Barack Obama

Greetings from NYC, post Sandy, but pre-election. I have been really busy this election season, so I haven’t had the time to cover this election or do as much reading as I would like. I have C-SPAN on now watching the last minute speeches by Romney, Obama, Ryan, and Biden and seeing a bit on punditry. I didn’t compile predictions like I did for 2008, but this time I’ll go into some detail on my swing state picks. Here’s a compilation I saw on my Twitter feed.

Here’s the electoral map that I started with. The 146 electorals in the swing states are beige, while Romney’s states are red and Obama’s are blue. The breakdown is 201 [Obama], 191 [Romney], 146 in play, and with 270 needed to win.

Florida [29] The polls show the momentum shifting towards Romney in the state. I think the post-mortems will find that the I-4 corridor decided the election and the Democratic hopes of winning the state hinge upon keeping it close here. I don’t know the “house effects” for Mason-Dixon, but their poll of the area for the Tampa Bay Times has Romney leading.

North Carolina [15] I don’t think North Carolina is in play. Obama wasn’t appearing there himself and while Bill Clinton was pitching for the cause with the likes of Mariah Carey, I think his campaign has conceded it to Romney. Romney’s campaign has signalled its confidence since mid-October. Unemployment is high in the state and it was a narrow Obama victory in 2008 which tends to vote Republican in Presidential races.

Pennsylvania [20] Romney made a recent push in Pennsylvania, including a $12M adspend, which may have raised some eyebrows. I think it’s “too big to ignore” and his people felt it was worth the stretch. Michael Barone of The National Review went out on a limb with Pennsylvania, citing Romney’s appeal specifically in the western part of the Keystone state and the Philadelphia suburbs. It could be close, as this article on Philly.com notes.

Michigan [16] Another bellwether and a must-win for Obama was a beneficiary of the 2009 auto bailouts. Democrats are expecting Debbie Stabenow to hold her US Senate seat and are hoping to pick up some House seats, including MI-1 in the upper peninsula (Bart Stupak’s [D] old seat). The tea party candidate, Dan Benishek, is facing a tough race in a district that benefits greatly from federal monies. I see blue as trending in the state.

Nevada [6] I don’t see Nevada as being in play, despite the sky high unemployment of 11.8%. Obama has focused on courting Hispanics and the union vote, while Romney has worked a ground game strategy in the Las Vegas suburbs.

Colorado [9] NBC has this at a dead heat and early voting is trending for Romney. Colorado tends to vote Republican and didn’t go for Clinton in 1996. I see the closeness of the race at this time being bad news for Obama’s fortunes in the state.

Iowa [6] I think Obama’s rhetoric in Iowa might be a tipoff. Unlike in Ohio, where he characterized Romney as “not one of us”, his messaging in Iowa was more hope & change. The northwest has Evangelical Christians who aren’t too excited about Mitt Romney so turnout is key there. Obama will need to do well in the cities along I-80 to pull off Iowa.

Wisconsin [10] I see Wisconsin as a schizophrenic state. The trend has been towards Democrats in the presidency, but Republicans are a force at the state level and one of the US Senate seats and 5 of 8 House seats. The polls have Obama in the lead and my take is that despite Ryan on the ticket, this will hold.

This brings us to a 259 to 244 tally with Obama leading Romney with 35 electorals in play.

I see the following states as the swingingest of the swing states. These are varying shades of “purple” in my book (between red & blue) and as of 2:18AM EST, I think they will go Obama. I don’t feel very solid about this and I think there’s a good chance that if Virginia and Ohio don’t show clear trends early, it’s going to be a long election night.

I don’t like not having a definitive prediction, so I’ll go on the record with a 294-244 Obama win. The caveat being that much of this is based on polling data.

Ohio [18] Bellwether Ohio has been trending towards Obama, buoyed by a recovery and relatively low unemployment. The populist vote indebted to the auto bailout. The rural vote may make things close for Mitt Romney if turnout in Cleveland and the urban manufacturing centers falters.

New Hampshire [4] I think New Hampshire might be really close, but I think it’s leaning Obama. Romney was making headway in October, but it looks like his momentum has stalled. My concerns after following Canadian politics is the polls being off, particularly in constituencies with a rural composition. I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney pulls this out.

Virginia [13] I think this is a true toss-up. I think the fate of the Commonwealth electorals resides in three northern swing counties. I think Romney’s protectionist stance on China might hurt him with selected educated suburbanites. I think if turnout is high in northern Virginia, Obama gets a slight edge, but I think it will be very close.

At the risk of sounding like I’m hedging, I see the opposite as a definite possibility, i.e., Romney sweeping these three. Although the data might support my above prediction, there is the danger that the polls are off. While Nate Silver correctly predicted 49 of 50 states in 2008, he missed Indiana. I called Indiana for Obama based on Karl Rove’s observation that Barack was doing well in the northwestern corner of the state near Hammond & Gary. That’s why I’m thinking the following 279-259 Romney win could happen. It would be something, but not likely, if there was a 269-269 tie. This could happen with Obama getting Colorado and an electoral in Nebraska, while losing New Hampshire, Virginia, and Ohio. The likely result of a tie: President Mitt with Joe as Veep.

Note: Thanks to Fred Strauss for pointing me to this National Review post and several other sources that informed my opinion.

Yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling [full text] on Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) was an interesting one on several fronts. This post will go over political, legal, and health policy ramifications of the decision, focusing specifically on the individual mandate.

The Election

Earlier this year, I was of the opinion that regardless of the outcome of the case, Obama wins. Now, I’m not so sure that would have been the case. While a ruling against ACA would provide Barack and the Democrats election fodder by offering evidence of an activist conservative Court that is willing to override the will of Congress, I think a bigger danger would be tied to a divisive law that was a centerpiece to Obama’s first term that was deemed as unconstitutional. My opinion is that the electoral calculus favors Obama, but for him to be able to enact any change in his second term, he will need a mandate and enjoy Democratic control of the House and Senate. That might be a long shot. The trifecta of Presidency, House, and Senate is the real issue and precondition for an agenda of change—not the nationwide polling numbers, although perceptions of a close election are in the best interests of the media and could boost turnout, which would favor the Democrats.

Like Ike

While Romney and the Republicans may try to make hay out of repealing ACA, I’m not sure how much traction it will get. It could be part of anti-taxation rhetoric, given that’s what the Supreme Court based the ACA decision on, but that could be problematic given that Romney has already committed to tax cuts for the wealthy. While some of Mitt’s recent political rhetoric has a populist ring to it, the devil’s in the details. I think in the battle for swing state independents and moderates, I think Romney’s only shot is to go populist and appeal with a middle-class populism. While Obama’s track record, based on Voteview’s analysis of roll call votes {albeit an imperfect measure for the presidencies}, shows him as the least liberal Democrat since Johnson {who was a hawk during the Vietnam War}, Eisenhower was the least conservative Republican.

Perhaps rather than harken back to Reagan, Romney should go back to 1950s traditionalism and the political moderation of Ike. I feel that Romney is allowing himself to be heavily defined by others—be it Obama or the more socially conservative wing of the party. Maybe this is a reaction to McCain’s maverick, seat of the pants style that involved choosing a Sarah Palin, who wasn’t always rowing in the same direction as the campaign, and suspending his campaign during the fall 2008 financial crisis. Addressing ACA as a moderate populist makes more sense than taking potshots at Obama’s “bad law” that is now deemed as constitutional. Plus, Justice Ginsburg stated Romneycare was a reason she sided with the majority, which can be thrown in Romney’s face.

Taxation vs. The Commerce Clause

While Chief Justice John Roberts is being lauded for his genius, this DC Bar post from January of 2011 presages his take on the matter. Jack Balkin of the Yale Law School is quoted:

“Balkin believes the best argument for the constitutionality of the individual mandate is that it is a tax. ‘It is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code. It is collected on your tax return. It is collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It’s computed based in part on your income. It’s a tax.’”

A commerce clause interpretation gets murky fast because it’s one thing for Congress to regulate commerce, but quite another to require it. Chief Justice Roberts [pdf] made this clear:

“Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. Congress already possesses expansive power to regulate what people do. Upholding the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause would give Congress the same license to regulate what people do not do. The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited and enumerated powers. The individual mandate thus cannot be sustained under Congress’s power to ‘regulate Commerce.’”

Tom Scocca in Slate argued that this could limit the ability of Congress to enact law through the use of the Commerce Clause. David Cole in The Nation isn’t so sure:

“When one adds the dissenting justices, there were five votes on the Court for this restrictive view of the Commerce Clause. But that is not binding because the law was upheld on other grounds. And while some have termed this a major restriction on Commerce Clause power, it is not clear that it will have significant impact going forward, as the individual mandate was the first and only time in over 200 years that Congress had in fact sought to compel people to engage in commerce. It’s just not a common way of regulating, so the fact that five Justices think it’s an unconstitutional way of regulating is not likely to have much real-world significance.”

The ultimate policy effect of the “tax” or “penalty” will probably work because of social psychology’s prospect theory—people don’t like losses and will avoid them. This will compel compliance with the program, allowing the pooling of the population to spread out the risk.

Health Policy

Is the ACA good health policy? Well, one view is that it’s flawed from a health economics point of view, as Larry Van Horn states. I think he conveniently omits the fact that there’s a difference between actuarial and social insurance, which I blogged about on ThickCulture back in 2009. The healthcare industry faces uncertainty, as the increased demand for services may not be offset by pressures on margins. The main question for patients will be whether access to high quality care will be available. As a documentary producer and researcher on the subject of primary healthcare, I’ve been following what’s been done in Massachusetts, i.e., Romneycare. Yes, there are issues with rural healthcare in the Commonwealth and CUNY-Hunter College Public Health professors, David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler {former Massachusetts MDs} are advocating for a public health program that would further reform healthcare. I think they make some very valid points, but I tend towards viewing healthcare as social infrastructure. Specifically, they are advocating for:

1. Cutting out middlemen {costly insurance overhead}
2. Pay hospitals based on costs, not on a per-patient basis
3. Enforce real health planning
4. More primary care, less specialists
5. Price controls on pharmaceuticals
6. Cap salaries on health executives

My take is that the ACA will have a positive net effect on health outcomes by increasing demand and adding to the insurance pool, younger patients who tend to have lower incomes [see pdf from US Census]. I think the best to hope for in the current model is a minimal care floor that serves as a lower threshold. It won’t be perfect and it may eventually move the industry towards rationalizing prices, which can be quite exorbitant, as evidenced in a LATimes report:

“Of course, and it’s all part of a years-long game in which the charge for service, the true cost of the service, and the acceptable payment are in three different orbits. And that doesn’t even take into account how the charges are adjusted up or down depending on who’s paying them and whether they have worked out a deal. How can patients hope to make sense of such an indefensibly convoluted system?”

Why? The insurance companies won’t be able to cherrypick healthy patients and will actively seek ways to cut costs. Although, they will most likely try to continue the practice of finding ways to limit payouts to physicians, I can see the insurance industry scrambling to develop new models of healthcare with segmented markets and there may be innovations stemming from the policy. The industry will push hard for as little regulation as possible.

Finally, who will be the big winners in all of this? In my opinion, the lobbyists. Oh, and mea culpa…{h/t Kathleen Maloney}

I just saw this and CBS has a good run down of what went down. I think this exchange highlights one of the themes of today’s “infotainment”—confirmatory bias. Confirmatory bias is the psychological tendency to seek information that confirms existing beliefs. The news network pundits on Fox and MSNBC have made careers out of selecting issues and tailoring coverage for their respective conservative and liberal audiences. The audiences have grown accustomed to the “selective hate machine”, a term coined by Jon Stewart in describing Fox News.

Foxes & Hedgehogs

Stewart has made a career out of being a lampooning satirist who doesn’t stick to a strict ideological script, but he also knows who his audience is. Ironically, Stewart is more of a fox than a hedgehog, as he’s free to be an equal opportunity basher, er, critic. A few years back, Philip Tetlock used the fox and hedgehog metaphor to describe economic punditry::

“The most important factor was not how much education or experience the experts had but how they thought. You know the famous line that [philosopher] Isaiah Berlin borrowed from a Greek poet, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’? The better forecasters were like Berlin’s foxes: self-critical, eclectic thinkers who were willing to update their beliefs when faced with contrary evidence, were doubtful of grand schemes and were rather modest about their predictive ability. The less successful forecasters were like hedgehogs: They tended to have one big, beautiful idea that they loved to stretch, sometimes to the breaking point. They tended to be articulate and very persuasive as to why their idea explained everything. The media often love hedgehogs.”

The Culture War

Stewart has cultivated an audience looking for infotainment with a ton of snark and less of a penchant for sacred cows. His positioning as a “fox” is smart, as it differentiates him from the ideologues. Conservative hedgehog pundits like O’Reilly who whip up frenzy for an older demographic serve as particularly good fodder. In the clip, he loves poking fun at O’Reilly’s positioning in the political punditry market by taking jabs by using pop culture rap references with more than a hint of condescension. Stewart used similar tactics lampooning Newt Gingrich’s announcing of his candidacy on Twitter.

Nevertheless, Stewart brings up a good point that this is all manufactured outrage against Barack Obama. While O’Reilly is just revisiting the culture war, I’m not sure the same levers used in the past are going to work against Obama. He’s not an easy target. In fact, I would argue that the dissatisfaction the hard left has with Obama has everything to do with him positioning his administration to win the culture war, not put it to rest.

I was talking to a colleague of mine who has travelled quite a bit to México since he was a kid. His take on the increasing violence of the border towns tend to just affect those involved in criminal activities or tourists doing things they have no business doing.

Lately, the violence of the cartels has been resembling scenes from Breaking Bad. One of the things going on in Nuevo Laredo, the terminus of I-35 and a key port of entry between the US and México is a feud between rivalling factions that were once allies, the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. President Felipe Calderón and the Mexican army has been deployed. The WSJ reports corruption and a state of anarchy in northern México, while gunfire from street battles reaches US soil over in El Paso and a collapse of tourism in many border towns further erodes the economy amidst a lingering recession. {While there is increased violence, the reality for tourists is that 70 Americans have been killed as “innocent bystanders“ since 2004. Nevertheless,the US State Department has issues a travel warning and has pulled consulate employees.}

While Hilary and Barack might disagree on whether México resembles Colombia of years past, the White House is increasingly concerned about the violence and is likely to be spending more on combatting it.

This isn’t a clear cut case of good guys and bad guys, making US policy dicey to say the least. It’s one thing to talk about a war on drug trafficking and addressing issues of corruption, but there’s no scorecard and no clear cut way to know who can be trusted and citizens are better off keeping their mouths shut. Last year, The Atlantic’s article, “The Fall of Mexico”, made this clear with how civil rights are going out the window with Calderón’s militarization::

“Meanwhile, human-rights groups have accused the military of unleashing a reign of terror—carrying out forced disappearances, illegal detentions, acts of torture, and assassinations—not only to fight organized crime but also to suppress dissidents and other political troublemakers. What began as a war on drug trafficking has evolved into a low-intensity civil war with more than two sides and no white hats, only shades of black. The ordinary Mexican citizen—never sure who is on what side, or who is fighting whom and for what reason—retreats into a private world where he becomes willfully blind, deaf, and above all, dumb.”

Quibbling over comparing México to Colombia 20 years ago fails has implications for US policy in that it determines how much US drug policy is contributing to the strength of the cartels and the violence over turf. Three ex-Presidents, of Brasil, Colombia, and México, wrote a report titled “Drugs and Democracy: Towards a Paradigm Shift” [pdf-English], emphasizing a public health approach to dealing with the problem and curbs demand. I feel this excerpt is worth quoting::

“The European Union policy focusing on the reduction of the damages caused by drugs as a matter of public health, through the provision of treatment to drug users, has proved more humane and efficient. However, by not giving appropriate emphasis to the reduction of domestic consumption in the belief that the focus on harm reduction minimizes the social dimension of the problem, the policy of the European Union fails to curb the demand for illicit drugs that stimulates its production and exportation from other parts of the world.

The long-term solution for the drug problem is to reduce drastically the demand for drugs in the main consumer countries. The question is not to find guilty countries and allocate blame for this or that action or inaction, but to reiterate that the United States and the European Union share responsibility for the problems faced by our countries, insofar as their domestic markets are the main consumers of the drugs produced in Latin America.”

A prohibition/criminal approach to drug enforcement hasn’t been effective. The report cites statistics::

The report cites that increased expenditures on the “War on Drugs” hasn’t affected demand or price. On the other hand, depenalization of consumption {which isn’t the same as decriminalization, but a move towards a more humane approach to drug enforcement and addiction} in both North America and the EU hasn’t resulted in increased demand.

The problem being is that the current state of drug enforcement has created a highly lucrative black market for drugs by organized crime cartels, much akin to the US experience with the prohibition of alcohol.

I don’t get a sense that the Obama administration and the Attorney General’s office are really open to moving towards a public health/depenalization approach to the drug trade. AG Eric Holder stated he was strongly against California’s Prop. 19, which would have permitted distribution of marijuana subject to local regulation and taxes. His concerns? That it would impede going after traffickers of pot and harder drugs like cocaine. Paradigm shifts are tough, but one would hope that there would a more holistic approach to dealing with the drug problem and how its market is fostering crime, corruption, and violence.

Twitterversion:: [blog] Violence & the drug wars in northern México. US policy implications for @whitehouse, Obama, Clinton, & Holder @ThickCulture @Prof_K

Obama finally weighed in on the “mosque at ground zero” kerfuffle. From how the heated rhetoric is flying, one would imagine that the proposed mosque and community centre is right at the site, which it isn’t. Yesterday, at the White House, Barack stated::

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country…That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances…This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable…Time and again, the American people have demonstrated that we can work through these issues, and stay true to our core values and emerge stronger for it. So it must be and will be today.”

While NYC Mayor Bloomburg expressed support for Obama’s message and the mosque and cultural centre, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and other Republicans have used the mosque as a wedge issue.

Debra Burlingame, an activist representing some of the 9/11 victims and sister of one of the pilots killed in the attacks said::

“Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see…Building the mosque at ground zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah.”

Burlingame warns of the fundamentalist nature of Islam in the following video, invoking talk of conspiracy theories::

The framing of Islam as a monolithic “other” in direct opposition of American values seems a bit extreme, let alone equating the religion with terrorist acts or organizations. Others are offering a slightly softer criticism by saying that a mosque near ground zero does violence to the families of the victims. Again, the problem is that Islam is being equated with attacks.

Globalization is laying the groundwork for increases in such “clashes of civilizations”, as anti-Islamic sentiments rise in both Europe and the North America. Public opinion in the U.S. isn’t with Obama on this one 52-31%.

I get a sense that many can separate the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church from all Baptist or Christianity. Equating Islam with the actions of Al-Qaeda and placing limitations on Islamic religious institutions to be built near “hallowed ground” out of a sensitivity for victims fosters values that are unable or unwilling to make fine distinctions.

I’m reminded of Richard A. Clarke’s 2005 fictitious dystopic vision of the United States in 2011.

“Perhaps, too, we could have followed the proposal of the 9/11 Commission and engaged the Islamic world in a true battle of ideas. Indeed, if we had not from the start adopted tactics and rhetoric that cast the war on terror as a new ‘Crusade,’ as a struggle of good versus evil, we might have been able to achieve more popular support in the Islamic world. Our attempts to change Islamic opinion with an Arabic-language satellite-television news station and an Arabic radio station carrying rock music were simply not enough. We talked about replacing the hate-fostering madrassahs with modern educational programs, but we never succeeded in making that happen. Nor did we successfully work behind the scenes with our Muslim friends to create an ideological counterweight to the jihadis. Although we talked hopefully about negotiated outcomes to the Palestinian conflict and the struggle in Chechnya, neither actually came to pass.”

Within the context of globalization, the mosque at ground zero is the wrong stand to be taking.

Song:: Les Negresses Vertes-“200 Ans d’Hipocrisy”

Twitterversion:: [blog] @BarackObama weighs in on ground-zero mosque issue. Those framing Islam as the “other” missing bigger picture. @Prof_K @ThickCulture

I’m wondering what my fellow ThickCulturites think about Obama’s policies of late, e.g., environmental policies on offshore drilling and increasing the CAFE standards. Is he being schizophrenic or shrewd? I firmly believe his strategies tend to be well-thought-out, at least at the 40,000 foot level, and not haphazard. I think the strategy isn’t always clear. That said, I’m quite interested who he chooses to replace the retiring Justice John Stevens of the US Supreme Court.

I think the safe bet would be Elena Kagan. She’s a solid choice as a moderate and since any confirmation is likely to be contentious along party lines, a moderate will be harder to paint as a hardcore liberal by Republican senators. Doing so could backfire, depending on the media spin.

On the other hand, what if Obama went hardcore liberal, particularly anti-corporatist? Choosing an appointee that would satisfy the bloodlust of Main Streeters who want punishments doled out to Wall Streeters that Geithner’s policies. If there’s going to be a catfight over confirmation and threats of filibuster, why not appoint a nominee frames as a Wall-Street reformer? They would be tough for Republicans to attack in this political climate and it would test the cohesiveness of the Democratic party, as conservative Democrats may balk at supporting such a nominee. Appointing a hardcore would be a bold move and if the nominee fails to get confirmed::

1. It wouldn’t be a shocker, so if s/he’s not confirmed, it wouldn’t be a stinging loss to the Obama administration
2. It could be framed as a conservative support of big banks and corporate interests
3. It would pave the way for an easier confirmation of a more moderate appointee

The nomination would assuage the liberals and stir up an ideological hornet’s nest as we move towards the 2010 midterm election.

The devil’s in the details…So, all you legal beagles out there…who would fit the bill?

Twitterversion:: @BarackObama w/another Sup.Ct.nom. Odds may favour Kagan, but what about a strategy of an ultra-liberal anti-corporatist?  @Prof_K

Song:: Murphy’s Kids-‘The Anti-Corporate Beach Party’

There are two relatively recent articles on US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner. One is in The Atlantic, which is more critical, while the one in the New Yorker is more sanguine. The above video is from The Atlantic talking about Geithner’s svengali appeal and Jedi-mind-trick abilities—except with Wall Street and those in the public who know him and what he does. Inside the beltway, it sounds like he’s a veritable David Watts in many circles. This is pure Erving Goffman à la The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.

Ironically, he’s become a target of both conservatives who think he’s been too tough on the banking sector and the left who think he should have moved towards nationalizing the banks. He allegedly got the Treasury secretary job because of a good interview with Barack, despite being in the running with his old boss, Lawrence Summers, and the stalwart Paul Volcker, a Carter appointee who helped get the economy under control under Ronald Reagan’s watch.

The biggest problem I have with Geithner’s approach is that he’s operating under the assumption that there is nothing unsound about the capital markets and is seemingly ignoring the fact that there are structural issues with the US economy that can keep the nation in recession for years. Geithner is reluctant to do anything drastic, such as nationalizing the banks {a last-resort strategy}, because he’s afraid that this will effect a policy change that will have enduring consequences. So, while he’s content with a supply-side bailout with a jobless recovery—employers are working their employees harder, there’s a reluctance to get to the heart of the matter. The oligarchies of the banking sector ran aground with their policies and this needs to be addressed. The banks and the politicians have been systematically allowing for the concentration of power, which was accelerated in Clinton’s second term and continued W. MIT professor Simon Johnson, an IMF chief economist with experience with emerging market crises echoes the sentiment that the banking sector needs to be scrutinized to say the least. Geithner’s response is that the US economy is not an emerging one, but I say that all bets are off given the structural changes going on with permanent middle-class job losses and the productivity wave being over. His remarks may go down in history as the heights of arrogance, particularly if the US economy languished like Japan’s since 1990. There are parallels between Japan then and the US now, which should be examined.

A year ago, apparently Obama himself was playing pollyanna with Geithner in hoping the US would grow itself out of the recession. The economic sturm & drang and bailout drama played out over the course of the year and Obama has stood behind Tim, through thick and thin. A cautious, measured approach has been the code of the day with the aim of patching together the economy and nor falling prey to populist temptations to mete out justice, mediæval-style à la Marsellus Wallace.

While much of the framing of managing the economy has been couched in terms like vengeance against the greedy Wall Street robber barons and how that affords political capital, the reality is that he’s a centrist. Barack’s faith in Tim Geithner is somewhat telling. More telling is how the Obama administration has done so little to frame the Geithner agenda and to “sell” the policy and from a marketing and PR perspective, change this ain’t. More problematic is the fact that I don’t think these policies are going to help the US economy recover. Sure, the Geithner plan stemmed the hemorrhaging of public funds and served up a cosmetic recovery on the cheap, but is this so much window-dressing on an economy that still geared towards concentrating power and wealth AND subject to similar meltdowns without increased regulatory oversight? I feel there are structural issued that need to address failpoints in how financial intermediaries are managed, which need to be addressed in order to prevent future meltdowns and fully restore the faith in US capital markets.

Twitterversion:: No love for Treasury secretary Tim Geithner? PR #fail, but are policies fiddling while Rome burns? #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: The Jam-‘David Watts’

Tonight is Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Let’s hope it’s more exciting than Steve Job’s iPad announcement and I’m sure many Dems. hope it elicits less ridicule.

The WSJ has an even article on Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, about how he’s taking heat from the left.

“The friction was laid bare in August when Mr. Emanuel showed up at a weekly strategy session featuring liberal groups and White House aides. Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul.

‘F—ing retarded,’ Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. He warned them not to alienate lawmakers whose votes would be needed on health care and other top legislative items.”

From a strategic perspective, I feel both the Republicans and Democrats are rudderless. The Republicans have taken potshots at Obama and the Democrats, but don’t have a unifying vision. The Democrats led by Obama are taking heat for not addressing the problems-at-hand head-on and the left wing of the party feels the administration is compromising ideology.

A year ago, Obama was ushered in on a mandate of change. Emanuel is a Clintonian centrist and deals in a raw pragmatism in the service of getting things done. So, while many in the Democratic party in wake of the loss of Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts {hey, I spelled it right, unlike Coakley} think the party should go more centrist. Strategically, the Obama administration needs to address the concerns of the people in effective ways. While Emanuel’s centrist pragmatism may seem like a reasonable way to push policies through, it’s passive. Love him or hate him, George W. Bush was good at changing the game with the help of Karl Rove. Jon Stewart for weeks has lambasted the Dems. for focusing so much on retaining a filibuster-proof Senate majority, something W never had. While it could be argued that this is because of many centrist constituencies that Senators are beholden to, I see a dearth of effective communication and policies that people can get behind.

The lack of support on health care reform is a perfect storm. The right has framed it as a government interventionist boondoggle and the left have failed to communicate what they perceive the stakes to be. I see “centrist pragmatism” as resulting in the proposed healthcare legislation, which is overly complex, hard to understand, and reeks of compromise.  As we’ll see below, healthcare is now the “wrong” issue, no matter how hard politicians try to spin it as being tied to the economy.

Rahm’s centrism is wrongheaded, but blindly following a hard left agenda would also be a mistake. I think the Obama administration needs to look at the priorities of the people and the challenge will be to craft policy addressing these and communicating how the policy will effect change.

What are the public’s priorities?  According to a Pew Research study conducted earlier in the month, overall, the economy is looming large as a concern::

Terrorism is third, with the Christmas airline bombing attempt fresh in people’s minds. The next three are interesting with possible drivers:: social security {decimated retirement plans and obliterated pensions}, education {rising costs}, and Medicare {rising pharmaceutical costs}. Breaking things down by ideological lines, the following pattern emerges::

Interestingly, what matters to all groups is pretty similar. Healthcare is only in the top 5 for Democrats, painting the issue as partisan, given its divisiveness.

What to do? All roads lead to the economy and while the deficit is a concern, strategically, I see populist Keynesian measures that put people to work as a way to win over independents, appeal to the Democratic base, and would be hard for Republicans to fight.

Twitterversion:: Centrist pragmatist R. Emanuel under fire from left-Democrats, but what about people’s priorities? Insights fr. Pew data. http://url.ie/4sen  @Prof_K

Years ago, I once had a conversation with an economist who freely admitted that there was no unified macroeconomic theory.  What works versus what doesn’t work in a particular sociopolitical context is really just so much spitballing.  This never surprised me given the complex realities of global capitalism.

I’ve been genuinely perplexed by Barack Obama and Tim Geithners’ macroeconomic policies regarding managing the US through this Big Recession.  So, today’s news that the administration was extending the $700B financial bailout until next October came as no surprise.  I was reading a very interesting blog post on The North Star National, “As Obama and Geithner continue Bush’s too-big-to-fail fiasco, blue may turn red in 2010,” which contextualized Obamanomics.  The right is blasting the Obama Administration for Keynesian statist interventionism, while the left, including fellow Democrats in Congress, is getting increasingly impatient with the lack of Keynesian stimulus.  Who’s right?

Well, the fact of the matter that in terms of economic policy, precious little has changed since the heady deregulatory days of Bill Clinton when the economy was flying high.  What has changed is the economy itself.  Valuations of assets have often been distorted and instruments and markets were allowed to be developed in ways that underestimated or distorted the risks.  Of course, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, so many were caught off-guard when the house of cards fell and the asset bubble burst.  How did this happen?  Only a select few know that the house of cards of the economy was built with a stacked deck.  In the aftermath, the economy languished and unemployment rose.  All the while, the meter was running with Team America, World Police, with surge on the way.

So, while billions are being pushed towards the “too big to fail,” what’s being ignored are::

1. Job creation, as double-digit unemployment sweeps the nation
2. Consumer debt forgiveness/restructuring
3. A restoration of faith in financial intermediaries

While Wall Street got theirs, I’m concerned that “Main Street” is left high and dry.  The danger is a negative feedback loop, where unemployment not only leads to more consumer debt, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and lower consumption and savings {further tightening credit}, but less tax revenues.  Less tax revenues at the federal, state, and local levels.  Unless the economy turns around soon, the next crisis will be the local governments with the critical services they provide saying the well is dry.

Recently, I saw Joe Biden doing a song and dance on the Daily Show::

Readers in Canada can see the interview here in a link to the full episode on the Comedy Network.

Biden claimed that the bailouts were necessary to prevent a fully-blown depression.  I’m not convinced.  The NorthStarNational blog makes reference to a report that is very critical of the Obama/Geithner approach.  The preface starts out with this::

“The Obama administration has implemented several policies to “jump-start” the U.S. economy. Two core premises are thatmonetary measures are required to strengthen the financial system before the rest of the economy can recover, and that most major banks have a temporary liquidity problem induced by malfunctioning financialmarkets.The administration’s efforts have largely focused on preserving the financial interests of major banks. Research Associate Éric Tymoigne and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray believe that maintaining the status quo is not the solution, since it overlooks the debt problems of households and nonfinancial businesses—re-creating the financial conditions that led to disaster will set the stage for a recurrence of the Great Depression or a Japanese-style ‘lost decade.'”

What are the answers?  At the risk of sounding populist, there needs to be real job creation on a large scale and deficit be damned.  Oh, and about Afghanistan and its hefty pricetag…

Twitterversion:: #TimGeithner& #Obama extend fin.bailout, but w/unemp% in double-digits, what about consumer spending, savings, & tax rev? http://url.ie/3yv5 @Prof_K

Song:: The Hold Steady-“Stuck Between Stations”

On ThickCulture, we’ve written about public figures getting into hot water before using Facebook.  A candidate’s campaign for provincial legislative office in British Columbia was sunk by “risqué” photos posted on Facebook [1].  Down in the States, the Young Republicans got into a dustup stemming from racially charged comments left on a vice chairman’s wall [2].  Now, Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee is feeling the heat for calling President Obama a Muslim on a “friends only” Facebook post.  Wiseman has over 1,600 “friends” and the comments leaked out.  What did he say?  Well, for starters::

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”

The extensive thread also included this::

“…you obama people need to move to a muslim country…oh wait, that’s America….pitiful.”

He also goes on with his interesting take on polity::

“you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different……..”

Wiseman felt those making a fuss about his comments were making a “mountain out of a molehill.”

I get a sense that Wiseman thought his Facebook comments were only viewable to those who shared his views -or- perhaps was imbibing in a bit too much holiday cheer before settling down to watch “It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.”  The irony is that the Obama speech on the Afghanistan surge had so much in common with George W’s take on terrorism.  Jon Stewart has a funny take on the speech {US IPs only}::

Canadian viewers can watch the segment here {2 December}.

So, what was Wiseman upset about missing.  It was Linus’ reading of the Gospel of Luke::

The object lesson for public figures is to be careful about what you post online, but I wonder if the proliferation of social media will “desensitize” us all to every little thing that someone says on their Facebook wall or in a Tweet.

In Canada a few weeks ago, the wife of the immediate-past Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion, Janine Krieber {AKA la présidente}, criticized the current leader, Michael Ignatieff, you guessed it, on Facebook [3].  Here’s a translation {it was posted originally in French}::

“It’s been a year and one week since I last wrote on my blog. Ah! “la présidente” is lazy. But we have to take action now.

The Liberal Party is falling apart, and will not recover. Like all liberal parties in Europe, it will become a weakling at the mercy of ephemeral coalitions. By refusing the historic coalition that would have placed it at the helm of the left, it will be punished by history.

Anyway, I became convinced of it the moment that Paul Martin treated Jean Chrétien so cavalierly. The party died at that moment. If the Toronto elites had been more in tune, humble and realist, Stéphane would have been willing to take all the time and absord all the hits needed to rebuild the party. But they couldn’t swallow the 26%, and now we are at 23%.

The time for choices is now. I don’t want to see the Conservatives continue to change my country. They are, slowly, like any dictatorship, changing the world. Torture doesn’t exist, corruption is a fabrication. Do we really have the right leader to discuss these questions? Can someone really write these insanities and lead us to believe that he simply changed his mind? In order to justify violence, he must have engaged in serious thought. Otherwise, it’s very dangerous. How can we be sure that he won’t change his mind one more time?

The party grassroots had understood all of that, and the average citizen is starting to understand it too. Ignatieff’s supporters have not done their homework. They did not read his books, consult his colleagues. They were satisfied that he could be charming at cocktails. Some of them are outraged now. I am hearing: Why did no one say it? We told you loud and clear, you didn’t listen.

I am starting a serious reflection. I will not give my voice to a party that will end up in the trashcan of history. I am looking around me, and certain things are attractive. Like a dedicated party that doesn’t challenge its leader at every hiccup in the polls. A party where the rule would be the principle of pleasure, and not assassination. A party where work ethic and competence would be respected and where smiles would be real.

Maybe I’m not dreaming.

“La présidente.”

Some have called the above as a tirade, others think it wasn’t constructive given where the Liberal party is these days, and still others went “right on.”  No matter what, Ms. Krieber’s post was taken down after it was being circulated.

Will social media eventually change what we collectively deem as shocking, inappropriate, or out-of-line?  Until then, watch what you say…and Google cache.

Twitterversion:: Tenn. mayor goes off on “Muslim president.” Anothr #Facebook #fail 4 a public figure. Will we evntually get desensitized? @Prof_K

Song:: Tennessee – Silver Jews