Category: The Dish

by Dish Staff

Nate Silver and his team created “ideological scores for a set of plausible 2016 Republican candidates based on a combination of three statistical indices: DW-Nominate scores (which are based on a candidate’s voting record in Congress), CFscores (based on who donates to a candidate) and OnTheIssues.org scores (based on public statements made by the candidate)”:

Bush scores at a 37 on this scale, similar to Romney and McCain, each of whom scored a 39. He’s much more conservative than Huntsman, who rates at a 17.

Still, Bush is more like his father, George H.W. Bush, who rates as a 33, than his brother George W. Bush, who scores a 46. And the Republican Party has moved to the right since both Poppy and Dubya were elected. The average Republican member in the 2013-14 Congress rated a 51 on this scale, more in line with potential candidates Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee.

So as a rough cut, Bush is not especially moderate by the standard of recent GOP nominees. But the gap has nevertheless widened between Bush and the rest of his party.

The odds Silver gives Jeb:

Betting markets put Bush’s chances of winning the Republican nomination at 20 percent to 25 percent, which seems as reasonable an estimate as any. You can get there by assuming there’s a 50 percent chance that he survives the “invisible primary” and the early-voting states intact and a 40 percent to 50 percent chance that he wins the nomination if he does. It’s a strategy that worked well enough for McCain and Romney.

But Larison argues that “some of the things that have previously been identified as Bush’s ‘strengths’ may no longer be advantages”:

Many conservatives have less patience with Bush’s corporate “centrism” now than there was ten years ago. He may not have a “Mitt Romney problem,” but he has the problem of being corporate America’s favorite candidate. The politics of immigration today is more treacherous for pro-immigration Republicans. Brian Beutler may be overstating the case when he says that Obama’s executive action on immigration has doomed Bush from the start, but he isn’t wrong that being seen as a pro-amnesty politician is a bigger problem for Bush now than it would have been just a few years ago.

Bush is often lauded for his interest in education reform, but this may end up being a serious weakness in a Republican nomination fight.

On that front, Yglesias doubts the Common Core matters:

The thought that the Common Core, of all things, would somehow derail a presidential campaign is a little odd. Federal education policy is a second-tier issue, and as Nate Silver has shown there’s no clear partisan tilt on the Common Core issue among the mass public. Lots of ordinary parents find the Common Core to be somewhat bizarre, but it’s well-supported among education experts.

And, crucially, Jeb is not some kind of ideological heretic on education policy issues. Within the relatively small world of conservative education specialists, he’s extremely well-liked. If party leaders decide that a charge against the Common Core is their #1 goal for 2017, then obviously Jeb is out of luck. But that would be a very weird thing to decide.

Robby Soave disagrees:

It’s true that Mitt Romney managed to win the nomination despite having an unpalatable former position on his election’s pivotal issue—Obamacare. But Romney managed to hedge his previous support for the program by insisting that he never would have taken it to the federal level. Bush, on the other hand, isn’t hedging his Common Core support one iota. He remains the most high-profile supporter of national education standards on the right.

Anyone who expects rank-and-file conservatives to overlook the issue is underestimating the extent of anti-Common Core sentiment among the electorate.

First Read notes that Jeb isn’t particularly popular:

According to our poll, just 31% of all voters say they could see themselves supporting him for president, while 57% say they can’t. He’s more popular among Republicans (55% support, 34% can’t support), which is the second-best GOP score in the poll behind Mitt Romney (see at the bottom). But he fares worse among Democrats (9%-79%) and, more importantly, independents (34%-52%). These numbers follow our Nov. 2014 NBC/WSJ poll, which found Bush’s fav/unfav rating at a net-negative 26%-33%. Of course, this is all subject to change. We could see how Bush — if he runs and bests his GOP competition — could improve his numbers among Republicans and some independents. Nothing can change polling numbers like success. But right now, he’s not Mr. Popular (in large part, we think, because of his last name). And it’s going to take time for him to become Jeb and not a Bush.

Francis Wilkinson asserts that “Bush appears to be demanding that the party now change to suit him”:

Unlike Christie and Romney, two guys who talk tough but shrink from confrontation with the party base, Bush seems determined to run as someone who really does call it as he sees it. It’s an admirable stance and perhaps Bush is sufficiently authentic that it’s the only one possible for him. Call it the audacity of hope. For there is no evidence that his party is eager for anything like straight talk.

Along the same lines, Nate Cohn is unsure the GOP establishment will get its way:

If top G.O.P. donors are indeed choosing between Mr. Bush, Mr. Christie and Mr. Romney, they might not have a better option than Mr. Bush.

But Mr. Bush is not a particularly strong candidate either. He may have friends in the donor class, but he hasn’t run for office in a decade, and he enters with no base of support among the G.O.P. primary electorate. He may not be lucky enough to face an opponent as flawed as Mr. Santorum or Mr. Huckabee. This year’s Republican candidates have the potential to be far stronger than in recent cycles, and if one builds momentum, the establishment’s early, anointed pick might not be able to stop him.

by Dish Staff

Michael Auslin takes a broad look at the economic implications of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent win:

[T]he question now is how far Abe will push the long-awaited structural reforms that he has promised will revitalize the economy and boost wages. There is no longer any excuse for delay, as Abe has another four years ahead of him and no significant opposition standing in his way. A failure to boldly tackle the most difficult reforms, such as in the agricultural sector or in the labor market, not to mention the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, will seem doubly damning given Abe’s parliamentary strength. The only reason he doesn’t charge full-steam ahead at this point would be that, deep down, he is not really committed to changing Japan, Inc. That would be a missed opportunity of historic proportions.

Bloomberg View’s editors hope that Abe follows through:

Even Japan’s weak opposition parties more or less acknowledge the good that the first two “arrows” in Abe’s program — massive monetary easing and fiscal stimulus — have done. The Bank of Japan’s bond-buying has driven down the yen 30 percent against the dollar and filled the coffers of companies with global earnings. The unemployment rate is remarkably low; the stock market is rising. Nor is there much quibbling about the direction of Abe’s third arrow — structural changes aimed at improving Japan’s competitiveness.

But it’s not clear that the third arrow will hit its mark:

Tweaks — taxing corporations that sit on their cash rather than investing it or raising wages, for instance — might help around the margins. But the real problem is that for all his energy and verve, Abe has not fundamentally altered the status quo in Tokyo.

Japan’s entrenched bureaucracy waters down reforms almost instinctively. That means small changes are all but certain to be whittled to nothing. Abe’s first two arrows succeeded in part because of their size and shock value: They were designed to change expectations radically, and for a time they did. Abe needs another big bang — something much more than a $25 billion stimulus package.

Back in November, John Cassidy spelled out why he supports Abe:

There’s no convincing reason why a country that is as advanced, well-educated, and hard-working as Japan should remain stuck in an economic rut for decades on end—even if it has run up a great deal of debt. Viable policy options exist to confront deflation, to effect a permanent exit from the liquidity trap, and to get the country growing again, sustainably. These policies aren’t easy to market or enact, but, after years of being saddled with pedestrian leadership, Japan has finally found a Prime Minister, in Abe, who is willing to take some of the necessary measures and confront the people who oppose them.

Be that as it may, Joel Kotkin argues that “it is increasingly clear that the epicenter of Japan’s crisis is not its Parliament, or the factory floor, but in the bedroom”:

 Japan has been on a procreation holiday for almost a generation now, with one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. The damage may prove impossible to overcome. Japan’s working-age population (15-64) peaked in 1995, while the United States’ has grown 21% since then. The projections for Japan are alarming: its working-age population will drop from 79 million today to less than 52 million in 2050, according to the Stanford Institute on Longevity.

by Will Wilkinson

There’s something about Uber, the popular ride-sharing service, that brings out the nutty in people. During the awful hostage situation yesterday in downtown Sydney, the volume of people trying to get out of Dodge by beckoning an Uber car kicked the app’s surge pricing into effect. This is most sensible. You see, the increase in demand (and no doubt the dangerous conditions) had reduced the supply of available drivers, leaving many of those desiring a car without one. Surge pricing sweetens the deal for drivers, drawing idle supply into action, helping to ensure that those who want service can get it. This does not amount to the exploitation of a dire situation. It is the best way to ameliorate it. The alternative to temporarily higher prices is a total lack of cars, not a bunch of open cars at normal non-surge pricing. This ought to be obvious, but apparently it is not, and there was an instant backlash to the implementation of surge pricing. Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast gets it exactly right:

Uber’s surges are not price gouging, as some have erroneously claimed. Uber––which is actually not the only method of transportation on Earth, despite what it may seem like––warns passengers about the surge before it allows them to order a car, and if the surge is over two times the normal rate, the app forces users to type it in, just to make sure they really understand what they are getting themselves into.

As the Sydney hostage crisis unfolded, Uber customers and observers alike took to Twitter to complain about the sky-high fares, calling the policy “Marxian” and “downright predatory.”

Gawker sneered that Uber is “Ayn Rand’s favorite car service.”

Uber responded to the PR nightmare by reversing the surge, refunding those affected, and doling out free rides. They shouldn’t have. There is plenty to chastise Uber for––I am a frequent and enthusiastic critic of the company’s inadequate background check process––but price surging is not among its sins. […]

How does the world owe you a private car, priced as you deem acceptable, that didn’t exist five years ago? If you don’t like Uber’s surge pricing, you are still welcome to travel by subway, cab, bus, camel, horse and carriage, or you can just fucking walk. If none of those options appeal to you, you might consider meandering over to a country with a different economic system.

Or… Or… transform this country’s economic system and socialize Uber! That’s the entertaining proposal of Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert in The Nation:

[T]hink about what the capitalist managers at Uber are doing with their cut of the company’s money. They are fighting regulators and hiring lobbyists in order to bring down the incumbent taxi-medallion business. They are also spending money on advertising, in order to get customers interested in using a ride-sharing service. These are both expensive projects, and they open the door for competitors. Newer ride-share ventures can piggyback on Uber’s success and take advantage of these new terms, with Uber having already spent all that initial money. This is called the “second-mover advantage,” and it explains why Uber is such a vicious company.

But after this initial project, what exactly are the capitalists at Uber contributing to the company? Almost all of the actual capital is already owned by the workers, in the form of cars that they pay for and maintain themselves. And these workers labor individually, doing the same tasks, so there’s no need for a management class to control their daily operations. The capital owners maintain the phone app, but app technology isn’t the major cost, and it’s getting cheaper and easier by the day.

Given that the workers already own all the capital in the form of their cars, why aren’t they collecting all the profits? Worker cooperatives are difficult to start when there’s massive capital needed up front, or when it’s necessary to coordinate a lot of different types of workers. But, as we’ve already shown, that’s not the case with Uber. In fact, if any set of companies deserves to have its rentiers euthanized, it’s those of the “sharing economy,” in which management relies heavily on the individual ownership of capital, providing only coordination and branding.

There’s perhaps a problem or two with this proposal. “It takes an entrepreneur to start up ride-sharing,” Konczal and Covert write, “but not to run it as a firm. A worker collective is the obvious transition.” A system in which entrepreneurship is routinely rewarded with a forced “transition” to a worker collective is a system that is unlikely to continue to producing a valuable of entrepreneurial innovation.

But I really do like the idea of the drivers getting a bigger share of the profits. If it’s true, as they say, that “Newer ride-share ventures can piggyback on Uber’s success and take advantage of these new terms,” then it seems that Uber and Lyft drivers ought to be able to organize, finance the creation of a new app (no big deal, it would seem), and then dominate the market by charging less than those awful, useless, Silicon Valley tech-bro rentiers, all the while getting paid more. Why go through the tumult of trying to socialize Uber when a worker collective would so clearly out-compete Uber? Or maybe it’s not so clear that it would. Maybe organizing drivers, developing, maintaining, and continuously improving an app, doing all the necessary marketing, and managing the whole system isn’t really such a breeze, and by the time you take into account all those costs, which worker-collective drivers would have to cover, they’d end up keeping something in the neighborhood of 80% of their fares, just like Uber drivers. That’s my hunch.

Still, a more worker-centric Uber seems like a neat idea, and the prospect of developing one from the ground up, no matter how unlikely it may be, seems a lot less unlikely than simply stealing Uber – at least here in the mad-dog capitalist Amerikkka. Maybe the government of a country less in the grip of neoliberal market fundamentalism will gently force Uber to transition to a worker collective. Actually, I hope that happens. It would be interesting to see how it works out.