A second post-election piece I didn't post at the time I wrote it (Nov. 5):
I've explained why I voted for Obama and I don't regret it today. But I am feeling a bit defensive because I've seen some emails from McCain voters that make important points and I hope I can provide some reassurance to my conservative friends.
First, I've been thinking about the political shortcomings of the Baby Boom generation for some time (well before Obama was on the scene). And perhaps more than anything I felt we needed a President who wasn't defined by the Vietnam War. I saw a documentary the other night about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and I can see how each side thought the other was out to destroy the fabric of America. But it's not like that anymore and I'm tired of the silliness of it. Negative ads are fine if they help define the issues, and yes, I believe character still matters. But Elizabeth Dole's ads claiming her Sunday school teacher opponent was a closet atheist probably helped tip my vote. It was manipulative, irresponsible and personally and spiritually hateful. You know, for years Republicans have tried to convince minority voters that if they only vote for one party all the time they'll be (and have been) taken for granted. Well, the same holds true for Christian conservatives.
Second, I'm honestly not sure if I would have voted for Obama if I hadn't actually met the guy and, as President Bush famously said of Vladmir Putin, "gained a sense of his soul." Obama was a professor at my law school and I took a seminar from him. I got no sense that he's a radical, that's he's not pro-America, or that he's a socialist. If I'm right about Obama, the far left blogosphere is going to be deeply disappointed in his presidency. If I'm wrong about him (and look how well this looking-into-his-soul thing worked out for GW Bush w/r/t Putin) then I'll be very disappointed. In fact, a couple of my old law school professors recently had a debate on "whether conservatives should vote for Obama." Prof. Cass Sunstein, who is very liberal, made the case that conservatives should vote for Obama because, well, because he doesn't think Obama is really as liberal as his voting record and his anti-NAFTA campaigning in the primary would suggest. My best sense is that Sunstein is right. Imagine Clinton without the the sex and the lies and things don't seem too bad.
Third, look, I have to say that the top of the Republican ticket, John McCain is not a conservative except on a few social issues. McCain wasn't a conservative in 2000 and that's why he lost the primary. He pretended to be one this year but I didn't buy it. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts. He came around on those because he knew he had to. But his economic instincts are not conservative and on any other issue I didn't trust him to govern as a conservative (his response to the foreclosure crisis and financial meltdown - a housing rescue plan of some $300 billion and blaming "greed on Wall Street"- sounded a lot like Chuck Schumer to me). If we're going to have socialism in this country I'd rather come by it honestly.
My last line of defense is this: Ronald Reagan started out as a Democrat. And he always said that he didn't leave the Democratic Party, but that the party left him. The Republicans are in the wilderness because of Tom Delay, Ted Stevens, No Child Left Behind, "You're doing a heck of job Brownie" cronyism, etc.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
More Obama
I wrote two posts after the election but didn't put them up because they seemed not to say what I wanted them to say. Having re-read them, I think they hold up better than I was giving them credit for. Here's the first:
I've seen a couple of emails from people who voted for John McCain and it makes me wonder where the Republican Party goes from here. The party needs to start by understanding why John McCain got the votes he did and what they can (and cannot) build on.
What the GOP cannot count on in 2012:
1. Obama the inexperienced. A lot of folks had deep misgivings about Barack Obama as a candidate. They were concerned about a lack of experience and concerned about a lack of depth that was hidden by his soaring rhetoric. He's going to president and in four years, for good or ill, he'll have experience.
2. Obama the radical. Even more potently, many Americans were concerned about what Obama's real views were. Some of this was based on falsehoods like his being a Muslim (or having been raised as one) but these attacks gained plausible support for many conservatives when they learned about William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi and Jeremiah Wright. If Obama is radical, time will tell. I do not believe he is, nor do I believe that he harbors any anti-American views. I don't believe he's a socialist looking to have government take over massive sectors of the economy. But again, time will tell.
If Obama is not up to the job, or if he turns out to be too radical, the Republicans can be assured of victory in 2 years and again in 4. This is the genius of the American system: no one in our government has the kind of power to do much lasting damage without the support of the people. (Almost all of the most consequential decisions of the Bush administration were made with solid popular and Congressional support; and if the surge hadn't worked the troops would probably be on their way home now anyway).
What the GOP can count on
1. Joe the Plumber. No, not the actual Joe the Plumber, but the underlying idea that Joe was meant to symbolize. (Having the actual Joe out campaigning was, in my view, a real mistake for McCain.) The refrain from conservatives I hear over and over is "what happened to personal responsibility?" Bailouts for Wall Street are unpopular, so the political establishment (including McCain) propose bailouts for homeowners to "even the score." Yet what conservatives want are no bailouts for anybody. Here, John McCain failed to take a chance. His very early position was to be skeptical of handing taxpayer money over to people who made bad decisions and gambled with their homes. But, afraid of losing hard-hit areas like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nevada, he turned around and proposed his own $300 billion bailout plan. If he'd stuck with a personal responsibility theme instead the worst that would have happened is that he would have lost all these states. But in the end, he lost them all anyway and wouldn't conservatives feel better about it if he'd lost them heroically fighting against a bailout? President Nixon spoke of a "silent majority" and the housing crisis is one where I believe a silent majority exists. It consists of people who, despite having seen their home values drop, are not willing to hand over their money to irresponsible neighbors in order to try to prop up home values. For these conservatives, even if you could prove that they'd be better off paying for a bailout, I think they'd rather take the hit than establish a regime where the irresponsible are cushioned.
This is a respectable position. The government has been trying hard to avert another Great Depression which was really, truly, bad for just about everyone. And that may require some interventions that conservatives hate. But many conservatives seem willing to accept some undeserved losses in order to prevent others from getting undeserved gains. This is not cruelty; it's a realization that if people are rewarded when a gamble pays off but protected when it doesn't, they'll keep on betting more and more so that each bailout will be bigger than the last. Better to take the pain now of letting them all fail than the death-by-a-thousands-cuts of ever increasing bailouts.
I've seen a couple of emails from people who voted for John McCain and it makes me wonder where the Republican Party goes from here. The party needs to start by understanding why John McCain got the votes he did and what they can (and cannot) build on.
What the GOP cannot count on in 2012:
1. Obama the inexperienced. A lot of folks had deep misgivings about Barack Obama as a candidate. They were concerned about a lack of experience and concerned about a lack of depth that was hidden by his soaring rhetoric. He's going to president and in four years, for good or ill, he'll have experience.
2. Obama the radical. Even more potently, many Americans were concerned about what Obama's real views were. Some of this was based on falsehoods like his being a Muslim (or having been raised as one) but these attacks gained plausible support for many conservatives when they learned about William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi and Jeremiah Wright. If Obama is radical, time will tell. I do not believe he is, nor do I believe that he harbors any anti-American views. I don't believe he's a socialist looking to have government take over massive sectors of the economy. But again, time will tell.
If Obama is not up to the job, or if he turns out to be too radical, the Republicans can be assured of victory in 2 years and again in 4. This is the genius of the American system: no one in our government has the kind of power to do much lasting damage without the support of the people. (Almost all of the most consequential decisions of the Bush administration were made with solid popular and Congressional support; and if the surge hadn't worked the troops would probably be on their way home now anyway).
What the GOP can count on
1. Joe the Plumber. No, not the actual Joe the Plumber, but the underlying idea that Joe was meant to symbolize. (Having the actual Joe out campaigning was, in my view, a real mistake for McCain.) The refrain from conservatives I hear over and over is "what happened to personal responsibility?" Bailouts for Wall Street are unpopular, so the political establishment (including McCain) propose bailouts for homeowners to "even the score." Yet what conservatives want are no bailouts for anybody. Here, John McCain failed to take a chance. His very early position was to be skeptical of handing taxpayer money over to people who made bad decisions and gambled with their homes. But, afraid of losing hard-hit areas like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nevada, he turned around and proposed his own $300 billion bailout plan. If he'd stuck with a personal responsibility theme instead the worst that would have happened is that he would have lost all these states. But in the end, he lost them all anyway and wouldn't conservatives feel better about it if he'd lost them heroically fighting against a bailout? President Nixon spoke of a "silent majority" and the housing crisis is one where I believe a silent majority exists. It consists of people who, despite having seen their home values drop, are not willing to hand over their money to irresponsible neighbors in order to try to prop up home values. For these conservatives, even if you could prove that they'd be better off paying for a bailout, I think they'd rather take the hit than establish a regime where the irresponsible are cushioned.
This is a respectable position. The government has been trying hard to avert another Great Depression which was really, truly, bad for just about everyone. And that may require some interventions that conservatives hate. But many conservatives seem willing to accept some undeserved losses in order to prevent others from getting undeserved gains. This is not cruelty; it's a realization that if people are rewarded when a gamble pays off but protected when it doesn't, they'll keep on betting more and more so that each bailout will be bigger than the last. Better to take the pain now of letting them all fail than the death-by-a-thousands-cuts of ever increasing bailouts.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Obamacons Transform!
Tomorrow I intend to vote for Barack Obama. I consider myself a libertarian-conservative Republican and yet I plan to vote for someone with the most liberal recent voting record in the United States Senate. Why?
1. Post-partisan Doesn’t Mean Bi-partisan
McCain has made a lot of the fact that he has been behind bipartisan legislation on a number of issues and that, by contrast, Sen. Obama has consistently voted with the left wing of his part. This is true, but it misses the point. Sen. Obama is a liberal and I wish he wasn’t (or was less so). But Sen. Obama is not the one claiming that those who vote for him represent the “pro-America parts of America” or are somehow the only “real America.” At his best, starting with his 2004 speech at the Democratic national convention and including his speech on race relations, Sen. Obama has shown an ability to understand the other side and to acknowledge their points without demonizing them. McCain is stuck in a Baby Boomer, Vietnam-era mindset where politics itself became an extension of war by other means. (Bill) Clinton, Gingrich, Bush, (Hillary) Clinton, all fall prey to this same sort of mindset. And for those who lived through the turmoil of the 60s and 70s when it quite plausibly seemed that America was coming apart, it’s easy enough to understand (though still sad and deplorable). But for Generation X and especially Generation Y (or whatever you call them) this kind of politics just doesn’t fire them up the way it did the Baby Boomers. Instead it turns them off in droves. Sen. Obama is trying harder than any politician in a generation to transcend the “politics of personal destruction” which has been simultaneously practiced and decried by both sides.
So no, I don’t expect Obama to be a centrist president. He’s got a liberal voting record and I expect he’ll be a liberal president. Nor do I expect him to be all sweetness and light. But I’m tired of being told who’s a “real American” and who isn’t. I’m tired of a politics where the ostensibly conservative candidate can’t just run on the issue in what I believe is still largely a center-right country, but has to exaggerate his opponent’s views into socialism as though he’s campaigning in 1928 instead of 2008. (Incidentally, many people including me thought that George W. Bush was going to be this kind of President. Remember “I’m a uniter not a divider?” So why do we think Obama might be different? Well, Bush ran a very divisive campaign in 2000 which I was too willing to write off as something one must do to get elected. And I must admit that my personal experience as a student of Obama’s at the University of Chicago also gives me comfort that he really is who he says he is.)
2. Sarah Palin
First, I think she was treated unfairly by the mainstream media. But, at the end of the day, one has to demonstrate that one is ready to be President. You don’t get the benefit of the doubt on this one. Obama has largely done that through two years of very tough campaigning. Palin’s seven weeks on the public stage were unlikely ever to have been enough to prove she was ready (which is a strike against McCain having picked her, not a strike against her personally) but she didn’t do enough with the time she had to put people at ease. But far more important to me is that Palin seems to embody the sort of politics of demonization that I hope Sen. Obama can help the country start to overcome. She lost me with “pallin’ around with terrorists” and “real America” and with the media criticizing her as a violation of her First Amendment rights. (Gov. Palin, you should try reading the First Amendment sometime. It’s quite interesting. It starts with “Congress shall make no law…”)
3. The Decider
I’ve come to believe that the Presidency is not about being the smartest person in the room but about making decisions and setting a tone and philosophy for governance. Obama has done that, even if it is to the left of where I’d like it to be. McCain has not. The Palin pick was ill-considered as were the shifts in campaign strategies. And McCain’s response to the economy has been muddled beyond belief; especially if one thinks all the way back a few short years ago when he opposed the Bush tax cuts. I know Obama is going to be a liberal president. I don’t know what I really expect McCain to do. My support for McCain was strongest during the Russian invasion of Georgia because I thought McCains swift and forceful condemnation was right on and Obama’s waffling sounded indecisive and weak. But we’re in a domestic crisis now and we need a leader who knows where he wants to take the country. One prerequisite for a market recovery is for the market to feel that there are clear rules. The ever-shifting bailout policies have sown confusion and made a bad situation worse. A McCain presidency really does seem like more the same on economic policy confusion.
4. A Fresh Start
Finally, Obama promises a fresh start for the United States’ reputation. I don’t expect this to last long or be very deep, but it will help for a bit. Ultimately the United States isn’t going to change on a lot of issues that cause other countries to dislike us (the death penalty, unilateralism, and just the fact that we’re big and have our hands in everything under the sun). But one lesson of the Bush administration is that we still need allies and our traditional allies are likely to find it easier to justify to their voters cooperation with President Obama. In fact, given Obama’s popularity overseas, it may be difficult, at least at first, for our allies not to increase their cooperation with the United States and we could certain use help in Afghanistan.
5. Competence
Three words can explain why President Bush is mired at a 25% approval rating: Iraq, Katrina, Foreclosure (or Bailout, take your pick). These have been challenging times, no doubt, but the president seems utterly unprepared and out of his depth on them. Obama lacks executive experience and he may turn out not to be competent. All we have to go on is his campaign. But the same is true for McCain who has been a legislator all these years. His executive experience must likewise be judged by his campaign. Who’s run the more competent campaign? I believe it’s been Obama. As the Economist said in its endorsement, Obama is a risk, but based on all the evidence we have, he’s a risk worth taking.
1. Post-partisan Doesn’t Mean Bi-partisan
McCain has made a lot of the fact that he has been behind bipartisan legislation on a number of issues and that, by contrast, Sen. Obama has consistently voted with the left wing of his part. This is true, but it misses the point. Sen. Obama is a liberal and I wish he wasn’t (or was less so). But Sen. Obama is not the one claiming that those who vote for him represent the “pro-America parts of America” or are somehow the only “real America.” At his best, starting with his 2004 speech at the Democratic national convention and including his speech on race relations, Sen. Obama has shown an ability to understand the other side and to acknowledge their points without demonizing them. McCain is stuck in a Baby Boomer, Vietnam-era mindset where politics itself became an extension of war by other means. (Bill) Clinton, Gingrich, Bush, (Hillary) Clinton, all fall prey to this same sort of mindset. And for those who lived through the turmoil of the 60s and 70s when it quite plausibly seemed that America was coming apart, it’s easy enough to understand (though still sad and deplorable). But for Generation X and especially Generation Y (or whatever you call them) this kind of politics just doesn’t fire them up the way it did the Baby Boomers. Instead it turns them off in droves. Sen. Obama is trying harder than any politician in a generation to transcend the “politics of personal destruction” which has been simultaneously practiced and decried by both sides.
So no, I don’t expect Obama to be a centrist president. He’s got a liberal voting record and I expect he’ll be a liberal president. Nor do I expect him to be all sweetness and light. But I’m tired of being told who’s a “real American” and who isn’t. I’m tired of a politics where the ostensibly conservative candidate can’t just run on the issue in what I believe is still largely a center-right country, but has to exaggerate his opponent’s views into socialism as though he’s campaigning in 1928 instead of 2008. (Incidentally, many people including me thought that George W. Bush was going to be this kind of President. Remember “I’m a uniter not a divider?” So why do we think Obama might be different? Well, Bush ran a very divisive campaign in 2000 which I was too willing to write off as something one must do to get elected. And I must admit that my personal experience as a student of Obama’s at the University of Chicago also gives me comfort that he really is who he says he is.)
2. Sarah Palin
First, I think she was treated unfairly by the mainstream media. But, at the end of the day, one has to demonstrate that one is ready to be President. You don’t get the benefit of the doubt on this one. Obama has largely done that through two years of very tough campaigning. Palin’s seven weeks on the public stage were unlikely ever to have been enough to prove she was ready (which is a strike against McCain having picked her, not a strike against her personally) but she didn’t do enough with the time she had to put people at ease. But far more important to me is that Palin seems to embody the sort of politics of demonization that I hope Sen. Obama can help the country start to overcome. She lost me with “pallin’ around with terrorists” and “real America” and with the media criticizing her as a violation of her First Amendment rights. (Gov. Palin, you should try reading the First Amendment sometime. It’s quite interesting. It starts with “Congress shall make no law…”)
3. The Decider
I’ve come to believe that the Presidency is not about being the smartest person in the room but about making decisions and setting a tone and philosophy for governance. Obama has done that, even if it is to the left of where I’d like it to be. McCain has not. The Palin pick was ill-considered as were the shifts in campaign strategies. And McCain’s response to the economy has been muddled beyond belief; especially if one thinks all the way back a few short years ago when he opposed the Bush tax cuts. I know Obama is going to be a liberal president. I don’t know what I really expect McCain to do. My support for McCain was strongest during the Russian invasion of Georgia because I thought McCains swift and forceful condemnation was right on and Obama’s waffling sounded indecisive and weak. But we’re in a domestic crisis now and we need a leader who knows where he wants to take the country. One prerequisite for a market recovery is for the market to feel that there are clear rules. The ever-shifting bailout policies have sown confusion and made a bad situation worse. A McCain presidency really does seem like more the same on economic policy confusion.
4. A Fresh Start
Finally, Obama promises a fresh start for the United States’ reputation. I don’t expect this to last long or be very deep, but it will help for a bit. Ultimately the United States isn’t going to change on a lot of issues that cause other countries to dislike us (the death penalty, unilateralism, and just the fact that we’re big and have our hands in everything under the sun). But one lesson of the Bush administration is that we still need allies and our traditional allies are likely to find it easier to justify to their voters cooperation with President Obama. In fact, given Obama’s popularity overseas, it may be difficult, at least at first, for our allies not to increase their cooperation with the United States and we could certain use help in Afghanistan.
5. Competence
Three words can explain why President Bush is mired at a 25% approval rating: Iraq, Katrina, Foreclosure (or Bailout, take your pick). These have been challenging times, no doubt, but the president seems utterly unprepared and out of his depth on them. Obama lacks executive experience and he may turn out not to be competent. All we have to go on is his campaign. But the same is true for McCain who has been a legislator all these years. His executive experience must likewise be judged by his campaign. Who’s run the more competent campaign? I believe it’s been Obama. As the Economist said in its endorsement, Obama is a risk, but based on all the evidence we have, he’s a risk worth taking.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Perfect Storm for Cliches
My fellow Americans,
As the housing market and economy melt down I hope we can all come together as a Nation at this point and agree that we will henceforth use the phrase "a perfect storm" to refer only to the book or movie of that name which were about an actual, you know, STORM.
Thank you and God Bless America.
As the housing market and economy melt down I hope we can all come together as a Nation at this point and agree that we will henceforth use the phrase "a perfect storm" to refer only to the book or movie of that name which were about an actual, you know, STORM.
Thank you and God Bless America.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
I Don't Deserve a Bailout, But I'll Take One
From today's (10-22-08) Wall Street Journal (California Home Sales Revive, But Not Without Intense Pain By MICHAEL CORKERY and JONATHAN KARP):
People here talk a lot, and agree little, about what should be done to fix things. On a recent day in the Verona subdivision, an upscale development riddled with for-sale signs, Bill Knoff laid out pizza and beer for a half a dozen members of his van pool. The co-commuters, who drive nearly 80 miles from Los Banos to Silicon Valley each morning and then back each night, sparred over who's to blame for local foreclosures and whether the government should bail out mortgage holders.
Mr. Knoff's house has traveled the arc of the local market. Built on vacant land in 2002, it sold for $280,000. Its original owner unsuccessfully tried to sell it in 2006 for $450,000. Mr. Knoff bought it out of foreclosure in March of this year for $320,000. Today, based on local sales, he figures the house is worth about $220,000.
Mr. Knoff paid nearly half of the purchase price in cash, so most of his equity has been wiped out. But he said he believes in taking responsibility for such choices. "The government can buy up troubled mortgages. But it should kick the people out of their houses," said the 61-year-old information technology manager. "Why should I pay for someone to buy their house?"
Darryl Williams blamed mortgage companies for granting the easy loans that fueled the boom. "I don't like hearing that the people who got houses and couldn't afford them are the bad guys," said Mr. Williams, a 55-year-old warehouse-services manager. "These are families with children."
Then Steve Sherman Sr. spoke. "I am one of those troubled borrowers not making any mortgage payments," Mr. Sherman said. The 61-year-old shipping and warehouse supervisor refinanced his house in Los Banos two years ago for $365,000, spending much of the new loan on home renovations. Now, he figures, the house is worth $140,000.
Mr. Sherman said that while he can afford his payments, he had planned to sell the house in a year or so to supplement his retirement income. But now, he figures, he couldn't afford to live there as a retiree. So four months ago he stopped writing mortgage checks, setting the cash aside in his retirement savings. He says he's waiting for his lender to kick him out or to reduce his loan amount. He'd also be happy for the government to modify his loan.
"I don't deserve a bailout," Mr. Sherman said. "Will I take one? You are darned right I will."
People here talk a lot, and agree little, about what should be done to fix things. On a recent day in the Verona subdivision, an upscale development riddled with for-sale signs, Bill Knoff laid out pizza and beer for a half a dozen members of his van pool. The co-commuters, who drive nearly 80 miles from Los Banos to Silicon Valley each morning and then back each night, sparred over who's to blame for local foreclosures and whether the government should bail out mortgage holders.
Mr. Knoff's house has traveled the arc of the local market. Built on vacant land in 2002, it sold for $280,000. Its original owner unsuccessfully tried to sell it in 2006 for $450,000. Mr. Knoff bought it out of foreclosure in March of this year for $320,000. Today, based on local sales, he figures the house is worth about $220,000.
Mr. Knoff paid nearly half of the purchase price in cash, so most of his equity has been wiped out. But he said he believes in taking responsibility for such choices. "The government can buy up troubled mortgages. But it should kick the people out of their houses," said the 61-year-old information technology manager. "Why should I pay for someone to buy their house?"
Darryl Williams blamed mortgage companies for granting the easy loans that fueled the boom. "I don't like hearing that the people who got houses and couldn't afford them are the bad guys," said Mr. Williams, a 55-year-old warehouse-services manager. "These are families with children."
Then Steve Sherman Sr. spoke. "I am one of those troubled borrowers not making any mortgage payments," Mr. Sherman said. The 61-year-old shipping and warehouse supervisor refinanced his house in Los Banos two years ago for $365,000, spending much of the new loan on home renovations. Now, he figures, the house is worth $140,000.
Mr. Sherman said that while he can afford his payments, he had planned to sell the house in a year or so to supplement his retirement income. But now, he figures, he couldn't afford to live there as a retiree. So four months ago he stopped writing mortgage checks, setting the cash aside in his retirement savings. He says he's waiting for his lender to kick him out or to reduce his loan amount. He'd also be happy for the government to modify his loan.
"I don't deserve a bailout," Mr. Sherman said. "Will I take one? You are darned right I will."
Saturday, August 23, 2008
What's Paris Up To These Days Anyway?
The following emails are all currently in my GMail spam folder (edited to make the list a bit more family friendly).
- Lawson Westberg » Paris Hilton Lands Leading Role in New Broadway Musical Production - Watch now 5:59 pm
- Dick Corron » Paris Hiltons P***y goes hungry whilst she is in custody! - WATCH VIDEO CLIP 4:54 pm
- matilde Tokos » Prince Harry Proposes to Paris Hilton - PLAY VIDEO CLIP 2:57 pm
- hjalmar Hemmi » Paris Hilton Leaves Michael Jackson for Editor of an Internet Spoof Rag! - Download and Watch 8:14 am
- Mels Kong » Paris Hilton Pregnant By Aliens - Watch the clip 5:16 am
- kazimierz domer » Paris Hilton: Professor Maxwell showed me his p***s during dinner! Gross! - PUSH TO WATCH 3:51 am
- Ivy grieve » Paris Hilton breaks down after friend tells her she's an 'a*****e'! - PUSH TO WATCH 2:52 am
- kanber beaune » Paris Hilton Wins Pulitzer Prize - Watch the clip Aug 22
Friday, August 8, 2008
Idea of the Century
From the "Why Didn't I Think of That?" department comes a post on Slashdot by way of the LA Times that some super-genius out there posted a $999 iPhone application called "I Am Rich." What does it do? Nothing. Except prove that the application's owner is, in fact, rich enough to throw away a grand. We'll leave aside for now the implications that this episode has on my continuing criticism of the book Nudge's premise that people are stupid and irrational.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Take this 401(k) plan and Shove it
Automatically enrolling employees in 401(k) plans is all the rage these days. The theory that the mass of people are too stupid or lazy to recognize what's good for them has been around for quite a long time in certain government and academic quarters. But, not surprisingly, this theory turns out to be unpopular with the people themselves (as well as with others in government and academic quarters who've seen how paternalism tends to pan out -- hence William F. Buckley's famous quote about preferring to be governed by the first 100 names in the Cambridge phone book than by the Harvard Faculty).
The paternalists are back now with a brand new idea: "We'll make people do what's good for them, but we'll let them opt out if they really want to do the wrong thing! That way, we can say we're preserving their freedom, but in truth we know that they're still too lazy or stupid to undertake the effort required to opt out of what we're making them do!" Hence, a new oxymoronic name: Libertarian Paternalism. And, hence, automatic enrollment in the 401(k) that you can nevertheless always cancel.
Exhibit A in the libertarian paternalism front today is a new book by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, a law professor and an econmics professor, respecitvely, at the Univeristy of Chicago. Because goofy one-word titles are all the rage in nonfiction books these days (Blink, Collapse, Freakonomics) the book is not called "Libertarian Paternalism" but rather called "Nudge."
So, what's wrong with a little Nudge? Sure it's paternalistic, but hey, if you don't like it you can always opt out right? And I've heard some fairly smart people make arguments against libertarian paternalism that the Nudge authors have ready answers for. I won't rehash those here because I don't have anything new to add.
What I will say is that libertarian paternalism has long made me apprehensive even though I couldn't quite articulate why. Now I'm starting to get an inkling and it comes in the form of that old devil, the law of unintended consequences. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about the popularity (with regular folks, not with the paternalistic types) of 401(k) debit cards.(Click here, subscription required) It's always been possible to borrow against your 401(k), but it's a bit of a hassle. Now along comes a card that you just swipe, sign, and viola, you've just made yourself a loan.
Borrowing money from your 401(k) is crazy unless you really need to -- your just robbing yourself. But, according to the Journal, the availability of loans makes people more likely to join a 401(k) in the first place.
The bottom line for Thaler and Sunstein is that a theory is only as good as its practical results. Yes, you can probably get people to contribute to their 401(k) by automatically enrolling them; the laziness that keeps people from enrolling also keeps them from unenrolling. But it's not clear that this changes ultimate behavior. Will people just borrow more on credit cards because they figure they're in good shape for retirement? Or, will they be even more direct and just borrow right of the 401(k) you just put them in? No one knows this for sure yet, so it isn't game over for Nudge. But it's worth considering that the Journal article also mentions legislation that would ban 401(k) debit cards. For everybody. No opt-outs. That's not a Nudge, it's a Shove, and it's where paternalism has always tended to end up.
The paternalists are back now with a brand new idea: "We'll make people do what's good for them, but we'll let them opt out if they really want to do the wrong thing! That way, we can say we're preserving their freedom, but in truth we know that they're still too lazy or stupid to undertake the effort required to opt out of what we're making them do!" Hence, a new oxymoronic name: Libertarian Paternalism. And, hence, automatic enrollment in the 401(k) that you can nevertheless always cancel.
Exhibit A in the libertarian paternalism front today is a new book by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, a law professor and an econmics professor, respecitvely, at the Univeristy of Chicago. Because goofy one-word titles are all the rage in nonfiction books these days (Blink, Collapse, Freakonomics) the book is not called "Libertarian Paternalism" but rather called "Nudge."
So, what's wrong with a little Nudge? Sure it's paternalistic, but hey, if you don't like it you can always opt out right? And I've heard some fairly smart people make arguments against libertarian paternalism that the Nudge authors have ready answers for. I won't rehash those here because I don't have anything new to add.
What I will say is that libertarian paternalism has long made me apprehensive even though I couldn't quite articulate why. Now I'm starting to get an inkling and it comes in the form of that old devil, the law of unintended consequences. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about the popularity (with regular folks, not with the paternalistic types) of 401(k) debit cards.(Click here, subscription required) It's always been possible to borrow against your 401(k), but it's a bit of a hassle. Now along comes a card that you just swipe, sign, and viola, you've just made yourself a loan.
Borrowing money from your 401(k) is crazy unless you really need to -- your just robbing yourself. But, according to the Journal, the availability of loans makes people more likely to join a 401(k) in the first place.
The bottom line for Thaler and Sunstein is that a theory is only as good as its practical results. Yes, you can probably get people to contribute to their 401(k) by automatically enrolling them; the laziness that keeps people from enrolling also keeps them from unenrolling. But it's not clear that this changes ultimate behavior. Will people just borrow more on credit cards because they figure they're in good shape for retirement? Or, will they be even more direct and just borrow right of the 401(k) you just put them in? No one knows this for sure yet, so it isn't game over for Nudge. But it's worth considering that the Journal article also mentions legislation that would ban 401(k) debit cards. For everybody. No opt-outs. That's not a Nudge, it's a Shove, and it's where paternalism has always tended to end up.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Does my Facebook page count as my 15 mintues?
From A.O. Scott's review of "American Teen" a documentary about a group of high school students in Indiana:
But the members of the class of 2006, to which the subjects of in “American Teen” belong, are part of a generation whose media-saturated lives make Andy Warhol and Marshall McLuhan look positively naïve.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Single Best Paragraph Yet Written on Inflating the Housing Bubble
Meanwhile, China and other big exporters to the U.S. had to find something to do with all the dollars we sent them. Many of those dollars flowed back into U.S. mortgage securities. That lowered the cost of home loans further, helping more Americans buy houses. We then needed more Chinese-made stuff to fill those closets . . .
Jame Hagerty, Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2008
Jame Hagerty, Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Don't Bother Reading This (Book Review: How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read)
So I've just finished a book called "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read." It's by a French professor of literature and psychoanalysis named Pierre Bayard. I recommend it, I found it entertaining and interesting. Despite it's title, the book is less about how to talk about books you haven't read then a refreshing call for us to cease being ashamed of not having read certain books. First, you don't have to have read a book to talk about it. I've never read Moby Dick but I can refer to all kinds of things about it that I'm sure are true. Second, even if you have read a book and you wish to converse with someone else about the book you and the other person may have completely different ideas about the book--so different, it's as if you didn't even read the same book. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's what makes talking about books interesting. Here, he gives a nice example of an anthropologist who, believing great literature is universal, takes Hamlet along with her for a stay with an African tribe. She tries to tell them the story, but it turns out that they don't believe in ghosts and aren't at all offended by Hamlet's mom marrying his uncle soon after her husband (and Hamlet's father's) death. So things kind of go downhill from there w/r/t the universality of literature.
Finally, Bayard notes that even if you really, truly, honestly did read the whole damn book, you've probably forgotten it by now. So what does it matter if you've really read it? You have some impression of the book (probably) but you could have the same impression without needed to actually have read the whole darned thing. This point intrigued me so, forthwith, a list of books I've read but forgotten, when I read them, and what I remember about them:
The Red Badge of Courage (7th or 8th grade): I hated this book very much. Our English teacher devised a brutally clever means of ensure we read the book under the guise of teaching us about symbolism. We had to keep a list of every page on which the word "red" or some synonym appeared. Let me tell you, Stephen Crane knew how to use his symbolism. But mostly I found the book boring and dry. Almost literally dry as in the one part I still remember has the main character wandering around bleeding after a battle in the oppressive summer heat wearing a wool uniform. The whole book felt like that to me.
A Catcher in the Rye (10th grade?): This book really annoyed me. It was supposed to speak to adolescents and it was even supposed to be risque with all its naughty words. I found it pretentious and ridiculous. First off, "damn" and "hell" just don't count as swears anymore. Not if you're older than, say, 8. Second, I thought Holden Caufield's use of swear words was all wrong. Like someone who's a fluent, but not native, English speaker.
1984 (10th Grade): I enjoyed this book a lot. (I'm sort of cheating a bit here because I've re-read parts of this recently (and it's even scarier now--it really is like a handbook for modern politics)). Still, whether you've read the book or not you probably already basically get it.
To Kill a Mockingbird (10th grade?): Eh.
Great Expectations (12th grade): I just hated this book. It was way too long and utterly pointless and ended with a surprise ending that I found utterly unbelievable. Surely Dickens' reputation is not being enhanced by this book? I like A Christmas Carrol though; or, at least, the Muppet Movie version of it.
Crime and Punishment (12th grade): I loved this book and it's one of the few books I read in High School with a scene so powerful I can still remember it vividly. Raskalnikov has a dream where a man beats his horse to death. It's unbearable. I need to read more Dostoevsky.
Madame Bovary (12th grade - college): Much to my surprise, and contrary to most of my classmates' opinions, I enjoyed this book a lot. I read every single word. I could not tell you a damn thing about it beyond it having to do with some woman in France who maybe had sex with people. Maybe someday I'll re-read it.
Descartes's Meditations (Freshman year college): I remember sitting down one afternoon and reading this whole thing through. I hadn't gotten through an entire assign book for the "Great Works" class all year and I was determined to crank this one out, and I did it. The only problem was, even though the words were passing in front of my eyes, I retained absolutely nothing. This is different from the Madame Bovary case above where I have since forgotten all about the book. I mean as soon as I stood up from my chair the only thing I could remember about Descartes was "I think therefore I am." And heck, I knew that much going in.
Monday, June 16, 2008
StickK it to me?
My fiancé Nicole has just finished reading the book Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. As I understand it, it's a about behavioral economics and its application in everyday life. What is behavioral economics you ask? Simply put, it's the study of how human beings actually behave in the real world and how that behavior challenges traditional economic assumptions about rational actors. One example in the book is the new company called StickK.com which was founded by a lawyer and an economist who specialize in behavioral economics. The idea behind the company is that people have goals that they want to achieve but often have trouble seeing them through. The goal that comes to mind for most people, of course, is weight loss. How many Americans have attempted to lose weight only to fail at their attempt, or to succeed for a time but then fail to keep the weight off? Well, the idea behind StickK.com is that people would have a better shot at losing weight and keeping it off if something painful were to happened to them if they fail. Specifically, at StickK.com you enter into a contract to pay money if you fail to achieve your stated goal. You don't pay the money to StickK.com, but to some other recipient. You can choose to pay the money to a friend or to a charity. But if you pick a friend or a charity that you like, you may not have sufficient incentive to meet your goal. So you can also choose to donate your money to an anti-charity. For instance, if you're pro-life you can donate to a pro-choice organization or vice versa.
Nicole thought this was an intriguing idea and suggested that we try our own StickK.com contract to loose weight. I dissented vigorously. Unfortunately, I sometimes have this tendency with Nicole where, when she suggests a new idea, I immediately and vehemently say no and list all the things that I think are wrong with her idea. This, quite understandably, agitates her immensely.
In the case of StickK.com, I find myself intuitively skeptical of the entire concept. Despite the success stories listed on the web site, I have to believe that the people who have successfully lost weight or quit smoking would have done so anyway. Or at least they might have done so with some level outside encouragement that didn't require them to donate money to charities they disagree with.
I did some research on StickK.com to see what the skeptics might be saying. Tyler Cowen of the Marginal Revolution blog thinks that StickK.com isn't likely to work. He says, "one group of potential customers doesn't really want to change, the other group is unwilling to give up control." I, for one, probably fall in to both camps. The idea of entering into some artificial, frankly silly, contract requiring me to donate money to groups I don't much like (and right when I'm already going to be feeling bad for not having met my goal) just doesn't have a whole lot of appeal to me. But I also have to admit that I don't think I trust my self-control enough to wager a sufficient sum of money to make my commitment contract really bite. For example, one of the founders of StickK.com mentions in the FAQs that he wagered $500 a week on his ability to lose 1 pound a week. This is a substantial amount of money for him, as it would be for me. Indeed after three or four weeks of not reaching my goal I would feel compelled to break my contract. University of Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner (perhaps among others) has questioned whether a StickK.com contract is actually enforceable. After all, contracts are usually enforceable only when both sides agree to exchange something valuable and it's not clear that StickK.com is providing anything of value to its users. StickK.com would argue that it's providing a "commitment service" to its users, but this is, to say the least, a novel legal argument. What's more, at StickK.com you can select a referee who would tell the site whether or not you've met your goal, but if your referee fails to report for any reason StickK.com will just take your word for it. Yes you might be able to pick an unbending referee, and you do pay the full amount of your wager upfront (StickK.com will dole out the money either back to you or to your chosen recipient) but one can easily see the entire project crashing down the first time someone sues their referee, and StickK.com for good measure. Ultimately, people who aren't that committed to their StickK.com contract are likely to find a way out.
So what has this investigation of StickK.com done for me? Well, it's forced me to question how committed I am to losing weight. I'm not willing to wager a significant amount of money on my ability to loose weight at least in part because I don't think I care enough about weight loss to really force myself into doing it. But I did discover one thing that I am committed to. I set up a StickK.com contract to pay Nicole $10 a week whenever I immediately say no to one of her ideas or suggestions instead of hearing her out with an open mind. We'll see if StickK.com can change my behavior. For my sake, I sure hope it can.
Nicole thought this was an intriguing idea and suggested that we try our own StickK.com contract to loose weight. I dissented vigorously. Unfortunately, I sometimes have this tendency with Nicole where, when she suggests a new idea, I immediately and vehemently say no and list all the things that I think are wrong with her idea. This, quite understandably, agitates her immensely.
In the case of StickK.com, I find myself intuitively skeptical of the entire concept. Despite the success stories listed on the web site, I have to believe that the people who have successfully lost weight or quit smoking would have done so anyway. Or at least they might have done so with some level outside encouragement that didn't require them to donate money to charities they disagree with.
I did some research on StickK.com to see what the skeptics might be saying. Tyler Cowen of the Marginal Revolution blog thinks that StickK.com isn't likely to work. He says, "one group of potential customers doesn't really want to change, the other group is unwilling to give up control." I, for one, probably fall in to both camps. The idea of entering into some artificial, frankly silly, contract requiring me to donate money to groups I don't much like (and right when I'm already going to be feeling bad for not having met my goal) just doesn't have a whole lot of appeal to me. But I also have to admit that I don't think I trust my self-control enough to wager a sufficient sum of money to make my commitment contract really bite. For example, one of the founders of StickK.com mentions in the FAQs that he wagered $500 a week on his ability to lose 1 pound a week. This is a substantial amount of money for him, as it would be for me. Indeed after three or four weeks of not reaching my goal I would feel compelled to break my contract. University of Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner (perhaps among others) has questioned whether a StickK.com contract is actually enforceable. After all, contracts are usually enforceable only when both sides agree to exchange something valuable and it's not clear that StickK.com is providing anything of value to its users. StickK.com would argue that it's providing a "commitment service" to its users, but this is, to say the least, a novel legal argument. What's more, at StickK.com you can select a referee who would tell the site whether or not you've met your goal, but if your referee fails to report for any reason StickK.com will just take your word for it. Yes you might be able to pick an unbending referee, and you do pay the full amount of your wager upfront (StickK.com will dole out the money either back to you or to your chosen recipient) but one can easily see the entire project crashing down the first time someone sues their referee, and StickK.com for good measure. Ultimately, people who aren't that committed to their StickK.com contract are likely to find a way out.
So what has this investigation of StickK.com done for me? Well, it's forced me to question how committed I am to losing weight. I'm not willing to wager a significant amount of money on my ability to loose weight at least in part because I don't think I care enough about weight loss to really force myself into doing it. But I did discover one thing that I am committed to. I set up a StickK.com contract to pay Nicole $10 a week whenever I immediately say no to one of her ideas or suggestions instead of hearing her out with an open mind. We'll see if StickK.com can change my behavior. For my sake, I sure hope it can.
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