Defending the Establishment

When this primary season started, I was dead-set against voting for Hillary Clinton because I believed that she was corrupt.  I thought that even if she was effective, all the progress would be for naught if a scandal erupted.  It could discredit the progressive cause for at least two election cycles and possibly more.  I wasn't quite feeling the Bern, but he seemed promising.  I have now done a pretty dramatic 180 on Hillary, and I guess a less dramatic -90 on Bernie Sanders.

After looking into the past scandals involving the Clintons, I found that they were all pretty much engineered by Republicans.  Given how much Republicans hate them and how much they've been investigated, I now really doubt that the Clintons are really corrupt or that there is a scandal waiting to be exposed.

With that out of the way, I am more supportive of Hillary for president.  She is a believer and practitioner of incremental change.  Sanders is a proponent of a "political revolution."  I certainly ascribe more to her theory change, particularly for the presidency while Congress is still dominated by Republicans and the Tea Party.  I expand on this train of thought in an essay, where I use examples from my professional field of responsible investing.

Dreaming of Incremental Change




The one thing that really still bothers me about Hillary is that she is too much of an interventionist on foreign policy.  This is where I often diverge with liberals because they usually want to go in to every conflict and support every rebel and of course posture at China!  I don't really think she's a neocon, though, but rather she is in line with the foreign policy elite in the US.  She seems like the classic bleeding heart liberal, actually.  I hope that after working with Obama and Biden that her views have moderated.  With that said, maybe it's more important that the foreign policy elite's views moderate.

Frustrated with Hillary and Bernie and Progressives

Sent this to the Hillary campaign.  I'll send a similar one to Sanders as well, but it's really not his fault if Hillary can't make the case for herself and Democrats.

Why isn't the campaign steering the conversation towards how we're going to get Republicans out of office?  Hillary just keeps tacking left.   That's great and all, but we all know that the real reason behind the erosion of the social safety net in the US is because of the rise of the extreme right!  Attacking Democrats is a waste of time not to mention resources.  Please, talk about political strategy!  And about the virtues of level-headedness a la Obama.  He has been consistently promoting the message of resisting over-reactions since his campaign in '08.  Surely, this temperament has helped Hillary with some legislation or political battle as well.  If Hillary can't sell this message, we're screwed and the Koch brothers win.

Message to the Hillary Clinton Campaign

I almost can't believe I'm getting involved given my strong opposition to her '08 campaign.  At any rate, I decided to send her campaign a message about what I think they should do.

Hi,

I can't say that I'm a very strong supporter, but I can see that Hillary Clinton is not doing as well as she should at communicating her message and strengths.  I wanted to share two suggestions to the campaign.

1. You've probably heard this one before, but voters (including myself) still really don't have a good sense of what Hillary is driven by.  What is her conceptual framework for how the economy works, how government works, the problems and solutions?  What is the theory of change?  People wouldn't necessarily expect the end game to materialize, but we all would like to know what it is.

2. Do NOT go on a full-on attack on Sanders.  Instead, start talking about management strategies and really get into the weeds.  People love that crap a la. the Checklist Manifesto, Getting Things Done, 6 Omega, etc.  Talk about how you run an effective meeting, how to manage an ineffective meeting run by someone else, how important it is to be in control of agenda-setting, etc.

Outrage on the Internet

Recent high profile events show that a type of political consumerism can be effective.  For example, the Clipper's owner Donald Sterling has come under fire for some racist comments he made.  Many basketball players and coaches have spoken out against it and are calling for action such as boycotting of Clippers games.  The CEO of RadiumOne, a large online advertising company, recently had to step down after being found guilty of domestic abuse.  The Mozilla CEO also had to step down after furor over his donation to Proposition 8, the campaign against legalizing gay marriage.  What's interesting about these controversies are that many of the people who objected aren't end consumers but rather employees (like basketball players) or other companies.  It seemed that the leadership of other companies were motivated to speak out because of the attitudes of their employees.  Is political consumerism more effective when the employees are more powerful?  The employees in these cases were basketball players or software developers.  Many of Mozilla and RadiumOne's downstream consumers are also in the tech industry.  Both of these groups happen to be in extremely high demand.  Large public forums (eg. Twitter) seemed to facilitate these events.

Interstate Cooperation for Clean Energy

I wrote up a policy  memo for a class last week.  It made me realize how much of a problem coal still is, largely because it is not easy for coal-miners to transition to other jobs.  

California, Arizona, New Jersey are leading the nation in manufacturing and installing solar power.  Arizona alone has over 316 solar companies, supplying a variety of parts for solar installations[i]. 

The number of solar installations has been growing across the nation, increasing 15% in Q2 of 2013[ii].  States with solar manufacturing are well-positioned to benefit as more states install more solar power.  Those states will have more well-paying jobs and tax revenues as the solar industry grows. 

On the other hand, there are many opponents of solar power.  About 40% of the electricity generated in the United States is from coal.  Coal mining in the US is concentrated in some states, particularly Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming.  These and other states such as Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, and Illinois have strong pro-coal lobbies and constituents[iii].

Coal miners and their communities are justifiably concerned about losing their jobs and economic security.  Right now, they support ways to keep coal cheap, which works directly against the interests of the solar industry and Arizona generally.

In order to undercut the support for cheap coal, I recommend that states without coal industries share some of the benefits of their growing solar industries with coal miners.  Continued access to healthcare and education are particularly valuable.  Solar producing states should offer scholarships to family members of coal miners to their state universities.  They could also contribute to a fund to pay for healthcare for families of coal-miners.

Those directly affected by the decline of the coal-producing industry are relatively few, about 20,000 coal-miners in Kentucky, for example[iv].  Providing a safety net for those people would go a long way towards reducing the urgency of keeping coal production going.  This would give coal producing states less opposed to clean tech.  They would also have more resources to develop jobs in other industries rather than coal mining.

Solar producing states should partner with coal producing states to find mutually beneficial solutions to their economic, environmental, and health problems.        

---

[i] ‘Arizona Solar’, Solar Energy Industries Association [accessed 5 December 2013].

[ii] ‘Solar Industry Data’ [accessed 5 December 2013].

[iii] Kris Maher and Tom McGinty, ‘Coal’s Decline Hits Hardest in the Mines of Kentucky’ [accessed 5 December 2013].

[iv] ‘Mining Employment and Production Trends’, The Impact of Coal on the Kentucky State Budget .

Political Economy

Really good article

It's the Political Economy Stupid

Idea-smiths provide language, narratives and tools for those in control, but the broad contours of policy depend on who the controllers happen to be.

Hmm...maybe I should try harder to be a controller

Power Struggle

Al Gore recently wrote a piece in the Rolling Stones about politics and climate change. He urges:

Finally, and above all, don't give up on the political system. Even though it is rigged by special interests, it is not so far gone that candidates and elected officials don't have to pay attention to persistent, engaged and committed individuals. President Franklin Roosevelt once told civil rights leaders who were pressing him for change that he agreed with them about the need for greater equality for black Americans. Then, as the story goes, he added with a wry smile, "Now go out and make me do it."
...

This is not naive; trust me on this. It may take more individual voters to beat the Polluters and Ideologues now than it once did — when special-interest money was less dominant. But when enough people speak this way to candidates, and convince them that they are dead serious about it, change will happen — both in Congress and in the White House. As the great abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass once observed, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will."

I really like the quote by Frederick Douglass. It really also applied to money. The kinds of people who typically end up with a lot of money or power are ruthless. That's how they got where they are. It is self-selection. I often feel that the majority of Americans are too trusting of these people, believing them to be fair-minded and deserving of their power or wealth. To me, it's not about "deserving" it or not. Ruthless people don't think about what is fair. They think about what is the most they can get. In my view, when it comes to money or power, the only difference between earning it and taking it is that when you "earn" it, people give it to you voluntarily. If the average American employee wants a bigger cut of the profits or for wealthy Americans to pay a bigger share of the taxes, they just need to demand it. We don't need to shy away from demands for fear of economic repercussions. Do Americans really think that those at the top worry about the national economy when they decide on their bonuses?

Debt and Politics

Economist article shaming Republicans.

Senate Democrats present an alternative.

Bill Clinton on the Debt

Obama has been really bad at explaining the debt limit issue and even worse at building a case for just raising it without spending cuts or more taxes. No one articulates the issues about fiscal policy better than Bill Clinton, though! Bring back the triangulation!

2012 Popularity Contest

Candidates are starting to prepare for the 2012 US Presidential election.

One thing that bothers me is how candidates like to talk about "common sense," and voters say they want someone who has "common sense." Yes, we do want someone who is rational who has priorities aligned with voters' interests, but when people start making policy recommendations it is clear that they are in over their heads. This is especially true when talking about fiscal and monetary policy. A lot of economic policy is actually really technical. There are a lot of qualitative decisions about how to tackle income inequality and long term goals for research or education. However, things like tax rates, budget cuts, and determining interest rates require careful quantitative analysis, not "common sense."

Saying we need a president who just has "common sense" is as ridiculous as saying that we can design a cell-phone using "common sense." Who needs an engineering Phd??? Obviously we just need an antenna, some kind of processor, a screen, a battery, and some buttons. How hard can that be? MikeyP said people would call for "faster radiowaves." Really, that is exactly the kind of thing nontechnical people say when making engineering suggestions.

We need expertise not "common sense." Voters only seem to appreciate this when it comes to national security issues and foreign policy. When will it apply to domestic policy?

Women Are Different...

Male politicians have more sex scandals. Why? Discuss!

Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond Withdraws Nomination from Fed Board

MIT professor Peter Diamond withdrew his nomination from Federal Reserve Board today and wrote an op-ed in the NYT. Republicans blocked his nomination ostensibly because they thought he did not have enough expertise in monetary policy.

Peter Diamond's specialty is macroeconomics and the labor market. His Nobel Prize was for his research on search costs in the labor market. Monetary policy is intricately linked with unemployment. In fact, perhaps the primary purpose of monetary policy is to maximize the number of well-paid jobs in the American economy. I just finished reading the core of the macroeconomics textbook so now I really see just how integrated employment and monetary policy are. It would be like telling someone they don't know enough about current because their expertise is in measuring resistance.

It really seems like such a travesty that someone like Peter Diamond can't even get nominated. It really discredits the idea that the confirmation process is merit-based. Also, from seeing him talk, I really get the sense that he is really such a professional, not an activist or a partisan. I am embarrassed that he is treated this way.

Doctors Lean Left

Since fewer doctors are owning their own practices, they are becoming more interested in patient care than low taxes and malpractice insurance. They are becoming less conservative as a group according to an NYT article.

Task for Liberals

I think more liberals should become rich executives, entrepreneurs, economists, and bankers. How about it guys? Infiltrate!

You Fix Budget

NYTimes interactive tool for exploring how to reduce the US deficit.

Fair Complaints or Whiny Liberals?

It grates on me when liberal commentators like Frank Rich complain about how the Obama administration is not being clear enough about the game plan. On the one hand, they are valid complaints, but on the other hand, they're supposed to be the journalists, so why don't they figure out the game plan, and then tell us about it. Instead, they are just stoking people's anger so that even people who should be supportive of the president's agenda are angry at him. Then, people are demoralized and discouraged instead of pitching in to build support. Frank Rich complains that Obama isn't explaining the tax cuts well to the American people, and he gives some suggestions, which is great. However, aren't there journalists and other people who could be explaining the tax cuts to the American people? There is only one Obama, and even though I also wish the communication and political maneuvering could have been much better, there's only so much one person can get around to doing. I am pretty certain that if we had 10 or 20 Obama's, things could be better, but there is only one. I think liberal commentators and activists need to get better at actually being helpful.

Climate Legislation Abandoned

Tom Friedman says we're going to regret it.

I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon. I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling. I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls. I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill. But the truth is, the public, confused and stressed by the last two years, never got mobilized to press for this legislation. We will regret it.

I appreciate that he blames the public.

Jon Stewart on Energy Independent Future

On the Daily Show last week, Jon Stewart did a cool video essay on presidents who promised to move away from foreign oil and invest in alternative energy.

Tea Party Backers

NYT article about T party demographics.

Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich.

The overwhelming majority of supporters say Mr. Obama does not share the values most Americans live by and that he does not understand the problems of people like themselves. More than half say the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11 percent of the general public.

“The only way they will stop the spending is to have a revolt on their hands,” Elwin Thrasher, a 66-year-old semiretired lawyer in Florida, said in an interview after the poll. “I’m sick and tired of them wasting money and doing what our founders never intended to be done with the federal government.”

It is irritating to me that these people talk about revolution as if it were such an easy thing to do. These people sit in their houses with TV and drive around in their SUV's taking so many things completely for granted. They're mostly old people so it's not like they would be able to physically fight much anyway. Plus, they all take a bunch of pills everyday for their heart conditions or diabetes, etc. The whole point of democracy was so that disagreements could be resolved without total social upheaval. Revolution is very traumatizing, and it would take decades to simply rebuild the infrastructure, not to mention restore order, the rule of law, and political stability. Americans idealize revolution because it was founded by revolting against England. I would say that was a relatively clear cut struggle. Americans did not want to be taxed without representation, and ultimately England was driven out of the colonies. Who is the modern day colonizer of America? Obama? The Democrats? Anyway, if Tea Partiers want to get violent, we can have a revolution, but there will be just as many liberals interested in a new order so it will more likely be a civil war. Perhaps one side will be driven away to Alaska.

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

Partisanship in US Politics

Democrats need to get a handle on the rhetoric. I really agree with Frank Rich's article in the NYT, although I think it has a stupid name.

[Palin's] only concrete program for dealing with America’s pressing problems came in the question-and-answer session. “It would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country,” she said, “so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” That pretty much sums up her party’s economic program, at least: divine intervention will achieve what government intervention cannot. That the G.O.P. may actually be winning this argument is less an indictment of Palin than of Washington Democrats too busy reading the writing on her hand to see or respond to the ominous political writing on the wall.