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| Tuesday, February 24, 2009 |
| Republican Response |
| Was that Bobby Jindal who gave the Republican Response tonight, or Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock??? |
posted by CB @ 10:49 PM   |
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| Tuesday, January 13, 2009 |
| Is it really "Stimulus" we need, or something more like "Hardship protection" |
I'm totally out of my league here - the likes of Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, Tyler Cowen, and other economists are much better equipped to opine on these matters.
But...
When I read in the news that the trade deficit has dropped to its lowest level since 2003, or that Americans are forswearing credit card debt and instead actually saving money, it makes me think... aren't there some good long-term things being learned during this recession, and perhaps we should let them sink in a little more before we try to spend our way out?
Yes, I recognize that this is easy for me to say: I have my job and my house. I realize that millions of people are out of work, facing agonizing choices of what bills to pay, losing their homes. And I think we should help those people by providing direct assistance in the forms of longer-lasting unemployment insurance, universal health insurance, education grants, and mortgage revalautions.
What I have a problem with are the measures aimed at increasing spending. American consumer spending was unsustainably high. Yes it's tempting to try to push it back up to that high to get rid of the temporary pain, but that is itself only a temporary solution. Instead we need to reset to sustainable consumption rates, and I think to some degree the recession is helping accomplish that.
While I'm on the subject (and because who knows when my next post might be), we could really improve things by taxing consumption and use of public goods (carbon tax, gas tax, etc.) instead of income the way we do now. The conversion should be revenue neutral, to ensure that the tax system remains progressive (the less money you have, the greater percentage you spend on consumption, gas, etc.). Our tax system could be set up to much better incentivize the behaviors that are favorable to the public.
For more on the unsustainability of US consumer spending, I recommend the 30-minute movie I.O.U.S.A you can watch free here: http://www.iousathemovie.com/ |
| posted by CB @ 11:24 AM |
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| Monday, November 10, 2008 |
| Republican Presidential Nominee - 2012 |
My initial take:
Top Tier:
Newt Gingrich
David Petraeus
Mitt Romney
Sarah Palin
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindal
Second Tier:
Mitch Daniels
Rudy Giuliani
Ron Paul
Long Shots:
Condoleezza Rice
Bill O'Reilly |
| posted by CB @ 11:45 AM |
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| Wednesday, November 05, 2008 |
| His face alone changes a lot |
This Andrew Sullivan paragraph from 2007 really hits home today.
Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can. |
| posted by CB @ 6:05 PM |
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| Just the beginning |
Election may have been the easy part. Governing will be difficult.
That said, my picks for key Obama cabinet posts (with notes about who I think it will be:
Chief of Staff:
My pick: David Plouffe
Will be: Rahm Emmanuel (my problem with Emmanuel is I think he's too short-sighted)
State:
My pick: Dick Lugar
Will be: Dick Lugar
Treasury:
My pick: Tim Geithner
Will be: Larry Summers
Defense:
My pick: Robert Gates
Will be: Chuck Hagel |
| posted by CB @ 12:49 AM |
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| Monday, November 03, 2008 |
| Prediction 2008 |
Pres:
Obama: 291 (wins PA, VA, NV, CO, NM, NH, IA)
McCain: 247 (holds FL, OH, MO, NC)
Senate:
Dems: Pickups in VA, NM, CO, NH, OR, AK, NC
GOP: Retain MN, GA, KY, MS |
| posted by CB @ 5:44 PM |
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| Thursday, October 23, 2008 |
| Douthat on Palin 2012 |
For a take on Palin's chances in 2012 from a very smart, young, thoughtful Republican, read this.
An excerpt:
Basically, I agree with the Ambinder-Cillizza take on the question - namely, that Sarah Palin might well be a formidable contender for the GOP nomination in 2012 even if she's massively unpopular with the sixty-five percent of America that doesn't vote in Republican primaries. In an Obama-era GOP, where the various factions and candidates are competing for control of a increasingly purist rump, isn't hard to see a scenario in which Palin unites evangelical voters and talk-radio conservatives - constituencies that split between Huckabee and either Romney or Fred Thompson, respectively, in 2008 - and rides that bloc to victory against a field that's just as divided as it was in '08.
...
What's very, very hard, though, is to see how a primary campaign fought and won along those lines would put Palin in a position to actually win the White House |
| posted by CB @ 3:21 PM |
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| Monday, October 20, 2008 |
| Here's My Worry |
If I decide to worry about the outcome of this election, here's how I do it:
There have been lots of stories about how Obama is making many more red states competitive. States like Virginia, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana - all of which John Kerry probably never stepped foot in. That's great. Obama certainly has more ways he can combine states to get to 270 electoral college votes.
But what is not happening, is he is not pulling away dramatically in the traditional swing states - Ohio, Florida, Colorado are all still within 5-7 pts in current polling.
So Obama hasn't really MOVED the swing states (ie. solidified the existing swing states, and shifted the battle to a new set), but rather has EXPANDED the group of swing states.
Which bring me to my worry. Obama is susceptible to two things:
1) Bad polling, in which a 5 pt lead in all the new swing states somehow becomes a 1-2 pt win for McCain; or
2) A dramatic event in the next 2 weeks, that is sufficient to tip 5-10% of the electorate towards McCain in the closing days.
I don't think it will happen, but I worry nevertheless. |
| posted by CB @ 10:26 AM |
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