Month: April 2009

The View From Your Recession, Ctd.

A reader writes:

I was glad to hear that nice young person was doing all right in spite of the recession. It just goes to show you what a person can do with education, hard work, and a family rich enough to have cousins in Singapore, weddings in Paris, Mitzvahs in SF, graduations in NYC, and connections to land jobs with a pro sports organization in the Pacific NW. Come on. I mean, he isn't a jerk about it or anything, but filing that guy's life under 'recession' is verbal gymnastics on a par with 'enhanced interrogation'.

Another adds:

Did you notice the irony of your emailer who works for a green car sharing company now planning to take several frivolous long distance airline flights just because they're cheap? I'm not some eco-warrior advocating that we all use our bikes to cross the country, but it made me wonder how committed he is to his cause…

Another:

Reading the chipper stories from your readers who are having a "good recession" are progressively driving me insane. I've been out of work for almost four months now.

As a contractor, I didn't qualify for any sort of unemployment; I'd carefully put aside more than enough money for taxes, but on April 15th I pretty much got wiped right out. I was paid really pretty well for a year, but I relocated for this job and had a lot of initial expenses that dug into savings. I don't have the deep network here to handshake my way into a new job, and my usually-stellar CV isn't even getting phone calls (most of my work experience is overseas). And frankly, I have now officially hit panic time.

I notice that lots of your readers writing in are the survivors of staff cuts, or people who managed to take a pay cut instead of a layoff. And a few recent ones chatter about taking loads of trips now that the prices are right, or saying that even if they do get laid off, they've got savings that will last them through. Each and every one of those people should be taking a good, hard look at their financial situation and making a realistic assessment, because I also thought that I was in a good position. I was unlucky enough to be one of the first layoffs at my company, and I am ruing all of the spending I did last autumn, because it's coming back to bite me. Healthcare costs, taxes, rent, phone, electricity, all those little things add up, and all it takes is one unexpected expense and you're toast.

So all of you lucky people who managed to survive the cull, congratulations. From what I hear and am experiencing, we're not out of the woods yet. Don't waste your good luck by being stupid with your money. I'm 30 years old and haven't been out of work for more than a month since I was 18. I never, ever expected to be in the position I am now.

The Dems’ Favorite Pinata

Sargent thinks Cheney's reemergence is bad for the GOP:

Cheney’s high-profile entry into the debate is a net win for Obama and Dems. It makes this whole fight is about Bush’s — or, worse, Cheney’s — legacy, at a time when Republicans want it to be about the current Commander in Chief and whether he has what it takes to keep us safe.

Quote For The Day

A great editorial:

They have endangered any American unlucky enough to find himself at the mercy of our enemies in the war on terror. They have impeded our progress in that war. More fundamentally, they traduced their mission, betrayed their fellow soldiers, and disgraced their country. Anyone up or down the chain of command who was criminally complicit should be prosecuted, too.[…]

There’s only one way to drain this poison, and it isn’t further breast-beating, from the administration or its foes. Bring on the trials, and the punishment.

Will the Weekly Standard keep its word?

On Sex And Torture

Kevin Drum notes a political double standard. And when the Republicans impeached a president for committing perjury in a civil suit, it was about the rule of law. But when it comes to holding a president accountable for war crimes in his public capacity, it is about criminalizing political differences. Do these people even hear themselves?

Did Oil Shocks Spark The Recession?

That's what a paper at the Brooking Institution suggests. Derek Thompson summarizes:

The grand retelling goes something like this. Cheap gasoline from the 1990s into this decade encouraged families to set up their homes farther from the cities where they worked. But as the price of gas began to increase, it put a big strain of these families' commutes. With gas rising from $2 to $4, the price of these long drives doubled, straining those families' most expensive payments, namely: mortgages. When families realized they could not afford their exurban commutes, they sold their homes for a big loss. Voila: Their mortgage crisis became a bank crisis and the rest is our living history.

Thompson gauges the political implications:

My head's still spinning a bit, but it's interesting to think about the political consequences of a report like this being mainstreamed. If the idea somehow stuck that an oil shock was responsible for the financial crisis, it could be a significant catalyzer for the push toward energy reform. Today we're seeing a great national movement to change Wall Street because the general consensus is that Wall Street caused this crisis. Whether Hamilton's theory is wacko or brilliant, just imagine what a national movement to revolutionize America's energy consumption would look like. What if we had oil parties instead of tea parties, demanding more government investment in alternative fuels and subsidies for green technologies. That would really be something.

Bad Blood Among The Spooks, Ctd.

Yglesias counters David Ignatius

You sometimes hear that we should “get rid of” the CIA, but I don’t think it makes sense to say that you’re not going to have an intelligence agency. And the CIA’s basic intelligence analysis work, though at times wrong, is definitely better to have than not to have. But to worry that the CIA will somehow feel “constrained” about undertaking illegal operations is nuts. The problem has always been the reverse; that the CIA, in order to curry favor with the President-of-the-moment, is too inclined to bend over and agree to undertake illegal operations.

The Daily Wrap

Today, on the torture front, we learned: Tenet was unfathomably dumb, Cheney and Co. crafted the techniques before the memos, Pelosi played a role along the way, the military wanted nothing to do with it, Thiessen erred about the LA Tower, and the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam really was tortured. In the punditsphere, Philip Zelikow and Hilzoy each made the case while Lowry took comfort in the memos, Gerson wasn't there, Ignatius claimed that Obama has spooked the spooks, and a GOP strategist claimed the power of clairvoyance at Gitmo. Also, a musician showed us the bittersweet melody of waterboarding as the state of Maine offered more hope for marriage equality (with the help of a stunning new ad out of Iowa). Finally, a long, hard look at Cheney conservatism.