Entries from February 2011 ↓

Like many “ancient” traditions, yoga is actually pretty new.

Like many "ancient" traditions, yoga is actually pretty new.

This recipe is just a really good one to have up your sleeve: it’s easy and it’s very good.

I normally serve it with white rice (maybe cooked with a cinnamon stick) and a bitter vegetable (brussel sprouts or, per my wife’s suggestion, leeks with cream).

This recipe is just a really good one to have up your sleeve: it's easy and it's very good. I normally serve it with white rice (maybe cooked with a cinnamon stick) and a bitter vegetable (brussel sprouts or, per my wife's suggestion, leeks with cream).

At least, early polling, shows that the public is behind the Democrats on the Wisconsin issue.

At least, early polling, shows that the public is behind the Democrats on the Wisconsin issue.

1. There is a pair of lies. On the one hand, the Republicans keep denying that their goal is to gut the unions. They claim that all they care about is the fiscal situation. They’re lying (otherwise, they’d take the deal on pay and benefits while preserving mandatory collective bargaining). They want to gut the unions, if possible. On the other hand, the Democrats cannot mention that what they really care about the right-to-work provisions in the law because, if it passes, making union dues voluntary, it would result in a large loss of campaign contributions.

2. I’m surprised that this issue only gets a passing mention in most discussion. Of course, liberal commentators have no interest in pointing to the fact that the Democratic party would like to continue taxing all public servants for campaign contributions. However, even pundits on the side of Wisconsin governor tend to mention loftier arguments (democracy against special interests, fiscal rectitude).

3. This is, in part, why the issue is so vicious, why Obama got involved. Millions of dollars in campaign contributions are at stake for the Democratic Party, but no one can mention it.

4. In general, their relationship with the unions are the weakest point for the Democrats in the current election cycle (I wish I’d written this before it started blowing up, because I’ve realised it before). If they are too strident defending the unions (which are an unpopular constituency), they will lose support of independents. Defending the unions risks being seen as purely self-serving and gets them no extra votes (strong pro-union voters already vote Democrat). Since they are bound to lose some of the battles, they get the double whammy of less money and an image of impotence with their base. The money issue does not matter so much for Obama, who is still likely to outspend his Republican challenger (and everyone in history), but the image problem could be fatal.

5. So, the Democrats need a strong victory early to stem the tide. The longer this goes on, the more political capital they’ll waste. We’ll see what the polls start telling us in a week or so (assuming that there is no early resolution), but I’d be surprised if Dems/Obama get a boost and not surprised if this starts costing them.

1. There is a pair of lies. On the one hand, the Republicans keep denying that their goal is to gut the unions. They claim that all they care about is the fiscal situation. They're lying (otherwise, they'd take the deal on pay and benefits while preserving mandatory collective bargaining). They want to gut ...

Here’s a spirited defence of the filibuster by a liberal commentator:

After all, [the majority party] won an election last November.

That is true.

But Wisconsin’s greatest governor, Robert M. La Follette, declared: “”We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results. Now, there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life; and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.”

La Follette’s point [...] is that democracy does not end on Election Day. That’s when it begins. Citizens do not elect officials to rule them from one election to the next. Citizens elect officials to represent them, to respond to the will of the people as it evolves.

Of course, he was talking about the Wisconsin fleeing Democrats, but it’s a pretty good defence of the Republican filibuster in the Senate.

I always thought we’d have to wait for 2012 and a Republican Senate majority for liberals to start waxing poetically about the rights of a minority to stop a majority from passing its extremist agenda. I was wrong.

Here's a spirited defence of the filibuster by a liberal commentator: After all, won an election last November. That is true. But Wisconsin's greatest governor, Robert M. La Follette, declared: ""We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing ...

Does anyone know of a liberal commentator with a history of arguing against the filibuster in the Senate who is now arguing against the tricks used in Wisconsin by the Democratic Party (where minority legislators have fled the state to deny quorum to the majority)? After all, a minority shouldn’t hold a majority hostage with sly tricks and all that.

Does anyone know of a liberal commentator with a history of arguing against the filibuster in the Senate who is now arguing against the tricks used in Wisconsin by the Democratic Party (where minority legislators have fled the state to deny quorum to the majority)? After all, a minority shouldn't hold a majority hostage ...

1. Ayn Rand in her book Atlas Shrugged imagined that the productive classes (engineers, artisans, artists, and business men), the Atlas that carries the rest of the world, would move to a separate place of infinite freedom as the parasitic world collapses around them. This is not a bad metaphor of what much of the world was like between 1930-1989: from all over the world, the productive classes would move to the United States. It’s impossible to read a history of computers without noticing the huge number of Hungarian-born thinkers, the nuclear bomb was built with the help of many German-born jews (including Einstein, at least conceptually), &c. The US really had an imported elite.

2. Over the last few decades, the US became freer (huge gains for non-whites, women, and minorities, in general), but the rest of the world made even larger gains. The US barely makes the top 10 in the economic freedom index of the Heritage Foundation anymore (liberals that like to argue that the US should be more like Canada or Denmark should know that the Heritage Foundation agrees). Given the trend, it would not be surprising if the US continued to lose places in this ranking.

3. The reports of Americans themselves fleeing for freer jurisdictions are still anecdotal (there are queues to renounce American citizenship in Singapore and London). However, even if the talent traffic has not reversed, it slowed down. Atlas, when he shrugs, isn’t necessarily coming to the US anymore. He’s or moving to Toronto or Tallin or Sidney.

4. What I’m writing fits perfectly into the framework of The Great Stagnation: being freer that the USSR or Maoist China or the India of the License Raj (or even class-based Britain) was definitely low hanging fruit for the United States. That is now over. Still, I feel this as a rather more positive development than T. Cowen does: Atlas is now helping the really poor in the third world. A few weeks ago, the Atlantic had an article on the new global elite which cites a CEO stating that if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade. I think this might have been meant as an indictment of this global elite (like the article as a whole), but (like the article as a whole) it rather endears me to it. Whereas Carnegie spent his fortune on perks for the already rich and in the richest country in the world, Gates spends his on helping the third world. (Ironically, I write these words sitting on the Carnegie Mellon campus, full of perks for the rich-to-be).

5. The expression catch up growth, while describing a real phenomenon, also reveals a complete lack of respect for the difficulty of solving many of the problems that hold poor countries back. These are often complex social and political problems and they require the entrepreneurial spirit, the tenacity, and the intelligence that would have gone into making kitchen gadgets a generation ago. It’s probably a win for the world.

1. Ayn Rand in her book Atlas Shrugged imagined that the productive classes (engineers, artisans, artists, and business men), the Atlas that carries the rest of the world, would move to a separate place of infinite freedom as the parasitic world collapses around them. This is not a bad metaphor of what much of ...

Yesterday, my twitter and RSS feeds were full of complaints about how the republicans were going to cut science funding. Save Science! A few weeks ago, it had been full of people screaming about Rand Paul’s plan to cut science funding.

As it happens, none of these were plans to cut science funding specifically. Some of the mainstream outlets did not even mention science funding in their descriptions. The proposals would cut all across the discrecionary budget, mostly excluding defense.

I imagine that environmentalist groups sent emails touting cuts to the EPA, pro-choice groups sent email about cuts to family planning, the affected unions cried out about job cuts in their ranks, energy people were upset about cuts to their pet projects, train lovers think Republican hate trains, &c

And all of this without touching the third rail of American politics: cuts to services to old people. Otherwise, the AARP would be crying that Republicans want the eldery to live on cat food. Of course, most of federal spending is on the eldery, so it is logically odd that no cuts were proposed there.

Everyone feels personally attacked (Republicans hate science, they hate trains, they hate wind energy, they hate old people), but something’s got to give. If you don’t think that your budget should be cut, whose budget should be (you can answer raise taxes to cut the middle classes’ budget)?

Yesterday, my twitter and RSS feeds were full of complaints about how the republicans were going to cut science funding. Save Science! A few weeks ago, it had been full of people screaming about Rand Paul's plan to cut science funding. As it happens, none of these were plans to cut science funding specifically. Some ...

The case for state-level support for the arts is strongest, by far, for the state of New York for reasons related to tourism and New York City. But Manhattan, Kansas? Let them watch YouTube.

­— Tyler Cowen (at marginal revolution).

The case for state-level support for the arts is strongest, by far, for the state of New York for reasons related to tourism and New York City. But Manhattan, Kansas? Let them watch YouTube. ­— Tyler Cowen (at marginal revolution).

Micromort animation. A micromort is a one-in-a-million chance of dying. (h/t: Bruce Schneier)

Micromort animation. A micromort is a one-in-a-million chance of dying. (h/t: Bruce Schneier)