G8...G20...Gee Whiz

Simon Johnson of Baseline Scenario has an interesting post discussing the overemphasis that is placed on the annual G8 (formerly G7) meetings as compared to the broader G20 (which includes developing countries, not just the 7 major Western economies with Russia and China added in...I know that makes 9, but I do not get to name the groups). While there are good political reasons for the G8 meetings to remain a regular event, I think he is right on the economics.

First, emerging markets have obviously risen in both respectable clout and ability to make trouble. China’s exchange rate policy is a leading example, but think also about Mexico, Brazil, or India. Having a global economic discussion (e.g., on climate change or aid to Africa) without these players fully at the table does not really make sense – particularly as the G20 now operates effectively at the heads of government level. And inviting these countries to a dinner or other event on the fringes of the main meeting just adds insult to injury.

Second, the Europeans are now organized into a loose political union and all of the major economies – except the UK – are in a currency union. What is the point of sitting down with Italy, Germany, France, and the UK separately? It is much more effective when they – and other Europeans – work out common positions and bring those to the table collectively. The European Union belongs to the G20 but not the G7.

Third, the idea that the US and its allies “lead” by any kind of economic policy example is plainly in disarray. The recent crisis focuses our attention, but we’ve seen two or three decades with irresponsible credit and throwing fiscal caution to the winds across these countries. These countries traditionally position themselves as “G7 models” worth emulating; this message needs to be toned down.

Robert McNamara

Vietnam. To anyone who lived through the Vietnam era, the wound has not healed, the pain lingers, and the bill is still being paid. And the chief villain in the horror story was, is and remains Robert McNamara. Eisenhower started us down the path with his popularization of the Domino Theory; JFK kicked it up a notch with the dispatch of over 10,000 "advisors"; and LBJ sealed the deal with the fabricated Tonkin Gulf incident and the commitment of over 500,000 American troops. But the evil genius behind the actions of JFK and LBJ was McNamara.

JFK considered McNamara the smartest man he ever met, and LBJ went so far as to offer him the VP slot for his 1964 reelection bid. Yet the "smartest man" refused to look at the evidence before his eyes, relying instead on the whiz kids around him to present carefully crafted data in support of the theories that enabled the policy disasters that devastated not only America's image, but its very essence.

Only in 1995....28 years after leaving the Defense Dept and 20 years after the war ended (for the US)...did he finally open his eyes and acknowledge how wrong he had been. The war was unwinnable, his analysis of the role of outside forces was misguided, etc, etc, etc. However, for 58,000 dead American soldiers (plus countless veterans and their families doomed to misery or worse from wounds seen and unseen), not to mention the casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (1 million, 2 million, who will ever know), this was far too little and far too late.

Robert McNamara, secure on the list of most evil Americans of the 20th century, is dead. He is not to be mourned, but the lessons of his hubris must be remembered as a warning of what he wrought.

California Here We Come?

Ezra has some thoughts on the economic calamity facing California that capture the serious issues underlying what is being covered as a comedy by much of the press.

There's an occasional tendency to treat California's politics like a joke. And we Californians, I admit, bear some responsibility for that. The recall election was a fiasco. The reality of Gov. Schwarzenegger hasn't made it seem any less like a prank. But Sacramento is not Hollywood. Hollywood is where interesting things happen to fake people. Sacramento is where important things happen to real people. And it needs to be covered as such.

Whatever its entertainment value, California is the largest state in the union. Almost one-in-seven Americans call it home. And a lot of them are suffering now and, absent a fix, more will be suffering soon. Not joke-suffering. Not buddy-comedy suffering. Really suffering. Schools will close. Children will lose their health care. Families will lose their homes. The state will stop helping the mentally ill afford the medicine that lets them live normal lives. The budget cuts will cause 60,000 public employees to lose their jobs.

And as goes California, so might well go the nation.

Palin & Her Lies.....Another View

Paul Rosenberg posts on Open Left a wonderful screed about Palin and her lies:

It was a slow newsday, Friday before a holiday, so why shouldn't Sarah Palin suck up all the oxygen in five continents? If only that stupid Michael Jackson fellah hadn't died the week before, she could have totally pulled it off. As it was, she did pretty damn well for a couple of hours there. Her big secret? Same as it ever was: she lied. Seven ways from Sunday. She lied about being cleared in all the Alaska investigations; she lied about their cost; she lied about wanting to serve the people of Alaska; she lied about fulfilling her goals; she lied about people attacking her son Trig; she lied about being like a point guard; she lied when she said "and" and "the". She spoke, therefore she lied.

Why does Sarah Palin lie? She lies to get out of trouble; she lies to shift blame; she lies to get even; she lies to get ahead; she lies to hurt her enemies; she lies to amuse her friends; she lies to relieve boredom; she lies to have some fun; she lies because truth is bother; she lies as a key to strategy; she lies because she has no plan; she lies to confuse anyone trying to keep track; she lies to make sense to those not keeping track; she lies for power; she lies because lying works for her; she lies just for the hell of it; she lies because she can; she lies because that's how she expresses her freedom--a very libertarian idea of freedom, I might well add.

Liberals and libertarians are both about freedom, but their concepts of freedom are radically different, and Sarah Palin's compulsive, multipurpose lying is as a good a way as any to approach understanding the differences between them.

In sharp contrast, liberals characteristically express their freedom by telling the truth, inconvenient truths, as Al Gore put it. Truths about racism and war, such as Martin Luther King told, when speaking truth to power. Truths about the social order and tradition that are not supposed to be said.

Secrets of the Wall Street Journal

Paul Krugman asks a very simple but heretofore unanswered question, "What is the true agenda of the WSJ?" It is easy to understand Fox or the New York Post, but the WSJ has always been a bit of a mystery.

This morning’s Wall Street Journal opinion section contains a lot of what one expects to see. There’s an opinion piece making a big fuss over the fake scandal at the EPA. There’s an editorial claiming that the latest job figures prove the failure of Obama’s economic plan — something I dealt with in the Times. All of this follows on yesterday’s editorial asserting that the Minnesota senatorial election was stolen.

All of this is par for the course; the WSJ editorial page has been like this for 35 years. Nonetheless, it got me wondering: what do these people really believe? I mean, they’re not stupid — life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth — one that is, in effect, told only to Inner Party members, while the Outer Party makes do with prolefeed.

The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in?

Brad DeLong posits an answer from a conversation he overhead at lunch in DC a number of year's ago. Money quote:

the Journal editorial writers thought that their role was to make not the strongest but rather the most persuasive case for lower taxes and Republican candidates in every circumstance--that they had a duty not to inform their readers, not even to make the truest arguments for the side that they had been hired to support, but rather to make the arguments for the side they had been hired to support that would strengthen that side the most by convincing the most people.

California Budget Blues

Kevin Drum on the current state of affairs in California, where a fiscal meltdown is underway, discusses the dysfunctional political scene out there.

If you ever thought there was a group of lawmakers who could make the U.S. Congress look like a sober, highminded deliberative body, the clowns in Sacramento are them.

In case you're interested, here's the latest. No budget agreement is on the horizon, but on June 29 Dems tried to pass a bill that would have saved a bit of money. It was a technical measure related to how education money is distributed via Proposition 98, but the bottom line is that it would have saved the state about $3 billion. It had to be passed before June 30 or not at all, but Arnold Schwarzenegger flatly refused to consider it. Why? Who knows. No "piecemeal" budgeting, he says. He wants an entire budget all at once that slashes $24 billion without increasing taxes so much as a dime, or nothing at all. Why? Again, who knows? It's like trying to figure out a five year old.

So, anyway, our gargantuan budget deficit, much of it caused by almost lunatic irresponsibility on Schwarzenegger's part in the first place, is now about $3 billion higher because of further lunatic irresponsibility on Schwarzenegger's part. And while Dems may not exactly be heroes in this mess, at least they're doing something. Proposing things. Trying to keep the state from resorting to IOUs for blind people. Hoping to do something to prevent our credit rating from going down the toilet, making our budget problem even worse. Something. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has no plans at all, and the sullen Republican rump in the Senate and Assembly just sits around and votes no on everything. No proposals, no ideas, no nothing. Just no, no, no.

Michele Bachmann & the Census

Bizarro World Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been on a rampage against the census, recently appearing on several Fox programs ranting about the threat the census poses to Americans and the need to refuse to cooperate with it (which is illegal, of course). Even some of her fellow fringe far-right colleagues are getting a bit antsy about that. Three Republican members of the Census Oversight Subcommittee issued a statement which concluded that "Boycotting the constitutionally-mandated census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country." This was primarily because the potential impact on redistricting and allocation of Federal spending.

Now Stever Benen at Political Animal adds an interesting footnote:

And as long as we're on the subject, Bachmann talked to Sean Hannity on Fox News last night about her anti-census crusade, and returned to one of her favorite arguments: "Sean, you know the one question they don't ask? They [don't] ask, 'are you an American citizen?' ... [T]hey could at least ask if we're an American citizen? They don't bother to ask for that. That's why I think people need to read this census for themselves. If you go to my website, michelebachmann, you can read it."

Good idea. If you take Bachmann's advice, visit her website, and read the census, you find the American Community Survey put together by the Census Bureau. Question #7 reads: "Where was this person born?" Question #8 reads, "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"

Bachmann probably should have noticed this before repeatedly going on national television, pleading with people to read the census questions, and railing against the absence of a question that's already there.

Palin, Fundamentalism & the Lies That Bind

A reader on Sully's blog posted the following analysis that perfectly sums up an underlying truth about the lies.

Part of Sarah Palin's irresistible appeal to her fundamentalist base is her ability to look at the camera with utter conviction and declare black to be white.

The ability to lie well is a valuable part of the fundamentalist psychology. My son isn't gay, he just hasn't found the right woman! Those rocks aren't 50 million years old, they just look like it as a test of our faith! My sexless marriage isn't foundering, it is filled with God's spirit! The minister isn't molesting little Maria, they're just very close! It isn't torture, it is being tough on terrorists!

Fundamentalists can recognize a truly audacious and talented liar from miles away. Instead of running the other way, as you might expect, they gather around the powerful liar, for they know that their own lies will be respected and protected by a leader who understands the paramount importance of preserving their whole system of denial.

It's No Fun...It Fell Right Over

From Shanghai, via Gizmodo, an unoccupied 13-story building that fell over during construction!!

MUSIC: Explosions in the Sky

The rain let up, the band came out, and a wonderful evening of music in Central Park ensued. Explosions in the Sky, the Austin based quartet, brought its rolling, meandering, lyric-free virtuousity to the heart of NYC and held a packed crowd in rapt attention at the Rumsey Playfield. The only surprise is that this band has become so popular. Wordless music is often an acquired taste to an audience with limited attention spans and a multitude of distractions. But the sheer power of this band, with intricate interlocking guitar lines and a brilliant drummer has won over a sizable following. I saw them a few years back at the intimate Bowery Ballroom, but this show in the park even topped last year's sold out and packed show at Terminal 5. Fun indeed!