jerseyhoya wrote:Brooks interesting today.

I liked this line:

The economists’ prescriptions are all over the map.

Meanwhile, over in his own column, the Times newly-minted Nobel economist is on the map all right - somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

brewing op-ed columnist fight?

Well apparently Illinois lawmakers voted 114-1 to impeach the governor who was taking bribes to appoint some guy to the senate seat that that other guy vacated.

inauguration day is gonna be a mess. i can't even drive north on 395 all tuesday.

Everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed. The debate is over why it failed," later stating, "President [Franklin] Roosevelt waged what could only be called a jihad against private enterprise.

--Brit Hume, losing all semblance of objectivity

Not his job anymore.

Bucky wrote:Well apparently Illinois lawmakers voted 114-1 to impeach the governor who was taking bribes to appoint some guy to the senate seat that that other guy vacated.

Its always nice to know you have at least one friend

Sobering and insightful piece about the work of an anti-terrorist unit in Pakistan, which has been able to improve its forensic work through funding from the UK.

The new president intended the Sig to model itself on MI5's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, Britain's response to 9/11, and to acquire the forensic skills of an Islamic CSI. For that he needed cash and outside help. Since his first days in office, Zardari had been lobbying foreign secretary David Miliband to fund a joint terrorism initiative. The sweetener was an offer by the Pakistan High Commission in London to open up an intelligence cell to monitor British Pakistanis travelling back and forth, to which the British security services would have access.

Since an explosive jacket usually decapitates the wearer, heads can be recovered, or at least fragments of the skull and face. These body parts are packed in ice and flown down to plastic surgeons at a hospital near Karachi for reconstruction. Pervez says: "Since one-third of Pakistan's adult population does not have any form of identification, these remains are often the only link back to the madrasa that indoctrinated the bomber and the extremist group that dispatched him."

"They told me, 'We have nothing. Simple things would make a difference. We are fond of football. Give us a ball and we won't bomb.'

"The Mehsuds were soon running an empire of their own and we were eaten up by it. Now we live in constant fear from Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaida raiders, while US Hellfire missiles rain down from the sky. No human should be forced to live this savage existence."

The reporters are Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clarke, who wrote a book called Deception which all american taxpayers should read, seeing as how it outlines how your parents' tax dollars were put to good use developing nukes for pakistan. Last I heard, they were investigating the assassination of the ex-KGB guy in London. Be curious to see which book they write next.

Did Drudge just go blue and white in support of Israel?

An interesting and sobering way to start one's Sunday morning.

Could have done without the hints of what sabotage and covert actions we're planning to take.

Interesting article, Jersey. Thanks for posting that.

It's a nasty conundrum. A lot of the IAEA guys will tell you that once the uraniam enrichment technology got out through Pakistan, the cat was out of the bag and the best thing to do was to not drive things completely underground by monitoring supplies and sale of the bits required to build centrifuges. But that means you're acknowledging that they (and anyone else similarly committed to that course of action) are a nuclear power and that's not going to go down well with Israel, or any hawks in the US and Europe, who would rather see military power applied for a quick result, as when the Israelis bombed Iraq's reactor at Osirak in 1981. But how effective is that anymore? Because there was deliberate ignorance of of AQ Khan's selling of technology for so long, and then a whitewash of what he had or hadn't down, there's no real idea how much technology was sold onto Iran. And there was reasonable suspician that Pakistan continued selling nuclear technology under Musharef. All of that suggests to me that you're better off focusing on intelligence gathering about what Iran actually has, then trying to postpone the day when they'll get nukes through covert actions that may or may not be effective.

Like I said a bit back though - obama's backing of actions like the raids on pakistan don't fill me with confidence. For a guy keen on diplomacy, he sure seemed quick on the trigger finger in an extermely volatile area of the world.

pacino wrote:

Everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed. The debate is over why it failed," later stating, "President [Franklin] Roosevelt waged what could only be called a jihad against private enterprise.

--Brit Hume, losing all semblance of objectivity

He might be right if he added some adjectives and qualifiers, like this:

All economists agree, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal's monetary policies failed. The debate is over why it failed," later stating, "President [Franklin] Roosevelt waged what could only be called a jihad against private enterprise.

Voinovich is retiring. He's not my favorite senator in the world, but that seat is going to be a real chore to hold.

drsmooth wrote:Meanwhile, over in his own column, the Times newly-minted Nobel economist is on the map all right - somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

brewing op-ed columnist fight?

Thanks for linking this. I don't regularly read Krugman, and I'm reminded why with this piece. He makes fundamental macroeconomic errors that, while they make his short articles readable for the average American trying to understand what the President can do to combat a recession, simplifies things to the point of being borderline wrong.

Here's an example of an error about economic activity that persists in most of his columns

Bear in mind just how big the U.S. economy is. Given sufficient demand for its output, America would produce more than $30 trillion worth of goods and services over the next two years. But with both consumer spending and business investment plunging, a huge gap is opening up between what the American economy can produce and what it’s able to sell.

And the Obama plan is nowhere near big enough to fill this “output gap.”

Now, there are a lot of different directions Krugman could have gone with this. First, he could talk about why the output gap is important, how it opened, and why it needs to be closed. He could talk about exchange rates, and how the actions of some countries to peg certain currencies to the dollar has kept foreign demand lower than it would be. He could talk about the reshaping of the US economy to produce things that consumers want, and argue that the bailouts are ill-advised, because they redistribute funds and money to companies that produce products that are not in demand (relatively speaking). He could even talk about the possible way to incentivize business investment, which he notes is quite low. Now, he's probably -- I'm hoping, at least -- talked about these things in previous columns, as this would close some of the logical leaps that I hate from his columns. Instead, he chooses to talk about the importance of federal spending to close the gap (presupposing that the gap NEEDS to be closed immediately). That's all he talks about. And while Obama admits to being willing to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the economic slowdown, Krugman just says it's not enough. It's laughable in its oversimplification, and his logic suggests that he'd be willing to support a government pyramid building scheme if it raised output and lowered unemployment. His error is that he views short-term output as a proxy for economic health. Yes, he's not the only one to do this, but the economy overheated because the federal reserve viewed "activity" as equivalent to economic progress. And Krugman simply wants the government to juice the pedal more, without even considering all the ways that we got here. Here's some thoughtful analysisand what can be done, even if I dont agree with all of it.


His columns repeatedly talk about bipartisanship, instead of mal-investment. He cares about what political alliances get theirs, which is fine for a political pundit, but it is a disappointing perspective for someone who has his column due to his economics resume. He doesn't even offer any profound political "insights," but it seems that is just what he cares to write about.

And that's my Monday rant. I need a blog.

Sounds like they're going to seat Burris. As usual, the Senate Democrats handled that about as badly as they could have: huff, puff, then fold.

dajafi wrote:Sounds like they're going to seat Burris. As usual, the Senate Democrats handled that about as badly as they could have: huff, puff, then fold.

I really wish Hilary stayed in the Senate as Majority Leader. Her political skills I think are ideal for that job.

dajafi wrote:Sounds like they're going to seat Burris. As usual, the Senate Democrats handled that about as badly as they could have: huff, puff, then fold.

The problem was they huffed and puffed in the first place. I don't see how they expected to stop him. It was a very poor bluff. If I didn't know better, I'd swear Reid is actually secretly working for Republicans.

FRESH

Pop that collar, Joey B.

Looks like I got an inauguration ticket. Was planning on hunkering down in my apartment and laughing at all the fools outside, but it's really a bit of history. Probably worth standing in the cold for, not sure if it's worth braving the absurd crowds, but I live an hour walk from the Capitol. Avoid Metro, just walk everywhere. Should be OK.

Portman is a top tier recruit. Ohio's a worse state than Missouri and Florida for us, but the state GOP looks like it's finally getting its shit back together after Taft completely ruined it heading into 2006.