A Lesson In Idiot Savant Economics For Economics Professors

Paul Krugman pauses in the middle of his vacation to make a point:

So, how’s it going? This article is typical of what you read: it describes the Irish as doing what has to be done, while the Spaniards dither. And it has good things to say about how the Irish response is working:

Much bitterness but also stoicism; markets impressed by Irish resolve to bite the austerity bullet.

Well, I guess that’s right — if by “markets impressed” you mean a CDS spread of 226 basis points, compared with 206 points for Spain; not to mention a 10-year bond rate of 5.11 percent, compared with 4.46 percent for Spain.

So, I’m glad to hear that Ireland’s stoic acceptance of austerity is reassuring markets; it must be true, because that’s what everyone says. Because if I didn’t know that, I might look at the data and conclude that markets actually have less confidence in Ireland than they do in Spain, and that austerity in the face of a deeply depressed economy doesn’t actually reassure markets at all.guess that’s right — if by “markets impressed” you mean a CDS spread of 226 basis points, compared with 206 points for Spain; not to mention a 10-year bond rate of 5.11 percent, compared with 4.46 percent for Spain.

Does Fiscal Austerity Reassure Markets?

All of which is more or less true. Now, you may be saying "But Cujo, as an Internet persona named after a rabid animal, surely you must be aware that this is an example of post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning." Yes, that's certainly true - Ireland and Spain are different countries, and at least based on what he wrote in that article, one might accuse Prof. Krugman of saying that all European countries are alike, which they naturally are not. (Read the article to see the quote in context, and follow the links I didn't bother to copy over.)

However, you'd be missing the larger point, which I think perhaps should be printed in bold letters:

The Irish are paying five percent interest!

I don't know about you, but nothing that I can get my hands on right now that is reasonably guaranteed to pay off pays five percent interest. Yet the Irish, and a good many other governments, are offering bonds at rates like this to "balance" their budgets. If I had a few million to throw around, I'd love to have a stable national government on the hook to pay me five percent interest.

That's what's really important about this, at least to me. It's the answer to the question "Who benefits from government austerity?" Usually, it's the folks who lend them the money.

That's something to keep in mind the next time you read or hear someone praising the fiscal austerity program of some government.

Sunday Photo(s)

Since sunshine's been a rare thing in these parts of late, here are some pictures from a trip I took up to Kirkland, WA last month. This is the taken from the dock that's next to the boat launch downtown:
Image credit: All images taken and composited by Cujo359

The right side of the picture is due north, the left side is roughly southwest, with downtown Seattle visible under the lamp. Here's a look across Lake Washington toward north Seattle from that dock:


The park that boat launch is in has a lovely all-purpose shelter that looks like a big pagoda that's had a lighthouse grafted onto it:


Here's a view from the other side of that shelter, with downtown Seattle more visible. Once again, the lens smudges are featured here.


As you leave the park, this is the bit of downtown Kirkland you'll encounter. There's a brew pub here, some other sort of wine tasting place, and rock shop my friend is fascinated by:


This is the stairway that goes from that parking lot to 85th St., which is Kirkland's main drag:


If you look at that picture full size, you may be able to see that the tiles on those low walls are individually painted.

Well, that's enough of Kirkland, at least for now. Click on the pictures to enlarge, and have a good Sunday.

Character

Glenn Greenwald wrote this today about the anonymous leak in which someone at the White House anonymously told the unions who supported Bill Halter in the Arkansas U.S. Senate race were wasting their members' money:

I suppose this shouldn't be particularly surprising. Washington is a culture of cowardice. It's filled with people who systematically suppress (or never develop) genuine convictions for the sake of career advancement, who continuously advocate wars which only other people fight and against countries which cannot defend themselves, who are secrecy-obsessed and whose most significant acts take place in the dark in order to avoid consequences and accountability. Still, the long-standing propensity of White House officials to cower behind anonymity even to spit the most trivial insults ... stands out as particularly weak and pathetic. There are obviously times when anonymity is justified and necessary -- when someone powerless is risking something substantial to reveal serious wrongdoing by those who wield power -- but these cases are the opposite. Just ponder the character of the "senior White House official" who was so angry about what labor leaders did in Arkansas that s/he just had to call Ben Smith in order to stoke divisions between unions and their members by criticizing their actions, but then pleaded: "don't use my name when you publish my comments." That's what Washington is filled with, and it's why Washington is what it is.

Don't forget about Beltway cowardice

I certainly agree, this was cowardly. What's worse, it was utterly stupid.

I never believed the idea that Obama and his people play "eleven dimensional chess", or anything else that requires thinking many moves ahead. I'm sure that they've sometimes made smart moves. They outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton and John Edwards during the presidential primaries. Every once in a while, it's clear they've taken a long view of things. But, like J.J. Abrams when he's writing television scripts, or most people who are really busy, I assumed they were doing much of it on the fly and justifying their decisions later with some imaginative rationalizations.

This, though, is pure bush league amateurism. There's no gain in publicly insulting potential supporters. It just makes them that much more motivated to find a way to defeat you, or let you swing when you're in trouble. It also makes it harder for them to work with you in the future, because they will look weak. This is plainly obvious. Yet the White House did this anyway.

And make no mistake, this was the White House talking. Robert Gibbs admitted as much the next day, not that he needed to in order to show that was so. No one was fired for doing this, which is exactly what would have happened if that anonymous official had not been speaking on behalf of the Obama Administration.

At least, no sensible Administration would have let that statement stand.

I have to conclude from this that, in addition to having little courage and no moral center, someone at the center of this White House doesn't have the sense Nature gave a rabid opossum.

That really is troubling.

Quote Of The Day

Caption: Artist's conception of me on vacation. See any newspapers?

Image credit: derbon/Flickr

From lawguy at Dirty Hippie Lawyer

In Florida, I know I shouldn't enjoy the place so much, but I do. I don't do a lot except hang out, got to the beach, eat, and read.

Opened the paper today (that is something else I do, I read the local newspaper, in this case the Daytona Beach newspaper) to find that Helen Thomas said bad things about Israel and has to quit immediately. Ann Coulter still has a job, still after telling us that Jews had better become Xains or else you know.

We're Fucked

It goes on, of course.

For my part, I intend to avoid reading newspapers or any similar publications while on vacation this year. If there's anything that's become obvious in the last few years, it's that anything they screw up will still be screwed up when I get back. The only difference is that it will probably just get screwed up even worse, and there will be absolutely nothing I can do about it anyway.

Screenshot Of The Day

From today's edition of Talking Points Memo:
Image credit: Screenshot of Talking Points Memo taken and cropped by Cujo359


Heckuva job, Rahmi. In eighteen months you and your boss managed to go from 60 percent positive to two-plus percent negative. You know, there might be a few supporters you haven't taken a dump on yet. Better get on that. Scarecrow made a list yesterday:

So let’s see. In just the last year, the White House has managed not merely to ignore and disappoint but often gone out of its way to mislead, lie to and betray liberals/progressives, labor unions, teachers, Hispanics, gays/lesbians, anti-war groups, dedicated environmentalists, respected pro-employment/pro-growth Nobel economists, climate scientists, financial reformers, defenders of Medicare and Social Security, mainstreet populists, civil liberties and women’s rights advocates, defenders of public interest regulation, alternative energy/efficiency supporters and even scarecrows.

“Effing Retarded” in Obama’s White House: How to Alienate Democrats

On second thought, that's just about everybody. Take the day off, instead.

No, I insist.

Down The Toilet

Image credit: Wikipedia/Jeanot

As you may have heard by now, Bill Halter lost to Blanche Lincoln tonight in the Arkansas Democratic U.S. Senate primary. It was a close loss, less than 5,000 votes the last time I checked. Still, it was a loss, and as Jane Hamsher writes, it's a tough one to contemplate.

Of course, it didn't take long for the little goon who runs the White House to leave a pearl of wisdom with his go-to stenographer at Politico:

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkansas.

"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise," the official said. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."

White House official: 'Organized labor just flushed $10 million down the toilet'

This is why there is no hope of working with these people - only when they're afraid of progressives will they ever stop shitting on us.

So here's my answer to that little rat fucker and his lying weasel of a boss:

That money went toward having a halfway decent candidate who might have, at some point in his career, actually not chosen to fuck us over in exchange for a few extra campaign dollars. That guy was worth all the sycophants and spineless whores you were going to try to make us support in the general election. Those people never would have done anything for organized labor, or any other working Americans. They would have been just like all the other sycophants and spineless whores you're doing your best to keep in Congress. I wouldn't pay a cent for any of those worthless pieces of excrement, and I suspect that's what labor was trying to tell you, too.

But enough about anonymous White House functionaries and their delusions of adequacy...

Here's the thing that most progressives don't get, and I'll see if I can make this crystal clear - the asshole who put that bug in Ben Smith's ear will never, ever give us anything that we don't make him give us. The only way to make him do something is to credibly threaten to take away his power. Any progressive who thinks that he is preventing a disaster by voting for Democratic incumbents for Congress this fall, even after seeing this display of hubris, is a drooling moron. As long as this guy and his boss keep winning, they will keep ignoring us, because they have no reason to fear that we will ever do anything but continue to continue to support them.

• They will gut Medicare and Social Security.


• They will continue to not do anything about the out-of-control banks and finance houses.


• They will do absolutely nothing to make the employment situation better, or to provide any form of safety net.

They will do this, because the people who give them the campaign money they use to lie to us and to call us naive fools expect it. They have already said they would.

The person who whispered that insult to Ben Smith is as much our adversary as any Republican politician. He and the people he works for will ruin this country as surely as any Republican would, and they will spit in our faces, anonymously, while they're doing it. They can no more help doing this than they can avoid breathing. It's time progressives figured that out, too.

At this point, I have absolutely no intention of voting for either of the Democratic incumbents who will be on my ballot this November. I've never voted third party or write-in for a legislative candidate before, but I will do so this year. They don't own my vote. When enough other progressives decide the Democrats don't own their votes either, then those who manage to hold onto their jobs may or may not feel that they need to do something to earn our support. If that day ever comes, we'll see. The only sure thing is that if we continue to vote for these people, they'll continue to work for the benefit of the people who will take their support and their votes elsewhere.

If you want to throw your vote down the toilet, continue to vote for the assholes who don't even have the guts to show their faces when they spit in your eye.

Let Them Wash Pelicans

Caption: Maybe Blanche Lincoln could help this critter after she's through screwing up the country.

Image credit: Screenshot of this Euronews video by Cujo359




For once, I'm in complete agreement with Taylor Marsh:

I don’t see a good reason to vote for one incumbent today. If you have one I’d like to hear it, but it will take convincing. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Congress has reached a new low. That’s because we don’t have a Congress like the founders intended anymore. They either obstruct or suck up to the Executive Branch. It’s been a sorry spectacle for a long time, with Democrats as bad as the rubber-stamping Republicans of the Bush-Cheney era.

Primary Tuesday Not Quite ‘Throw the Bums Out’ But It Should Be

In addition to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), who is running against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is running, sadly unopposed. There are, of course, a dozen or so other Democratic Senators who are running this year at some time or another, and a whole bunch of Democratic U.S. Representatives. I'm quite sure Taylor is smart enough to know all that.

As far as I'm concerned, none of them deserve my vote. In a day when I've been surfing the 'Net, reading stories about Obama's continued fight against low-level leakers contrasting with his unwillingness to prosecute former Bush Administration officials for the illegal acts they committed, and after watching them all fail to deliver effective health care reform, financial reform, and relief to Americans who are now looking at a decades long recession these jackasses didn't lift a finger to ameliorate, there's no reason I can think of to want any of these useless individuals returned to power.

Oh, and remember how the government didn't bother to find out if BP's estimates of the oil discharge at the Deepwater well were accurate? Turns out that the Coast Guard announced today that the new "Top Suck" attachment is capturing about three times the 5,000 barrels per day the government was insisting for weeks was all that was coming out of the well. To make matters even more amusing, the USCG is estimating that they're only capturing "between 58 percent and 92 percent" of what's coming out of the well.

In short, empirical evidence may soon show that the original estimates were off by a factor of six. As it has demonstrated so well with how it's dealt with classified information, the Obama Administration is far more interested in controlling the message than in fixing the problem.

Both we, and the rest of the world, would be far better off if the people who are now making these ridiculous decisions were instead cleaning up after them. Put these people out of office, and let them join Robert Reich's pelican washer corps at minimum wage for a few months. They made that mess, the least they can do is try to undo the effects of their incompetence. Plus, maybe a few months of washing foul-tempered creatures who are covered with toxic substances will give them an appreciation for how the rest of us make a living.

And when they're done with that, our economy could use a fresh coat of paint.

UPDATE: As James Ala pointed out in a comment, it's actually possible that there now could be as much as 100,000 barrels of oil pouring out of that well:

[UCSB researcher Ira] Leifer noted that BP had estimated before the April 20 explosion that caused the leak that a freely flowing pipe from the well would release 100,000 barrels of oil a day in the worst-case scenario.

The oil was not freely flowing before the top kill or before they cut the pipe, Leifer said, but once the riser pipe was cleared, there was little blocking the oil's rise to the top of the blowout preventer. Video images confirm that the flow of black oil is unimpeded.

BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says

It just keeps getting better ...

It's Fucking Oil, Man! They'll Need Us Again

This one's been making the rounds, I'm sure, but it's hilarious. Cats re-enact the drama as BP executives try to manage the Gulf oil spill:



I love Cat Cooper's expression.

Quote Of The Day

Caption: A NASA MODIS image of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Even from space, and in false color, it still looks like an ugly mess. Click on the image credit link for a more detailed explanation.

Image credit: NASA

Robert Reich on what to do about a couple of problems all at once:

Florida’s panhandle beaches are already marred with sticky brown globs of oil. Workers with blue rubber gloves and plastic bags are already losing the battle to keep them clean. Pelicans and other wildlife coated in oil tar are dying by the droves.

It will get far worse. Most of the oil hasn’t hit land yet. When it does, hundreds of thousands of workers will be needed to clean beaches, siphon off oil from wetlands, and rescue stranded wildlife. Tens of thousands more will have to bring in new landfill, replace tarred sea walls, and rebuild shoreline infrastructure.

Yet we’ve got hundreds of thousands of young people sitting on their hands right now because they can’t find jobs. Many are from affected coastal areas, where the tourist and fishing industries have been decimated by the spill.

The President should order BP to establish a $5 billion clean-up fund, and immediately put America’s army of unemployed young people to work saving the Gulf coast. Call it the new Civilian Conservation Corps.

Put Jobless Young People to Work Cleaning Up BP’s Mess and Order BP to Pay

Actually, the title alone was good for the quote of the day. I'd just like to suggest that there's no reason to limit ourselves to $5 billion. The total cost of this thing could be incalculable. BP richly deserves to go out of business, and have the people who decided to ignore the rules and good engineering practice here sent to jail for a while.

Once again, though, we can assume President Obama will not be doing this.

Pattern Recognition

Image credit: Wikipedia/NIST

Steve Benen offers this bit of inside baseball concerning the brand-spanking new version of the "energy/climate" bill that's coming from the Democrats real soon now:

So, instead of moving forward with the American Power Act blueprint, the Senate will likely advance a very different bill, with Kerry's package offered as an amendment.

Schumer's comments suggests Senate Dems aren't exactly swinging for the fences -- instead of seizing the opportunity and pushing an ambitious proposal, the new bill will apparently downplay efforts to combat climate change, and not include the cap-and-trade provision that has been at the heart of Democratic plans.

In effect, if Schumer's assessment is correct, Democrats will pursue a bill on energy policy -- new industry regulations, nuclear permits, some alternative energy investments -- not climate policy.

The legislation, then, will be anything but comprehensive. And barring an electoral miracle in November, cap-and-trade won't even be considered in Congress again until 2013, at the very earliest.

The oil spill crisis was enough to capture the nation's attention, but it wasn't enough to generate 60 votes for a modest, common-sense climate bill.

What Kind Of Energy/Climate Bill Might We Get?

Yes, they're going to do exactly what they did with the health care "reform" bill, the stimulus bill, the financial "reform" bill, and the "jobs" bill - start with a watered-down, pre-compromised bill that won't accomplish hardly anything, and then screw it up so badly we'll wish they'd done nothing, instead. You'd think by now that a seasoned observer like Benen would begin to notice a pattern here.

No, on second thought, you wouldn't.