos expresses in this post, my father rejected the notion that policing could be a hands off affair.  Sometimes you have to be willing to take your lumps if you are going to use the lowest level of force possible -- but that's part of the job.  Sadistically spraying a toxic substance at people who are no threat to you is the very opposite of this approach.  It does harm, where none is necessary and it also threatens to escalate a situation that is not violent.  It's both contemptible and stupid.

I also reject the notion that the cop who did the spraying should not be condemned.  Bullshit.  He's a bully, a coward, and a thug -- he should be fired and shunned.  But I do agree that he is a symptom of a much larger problem.   The militarization of the police in recent years is alarming.  It is reflected in the increased use of not only pepper spray, but tasers, plastic bullets, and other violent approaches to all kinds of resistance, even of the most passive kind.     And it manifests itself in a love of quasi-military equipment and increasingly lethal weaponry.    Again, my father expressed amazement that DHS was promoting the distribution of automatic rifles to police forces throughout the country.  Such weaponry can easily lead to mass casualty incidents if placed in the hands of a poorly trained or panicky police officer.  Hell, even the nine millimeter pistols now favored by most cops can be dangerous in this regard as has been shown in a number of incidents in NYC alone. 

The police and the military have fundamentally different missions.  The military when deployed, no matter how much we like to sanitize things, is basically intended for the purposes of killing people -- it is designed to bring overwhelming deadly force to bear.  The police, by contrast, are supposed to preserve peace and order by using the minimal necessary force -- and should be trained at all times to remember that they are dealing with their fellow citizens.  Turning cops into paramilitary outfits is a policy mistake of the highest order and an affront to the idea of living in a free society.

One last bit of wisdom from my Dad -- I remember him telling me back in the early 70's that the police were, in the end, instruments of political power.  Ultimately, politicians determine the mission and the tone set for the police to do their work.  When civilian authorities embrace the excessive use of force, police will act accordingly.  In this regard, ultimate authority for the UC Davis debacle lies with Chancellor Linda Katehi and there will be no resolution of this matter that is satisfactory -- no matter how many sacrificial lambs get thrown to the wolves -- until she resigns.  She has shown herself to be manifestly unfit for the job of educator -- and to be a gutless prevaricator to boot.  She belongs on the scrap heap.  (Friends of the blog Ari Kelman and Eric Rauchway teach at UC-Davis and have been doing a great job posting about this affair at the happily revived Edge of the American West blog.  I hope that they and their fellow faculty members succeed in having Chancellor Katehi ousted -- she is a disgrace.)           

Why Can't the Fed Act As Lender of Last Resort for Italy and Spain?

I feel like Arthur Dent asking why he shouldn't turn on the Infinite Improbability Drive in the face of certain death, especially given that Krugman notes that "the U.S. shadow banking system consists in large part of … European banks" so the collapse of the European banks could bring us down as well.

But seriously, if the ECB won't step up and act as lender of last resort for European nations that face a liquidity crisis, why can't the Fed step in?  Isn't this more or less the sort of thing the "Committee to Save the World" did in 1998?

I'm totally ignorant here, so I'm hoping that someone considerably less ignorant on such matters can explain this stuff to me.

Since I'm only hoping for and (alas!) not really expecting a knowledgeable response, this is an open thread.

Friday Open Thread

 

"Venus" - Television

-Good piece by Krugman today on why we should all be rooting for the Super Committee to fail.  These concluding paragraphs -- part of yet another shot at Thomas Friedman -- pretty much sum up why these attempts to transcend politics are fundamentally flawed and elitist:

But don’t we eventually have to match spending and revenue? Yes, we do. But the decision about how to do that isn’t about accounting. It’s about fundamental values — and it’s a decision that should be made by voters, not by some committee that allegedly transcends the partisan divide.

Eventually, one side or the other of that divide will get the kind of popular mandate it needs to resolve our long-run budget issues. Until then, attempts to strike a Grand Bargain are fundamentally destructive. If the supercommittee fails, as expected, it will be time to celebrate.

It would be immensely helpful to the state of debate in this country if the mainstream media could internalize this basic point -- politics is the means by which things are supposed to get done in this country, elections are supposed to be meaningful, and the philosophical positions of the parties and candidates important.  Implementing a political agenda is difficult in this country because of the many veto points in the system.  But generally speaking there are no other major democracies in the world where we expect opposition parties to significantly cooperate in governng other than in times of grave crisis or in situations where no party can command a majority of the electorate -- and then typically as a very temporary measure. 

- Believe it or not, Brooks has a half decent column about the failure of Europe's technocratic elite to consider political opinion in adopting the Euro.   This is another failed effort to remove politics from something -- in this case core economic functions surrounding fiscal, currency, and monetary policy -- that really should be at the heart of the democratic enterprise.  If the Euro eventually collapses in large swaths of Europe -- and I tend to think it will -- it will actually be a victory for autonomy and democratic accountability, things which at this time are still only possible to preserve by means of the nation-state.  (Here is an interesting article about a prescient Euro skeptic also featured in the Times today.) 

- And this I just found quite amusing -- and impressive in its way.  Sadly could not embed, but well worth clicking the link.

What's going on out there?  I feel like I have been hermetically sealed in meetings all week. 

Another Reason Not To Cut Social Security

Neil Young, "Old Man"

 

I'd say, "as if we needed more," but our commentariat has thick heads.

The Census Bureau just released its first-ever report on Americans in their 90s and older.  There are currently just shy of 2 million Americans in the 90+ age range, and their numbers are growing pretty rapidly.

The median personal income for people 90 and older during 2006-08 (the years covered by this study) was $14,760, which isn't very much, especially considering that dealing with infirmities costs money, not all of which is covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

Nearly half (47.9%) of this group's income came from Social Security.  Cutting Social Security means putting this extremely vulnerable age group on catfood - there ain't no two ways about it.  Even if you only cut Social Security for those currently under 55, they'll start hitting 90 in 35 years; you're impoverishing the same age group, just beginning with a later cohort.

This is especially true because another 18.3% of the income of today's 90+ group comes from retirement pensions.  People in their 90s in 2006-2008 turned 65 in 1971-1983, back when your average working American was far more likely to have a bona fide pension connected to his or her job than anyone does now.  That number is going to see some serious shrinkage over time, making Social Security even more critical to those entering this age group in the upcoming decades.  If pension income for this group shrinks, as it will, and Social Security is cut as well, they'll be lucky to even afford cat food.

So that's just one more reason why tampering with Social Security is insane.  There's a long list of them, I know, but maybe this one will hit home with some people that aren't troubled by other reasons.  Always worth remembering when you write your Congresscritter, or when your uncle tells you over Thanksgiving dinner that we can't afford Social Security as it is, and it's just got to be cut.

The Left and the Work Ethic (and Open Thread)

 

"The Good Thing" - Talking Heads

A straight line exists between me and the good things.
I have found the line and it’s direction is known to me.
Absolute trust keeps me going in the right direction.
Any intrusion is met with a heart full of the good thing.

I have adopted this and made it my own:
Cut back the weakness, reinforce what is strong.
Watch me work.

Over the last several weeks, I've seen posts and articles by libertarian twits Will Wilkinson, and Tyler Cowen, suggesting that people on the left don't really believe in hard work and, as a result, encourage economic failure among those we purport to wish to help.  Both seem to think that there is some widescale plan on the left to devalue the work ethic and discipline as a result of our resentment of the wealthy.  What is needed, according to these men who toil in the harsh fields of think tankery and academia -- both by the way affiliated with taxpayer-sponsored George Mason University -- is a belief in the efficacy of individual effort and a return to a culture of discipline.

Several thoughts leap to mind.  First, do these two really think they work harder than say a home health care worker or a bricklayer?  One can make the case I suppose for many virtues of being on the tenure track at a state university or suckling on the teat of the Cato Institute, but character building hard work wouldn't leap to mind for me.  Second, what policies is it that liberals are supposedly endorsing that subvert hard work?  A return to Clinton level income taxes?  Higher taxes on wealth earned by capital appreciation -- to put it on, say, the same level as money earned by the sweat of one's brow?  I haven't recently seen anyone advocate for a widespread dole which will keep the indolent in Cadillacs, T-bone steaks, and lottery tickets.  Or is that how Wilkinson and Cowen view unemployment compensation or Social Security or Medicare?

This may be difficult for Messrs Wilkinson and Cowen to appreciate, but there are many of us on the left who are both more economically successful than they are -- I'm pretty sure my annual tax bill exceeds Wilkinson's income -- and have worked harder -- as a young associate I sometimes worked for weeks without a day off and slept on the floor of my office on multiple occasions -- and yet, we understand that our success is laden with luck.  The luck of having born into a given family, the luck of having had certain people help us along the way, the sheer random timing of certain human connections, the unearned blessing of having been born during a given economic era, and hell, the random luck of being blessed with a talent or talents that can be -- forgive me -- "monetized" in this society.  The flip side of recognizing one's own luck is to understand the many misfortunes that can come the way of any one of us.  Hence, the support for a society in which people do not starve on the streets, become homeless, or lack medical care simply because of misfortune -- up to and including the misfortune of perhaps being born a loser.

Cowen concludes with this bit of tripe:

Nonetheless, higher income inequality will increase the appeal of traditional mores — of discipline and hard work — because they bolster one’s chances of advancing economically. That means more people and especially more parents will yearn for a tough, pro-discipline and pro-wealth cultural revolution. And so they should. 

As I have pointed out here before, the parental culture in most liberal states is actually one that emphasizes academic success and discipline and attempts to steer children away from things like early marriage and child-rearing.  Cowen grudgingly acknowledges that it is the red states in which this ethos lags.  But the notion that a return to tough love in the family and sufficient respect for wealth is going to transform the economic prospects of people in the current environment is fatuous stuff -- especially coming from someone who purports to be an economist. 

What do you think?    

Kids Today and Monday Open Thread

 

"Same Mistake" - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

- I understand that these kind of broad strokes generational profiles tend to be glib and overly broad -- and one should probably be wary of any article that uses the term "hipster" without air quotes -- but I nonetheless found this piece in the Sunday NY Times interesting.   I listen to a fair amount of satellite radio when I have some of my longer car trips to meetings and I usually listen to the contemporary indie rock stations like XMU and altnation -- I strive mightily not to be one of those fifty year-olds who dismisses music made after the first Bush Administration.  Artist interviews are pretty common on these stations and I am always struck by how they tend to bore me to tears -- and I think it is because most of these artists have a similar affect -- nice, soft-spoken, self-effacing young people with little edge and, sometimes seemingly, no energy or conviction.  Certainly no sense that they are special and that what they have to say is revelatory.  These are probably great characteristics for your kids prom date or college roommate to possess or in the intern you are thinking about hiring, but damn does it fall flat for an artist.  Forgive my nostalgia, but I think of reading interviews with artists when I was growing up -- Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Mick Jagger leap to mind -- and how provocative they were -- often untruthful and unfair in their assertions, sometimes mean-spirited, supremely self-involved, these were people who had no doubt that they had something to say that was worth hearing.  Among my contemporaries, the people who mattered -- Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer, John Lydon for instance -- were palpably angry and contemptuous of much of the world.  There was rebellion in every fiber of their being. 

What I feel like I hear in interviews now is people who are mentally healthier but artistically less interesting.  The result, it seems to me, is a lot of good music, but not much that is grab-you-by-the-collar-and-shake-you great music.  I don't know if this stems from what the article describes as the "entrepreneurial" spirit of the generation -- the Willy Loman syndrome -- or the fact that in a narrow cast world it is hard to think your art is earth-shaking.  But I don't know that the latter is the case -- the punks of the late '70s and their fellow travelers had no reason to believe that their music would be heard on any wide-scale basis and yet, I can assure you, many of them performed like it was a matter of life and death.

Or I could just be old.

And like a suitably old guy, I must get to work. 

What say you?    

Oops -- as Rick Perry might say -- spelling error in title corrected.  

 

Saturday Open Thread

 

"Begin the Begin" - REM with Eddie Vedder

(This is from the "Vote for Change" concert in DC in October 2004, which I was fortunate enough to be at.  Michael Stipe blew me away, although I think he still took a back seat to Bruce who put on a great show as the closing act.  Pearl Jam wasn't too shabby either.)

Sorry for the silence -- a series of day long meetings, travel to Palm Springs, CA, a balky internet connection that ate an earlier post, and finally a nasty computer virus, have all thwarted me in my attempts to communicate.  I'll be winging my way east tomorrow morning, so will probably not be very available then either.

I am feeling pretty happy about Tuesday's election results, especially the Ohio referendum vote, which strikes me as a pretty remarkable result in this day and age.  It also seems to me to lay out a path to victory in that state for Barack Obama and strongly suggests that there is a populist path to victory available for him.  I am fairly confident that there is no Republican route to the White House that does not include winning Ohio.

I find myself unable to imagine another Republican nominee other than Romney at this point, despite his lack of appeal to much of the base.  Cain is a bad joke and despite my admonition of the other day, I have pretty much concluded that he is a lying sack of shit with respect to these sexual harassment charges.  As for Rick Perry, I'd call him dumb as a box of rocks, but fear that the rocks may sue me for defamation.  Holy shit -- does the man have to get a memo each morning reminding him to breathe?  I guess the Gingrich boomlet is the next logical thing.  After all, I hear he is a great man for ideas, a veritable visionary.  (I wonder how badly Obama would beat Gingrich?  It would be pretty epic beatdown I am guessing.)

I feel completely isolated and out of touch -- tell me what I've been missing. 

Monday Musings and Open Thread

 

"Green Aisles" - Real Estate

I remain a sucker for jangly guitars.

- I saw writer Colson Whitehead Saturday at the local bookstore giving a reading on his new zombie-themed novel.  I'm not big on the zombie genre, but if you ever get the chance to see Whitehead, jump at it.  He's an incredibly funny and charming guy.  Good looking too, the bastard.

- Tom Brokaw was there a couple of days before that.  Not only did I not go, but I deliberately stayed out of my neighborhood (having a drink with the esteemed Mr. Edroso) until I knew the crowd would be gone.  Jesus, I hate that guy.  Pierce explains why so I don't have to. 

- And, as kathy helpfully points out, our friends at the Edge of the American West tell you what to read and not to read in the Sunday Times.  Naturally Douthat is in the don't read column -- as is Maureen Dowd.  Sadly I read the post after I read the Times yesterday, thus sparing my poor eyes nothing.  Why does Dowd have a column at all?  Jesus, she is a waste of space.

- Huge vote on Tuesday in Ohio to try and overturn John Kasich's horrific anti-collective bargaining law.  I would hope that this sort of arrogance on the part of Republicans might help the cause.  (Thanks oddjob.)

- Madness as a form of public policy: Ari Berman has a piece in the Nation noting that although 1.6 million jobs have been created over the last year, this has been undermined by contraction in the public sector work force -- where over 250,000 jobs have been shed in this year alone.  We face, more than anything else, a jobs crisis in this economy.  Good public policy would focus on three things now: 1) boosting job growth via direct federal support of local and state governments and infrastructure programs; 2) mortgage relief in which principle reduction would be a cornerstone; and 3) regulation aimed at preventing a repeat performance by Wall Street and the banks.  (Even with this approach, emerging from this kind of deleveraging is going to be painful.)  Austerity and deregulation -- the Republican platform in a nutshell -- is the absolutely wrong approach.  

What's on your minds?  

The Always Ahistorical Ross Douthat

The New York Times Op-Ed pages just teems with bullshit sociology on a nearly daily basis -- usually Brooks and Friedman take the lead oar on the good ship B.S., but Ross Douthat joins in today asserting the claim that the recent collapse of MF Global, under the leadership of Jon Corzine, is emblematic of the recklessness of our new meritocratic elite.  The old WASP elite never would have given us this sort of thing, according to Douthat, because basically they were too stupid to do the math behind exotic financial instruments.  Has Ross never heard of the 1929 crash?  The Panic of 1873?  The Panic of 1893? 1907? 

These kinds of events have occurred throughout U.S. history, regardless of the nature of the financial elite.  Hubris is not a new phenomenon, nor is greed.  The United States was rocked by periodic financial crises and panics throughout its first hundred and fifty or so years, often with devastating impact on the broader economy.  During the period from the New Deal into the 1980s, heavy regulation of the banking and financial sectors basically averted these kinds of problems.  As the deregulation ethos took hold starting with the Reagan Administration, we have been plagued by serial problems of this kind starting with the savings & loan crisis on through to the present moment.  I would submit that that this is not due to any change in human nature nor by the changes in the makeup of the Wall Street elite.  Rather, it is a direct result of public policy choices favoring a much more unfettered form of finance capitalism than was permitted in the decades following the Great Crash. 

Douthat concludes by trying to make the case that what is needed is neither the arrogant certainty of the meritocrats, nor the ignorant certainties of the know-nothings of the Republican Party, but "intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits" -- so why isn't he backing Obama's re-election? 

Rod Dreher and the White Working Class

Roy links to a piece by Rod Dreher endorsing David Brooks's nonsense from the other day regarding Occupy Wall Street and the crisis of inequality in "red states" and "red regions."  Dreher posits, not for the first time, that liberals routinely manifest disdain and a lack of concern for the white working class.  Naturally there is no link or cite to back up this assertion.

As someone who has spent his entire professional life fighting for working class people -- most of whom, by virtue of my representing primarily building trades unions, are white men -- I find this kind of thing exasperating.  I routinely read or scan almost every major lefty blog out there -- along with a number, that like this one, don't quite attain that status -- on a nearly daily basis.  I am pretty confident that I would notice routine expressions of disdain for the white working class and I can't say that I have seen them anywhere.  What I have seen expressed -- and have expressed myself on many occasions -- is sadness and puzzlement that white working class voters so often support politicians and policies that are directly contrary to their own interests.  This is not the same as having disdain for people.   So I would like to challenge that God fearing man to back up his claims or apologize for the calumny

More importantly, if Dreher cares so much about the fate of the white working class, what does he propose be done for them?  I can easily rattle off a dozen or so policy suggestions that would make working class life in this country better, including labor law reform that would make organizing and joining a union much easier, increasing the minimum wage, providing universal single payer health insurance unlinked to the work place, adding a supplemental benefit to Social Security to make up for the loss of pension plans, promoting monetary policies in which full employment is considered as important as inflation prevention, mandating paid maternity and paternity leave, and greater financial support for state colleges and universities so that economic barriers to higher education are mitigated.  All of these things would promote economic stability or mobility in the lives of working people.  And yes, they would be paid for by higher tax burdens of the wealthy, particularly by increasing taxes on capital gains and dividends, i.e. money earned by means other than working as well as eliminating the income cap on Social Security, and adding a couple of higher brackets for those who earn extremely high incomes. 

I have previously commented on the negative affect of "red state" political mores on the prospects of those who are unfortunate enough to fall under their sway -- and it is disproportionately the working class who find their options narrowed by early child bearing.  I would also include free or subsidized access to contraception and ensuring that women have access to abortion services so that young people do not find themselves saddled with family obligations for which they are not yet ready.  Dreher and Brooks lament out of wedlock births, but neither suggests any solution to such problems beyond some ridiculous notion of returning to Victorian sexual mores.  

In the end, Dreher's sympathy for the working class is empty.  (Brooks's is even more so -- they are just a cudgel with which to beat liberals when it is convenient.)  He has aligned himself with the Republican Party, an institution with literally nothing to offer working class whites other than appeals to resentment and tribalism.  He (and ideological soul mates like Douthat) care far more about futile appeals to chastity than they do about actually improving the lives of working people.  Evidently the working class can await their reward in heaven, because Rod Dreher and his ilk certainly aren't going to lift a finger for them in this life. 

 

Wednesday Open Thread

 

"Beg, Steal or Borrow" - Ray LaMontagne

- The collapse of MF Global Holdings (what do you suppose those initials stand for?)  shows once again that the Wall Street beast refuses to learn.  The company, run by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, made huge bets on European sovereign debt, leveraging itself by 40 times its equity.  It appears that the company may have used its clients' assets to cover margin calls for its own investments.  In which case the $12 million that Corzine got in severance might come in handy buying cigarettes at the prison commissary. 

- One of the many irritating things about right wing pundits is the degree to which the stout yeomanry of the red states and regions serve strictly as props for whatever trope du jour they are seeking to exploit.  Thus, in the same week we have David Brooks -- once (and soon to be again no doubt) a booster of heartland virtues -- making the case that if the Occupy Wall Street movement is really concerned about inequality they should head off to the hinterlands and persuade the folks there to stay in school, go on a diet, quit smoking and stop fucking around, while Kathleen Parker posits that a mighty blow has been struck with same said folks by the Herman Cain campaign because they dare to thumb their nose at the liberal nanny state and feature a man taking a wholesome drag on a cigarette after endorsing Cain.  The bottom line is that neither Brooks nor Parker gives a fuck about these people -- neither of them choose to live among the great unwashed and neither of them have ever advocated for policies that would be helpful in these parts of the country.  Instead, these people are complete abstractions to them, serving as mere fodder for columns and poses -- however contradictory -- that ultimately are intended to benefit the Republican Party, their true constituency.

Have to run off to a meeting to prepare for an arbitration in Omaha -- where I will actually be representing people who work for a living.

Update: I meant to mention that one of my favorite blogs in the universe has come back to life in this Halloween season.  Our friends at the Edge of the American West -- Ari, Eric, and the rest of the crew -- are back and doing what they do best.    I had finally removed the site from my "favorites" last week.  Once again the virtues of continual procrastination are made clear. 

- And  to give you a bit of perspective on how horrible the economic and investment climate has been in this country over the last dozen years, yesterday the S&P 500 -- the measure of broad large capitalization stocks in the United States -- closed at 1219.  On January 1, 1999, it closed at 1229.  When people talk of an impending lost decade, they are missing the fact that we have already had one.    

What's on your minds? You're so quiet out there. 

Language Evolves

One thing I love about the Internet is that it’s democratized writing, and no longer is it just people with the inclination and talent who wrestle with semantics and spelling.  Before chat and texting how often did you hear anyone complain about bad spelling or misused semicolons?  Adding more participants to the world of writing in English has improved it.  Some conventions we’ve been using are just stupid.


Some common misconceptions have almost completely gone away (like, "kerfluffle.") but others are being accommodated.  One can "rifle" through a pile of papers, but that's a really weird word for the activity.  A lot of people say "riffle."  And I've noticed people writing it that way.  While I have never used it, I think riffle is better - it's got a nice onomatopoeia thing going on, whereas the noun meaning of “rifle” is sort of distracting.


Another word I've seen this happen with is "ogle."  A lot of people say it like it rhymes with "goggle."  I think  "oggle" also makes more sense, intuitively.  As such, I have more than once seen the word "oggle" used.  


Another change that doesn’t seem to have completely broken through is with periods and other sentence-ending punctuation’s placement with regard to quotation marks.  When you’re quoting someone, it makes more sense to keep the original punctuation of the quote inside the marks.  If you’re asking whether someone made a particular statement, you should be able to add your question mark after the quote with its punctuation included.  Did Marci say, “This is not what I wanted!”?  

So these were some changes I think needed to be made.  I’m not on board with all of the ones I've seen.  One I simply cannot support is single-spacing between sentences.  It’s strange how much you internalize rules in writing before you can articulate them; I am occasionally very confused by someone using the wrong “their” or “your.”  

I’ve also noticed a huge amount of unnecessary comma use, which breaks some aesthetic rules of mine, and seems to break a logical rule that I haven’t pinned down yet.  For example, if someone says, “Whatever happens, happens,” I don’t think there should be a comma between the repeated words.  A comma should almost separate a question from an answer within a sentence.  There needs to be a kind of tension that the comma supports.  The aesthetic thing is that a comma interrupts the flow of the sentence, making it seem rambly.  

In Which I Get All Contrarian

Surprise -- I am not a big fan of Herman Cain -- in an incredibly undistinguished Republican field he stands out as the biggest charlatan in the bunch.  A guy who doesn't know nothing about nothing, a man who couldn't get beyond bumper sticker absurdities if his life depended on it.  Having said that, I am not yet ready to pounce on the sexual harassment allegations as yet another (and wholly superfluous) reason to find this third rate motivational speaker to not be presidential material.  

If you have ever done employment law from any side, you know that employment discrimination claims -- relating to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, age and the like -- are a dime a dozen.  Some are well grounded in fact, a great many are dubious.  The settlement of such claims is also not necessarily indicative of merit.  I have been involved with settling any number of such claims over the years -- with unions and union benefit plans in their roles as employers or in representing members -- and I am hard pressed to think of too many I thought were meritorious.  Often such claims arise at times when employees (or union members) are being discharged or disciplined on the job.  I have almost always looked at possibilities for settlement in such situations in order to bring about the smooth departure of the employee without the cost, distraction, and uncertainty of litigation.  It is difficult to say on the basis of the few facts known here whether the Cain situation fell into this category.  The description of the settlements as being in the five figures is not helpful -- a $10,000 settlement may well be pretty close to nuisance value in most cases, a $99,000 settlement, not as much, although corporate counsel are often very risk averse in my experience and willing to overpay in such matters.  

I recall a racial discrimination suit brought against one of my clients for not grieving the discharge of an African-American member.  The fact of the matter was the guy was a less than mediocre craftsman who had a difficult time holding a job except in times when work was overwhelmingly plentiful.  There was nothing to the case and I felt fully confident that I would win.  But the member offered to settle the case for $5,000.  This was a such a ridiculously low figure that I felt the need to recommend it to the client -- there was simply no way that I could prevail in the case without costing the client at least twice that and more likely four times as much.  In this instance, the client surprised me and said no, we'd rather pay you. (I won on summary judgment.)  This is a rare exception though -- most entities want to spend less, get the sure thing, and avoid negative publicity as well.  That may very well have been the case here (although Cain's creepy egomania does suggests to me otherwise). 

What does strike me as clear though is, as Charles Pierce suggests, Cain is getting ratfucked big time by someone on the Republican side.  This story appeared in the Politico, which is pretty close to being a Republican publication -- it certainly isn't part of the "liberal" media.  Much like the "N'Head story on Rick Perry breaking in the Washington Post, this has all the earmarks of someone well connected in Republican circles dropping a dime to sympathetic reporters on a candidate that they think is not ready for prime time.  Karl Rove and his cronies strike me as likely suspects in both stories.  One gets the sense that establishment Republicans know in their heart of hearts that neither Perry nor Cain is electable and that even if they don't love the guy, Romney is.  I suspect that you will see this dynamic repeated over the next few months -- and that the press, which I think shares this viewpoint, will be a willing conduit for these attacks.