Month: February 2011

John Cassidy's view of the budget debate:

The big question is whether the bond market will afford Obama the time he is asking for. So far, foreign investors have basically given the United States a pass, as reflected in the low interest rates that the Treasury pays on ten- and thirty-year bonds. If investors really suspected that the U.S. was likely to mimic Greece or Ireland and go bust, they would be demanding much higher rates. In recent months, however, bond rates have been edging up. 

This partly reflects faster economic growth and expectations of the Fed raising the short-term interest rate, but it may also reflect growing nervousness over the U.S. fiscal outlook. (Last month, the credit rating agency Moody’s warned it might cut the Treasury’s AAA rating.)

Nobody can be sure how things will play out. The optimists (Paul Krugman) and pessimists (Niall Ferguson) both have valid points to make. Even now, the U.S. enjoys safe-haven status. Many investors tend to go along with Churchill’s edict that after exploring all the other possibilities the politicians in Washington will eventually get their acts together. But confidence in the United States is by no means guaranteed. Financial crises, almost by definition, are unexpected.

His "gut feeling is that Obama will get lucky, and the bond market will continue to be cooperative, at least for another couple of years."

Amy Davidson captions:

Here is an animated visualization of tweets with the hashtag #Jan25, just before and just after Mubarak’s resignation, with retweets and their connections, by André Panisson of Gephi. … It’s beautiful. It starts like a spider spinning a web, then a many-pointed structure forms around the center, like a crystal or a new star. But the symmetry is not exact: it is more fearful than mathematical. There are areas that resemble the red spot on Jupiter, and perhaps were similarly stormy. There are pushes and pulls, and maybe shoving. It is more like the the Spirograph drawings I made when I was six, with sudden lurches where my pencil slipped (as it always did), than like the perfectly looping ones in the toy commercials. It is very human.

Norm Geras searches for a compromise:

All those convicted of very serious crimes – crimes against the person, murder, physical violence, rape, and other offences that do grave harm to their victims – have (a) placed themselves above the law in the making of which voting is a democratic part, and (b) done so at some damaging cost to their fellow citizens. There is a case, on these grounds, for taking away their right to vote. In those circumstances, the question of real interest is which crimes should and which shouldn't lead to forfeiture of the right.

Trivial misdemeanours obviously shouldn't; grave crimes should; and the problem is where to draw the line between. This is a more difficult matter than sounding off about the inalienable right to vote (while giving not a thought to the forfeited right to go about freely), or than taking it for granted that someone who has aggressed seriously against others, in defiance of the legal rights of those others, should still have a say in law-making. But sounding off is easier.

Frum deems Chris Christie RINO-proof:

A left-wing friend of mine jokes that conservatives are “the party of affect”: meaning that conservatives tend to care much more how a politician speaks than what a candidate says. Christie almost perfectly exemplifies this rule. If he were a soft-spoken, conciliatory Northeastern budget-balancer, he’d be dismissed as a Bill Weld/Mike Castle RINO. But instead, he’s an-in-your-face confrontationalist. So he can favor handgun control and still be the Coulter choice for president. Just so long as he’s rude about it.

Edward Glaeser calls improving urban schools "the great challenge of our era":

In the case of schooling, the politics isn’t so hard, but we don’t really know how to fix everything. We’ve seen brave people fight for urban schools for years with only moderate success, and there is no obvious easy solution. On one level, the establishment of a public monopoly for schools eliminates the urban advantages of competition and innovation. For that reason, I’m hopeful about charter schools, especially in urban areas. Fixing America’s schools is the country’s most important job, but we don’t yet know how to get it done.

Today on the Dish, Andrew chided Obama for being more neocon than the GOP on the military budget, and wagged his fingers at Americans for being closet socialists. Andrew joined Frum in itemizing the right's budget delusions, and Ezra Klein clung to his optimism. We examined how Americans view defense spending, Kay McDonald blamed high food prices on corn ethanol, and Howard Gleckman continued to lay into Obama. Nyhan yawned at Silver's 2012 predictions, and Larison worried over Mitch Daniels' penchant for pandering. We photo-hunted the two-faces of National Review, and the right thought Islamists were infiltrating their ranks. Goldblog wasn't laughing at rape jokes, young conservatives shamed an old racist dude, and Dan Savage's Santorum prank lived on.

Libyans took to the streets, Tom Kutsch assessed regimes' stick and carrot methods to try to stop protests, and a reader gave us the insider baseball dish on Egypt. Andrew shed light on the disproportionate killings leaked in the Gaza memo, and Iraq's dysfunctions ran deep. Readers rebutted Gladwell, Brian Fishman contemplated al Qaeda's tone-deaf response to the revolutions, and not all Islamists are created equal. Andrew tested Beiber-Gaga magic, and previewed Matt and Trey's "The Book Of Mormon," Pinker didn't trust Watson to do more than play Jeopardy, and Jim Behrle prayed for a human win.

The best Mac apps here, ghost signs of Chicago here, content farm here, quote for the day here, dissent of the day here, Malkin award here, Moore award here, MHB here, FOTD here, VFYW here and unofficial contest here.

–Z.P.

Unlike Ezra, Avent has little hope for a deficit deal in the near future:

The GOP's reflexive anti-Obama streak is motivated, one presumes, by a desire to win elections. One supposes that they feel they must deny him legislative victories in order to be successful at the ballot box. So for a while, presidential abdication of leadership may create political space for something like honest legislative negotiations over policy. But a grand bargain that takes place under Mr Obama's watch is a political victory for Mr Obama, whether or not he led the charge. And the GOP is unlikely to let the president have such a win.

… I would expect neither Obama administration Jedi mind tricks or secret deals to yield real budget solutions. Explicit outside pressure, from bond markets, will yield deals. And that pressure is not yet forthcoming.

A reader writes:

Great VFYW today – reminded me of a website devoted to mapping Ghost Signs here in Chicago, produced by a grad student at the School of the Art Institute.  It's an interactive map of the city; click on an area, and a map appears with red dots; click on a dot and you get a photo of the ghost sign at that location.  A great piece of interactive scholarship, and a great way to while away idle lunchtime online minute.  Or hours.

Joel Wing studies the country's incomplete cabinet:

With or without the full compliment of ministers, the new government is going to be a train wreck waiting to happen. With so many different parties and lists included there is no way that it can agree upon any major decision just like the former government. That could work to the benefit of the premier who became more autocratic in the last two years. With all the divisions, he could have free reign again to do what he wants regardless of what others think.