9.30.2009
The Right Wing Noise Machine Creeps Into the MSM
SCOTUS Will Probably Incorporate the 2nd Amendment
Boxer-Kerry Cap and Trade Bill
Fillibuster Strategy
A good question from Ezra Klein:
To my surprise, Schumer readily accepted that analysis. “We don’t have the 60 votes on the floor for the public option,” he agreed. “I will be the first to admit that.” He thought some smart deal making and horse-trading might get them to 60. But they weren’t there yet.
There are two questions here. The first is “60 votes for what?” Do they not have 60 votes in favor of a health-care plan that includes a public option? Or do they not have 60 votes against a filibuster of a health-care plan that includes a public option? If it’s the former, that’s okay: You only need 51. If it’s the latter, that’s a bigger problem. But I’d be interested to hear which Democrats will publicly commit to filibustering Barack Obama’s health-care reform bill. If that’s such a popular position back home, why aren’t more Democrats voicing it loudly?
And to slice the salami even thinner, consider two separate questions. One is if there’s a health care bill on the Senate floor that does not feature a public option and an amendment is brought to the floor to add one, are there 60 votes to break a filibuster and pass the amendment? Another question is whether if you brought a bill to the floor which included a public option, would Democrats filibuster the overall bill? Those are separate things. To say “I’m against such-and-such” is not equivalent to saying “I’m against any bill that includes such-and-such.” Obviously you can’t get 60 people to each get their way on each and every provision of health care. Is Blanche Lincoln so hostile to a public option that she would filibuster a massive health care package she otherwise likes just to avoid it?
9.24.2009
Split the Baby - then Get Rid of One Half
Seems like after the economic debacle of the past year the last thing we need to solidify neoclassical ideology in the field of economics.
Biden Flips on Afghanistan
9.23.2009
Dr. Law and Economics: or How Richard Posner Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Keynes
Richard Posner, the uber-author and notorious law and economics 7th Circuit judge, just wrote a good piece for TNR on how he has become a Keynesian in the wake of our economic crisis. Posner is often seen as right-of-center so it's interesting to see him analyize and explain what made Keynes appealing to him. This is one of my favorite critiques of neo-classical economics ... and Posner recognizes it, and because of it is drawn to Keynes:
The dominant conception of economics today, and one that has guided my own academic work in the economics of law, is that economics is the study of rational choice. People are assumed to make rational decisions across the entire range of human choice, including but not limited to market transactions, by employing a form (usually truncated and informal) of cost-benefit analysis. The older view was that economics is the study of the economy, employing whatever assumptions seem realistic and whatever analytical methods come to hand. Keynes wanted to be realistic about decision-making rather than explore how far an economist could get by assuming that people really do base decisions on some approximation to cost-benefit analysis.The General Theory is full of interesting psychological observations--the word "psychological" is ubiquitous--as when Keynes notes that "during a boom the popular estimation of [risk] is apt to become unusually and imprudently low," while during a bust the "animal spirits" of entrepreneurs droop. He uses such insights without trying to fit them into a model of rational decision-making.
9.21.2009
The Placebo Response
This article in Wired on the renewed interest in researching the placebo effect is fascinating. Apparently more and more drugs have been booted out of Phase II research because they're losing to placebos - it's a worldwide phenomenon. So because it's unlikely that we're making worse drugs - it looks like people are actually responding better to placebos! So, big Pharma is looking into how it can harness the healing power of the placebo. It's very interesting.
The irony is that post-1997 when drug companies were allowed to engage in direct marketing (i.e. TV commercials for restless-leg syndrom .... "Hey, I didn't know I had RLS! I should go ask my doctor about getting that drug!") I'm sure many people have developed physical conditions based on psychological responses to advertising, and so now the new drugs Pharma developed aren't doing as well as the psychological response to the placebo treatment - a psychological ailment and psychological treatment.
There Are No GOP Moderates
Suggestion: lets forget about who signs onto bills and whether they "reached out" or made it a "bipartisanly bad bill" ... and just enact policies ... if they work, we'll vote for you, if not - hit the road, Jack.
Missile Defense Was Wrongheaded and Obama Did the Right Thing
9.20.2009
9.16.2009
Last Piece of the Puzzle
Nate Silver has a good post at 538 (Baucus' Mark Draws Enthusiastic Support from Max Baucus) And Ezra expands:
Max Baucus will release the Chairman's Mark -- the official first draft of his bill -- later today. But things are not going according to plan. He's got a bill full of the compromises meant to attract Republican support, but no Republican support. Not even Olympia Snowe, at this point, has committed to backing the bill.
Meanwhile, the framework has conceded enough to the GOP that it's also losing Democratic support, including that of Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Finance Committee's Health Care Subcommittee. And Rockefeller says that four to six Democrats on the committee feel similarly. Baucus is thus caught between a rock and a hard place. The absence of any Republican support makes it hard for him to justify his compromises. And his compromises make it hard for the Democrats on the committee to support his bill.
9.15.2009
Ayn Rand is Screwing Up the World ... Still
MUST READ: I never got too many specifics on what Ayn Rand's philosophy was - aside from that she was influential to the supply-siders in the GOP. But this TNR piece by Jonathan Chiat reviewing a new biography on Rand is extraordinary. Personally, I realized how the Rand - Anti-Rand schism is a fight I've been debating with conservatives since before I was able to define the debate (i.e. since before today). Especially in the context of the healthcare debate - and under a progressive President - it's essential to understand why certain arguments just don't work on the Right....and it's because they're operating on a separate, Randian, world view complete with its own values, terminology, and blind faith in empirically false ideals.