Month: July 2010

Annalee Newitz questions Hanna Rosin's thesis:

It's unlikely that the female dominance of the working class will last very long. As Ann Friedman points out, the aspirations of job-seekers will shift with the market. Men who want a respectable working class income can certainly tackle nursing, child care, and food preparation with as much aplomb as women. What we're likely to see over the next decade is a shift not only in how many women are part of the working class, but what kinds of jobs all working class people do.

Male nannies and nurses, in the minority now, are likely to become more common. The question is really whether female engineers will become more common too – especially since engineering jobs are among the most highly-valued in the market.

He offers a very helpful guide to the newly popular theory that fiscal consolidation actually helps growth rather than smothering it. He's unconvinced:

I remain skeptical that immediate fiscal consolidation is desirable; I think the case for additional short-term stimulus is much stronger. (The necessity of long-term fiscal adjustment is unquestioned.) But if stimulus is effectively impossible, as I believe it is, we may have no choice but to test the theory that consolidation can be expansionary. I am inclined to think that there is a greater likelihood that we would be repeating the fiscal error of 1937, in which a sharp fiscal contraction brought on a recession, than that we will get the sort of results achieved in small countries starting with high inflation and interest rates. But if we go the consolidation route, we should at least try to concentrate as much of it as possible on the spending side of the budget, which is the one thing that every study says is essential for success.

Our favorite video site is adding a "skip ad" feature:

The idea is as simple as this: If an advertiser's commercial isn't captivating enough to watch in its own right, it'll be skipped by viewers. If viewers don't watch the ad, Google doesn't charge the advertiser.

And his sport …

Yglesias says this chart is reason to lift the Social Security cap:

The quantity of a given person’s income that’s subject to Social Security taxes is “capped.” What’s less well understood is the fact highlighted by this chart from John Irons’ recent testimony (PDF), namely that trends in the US income distribution have meant that a higher and higher share of national income is escaping the Social Security system.

Andrew Biggs counters. I'm not wedded to this. What the Dish is wedded to are realistic and credible proposals to tackle the long-term debt. The crisis is too great to keep anything off the table.

Alex Hart answers in the negative.

Brain-dead and Rovian. Greenwald:

As The Washington Post's Greg Sargent writes, and I couldn't agree more:  "this is Karl Rove's playbook.  I don't care how often Republicans do it — this blog is not on board with this kind of thing from either party."  Indeed, at The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol revealingly echoed the DNC, demanding that Steele resign for his "affront" to the soliders.  Ironically, there was just a vote on war funding last night in the House, and numerous Democrats — 93 of them on a mild anti-war measure and 22 on a stronger one — voted to end the war in Afghanistan, many arguing exactly what Steele just said about the futility of the war.  Do the DNC's Rovian insults mean that these anti-war Democrats are also guilty of wanting to "walk away from the fight against Al Qaeda," "undermin[ing] the morale of our troops," and "betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan"?

Behold:

Meanwhile, Bill Kristol has a cow:

You are, I know, a patriot. So I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican party …

Needless to say, the war in Afghanistan was not “a war of Obama’s choosing.” It has been prosecuted by the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama. Republicans have consistently supported the effort. Indeed, as the DNC Communications Director (of all people) has said, your statement “puts [you] at odds with about 100 percent of the Republican Party.” And not on a trivial matter. At a time when Gen. Petraeus has just taken over command, when Republicans in Congress are pushing for a clean war funding resolution, when Republicans around the country are doing their best to rally their fellow citizens behind the mission, your comment is more than an embarrassment. It’s an affront, both to the honor of the Republican party and to the commitment of the soldiers fighting to accomplish the mission they’ve been asked to take on by our elected leaders.

There are, of course, those who think we should pull out of Afghanistan, and they’re certainly entitled to make their case. But one of them shouldn’t be the chairman of the Republican party.

This, to my mind, is a fantastic development. To have a real debate on the right about the war in Afghanistan would be a service to the country. If Steele is forced to resign, it might ignite some real – and long avoided – discussion among Republicans. Ron Paul may finally become less lonely.