Edgewise

Iraqi elections are a good thing

That should go without saying. Opposing the war, thinking the opportunity costs weren't weighed properly, despairing of U.S. leadership - none of that constitutes opposition to democratic elections. While I may have my doubts and pessimism about the entire operation and I may worry about how it will all come out, I don't see any reason to detract from today's election.

Corporate libertarian values liberal Jeff Jarvis takes the anti-war bloggers to task for their pessimism about the election. In the overall context of Bush-era mendacity and geopolitical spasms, I think it's understandable to have doubts or to be wary about cheerleading for anything with the fingerprints of this administration on it. But to me it's like being glad Saddam is out of power. I may argue about whether the cost was worth it (see previous post) but you can't make me say it's a bad thing in and of itself.

Truth and consequences

Good discussion in the comment thread for a recent post at Max Sawicky's weblog (MaxSpeak, You Listen!):

That Hussein and the Ba'athist government of Iraq no longer seek a nuclear weapon is good, but if one had given me $200 billion and authorization to get up to 1400 Americans killed and ten thousand wounded to insure that Saddam doesn't get a nuclear weapon for the foreseeable future, with the agreement that I get to keep the change and revel in the transcendant joy of sending each of the surviving, able-bodied Americans home to his grateful family, I suspect I could have done an awful lot better than George W. Bush has.

And that's not mentioning the number of Iraqi dead and hurt from military or [Iraqi] criminal activity, malnutrition, and the like.

And that's what we're talking about: efficiency in a world of relative value and limited resources. Not absolutes. Having been beguiled by absolutes and been made servant to our fears, we've bogged down half of America's ground forces in a vast undermanned nation-building mission, a task far more daunting than merely keeping Saddam and The Bomb in separate rooms.

Why not admit that critics of the Bush Administration might find its [stated] aims - a safe, free world - admirable, but believe that Bush deliberately avoids counting the costs to us and to the world? And that a real, transparent discussion and popular acceptance of the costs is essential to the success of the enterprise?

Indeed, acknowledgement of costs are missing from critiques like [Instapundit Glenn] Reynolds', and absent from policy statements from the White House in all but the vaguest terms. We are effectively assured, then, that a total committment to world freedom doesn't really mean a total dedication of this nation's future, its economy, its youth, to reaching it....

I realize, now, that considering costs was never part of this "Bush Doctrine", because costs are, intrinsically, questions, and questions are obviously, doubts, which faith, true belief, can't admit. To mention costs is to imply choice, to impugn destiny, to face the possibility of failure. And, well, to do that is treasonable, even if history's dustbin is full of leaders and ruling elites who launched grand schemes on misplaced faith.

Life, Death, and Entertainment Culture

Like the old Bill Murray character on SNL, I haven't actually seen this year's nominee, but I'm going to write about it anyway. According to this piece from Chicago Reader, Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby apparently endorses its main character's assisted suicide after she becomes paralyzed (and takes some implausible-sounding plotting to get to that point). A psychologist who has worked in suicide prevention describes it as " a naive . . . factually incorrect, out-of-date and dangerous characterization of a disabled person, and ... implicit advocacy . . . of mercy-killing of the disabled."

I've read a number of reviews lavishly praising the film, none of which mention that it takes this point of view. Author Michael Miner attributes that to reviewers' reluctance to give away the ending of any movie, and quotes Roger Ebert to the effect that he's received hate mail for having done so previously. I think there's more to it than that.

I think the Hollywood entertainment culture simply doesn't see presenting the suicide of a disabled person as controversial. That is, the value it places on physical perfection makes it impossible for anyone immersed in that culture to imagine that anyone (especially anyone who looks like Hilary Swank) would choose life even as a quadriplegic.

Eastwood's not getting my $10 for that, and I hope he doesn't get yours.

What are they thinking?

The Poor Man read the Moonie Times to learn that we've got Israeli-trained Kurds and Saddam-loving terrorists infiltrating Iran in the north and the south.

The second group, working from the south, is the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, listed by the State Department as a terrorist group, operating from southern Iraq, these sources said.

The use of the MEK for U.S.-intelligence-gathering missions strikes some former U.S. intelligence officials as bizarre. The State Department's annual publication, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," lists them as a terrorist organization.

According to the State Department report, the MEK were allies with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in fighting Iran and, in addition, assisted Saddam in "suppressing opposition within Iraq, and performed internal security for the Iraqi regime."

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

We oppose Gonzales

We are against torture. The Gonzales nomination may be ineluctable but we would like to go on record as opposing it. In the future we want people to know that not everyone in the U.S. made excuses for atrocities.

Quoting from No on Gonzales:

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.

In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales's endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint."

Legal opinions at the highest level have grave consequences. What were the consequences of Gonzales's actions? The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality - views which he expressly reasserted in his Senate confirmation hearings - inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried. His actions led directly to documented violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and widespread abusive conduct in locales around the world.

Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: "After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should 'judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'" We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales's nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, "[t]he world is indeed watching." Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law?

With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

Signed, Daily Kos Management (past and present):

kos Steve Gilliard Steve Soto Meteor Blades Theoria

DHinMi Trapper John DemfromCt DavidNYC

A Gilas Girl Hunter kid oakland Armando

Update by kos: If you blog, and agree with these sentiments (and blog about them), please send me the link to the corresponding post and I will add it to this list.

Seeing the Forest Patridiots Just Between Strangers The Talent Show Capitol Banter Democratic Veteran Fiat Lux Mahablog Thoughts from Kansas Biomes Blog Dohiyi Mir Liberal Oasis Temporary Autonomous Blog Steve Audio News Junkie Antiblog Fallen Monk Biscuit Report Damek Pudentilla Blues State Political Rugger Brains and Eggs Bush Watch Archy Newsfare American Blog Party Become the Media Rudiriet Give Love:Get Love Paperweight's Fair Shot It's not a Democracy Democracy for MA Alluvus Progressive Focus

Burnt Orange Report Delivering Hope Badger Blues Situation Room Cosas (Spanish) Independent Report Do Not Confirm Politics in the Zeros Commonwealth Commonsense I Cogitate Joyce in the Mts Dean TV This Century Sucks Dove's Eye View Also Also 4 Guys Named Pete Wiseass Notes in Samsara Left Wing Cracker Faith Forward Majority Report Radio Democracy for NM Gail-Davis Democracy for CO The SNAFU Principle Porta Pulpit Island of Balta K Street Blues Smafty Mac BOP News 44th President Pharyngula Diets Are Evil Alex Whalen Booze Cabinet The Quipper Hoffmania

Austin Mayor Slapnose PDA Tom Coburn is a Big Fat Jerk Gjoblaag Witty and Urbane Heart, Soul and Humor The Big Lowitzki DriveDemocracy Interesting Times Blah blah blah Ken Sain Department of Louise The Thorn Papers Curiosity is a Virtue Noah's Weblog Reading A1 Apathy and Empathy LeanLeft Different Strings D-Day Gracchus Hughes for America Rooftop Report A Heathen's Perspective Loudocracy Oklahoma Hippy The Indy Voice Kentucky Democrat Norwegianity Frederick Clarkson Doty Blog Shawn's Website Republic of T Unfair Witness

Beautiful losers

Fire the Consultants by Amy Sullivan at the WashMon asks the musical question, "Why do Democrats promote campaign advisors who lose races?"

Wishing the President Well

Gary Hart's op-ed "The restoration of a mythical golden age" concludes by striking just the right balance between the degree of respect that any president is due ex officio and that which this president has actually earned:

"Despite all this, people of goodwill must wish George Bush well and hope that his hubris will be tempered by reality."

The Sad Death of Spencer Dryden

I'm old enough to remember when the Airplane ruled San Francisco and rocked my adolescent world, but I confess I barely noticed Spencer Dryden's drumming between the trebly distortion of Jorma's guitar and Grace's Icy Bitch Goddess persona.

But this post isn't about my taste in popular music. Reading through the fan tributes in the Guestbook at SpencerDryden.com, I found this comment from Dryden's fellow musician Norton Buffalo:

"What a sad display of how this 'great' nation 'takes care' of it's people."

He's referring, of course, to the miserable material circumstances of Dryden's death at 66: impoverished, uninsured, living alone in a rented or borrowed cabin on a friend's property. No one should end up that way, but more of us will as our nation explicitly abandons any notion of shared responsibility in favor of "ownership."

"Dare to struggle; dare to win," as we used to say. Dare to defend the public sector, and ourselves, against the Republican Revolution.

St. Francis of the slots

Our bay of St. Francis is primed to become the Monte Carlo of the West by the looks of all the recent casino proposals, a result of both intentional and unintended actions of legislators, disenfranchised tribes, and savvy money men who could smell the profits from three time zones away.

In effect, the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior is running a tribal gaming franchise business that allows casino complexes to be plopped anywhere in the U.S. in what amounts to a tax-free zone. Not all tribal casinos are going to be huge or even profitable, however. The gold standard is a casino site in an urban area where the potential gamblers have easy access. But urban casinos have been few and far between until recently because most tribal lands are in rural areas.

That is changing in California. It began with a little noticed change to a 2000 federal spending bill in which Congressman George Miller retroactively reinstated tribal land status for a small disenfranchised Pomo group known as the Lytton Band. The land happened to be a few acres in the middle of San Pablo, a city on the perimeter of San Francisco Bay.

Enter the money men, the consultants, and a Bay Area cottage casino industry....It only makes sense when you know what the numbers are. According to the National Indian Gaming Commission (nigc.gov), in 2003 Indian gaming revenues were $16.7 billion from 330 gaming operations throughout the U.S. However, just 43 of these casino operations located in California account for $4.7 billion in revenues. Compare that to total Nevada state non-Indian gaming revenue of about $900 million (including Las Vegas casinos).

With that kind of money in play it's no wonder that high-powered Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff got a little greedy. Now being investigated by the Senate Indian Affairs Committtee, headed by Sen. John McCain, as well as a federal grand jury, Abramhoff and his partner Michael Scanlon--a former spokesman for Congressman Tom DeLay--have been accused of funneling much of the $66 million they charged Indian tribes for consulting services into slush funds benefiting conservative and Republican causes. (see Washington Post article from Nov. 8, 2004 by Thomas B. Edsall)

In California, tribal contributions to California political campaigns have become the subject of litigation. The question is whether tribal sovereignty trumps campaign contribution disclosure laws. The California case began when the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) sued the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, saying it was subject to the state's Political Reform Act. The agency accused the tribe of failing to file semi-annual disclosure statements for more than $8.1 million in campaign contributions.

The Agua Caliente Band owns two casinos near Palm Springs. Though its located close enough to Los Angeles to be a popular weekend resort destination, it couldn't be considered urban. The first truly urban casino on tribal land is yet to come. But when it does it's likely to be a San Francisco Bay landmark.

Subduing California (a fable)

In Ungrateful Californians, the author the Iraqi Letter to America blog posits a hypothetical fairy tale in which it isn't the medfly but Californians themselves, in their flowered shirts, who are targeted for "help."

casino california

I blame Arnold. Well, why not. There really is nobody to blame but ourselves for the mess we're in here. The casinos are coming to town whether we want them or not. A few people are going to make millions, perhaps half of them people of the First Nations, and the rest of us will be free to lose our millions in the rococco halls of the gambling malls. Uh, and we also lose our sovereignty. What?

In California, gambling of the Las Vegas type (slot machines) is only allowed on tribal land. Many tribes, however, lost their status over the decades and their reservation land. But new legislation in recent decades allowed tribes to re-establish their sovereign status via application to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs--or BIA.

With the arrival of the casino craze in California, getting sovereign tribal status has suddenly became the hottest game in town. Big money developers have gone looking for tribes to invest in--and tribes are looking for land to buy. In the San Francisco Bay Area alone there are as many as five proposed tribal gaming developments. These are huge Vegas-style entertainment/gaming/hotel facilities that have one purpose--to get you to pull the stick of a slot machine. As the odds are set, every dollar you plunk into the slot will earn the Tribes twenty cents (and the developer, and the consultants, and the casino management company and, oh I almost forgot, the politicians).

There's nothing new about gambling or get rich quick developments. What is new is that tribal land is being created within municipal boundaries. That is, the tribal property, once approved by the BIA, becomes a sovereign nation, even if it's smack dab in the middle of Oakland. No permits, or zoning laws, or environmental impact reports, or tax remitances need apply. It's a whole new world of urban planning and I got a taste of it last week at the Oakland City Council meeting....more to come.

The Yuck Factor

A good example of why I don't read Faux News' website: I accidentally stumbled onto it today and saw a banner for Greta Van Susteren's show tonight, with the headline "Newt Gingrich for President?"

I think I speak for half of America when I say, Yikes! and, Eewwww!

The Sadr City War on Drugs

A fairly harsh crackdown in the War on Drugs--primarily alcohol--has apparently taken hold in Sadr City and other Iraqi centers where US military power is weak.

I personally find this overzealous, hard-line Islamist drug-law enforcement to be both abusive and intolerant--though I don't doubt they can point to many depredations of alcohol on individuals and families that would trouble anyone.

But if the American Right wishes to deploy our military forces to protect Drug King Pins, I am sure they could find plenty of work counterattacking DEA offensives much closer to home.

And save a whole lot on gas.

Our new, permanent address

The Edgewise group weblog can now and forevermore be accessed by its own custom vanity address at the edgewise.info domain. The weblog itself is aware of that address now and will use it for permalinks and the like. We are still hosted and maintained by the good folks at Mediajunkie and in fact the old mediajunkie.com/edgewise/ address will continue to work as well (even the old "sausage" address still works, kinda, but let's not talk about that).

You loved them in Salvador; you'll trust them in Iraq

According to this Newsweek option, The Salvador Option, "we" are considering arming and training death squads to help quell the insurgency in Iraq and to improve our image in the Muslim world. Well, maybe not that latter part.

Yes, I know this has been the talk of the left blogsophere for over a week. Many of our readers, though, aren't obsessed blogjunkies, and this plan needs as wide an airing as possible.

Were we really paranoid about them putting people like Negroponte back into power?

There they go again

Now that CBS has scaped a few goats to appease the Republicans, it's worth dusting off the most appropriate summary of what 60 Minutes did to George Bush on the National Guard AWOL story:

They framed a guilty man.

Haitians and Maccabees - A Tribute

Having so recently told my grandson for the first time the Chanukah story--the defeat of three successive, heavily armored Hellenic colonial armies by agrarian Jewish guerillas in 168 BCE--I read this in the paper today, and the juxtaposition brought me to tears.

...an astounding, and forgotten, episode in Western history. Since Haiti alone produced as much foreign trade at that time as the whole of the 13 colonies of North America, it was potentially a great loss. It belonged to France, but Britain supplied it with slaves, a valuable trade since the slaves were intentionally worked to death - it was cheaper to replace them than to sustain them - so the market for Africans was very brisk. Uprisings had long been frequent in the West Indies, but at long last rage in Haiti converged with the tactical brilliance of Toussaint L'Ouverture and others and the slaves seized the island. This part of the story is familiar. But there is more.

First the British and then the French under Napoleon sent huge forces against the Haitians. The British sent a larger army against Haiti than it had dispatched to fight in the American Revolution. And it buried 60 percent of those soldiers in Haiti. The two greatest powers on earth went up against a population of half-starved, desperate people and were utterly defeated.

NYT Books

[My italics]

Torture is bad

There. I've gone out on a limb and said it. I feel so brave.

Quoting from the Nielsen Haydens' blog (Happy New Year):

Ogged of Unfogged:

[...T]his will become a "Democrats are soft and looking to score points" issue. I've given up. Complain, protest, organize and fund all you want; one more attack here and your neighbors will be lining up to torture somebody, anybody.

Ezra of Pandagon:

Unfogged is right; barring a miracle of competence and media responsibility, opposing torture will end up making the Democrats look like we get the vapors whenever the menfolk whip out the cigars and talk terrorism. Our press flacks are ineffective, our caucus can't stick to a message, and we don't have a party leader charged with articulating our position to the public.

Doesn't matter. Torture just isn't something you compromise on. I'm as coldly political as the next guy, but not torture. That's not part of the country I grew up believing in.

Digby of Hullabaloo:

[T]he mere act of finally drawing that line in the sand, of saying "No More," is the very thing that refutes the charge. It's hemming and hawing and splitting the difference and "meeting halfway" and offering compromises on matters of principle that makes the charge of Democratic spinelessness believable. This isn't about a special interest giving money or bending to the will of a powerful constituency. People can feel the difference. There is nothing weak about simply and forcefully standing up for what is right. [...] I think it may just be a defining issue for Democrats.

It's not that I believe that all Americans are horrified, or even a majority of Americans are horrified. Clearly, the dittoheads think it is just ducky. But that isn't the point. Just because they aren't horrified or even endorse it on some level doesn't mean that they don't know that it's wrong. They do. And it is very uncomfortable to be put in the position of defending yourself when you know you are wrong. Even good people find ways, but it cuts a little piece out of their self-respect every time they do it.

Every person alive in America today grew up with the belief that torture is wrong. Popular culture, religion, folklore and every other form of cultural instruction for decades in this country has taught that it is wrong, from sermons and lectures to films about slavery to photographs of Auschwitz to crime shows about serial killers. ^[1] It is embedded in our consciousness. We teach our children that it is wrong to torture animals and other kids. We don't say that there are exceptions for when the animals or kids are really, really bad. We have laws on the books that outright outlaw it. The words "cruel and unusual" are written into our constitution.

The problem is not that there isn't a widely accepted admonition not to conduct torture, it's that many people, as with all crimes, will choose to ignore the admonition under certain circumstances. However, that does not mean that they do not know that what they are doing is wrong. There is nothing surprising in that. It's why we have laws.

The arguments for torture being raised by the right are rationalizations for what they know is immoral and illegal conduct. Their discomfort with the subject clearly indicates that they don't really want to defend it. (Witness the pathetic dance that even that S&M freak Rush Limbaugh had to do after his comments were widely disseminated.) Will they admit that they know it's wrong? Of course not. But when they take up their manly jihad and accuse the Democrats of being swooning schoolgirls they will also be forced to positively defend something that many of them know very well is indefensible. And every time they do that their credibility on values and morals is chipped away a little bit.

I don't expect them to change their tune. Way too much of this comes from a defect in temperament and garden-variety racism and that's not going to go away. But Democrats have to thicken their skins and be prepared for the usual attacks and insist over and over again that it is against the values and principles of the United States to torture people, period. It is not only right, it is smart.

As I wrote below, the opposition will bluster and fidget and scream bloody murder. But listen to the tenor of their arguments. ^[2] [The Wall Street Journal] rails against the "glib abuse of the word" as if they can run away from the issue by engaging in a game of semantics. They are reduced to claiming that unless we torture it will be unilateral disarmament. We, the most powerful military force the world has ever known, will be defeated by a bunch of third world religious misfits if we don't engage in torturing suspects. Just who sounds weak?

-----
[1] Maureen Dowd: "Before [Alberto Gonzales] helped President Bush circumvent the accords and reserve the right to do so 'in this or future conflicts,' you had to tune in to an old movie with Nazi generals or Vietcong guards if you wanted to see someone sneeringly shrug off the international treaty protecting prisoners from abuse. ('You worthless running dog Chuck Norris! What do we care about your silly Geneva Conventions?')"

[2] The Poor Man: "The point is this: 'To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."' Alberto Gonzales thinks that the Magna Carta is liberal pablum."

Private Ponzi Accounts

[I realize I have willfully ignored nuances by the dozen to simplify the point. But I have decided to overlook all that.]

We could have a stock market, and it could be basically a free-market. People would buy stocks when they thought the economic value was worth the price. But, free-markets will never satisfy the avatars of Capitalist Winnerism. So now you want the prices to go higher than the economic prospects, You'd give the government two missions:

Mission 1: Make stock ownership more lucrative than its economic value justifies.
Mission Accomplished! Money you make from owning stocks is substantially undertaxed,
--It is not taxed every year. If you have a savings account, the interest you earn each year is taxed each year. Then if you wish, you can reinvest your after-tax interest by leaving it in the account.
--With 'capital gains' you can reinvest the whole 100% of what you made this year, just by holding on to the stock.
--Dividends are taxed very lightly or not at all.
--When you do sell the stock, the capital gains are taxed very lightly or not at all.

Mission 2: Well. we've puffed up the profits from owning stocks. But it's still not enough. The money still has to be drawn in. What if it could be pushed in?
Suppose the government gave out trillions in a special kind of "stock-dollars," marked "To be used only for purchases of stock." Now we're in business! Now we are pushing vast amounts into the stock market that its economic value was unable to attract. (We saw some of this with 401(k)'s in the 90's.) Stock prices soar. Forget economic value. Everybody wins!
Each year. the new inflow of special stock-dollars drives up the stocks you bought last year. Everyone is making money. It could keep on building credibility for years.

There are several points at which this can start to come apart. But the inexorable nemesis is this. People who for years had been only paying in now start to retire, and they are taking out. But whom will they be selling their stocks to? The newest members and the newest stock-dollars. But soon, demographically, too many people are taking out and not enough are paying in. The people paying in see this. They shift their payroll taxes into traditional Social Security. If it's allowed, people with private accounts will transfer their funds and stop adding to them.

By that time, you may be one of those who held a whole lot of stock at the outset, and you may have bailed out at the peak. But for those who held on to the private accounts, and made bad decisions, and are now elderly and impoverished, we'll need to have a new program to sustain them.

We could call it "Social Security."

Here are the talking points you requested

I hope Brad De Long won't mind my reprinting his The Social Security Party Line: Talking Points in full:

I figure I might as well lay down what the party line is on Social Security:

---

Social Security Talking Points

Social Security's Troubles Are Smaller than Our Other Fiscal Problems

• The projected long-run Social Security Trust Fund deficit ranks no higher than fourth in urgency and in size on our list of fiscal problems.
  
  
• Bigger fiscal problems include:
  • The current $600 billion a year General Fund deficit.
  • The long-run problems of finding financing for and controlling the growth of rapidly-rising Medicare and Medicaid spending.
  • The need to make sure that the General Fund has the resources to meet its commitments without undue strain after 2020--when it will no longer be able to borrow from the Social Security Trust Fund.
  
  
  
• If our current General Fund deficit is like having an impaired driver who has just crashed us into a tree, and if the Medicare-Medicaid problems are like a melted transmission, and if the post-2020 General Fund is like having no brake pads left, then our long-run Social Security deficit is like a slow tire leak.
  
  
• If our Social Security problems are neither extraordinarily urgent nor extraordinarily large, why is the Bush administration so focused on them?
  • Possibly because of incompetence: George W. Bush and his inner circle simply do not understand the magnitude and importance of the federal government's other fiscal problem.
  • Possibly because of ideology: it is for some reason important to undermine the successes of FDR's New Deal.
  • Possibly because of capture: just as the principal aim of the 2003 Medicare Drug Benefit bill as it was written was to boost pharmaceutical company profits, so when the Bush Social Security proposal emerges we will see that its principal aim is to boost Wall Street profits.
  • Which of these is really the most important reason? I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly the public rationales the Bush administration has offered for the "reform" program it has not announced are extremely thin.
  
  
  

What Should Be Done to Fix the Social Security System?

• Minor adjustments--the kinds of things that you do to fix a slow leak in a tire:
  • Pump in more air--raise Social Security taxes a bit (perhaps by applying the FICA tax to all earned income, rather than exempting income over $90,000 a year from the tax).
  • Patch the leak--raise the retirement age as life expectancy increases.
  
  
  
• Make these minor adjustments automatic and ongoing:
  • We will have good and bad news in the future, and will be making further adjustments--both up and down.
  • This Congress and George W. Bush have demonstrated an inability to make economic policy in the national interest--whether it's the train wreck of their budget deficits, the sinkhole of their corporate tax bill, the car crash of their steel tariff, or the current vastly exaggerated cries of "crisis, crisis."
  • It's time do with Social Security policy what Congress long ago did with monetary policy: adopt the Federal Reserve model.
  • Seven Governors of the Social Security Trust Board appointed for fourteen-year terms with the advice and consent of the Senate.
  • They then elect a Chair.
  • Their responsibility is to adjust the retirement age (and, within narrow limits, the payroll tax rate) in order to keep the Social Security System solvent in expectation.
  
  
  

What About Private Accounts?

• Private accounts are a good idea--most Americans save too little, and, remember, Social Security is supposed to be a solid, secure base of retirement income which people can rely on no matter what.
  
  
• Social Security was never intended to be all of anyone's retirement income: everyone was supposed to have private pensions and personal savings as well.
  
  
• But private accounts funded by cutting Social Security contributions are a bad idea:
  • Robbing Peter to pay Paul is in general not a good idea.
  • Reducing the guaranteed Social Security income floor will turn out to be extremely painful for those who are on the downside of the risks inevitably borne by private accounts.
  • The government-funded part of the retirement-income system as a whole needs more resources, not a shell game.
  
  
  
• A good system of private accounts would be very different than the game of three-card-monte the Bush administration wants us to play.
  
  
• Here is a good system of private accounts:
  • Automatically--without your having to opt in--half of your tax refund up to $2,000 a year is invested in your private account in the federal government's low-overhead Thrift Savings Plan.
  • If half your refund is less than $2,000, you can top off your investment in the TSP.
  • If you wish, you can file a form and withdraw your this-year's contribution from the TSP and get it in cash now.
  • Investments in the TSP accumulate tax-free.
  • You can't get your TSP investments out until retirement--but your creditors can't get at it either.
  • For low-income and medium-income taxpayers, your contributions to the TSP are supplemented by the federal government, which levies a surtax on incomes above $200,000 a year to finance the supplements.
  
  
  
• A good system of private Social Security accounts is automatic; administratively simple; administratively low-cost; well-diversified; and substantial.

---

"What party?" you ask. Ah, that *is* an interesting question...

At least go down swinging

Quoting from Boxer signs electoral challenge — Democrats to...:

Boxer signs electoral challenge — Democrats to force debate on Ohio results

My mail is flooded with the news that Democratic senators and congresscritters will contest the Ohio electoral slate. Good for them. Might we aspire to a democracy as robust as the one the have in Ukraine?

F-Bomb-a-rama

As part of our ongoing War on Terror, is it too much to ask that we ban use of the phrase F-Bomb by so-called major media? Seriously, folks. Lame is lame. And that phrase is. Lame.

Lesson from a Master

Lai-chui Hsien of Hopei achieved great mastery of Chinese neijia ("internal martial art"--Tai-Chi, etc.)

"Sometimes when following the technique exactly, you feel that your body is not coordinated, your abdomen does not feel good, the postures are bad, and you are not happy.

"Do not worry! You have gained something and are at a point where you can solve your problems. Do not despair! Instead, ask guidance of your teacher. You then comprehend, everything will crystallize in your mind, and out of great confusion will come bliss, certainty. and progress."