"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
Sebastian –by Sebastian About two years ago, I bought a Honda Civic. After I purchased the car, I would see other people driving Honda Civics and other Honda cars, and I would have a vaguely happy feeling about them. I had never felt that way before about Hondas and Honda Civics, so it was odd. But … Read more
–by Sebastian So it counts as hypocrisy when you publically moralize against something that you do your self, right? Witness, strategic default: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Mortgage Bankers Association Strategic Default www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity
–by Sebastian I don't have very much to add to this: But I would hope that nobody needs me or anyone else to explain why this assertion of power is so pernicious — at least as pernicious as any power asserted during the Bush/Cheney years. If the President has the power to order American citizens killed … Read more
–by Sebastian I've been trying to make sense of why in debates over economic stimulus, the cleave between tax cuts and stimulus funded by deficit spending attracts so much heat. They are effectively the same thing from a deficit point of view. They are largely the same thing from a stimulus point of view (the … Read more
-by Sebastian The Three-Day Work Week Matthew Yglesias focuses on one of the real reasons why the Senate can't possibly be bothered to spend a fews days or a week to even attempt to break a real filibuster–if they even bothered to make the minority party mount one: All this activity is crammed into a … Read more
–by Sebastian I don't like to bleg. But I do like to help my friends out. I have a friend who is one of the long term unemployed. He had a great job in a bio-tech field and went through one of that field's fairly routine layoffs expecting to get hired somewhere else right away. … Read more
–by Sebastian The filibuster has become such a routinely used tool, that reporters now speak of 60 votes required to pass nearly anything through the US Senate. I'm temperamentally conservative, so I'm loathe to get rid of procedures. But I'm temperamentally conservative, so I don't like seeing the social conventions against using emergency measures only … Read more
Thus reads the LA Times Headline. The underlying Rolling Stone Interview is here I don't have any firm idea on whether this development will improve or detract from our overall military and political goals in Afghanistan (I leave that analysis to my able co-bloggers), but it is very important from a political perspective. Civilian control of … Read more
–by Sebastian The Supreme Court says that as a matter of Constitutional law the United States can lock you us indefinitely without trial after you have served the time the jury and judge sentenced you to for a crime you did commit on the basis of future crimes it predicts you might commit, and that … Read more
–by Sebastian I don't have much to say on this. I'm mostly just drawing attention to something that I had assumed had stopped under the Obama administration, but apparently hasn't. They are still using sensory deprivation during transport of the Gitmo prisoners: cite Omar Khadr’s pre-trial hearing this morning experienced an unexplained hour-long delay. Court … Read more
–by Sebastian H Part II. Part I Can Be Found Here One of the main reasons why the US tax code is so complicated is that it has tens of thousands of policy choices as tax deductions, tax credits, and other forms of tax breaks. I obviously can't comment on all of them individually (though … Read more
–by Sebastian Every now and then something happens that makes you see things a little bit differently. Not a major change, not a paradigm shift, but a change nonetheless. I play World of Warcraft, which for those who don't know is a massively multi-player online game (MMO). It is a fascinating game for many reasons: … Read more
The main reason why you want to have clear election laws before you come to a crisis is because at the time of crisis it is almost impossible for us to avoid looking at whether or not the law will help or hurt our preferred candidate. If you are permitted to change the law midstream, … Read more
–by Sebastian I'm interested in doing a series of posts on what I think of as things that all men and women of good conscience should agree on. The idea is to focus on institutional situations in the US which many or most people would reflexively think are wrong, but which are actively encouraged by … Read more
-by Sebastian Democrats have dropped card check from the pending changes to union organization laws. This allows the bill to focus on much less controversial methods of addressing union concerns about unfairness in union organization drives: including shorter election times, much stricter punishments for violating the law regarding organization, and faster arbitration. Given any reasonable … Read more
–by Sebastian One of the most ridiculous things about the current American health care system is the accidental legacy of the price controls of WWII which led companies to promote health care benefits since they could not compete on price. The weird and unnecessary tie between health care benefits and working distorts all sorts of … Read more
–by Sebastian I've been strangely sad since hearing that Michael Jackson died. Strangely because I haven't really liked him much in the past 10 years. I loved him growing up. His voice was so arresting. His songs were usually encouraging. He projected an elemental joy in singing that I found captivating. When I was little … Read more
–by Sebastian Yesterday I was convinced that Democratic Senator and US Senate Majority Leader Reid was trying to make me crazy: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaking at a press conference Monday said he has no plans to introduce a bill to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" in the Senate. "I haven't identified any sponsors," he said. … Read more
–by Sebastian We spend a lot of money on health care in the United States. About 15% of GDP, in fact. Quite a few countries get universal health care with much less than that. And as we all know, the US doesn't have universal government coverage. But the overall figure hides another very important figure. … Read more
Quote that I certainly hope is out of context: But in the gushing department, Schumer was no match for Reid, who gave a lunchtime news conference of his own where he announced that Sotomayor "is going to be a fantastic, superb Supreme Court justice." Is there anything in her record that could cause trouble? "I … Read more
When an apparently crazed man goes and kills the object of his political or religious obsession, what conclusions should we draw about the those who agree, at least partially, with his political views, but not his violent methods. Should we assume that many such people are complicit? Should we accuse them of having blood on … Read more
by publius Continuing our Ed Whelan watch, he’s begun a series of posts attacking Koh and a bogeyman version of “transnationalism” – which transforms in Whelan’s posts into the means through which an international conspiracy will undermine American sovereignty. So as I have time, I’m going to address some of his anti-Koh posts. So let’s … Read more
by publius Ed Whelan is bringing the full crazy on Harold Koh – alleging that Koh’s “transnationalism” is some sort of global elite conspiracy to conquer the world. He writes: What transnationalism, at bottom, is all about is depriving American citizens of their powers of representative government by selectively imposing on them the favored policies … Read more
by publius As the recession has worsened, we’ve heard lots of references to Japan’s so-called “lost decade.” The fear is that, without appropriate economic policies, the United States might suffer its own lost decade. My view, however, is that we’ve already suffered one of those – we just call it “the Bush years.” And as … Read more
by publius A big part of the intra-liberal debate over the Geithner plan is whether or not to nationalize the banks. But is it really an either/or question? Could we do both the Geithner plan AND nationalization simultaneously? Nouriel Roubini seems to think so: “I see the option of nationalization” and the one presented by … Read more
by publius The Specter switch on the EFCA is disappointing, but not surprising. It matters because he was the 60th vote, assuming all the Democrats (including Franken) stayed on board. Of course, the latter assumption of Democratic unity may be questionable — but there would have been enormous pressure on the individual Democrats not to … Read more
by publius My view has shifted a bit on the Geithner/Obama plan. I’m gone from opposing it outright to agnosticism to tepid skeptical support – largely because of DeLong, Drum, Thoma, and Surowiecki. And since I know a lot more about telecom policy than finance, I’ll try to squeeze an analogy out of the telecom … Read more
by publius The EFCA compromise being floated is a promising, if still inadequate, development. It does, however, illustrate the importance of strong opening bargaining positions and sustained political pressure. Both are starting to bear fruit. Anyway, in thinking about the Whole Foods/Starbucks/Costco proposal, it’s worth remembering that the EFCA incorporates several distinct issues under one … Read more
by publius The long-awaited troubled assets plan is set to be released – and it’s not exactly getting rave reviews from people like Krugman and Yves Smith. One major criticism is that the so-called public-private investment is a wee heavy on "public" – as in 97% of the investment could be coming from the government. … Read more
by publius Dean Baker at CEPR has authored a short and helpful primer on the AIG controversy (pdf here). One interesting question posed is how exactly the federal government is treating AIG’s massive credit default swap (CDS) obligations. As Baker notes, most CDS’s were purchased by parties that didn’t own the actual underlying instrument (e.g., … Read more
by publius Via Ezra, I saw this Zadie Smith essay praising the multiple voices of Obama – voices on full display in Dreams from My Father. I’ll admit to skimming the essay in places, but one upshot is that Obama doesn’t have one “true” authentic voice. He has many – and that’s a good thing, … Read more
by publius Suzy Khimm has the goods. And they're good. Good goods, that is.
by publius I’ve seen a few comments critiquing the obsessive focus on the AIG bonuses. The bonuses are, after all, a drop of a drop in the bucket of our overall costs. Better to focus on the bigger picture – whether to nationalize; etc. The best response I’ve seen comes from commenter Andrew R. who … Read more
by publius Ruth Marcus devotes her valuable op-ed space today to a defense of the sanctity of the AIG bonuses. That’s annoying in and of itself, but that’s her prerogative. The part I found most irritating (and revealing), though, was her absurd attempt to distinguish the sanctity of the AIG contracts from the UAW contracts … Read more