geithner

Not the most encouraging profile on Geithner from portfolio.com. They basically make 2 major contentions:

1) he doesn't have the policy chops to make any ambitious moves.

It’s old news to people familiar with ­Geithner that he is not an economist and has no private-sector experience in finance, in contrast to pretty much every other Treasury secretary in recent years. For his critics, that says it all. “He may not be that comfortable with the subject matter,” Change author Cohan says. “I think that, in general, people who are good at math are more comfortable with talking about finance and thinking about financial policy and strategies. I think that if you’re going to come up with better strategies and better ideas, you need to have someone who’s a strategist, who understands how to come up with better policies.” Cohan says he’ll be “very surprised if Geithner comes up with any really new, insightful ideas on how to solve the financial problems.”

2) rather, as a beaurocrat, much of his behavior comes down to hedging bets within the established system.

Geithner’s scrupulous care not to promise too much, so as not to be seen as failing if the economic plan falls through, is not merely a reflection of “No Drama Obama.” It’s also a reflection of Geithner’s mind-set. “He’s been in bureaucracy all his life,” Seidman says, “and that’s the way they operate. You don’t get rewarded much for being right, but you take a hell of a beating if you’re wrong.” Still, one man’s bureaucrat is another man’s dedicated, lifelong servant of the commonweal, and that, presumably, is the Geithner who, one assumes, aced his interviews with President Obama.

This is perfectly in line with a great piece from Simon Johnson (former head of the IMF) in the May 2009 Atlantic that I am currently reading, so I don't want to talk about it (yet).

dating, the internet and aligning incentives

So that I don't start to sound too morbid, I thought I'd also post about an interesting piece in the Times from last week about a somewhat unconventional dating website. SeekingArrangement.com is designed to set up wealthier 'benefactors' with younger 'companions' (aka a sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, or, if you read Memoirs of a Geisha, a danna/geisha relationship). My initial response was to be grossed out, and see this website as a means for exploitation. But then I thought, well, it's all consenting adults involved in these interactions, right? I mean, isn't this just an example of the internet fostering free markets, and aligning buyers and sellers with like incentives? It might be kind of sketchy, but...heck, not everyone in the world subscribes to conventional relationship constructs. In fact, according to the article, only 30% of arrangements involve a monetary transaction. Alot of, well, call them geishas, aren't as interested in money so much as attention. So maybe this is just a small, crystallized, effective free market of, granted, questionable taste. Or am I wrong?

short selling

Since I'm not very smart, I was confused on why shorting is beneficial in markets. Thankfully, Susan is around to help me with this:

Far from being an "evil" practice, short-selling is important for price discovery. It conveys negative information and makes pricing more efficient. When optimists buy and pessimists sit on their hands, the result is an upward bias in prices.

Some proponents even argue that short-selling can act as a brake in a down market, since the shorts must eventually buy in order to cover or close out their positions.

Other thoughts:

• Nice piece in Slate on the art of negotiation at the G20 by the Obama squad. I would like to add that the promise of everyone at the G20 to avoid protectionism is another plus, but then I remember that Obama insists on rescuing GM.
• The Vanity Fair piece on Bernie Madoff is amazing, but I have a few more thoughts on that that I'll save for a subsequent post.
  

sorry, alan

but susan lee kicks your ass. (with an assist from john taylor)

what does mccain mean by "weath redistribution"?

look. john mccain was awesome on SNL. and in many ways, he's probably a cool guy. but lets not pretend, even for a second, that the stump, neocon john mccain of the last 8 years hasn't put funny john mccain in the backseat. case in point: his attacks on obama concerning "socialism" and "sharing the wealth". the new republic, like many of us, has been confused about this line of attack, because americans, particularly in pennsylvania, overwhelmingly favor a progressive tax system. So why would he be using this argument?

Well, its because he's not playing on fears that Obama will take from the rich and give to the poor. He's playing on fears that Obama will redistribute wealth between 2 other groups:

The McCain campaign trying to play on fears that Obama will take money from whites and give it to blacks. Hence McCain's claims that Obama plans on "taking from one group of Americans and giving to another," that Obama would turn the IRS into "a giant welfare agency," and his television ads repeatedly flashing the word "welfare" to describe Obama's plans.

Certainly, Pennsylvanians seem to see McCain's argument here as something other than an attack on the principle of progressivity in taxation. The Boston Globe reports: "Still, there remains a deep distrust of big government programs here, and strong skepticism about Obama. A number of voters feared he would transfer wealth from the middle class to help people "who don't work" or who don't deserve it. ..."

It's not like I think that McCain has run an intolerably lowbrow campaign. His resistance to Reverend Wright references is certainly commendable. But he hasn't been above more insidious forms of race-baiting, and this is a classic example.

jason, michelle, tom, and the power of nightmares

after a little manny tearfest in my previous post, i owe a few props to jason bay, our return on the manny dump. there are so many things to like about this guy:

• toiled away in pittsburgh on an awful team, never once asking to be traded and putting up huge numbers
• has a sense of the moment (hitting 2 huge homeruns in the ALDS)
• has learned how to play the Monster well in less than half a season (well, either that, or it's not that hard, and we gave Manny waaaay too much credit)
• under 30, cost controlled, puts up >900 OPS. I don't think i really need to 'sell' this guy.
• i insist that everyone refer to him as "the canadian, jason bay."
  

follow this link to read a nice SI article (yes, sports illustrated still exists) on how Bay is the real deal.


do we need more proof that michelle obama is the freakin shit? one millionth case-in-point: she goes on larry king live and kicks ass in the way we want her to kick ass. She's first ladyesque in exactly the same lofty, inspirational way that barack obama is presidential, particularly in recent days: an ambitious campaigner, an aspiring policy maker, a proud mother, and absolutely uncompromising in any of these respects. Plus, she refuses to be baited by any of the rampant negative campaigning surrounding her and barack obama in recent days:

What you heard in that debate, when you saw his passion, it was when he was talking about the health care crisis, and he talked about his mother dying of ovarian cancer, and how angry it made him to see her worrying about the insurance company and the payments rather than worrying about getting well.
And that's what we're seeing. That's the kind of stuff that makes Barack angry. It's not the back and forth. It's not something said about him. I think Barack said today, he can take, you know, any name-calling or the back and forth that -- you know, that stuff doesn't bother him.
But the unfairness that we're seeing across the country, that makes him mad.

and on Sarah Palin, despite attacks by Governor Palin suggesting that her husband sympathizes with terrorists:

I think she provides an excellent of example of all the different roles that women can and should play. You know, I'm a mother with kids and I've had a career and I've had to juggle. She's doing publicly, what so many women are doing on their own privately. What we're fighting for is to make sure that all women have the choices that Sarah Palin and I have. To make these decision and do it without hurting their families.

Everyone should read the transcript of her amazing interview with Larry King. I truly come away with absolutely equivalent respect and admiration for her as for her husband every time I get to read or see anything about her. You rock, Michelle.

Contrast that with Cindy McCain on the stump, referring to Obama's campaign as "dirty" and suggesting that Obama voted to put troops at risk (when her husband voted for the same bill). It just emphasizes the differences between these 2 camps. The difference being that Michelle Obama is an accomplished professional whose behavior matches her ideals, whereas Cindy McCain inherited a beer company, and her negative campaigning complements her record of stealing prescription drugs from her own nonprofit to feed her drug addiction.

Taxation, Spending, Patriotism, Friedman.
There is an incredibly important point that was made eloquently by Thomas Friedman in a recent opinion piece. It speaks of McCain's, and even more so Palin's, characterization of taxation as unpatriotic, and as government programs as waste. Friedman disagrees:

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

And I agree with him. This demonization of taxes as unpatriotic is ridiculous. You might argue that the government is inefficient in how it uses taxpayer money (the bailout perhaps being a prime example), but the idea of paying taxes is woven into the fabric of what makes us a democracy: citizens donate a certain portion of their income that can be better utilized by a governing body for services that should be provided to everyone (military protection, health care, education, etc.) Am I wrong?

There is an unbelievable amount of material on which I have yet to post, and I hope to get to it tonight. Including:

• The New England Journal of Medicine's report on the health care proposals of both candidates (thanks Amana)
• My increasing attempts to understand the basis and marketing of Democratic and Republican ideology, including a great piece Rosa sent me as well as an awesome documentary called The Power of Nightmares, which Todd showed me.
  
• Maybe a few thoughts on Alan Greenspan.
  

uh, i guess that's it for now

a variety of topics

Today's nonpolitical entry!

1. Kanye
I like Love Lockdown, the new single from Kanye West, but I'm not sure exactly how much. This was the natural next step for Kanye, who was probably always a little closer to Gnarls Barkley and Andre 3000 than he was to Jay-Z. Love Lockdown features a great hook supported by a phenomenal beat that sounds like its being played by the Blue Man Group or something. The only problem is its repetitiveness; I felt the same thing about Andre's The Love Below (which I felt ultimately was inferior to Big Boi's Speakerboxxx). I kind of feel like people coming from a hip-hop background are much more creative lyrically than singer-songwriters but are lacking melodically and so their songs end up pretty monotonous. Still, I don't think he was going to write a better album than Graduation, so I'm glad to see that he's looking for new challenges.

2. ER Visits
Slate (yes Alex, Slate) has a very interesting article that questions the uninsured as the sole culprits for ER overcrowding. Among the most interesting points: 1) everyone is using the ER more (not just the uninsured), and this can be explained mostly by looking at how the incentives align (aka, economics!). The value of having immediate, reliable treatment is worth the additional cost, not just to those who can't pay, but to those who can. Intriguing.

3. The Value of Blogs in Africa
On the Takeaway today there was a nice story on the Kenyan blogosphere and the emergence of independent reporting in the presence of mainstream media shutdown. I found a nice article on this phenomenon, and on Ushahidi, a site that allows public reconstruction and recording of, for example, post-election violence:

We as Kenyans are guilty of having short-term memories. Yesterday’s villains are today’s heroes. We sweep bad news and difficult decision under the carpet... and get shocked when the country erupts as it did two months ago. Ushahidi gives everybody, anybody, the opportunity to get his or her experience recorded. Through SMS, through email, through the Internet, through meeting an NGO worker who will write down what happened and share it with us. Ushahidi is a project that has to be owned by those who use it; they have to believe in it.

This is something to both admire and to note, as in Zimbabwe some political reconciliation is being attempted. Independent coverage of violent outbreaks will be critical here, especially given Mugabe's history of strongarm tactics.

4. Freakonomics
Finally, as a lead in to tonight's heavily political blog entry, I'll leave you with a tip of the hat to the amazing Freakonomics blog. I'm a huge Freakonomics homer, mostly because I appreciate how they are able to solve problems by constructing questions and experiments in unique ways (rather than using cutting-edge technology or previously unknown methods). A quick perusal of recent freakonomics entries yielded the following interesting questions and answers:

1. Part of what makes people vote? Extrinsic incentives (aka, you don't want your friends to know that you didn't vote)
2. But that's OK, because voting may make you happier. And finally,
3. Rather than asking all the standard questions about Sarah Palin, Steven Levitt asked the most fascinating questions I've seen so far: Why would Sarah Palin get an amniocentesis (threatening the life of her baby) if she planned on having the baby regardless of any medical anomalies?

Stay tuned for political rants, later!

Barackonomics

Congrats, Bill O'Reilly. Your Obama interview made me think. So, here are 2 articles on economics:

1. Barack Obama's economic plan reveals a candidate more fiscally conservative than you might think (from the New York Times Magazine) - This is an absolute must-read, particularly in an election that features economic policy at its forefront. I look forward to a similar profile on McCain, but its Obama's policy that requires a closer read:

John McCain’s economic vision, as he has laid it out during the campaign, amounts to a slightly altered version of Republican orthodoxy, with tax cuts at the core. Obama, on the other hand, has more-detailed proposals but a less obvious ideology.

2. McCain vs. Obama on economics (from the Economist). A shallower wade into economic policy, but good for comparing the 2 candidates and assessing the challenges that each will face.

I think, thanks to Joe for the former and Young for the latter.

come back, 8-10 readers!

i've prepared a nice long post!

1. Robert Mugabe and the Problem from Hell.
I'm sure I don't really need to blog about the ruthless efficiency with which Mugabe circumvented democracy (again) to maintain his stranglehold over Zimbabwe. So I'll just mention this last chance for something good to happen. Mugabe is attending an African Union summit in which the legitimacy of Zimbabwean elections will certainly be subject to debate. Sadly, these discussions are going to be mediated by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who had an opportunity to decry what was happening, and spectacularly blew it. Mostly because South Africa has its hand in the politically corrupt pot as well. Nevertheless, this summit is a last gasp at some type of negotiation.

I can't even fault the US position here, which is to support tightening of economic sanctions. Its just that its not going to work. I mean, first of all, the nation is already dirt poor with something like a 200,000% inflation rate. Which essentially is resulting from Mugabe and his cronies printing tons of money to ship overseas, as well as keep some portion for themselves to stay afloat, while sadistically devaluing the currency of his constituents. Will he really care if the country gets a little poorer?

2. Barack Obama Plays the Game.
He comes out in reasonable support of gun control, against restriction of capital punishment to only murder, and in support of this congressional garbage allowing wiretapping. It doesn't take a genius to see that most of these are political maneuvers to try and win the fight over moderates, but don't expect a bleeding heart liberal like me to be happy about that shit. Now, he has a solidly liberal voting track record in the Senate, so all is not totally lost, but come on Barack. That wiretapping bill sucks.

There's a nice article in the Times about his poor response to being labeled as Muslim. I mean, he's barely giving it a Jerry/George style "not that there's anything wrong with that!" Plus, its a little depressing for the state of tolerance in our country to read a quote like this:

“The joke within the national Muslim organizations,” Ms. Ghori said, “is that we should endorse the person we don’t want to win.”

I know that Obama has delivered very stirring speeches on race and religion, so I'm disappointed in this type of behavior.

3. The Supreme Court rules on gun control and restricts capital punishment.
I don't have that much to say about this. I was actually encouraged by what I've read of the Scalia decision, which reminded those reading that this was not a decision permitting unfettered gun ownership. But I don't think everyone sees it that way:

“I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the N.R.A., said in a statement.

So there are 2 possibilities. Either people will see this as framing the debate along more rational lines, eliminating moronic hyperbolic arguments ("they won't let us protect ourselves!" "they want people walking around with AK-47s in their trenchcoats!"), or gun enthusiasts will smell blood and go for the jugular. As we see above, one of these already appears to be true.

4. Are we sort of friends with North Korea now?
No. And lets not pretend that this big showy 'disarming' by North Korea is some huge diplomatic accomplishment of any sorts. This fantastic Slate article describes how the Bush administration serially screwed the pooch with this thing over and over again until we got where we are now, with less leverage than ever before, basically hoping that a country that has exploited loopholes and renegged on verbal agreements while reprocessing plutonium has suddenly turned a moral corner:

"There is one big difference between 1994 and 2008: The United States had lots of leverage back then—and it has very little now. There are two reasons for this. First, when Clinton dangled the threat of force in front of the North Koreans in '94, they might have believed he'd really use it; Bush never even dangled a threat, and, with military forces stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, such growling wouldn't have been credible anyway. Second, and more important, by 2008, the North Koreans had already reprocessed plutonium and set off an atomic bomb; they were a bona fide "nuclear state." They could walk away from the table with a more sincere shrug than we could."

5. Has SportsCenter lost its touch?
According to Slate, yes, in an article in which they paint the current anchors as sycophantic shells of Dan and Keith with a Tic Disorder-like catchphrase obsession. I for the most part agree with them (particularly because I long for the days of Craig Kilborn's "Yahtzee!" and Dan's "the whiff.." and have sworn a blood oath against Scott Van Pelt's "f'thray" and Linda Cohn's stupid first-last name merge nicknames (I-Rod, ManRam, etc.)). But I disagree once it gets to pinning their failures on an obsession with showy, unimpressive basketball highlights. I'm sorry, Matt Feeney, but that's when you stop sounding like a scholar and start sounding like an octagenarian who liked the game more when it was slower and Jeff Hornacek would make the All-Star Team. Well, anyone who's awake enough to keep up knows that the level of skill in basketball continues to skyrocket, so please cut this "glory days" garbage. Allen Iverson can break Hornacek's ankles and then rap about it. Suck on that, Feeney.

6. Why is it so bad that Roger Federer is so good?
It's not. Stop hating on a once in a lifetime athlete. Read David Foster Wallace's virtuoso essay on Federer's greatness for confirmation.

7. Is Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III a Classic?
Sort of. Lil Wayne is like what Andre 3000 could have been if Andre hadn't tried to turn into Prince and ended up jumping the shark 8000 times puncuated by a mediocre album that wasn't half as good as its counterpart (I'm talking to you, The Love Below). He's capable of sounding like an extremely self-aware pop sellout ("Lollipop"), or deep/introspective ("Mr. Carter"). On Tha Carter III he's sort of an amalgamation of all things, and he does so successfully. But I personally enjoy his albums where he he still felt that he was the best rapper to whom no one gave credit. That is why, if asked, I'd tell anyone to download his absolutely inimitable Tha Carter, or his mixtape Da Drought 3, or even The Leak, a release of some tracks that, in my opinion, would have improved Tha Carter III ("I'm me", "Gossip"). Still, Lil Wayne is awesome, and I'm glad he set a nice standard which I can only hope will be matched by...

8. The Return of The Clipse.
Who, if you remember, penned one of my all time favorite hip-hop albums, Hell Hath No Fury. This is such a razor-sharp album that it basically defined a new niche of hip-hop, coke-rap (check out this very interesting perspective on the birth of coke-rap, from of all places, the New Yorker). So, according to Pitchfork, we can expect a new Re-Up Gang album in August and a new Clipse album in November.

and finally,

9. Is it time to start getting unhealthily excited about The Dark Knight?
yep.