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Viva Canada

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

A wit once remarked that Canada was a large and diverse country, united only in their belief of moral superiority over Americans. While there is some strain of that in the Canadian disposition, for the most part Canadians (if they have any common trait) are exceedingly polite. They seek to avoid conflict by drowning contention in as sea of good cheer and cordiality.  Some of thus cordiality has been codified in a misguided attempt to limit offensive speech through Human Rights Commissions (HRCs). The job of these commission is ostensibly to maintain a culture of civility by limiting what can be printed and broadcast. Because of  cultural pleasantness is so much part of the Canadian character, it is hard for them to recognize when this pleasantness is being exploited.

A small fraction of Islamic radicals in Canada have turned these commissions into government sponsored inquisitions seeking to eliminate criticism of Islam. While it costs nothing to make an accusation, if a Canadian Human Rights Commission begins an inquiry it can cost the accused thousands in legal fees, even if the case is one that is ultimately dismissed. The net effect is to chill free expression.

One of the most conspicuous cases of this type was brought against Mark Steyn. Steyn wrote the bestseller America Alone, which made the case that declining birthrates would cause the substitution of traditional Western values for Islamic ones, particularly in Europe. An article “The Future Belongs to Islam” in McCleans caused Steyn to be brought up before the Ontario Human Rights Commission. The Ontario HRC claimed that it did not have jurisdiction over the national McCleans. It did not hold a hearing but nonetheless “strongly condemn[ed] the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims.” Without due process, Steyn’s reputation was tarnished by a government body.

The National Human Rights Commission acquitted Steyn, saying that when taken as a whole, the article was not extreme. However, the ruling left open the possibility that a Human Rights Commission could punish more extreme views. The National Human Rights Commission retained on to itself the authority to regulate speech

More recently Ezra Levant, a Canadian political activist of Conservative conviction, was able to turn the tables on an HRC. Levant in the Western Standard magazine republished the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammad that caused violent clashes in Europe and elsewhere. Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada filed a complaint to the Alberta HRC because they found Levant’s publication offensive.

When Shirley McGovern a member of the Human Rights Commission interviewed Levant, he had the presence of mind to record a video of the meeting and to post in on YouTube. Levant eloquently stood up to the clearly dazed commissioner and challenged the right of the commission to dare restrict the rights of a free citizens to publish whatever he wants without answering to any government authority. The video was a YouTube hit embarrassing the Alberta HRC. In light of the publicity, Soharwardy withdrew the complaint. One wonders whether that would have been the final disposition if there had been no video.

Levant is a true hero for freedom and Canadians should be proud to have so eloquent a spokesperson.

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When a Smile is Insufficient

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

If it were a rhetorical contest based solem on style, former Vice-President Dick Cheney could hardly compete against President Barack Obama. Obama is lean, tall, and athletic in poise. Cheney is overweight and supports a large head unburdened with hair. Obama has a smile that could melt more icebergs than rising levels of carbon dioxide. Cheney’s barely visible smile, composed of teeth in need of braces during adolescence, resembles an impish smirk. Obama has a cadence in his delivery that lends itself to lofty linguistic flourishes. Cheney has a systematic and clear delivery, but cannot modulate either the volume or rhythm of his voice sufficiently to evoke emotion. Obama is extremely popular, and Cheney is not. The fact that Cheney seems to tying the Obama Administration up in knots with his articulation of the need for enhanced interrogation techniques suggests that he is winning purely on the merits of his arguments.

Perhaps this is partly due to Obama’s obvious disingenuousness.  On one hand he says, “… I have no interest in spending our time re-litigating the policies of the last eight years,” but spends most of his recent speech in harsh criticism of the previous Administration. This might be acceptable if he recognized it is possible to come up with legitimately different positions in the difficult struggle between maintaining the safety of Americans and minimizing harsh treatment of prisoners who have information that could save American lives.

Instead, Obama argues, without providing independent evidence, that enhanced interrogation techniques have made us less safe. However, in the 1990’s there were attacks  in America that culminated in the 9/11 attacks in 2001. After that point, the Bush Administration has managed to keep attacks from American soil. This accomplishment would have been unexpected if people were asked in the period following the 9/11 attacks about the prospects of a future attack.

The enhanced interrogation technique that elicits the most attention is waterboarding, which some argue is torture. However, it was only used against three of the very highest Al Qaeda operatives, over five years ago, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). At time when Americans rightly felt another attack could come unexpectedly, KSM boasted of upcoming attacks on the US and personally slitting the throat of US journalist Daniel Perle. It is hard to argue that KSM is a sympathetic victim. The enhanced interrogation techniques did no severe harm to him and were successful, in providing important information. George Tenet, a CIA Director appointed by President Bill Clinton,  stated “Information from these interrogations helped disrupt plots aimed at locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia.”

On the positive side, there is evidence that Obama is learning in office, as he shoulders the responsibility to protect Americans. He now sees the need for military tribunals to adjudicate cases of detainees — a practice that he sharply criticized Bush for during the campaign. Against his initial impulses, he correctly decided against releasing provocative photos taken by the US military in their prosecution of those who abused prisoners. He recognizes that there may be those that need “prolonged detention” without convictions for some extremely dangerous detainees. He may still come to see that whatever protections he wishes to provide detains at Guantanamo can be provided at the state-of-the-art facilities recently constructed there. After having to grapple with the same issues that Bush did, Obama is drawn to some of the same policy positions he criticized before.

Unfortunately, Obama has set himself up for embarrassment and political division in the country. If he changes course significantly with respect to US foreign policy and the way he deals with extremists and if there is a successful attack on the US, his policies will compare unfavorably with those of the previous administration. This is true, irrespective of whether any specific changes are in any way related to a future attack. Under such circumstances his wonderful smile and suave demeanor with only serve to indicate a lack of seriousness.

Posted in Law, Politics | 6 Comments »

Middle Three Quintiles

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

Every time I hear  the mantra about the disappearing  middle class, I want to ask if percentage of households in the middle three quintiles has changed. I am sure, many on Left out of ideological reflex would assure me that it has. Of course, the middle three quintiles of any distribution of income, or grades, or heights, by definition, will always contain 60%  of the sample.

Mathematically literate people of any ideology quickly recognize this truth about the fraction of people in the middle quintile. Nonetheless, there many people who are genuinely concerned by the the observation that median household income seems to have stagnated. But this statistic is misleading, because it does not account for the changing nature of households. Households have shrunk in size. Steve Conover has shown that the income per worker has gone up. It is just that the  number of workers per household has decreased offsetting this increase. Household, rather than individuals incomes say less about the economy and more about the way people have chosen to live their lives. Perhaps as individual income increase, people are free to opt to live in smaller households.

If you look at the distribution of income per earner as a function of time as shown below:

it appears that the middle class has just been happily pushed into higher income brackets.

Despite these statistics, many people genuinely feel that the economy has changed negatively for the “middle class” over the last few decades. I suspect that the source of this anxiety is associated with two important factors as opposed to the actual income distribution.

(1) It is very difficult to maintain a “middle-class” lifestyle with a job that is low skill. A retail worker like a shoe salesman or a low-skill factory worker used to be middle class. Low skill workers now have to compete with automation or low skill workers of other countries. The fraction of the US economy that is manufacturing is the same that it used to be, but manufacturing is now being performed by fewer and fewer more productive workers. Much like agriculture that dominated the economy  in the 1800s’s, fewer and fewer people are required to produce more and more. This is as it should be. Our standard of living would be far lower if we as a country were so unproductive that low skill jobs were typical and people in them were middle income. The goal is arrange for as many people as possible to be prepared for high-skill jobs.

(2) Middle class is not what it used to be. Middle class Americans live in larger homes than their parents, have air conditioning when their parents did not, eat out more often than their parents did, and go on vacation more frequently. This does not even count the gadgets such as cell phones, computers, and large flat panel televisions that were not even available to the wealthy a generation ago. Our expectations are higher than those of our parents.

The real danger is that this anxiety will lead to government policies that reduce the dynamism of the economy in the name of security and make the progress we have already achieved less possible to sustain.

Posted in Economics, Politics, Social Commentary | No Comments »

Squishy Moralists

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

We have noted previously here that there are two respective positions with regard to the use of violence. One holds that violence is sometimes justified particularly for self defense when other choice are unavailable. The violence employed, of course, must be commensurate with the seriousness of a threat.

The principled pacifist position holds that violence is inherently evil and never to be used. The serious pacifist recognizes that adherence to this position could cost that person injury or even their life. A courageous pacifist does not avoid violence by denying the existence of real danger, but chooses a principled position despite the risk. A squishy pacifist, by contrast, postures as a moralist, but denies the existence of real threat. It is easy to be brave in the face of no threat.

A similar distinction can be drawn with respect to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, when the use of them might indeed advert loss of life and catastrophe. Again the severity of the interrogation needs to be consistent with a reasonable assessment of the level of  threat. Contrary to popular notions fed by the mainstream media,  William Ranney Levi in the the Yale Law Journal  notes that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques pre-dated 9/11. [1]  In particular, he documents that “Conventional wisdom states that recent U.S. authorization of coercive interrogation techniques, and the legal decisions that sanctioned them, constitute a dramatic break with the past. This is false.”

An alternative principled position is to believe that enhanced interrogation techniques should never, under any circumstances, be used. However, there is a recognition that the cost of such a policy could be significant additional risk to innocent people. Courageous people who hold this position insist that they believe the additional risks are a severe price paid to avoid the moral stigma of the techniques.

By contrast, squishy moralists try to have it both ways. They simultaneously argue against the used of enhanced interrogation techniques and that there is no risk in shunning their use. A number of intelligence people and former CIA directors attest to the importance of intelligence gathered from these techniques. One can decide that one will forgo the  information from enhanced interrogation, but it is morally juvenile to assert that there are no costs associated with the choice.

It is possible to forgive those who hold the latter position, in the sense that they may be in a state of denial. What is less forgivable are actions by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She was briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques while they were occurring. She was silent. If her conscience were shocked, even if she couldn’t stop the practice, she could have made a formal (if classified) objection to the use of such techniques. She didn’t, perhaps because at the time the country felt truly threatened. However, to now deny her role and express moral outrage at the Bush Administration’s decisions is at best only hypocrisy. At worst, it represents a despicable cynicism.

[1] Waterboarding may be the exception. However, the exact extent it could be used without severe harm was well-known because it had been applied to American troops in training exercises. Some techniques used in previous administrations were perhaps more exotic.  Previously the CIA has implemented “..implemented chemical, biological, and other human behavioral control methods for purposes of interrogation.”

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Impossible Standards to Meet

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

Sometimes you have to sit by and marvel either at President Barack Obama’s political skill and other times you have to wonder why the press seems to be so inept in asking questions without adequate follow-up. At this week’s presidential news conference we were provided the opportunity to experience both.

Virtually everyone, at least until  Obama’s recent comments, acknowledges that there are instances when extraordinary interrogation techniques are not only necessary but morally required. The ticking time-bomb scenario (you need information about the location of a ticking time bomb to save many innocent lives) represents the extreme case. Senator John McCain, who has some moral authority in this area because he was deliberated tortured by the North Vietnamese, recognizes this exception.

When asked about an analogous dilemma that might face him as president, Obama refused to acknowledge the possibility and established a impossible standard to meet with regard to the efficacy of such decisions. He said:

“But here’s what I can tell you, that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques, which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, don’t answer the core question.Which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques?”

Of course, it is impossible to conduct a controlled experiment or prove a negative with regard to alternative strategies. We do know that a number of former CIA directors and others have insisted that the techniques in question have saved lives. Even Dennis Blair, Obama’s director of national intelligence, concedes that. “High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” [1]

Of course, we can never know with precision what would have happen if an alternative policy had been pursued. Assume that after a long period of conventional interrogation, a high-level Al Qaeda operative provides little useful information. Then extraordinary interrogation techniques are used and the detainee provides information that breaks up a plot days away from execution.

There is no way to know with certainty that if we had not extended conventional questioning a few more days that the information would have finally been revealed. We would never know with certainty if a foiled plot might have been adverted another way, including clumsiness on the part of the terrorists. In other words, Obama has relieved himself of moral responsibility by setting up an impossible burden of proof for others. While this is rhetorically clever, it avoids dealing with a critical issue that may confront an administration. We hope that more serious discussions about such issues are going on behind the scenes, even is dismissed in public. If not, the refusal to confront such issues guarantees that if such a situation arises, decisions will have to be made without the benefit of patient consideration.

All we know is that the policies followed before 9/11 were insufficient to prevent an attack and the policies afterward did protect the United States for the entire Bush Administration. We hope that whatever policies with regard to extraordinary interrogation Obama implements are as successful. The extraordinary interrogation techniques were used in the immediate aftermath of the capture of high-level Al Qaeda operatives. Since we are unlikely to have a similar opportunity in the near future, the question may be moot.

[1] Blair’s conclusion was edited from White House information releases. When the Obama Administration does this, it is careful editing. If the Bush Administration had edited a rhetorically inconvenient conclusion of the intelligence community, it would be cherry-picking information.

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Obama: Call Him Ishmael

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Perhaps the most united this country has been in recent memory is in the forceful response to international threats  after the loss of more than 3000 Americans in the 9/11 attacks. The immediate response of the country was to secure itself and to pursue those responsible for the monstrous attacks. Had political expediency been a the primary motivation of the leadership, it would have been possible for Democrats and Republicans  to engage in finger pointing. Both sides instinctively understood that the country would not stand for bickering in a moment of extremus. President George W. Bush is as competitive a politician as you might want to find, but he is a decent person and decency made it impossible to try to put Clinton on the hook for  9/11.

President Barack Obama also seems like a genuinely decent person who wants to move on from divisive issues like aggressive interrogation of high-level Al Qaeda leadership. However, this innate decency gets muted by vicious Left-wing politics. The conflict between personal decency and acquiescence to the mean-spirited Left injured Obama in the presidential campaign when his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was recorded in making vicious anti-American statements. Obama is falling into the same trap when he allows the “MoveOn” and “Daily KOs” crowd push Obama against the better angels of his nature to revive the controversy about aggressive interrogation.

The angry Left will not be happy unless there are some figurative heads on spikes from the Bush Administration. That is why the Obama Administration released the Department of Justice from the previous administration memos delineated what they consider the limits of aggressive interrogation. There is a line between showing a detainee a caterpillar he is afraid of and pulling out finger nails, and the lawyers were trying to define it. There is something dangerous and deeply antithetical to the legal process to pursue lawyers rendering legal opinions to the clients.

In the immediate aftermath of a devastating terrorist attack in the United States, Khalid Sheik Mohammad (KSM) , a top al Qaeda operative, was captured. The country was concerned about a next wave of attacks against the US. When questioned about this KSM, responded wit  “Soon, you will know.” Faced with this situation, the CIA asked the Justice Department for guidance on how aggressive the interrogations could become before crossing a line into torture. The Justice Department lawyers provided reasoned guidance and decided that waterboarding conducted under a limited set of rules is not torture. Both Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress were informed with apparently no dissent. This scenario hardly seems like the collapse of law. Rather is seems like a legally methodical approach for dealing with a dangerous situation. Imagine if under these circumstances, with a detainee indicating an upcoming attack, with legal opinion permitting the use of aggressive interogation techniques, and proper notification of Congress, the Bush Administration had opted against waterboarding. Further imagine that we were subsequently attacked. It is not clear that Bush would have been praised for his restraint.

Americans are a fair-minded lot at a majority of them oppose investigation of torture allegations.  The Captain Ahab-like pursuit of former Bush Administration officials is likely to be very divisive and likely to unnecessarily squander Obama’s considerable political capital. Moreover to be closely associated with weakness on dealing with terrorists is politically dangerous. Terrorists could get lucky and successfully execute an attack. An Administration not seen to use all the resources at its disposal will be severely damaged.

For his own and the country’s benefit, Obama needs to exert leadership and quash the single-minded pursuits of the angry Left. They can not be placated by  symbolic gestures. They are willing to damage the Obama presidency and divide the country for the prospect of getting a harpoon in the big white whales from the Bush Administration even if the Liberal ship-of-state is sunk.

Posted in Politics, Social Commentary | 5 Comments »

Populism and the Media Revealed

Sunday, April 19th, 2009

This week  thousands of people in dozens of cities pulled together with disparate perspectives to protest on tax day, April 15. The protesters commandeered the metaphor of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when nascent Americans protested the taxes on tea. What made the taxes then unacceptable was the fact that they were imposed by a far away power and Americans had no representation.

The present protests were more than about taxes they were also about increases in spending and a general angst that the events were spirally out of control. Clearly any imposed taxes are enacted by a legitimately elected authority. However this only mildly attentuates the notion that bailouts of financial companies and enormous increases in public spending represent powerful forces in government and the private sector taking advantage from the average person. In short, these parties represent a spasm of populism.

There are typically two kinds of populism, populism of the Left and populism of the Right. Populism on the Left believes that the average person is at the mercy of corporate interests.  Populism on the Right, asserts that the average person suffers under the predations of intrusive government. The recent Tea Party Protests are perhaps a confused amalgamation of both varieties of populism. Republicans are trying to jump in front of this  parade, but they are certainly not leading it. Democrats, who have recently embraced an anti-corporate populism, feel threatened by the movement because they represent the incumbent political party. The movement was instigated by economic uncertainty and it will likely wither or grow inverse relation to the short term perceived success of the economy.

The coverage of the Tea Party Protests, particularly by the cable news channels exposed more about those news networks than they did about protests. The reporters at Fox News were clearly sympathetic to the protesters. The individual protesters were generally portrayed favorably. The protesters returned the positive coverage by cheering Fox News personalities. This resembles the coverage of pro-choice rallies by the mainstream press. In this different  case, CNN and MSNBC were not nearly so sympathetic to Tea Party demonstrators. Reporters actively argued rather than interviewed protesters. Tea Party Protesters  accused reporters of selecting the most extreme protesters to paint the demonstrations in the worst possible light.

While one might forgive a reporter who temporarily looses her professional composure, how can one explain the comments by David Schuster of MSNBC. The protesters never called their protests ``tea bagging,” but rather “tea parties.” Nonetheless, some on the Left, obviously  familiar with the sexual implications of “tea bagging,” sought to simultaneously show their hipness in understanding the innuendo and ridicule the protesters. While such vulgarity might be expected from the more extreme blogs, David Schuster of MSNBC News in one single episode further lowered MSNBC standards (such as they are) when he he did a whole piece exploiting the sexual innuendo. The commentary sounded more like that of a smug 16-year old than the thoughts of a seasoned reporter. Now David Schuster may be personally delightful person to have dinner with and for all I know contribute large amounts of time and money to worthy causes, pets his dog when he arrives home, but may I suggest that this episode reveals more about David Schuster than it does about the Tea Party protesters.

Posted in Politics, Social Commentary | 2 Comments »

Universal Jurisdiction as Universal Tyranny

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

One of the criticisms on the Left of President George W. Bush is that he exceeded his sovereign authority  to impose his moral and political will on other countries. We find out now that the real criticism is not that he exceeded his authority, but that he did not do so in the pursuit of Left-wing goals.

For example, a Left-wing Spanish judge (who earned his degree while serving time for his involvement in terrorism)  is seeking to indict American attorneys who advised President Bush. By extending his authority outside Spanish jurisdiction, this judge is invoking the controversial doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction. This doctrine holds that individual states can claim criminal jurisdiction outside of the state’s sovereignty, independent of the relationship of the crime to the country seeking prosecution.  Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón is attempting to indict Bush’s advisers, including Attorney General Antonio Gonzalez, Douglas Feith, a former under Secretary of Defense, and Justice Department attorney John Yoo. Such an indictment would be in violation of the sovereignty guaranteed by the signatories of the United Nations Charter.

Universal jurisdiction was meant to apply to situations where there was no sovereign authority to enforce the law such as in piracy or the occupation of a country after a war where there is no other competent authority. The principle of sovereignty guaranteed in the UN charter prohibits the usurpation of sovereign authority simply because another country disapproves of the local jurisprudence.

There are some who argue that despite the legal technicalities, the need to pursue some individuals who commit especially heinous crimes is so great that it permits the use of means not normally accepted. How different is this argument that enhanced measures can be used to interrogate individuals when the lives of innocents are involved?

The Left does not really seek the application of international law, but its selective use to pursue political opponents. Some Spaniards like to specialize in the use of extraterritorial legal exploits in pursuing former Chilean right-wing dictator Pinochet, or Israeli officials, or Americans. There do not seem to be any “universal jurisdiction” indictments applied against  terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. This may or may not be related to possibility that, Spanish lawyers involved in going after Bin Laden might find their personal safety threatened. The 2004 Madrid bombings illustrated how it is possible to intimidate the Spanish public. Leaving aside the questions of legal jurisdiction,  for a court to maintain moral authority it must avoid the reality and appearance of using its power for politically-motivated prosecutions. The Spanish fail this test.

When the US liberated Iraq it did so under the legal auspices of the original authorization by the United Nations to remove the Iraqis from Kuwait. The armistice that halted the hostilities as the US pursued Iraqi forces was based on certain agreements Iraq agreed to. These agreements were violated and the US had the clear authority to resume hostilities.

Would the Left (who by the way did not indict Saddam Hussein) have been happy if the United States found a federal judge somewhere to issue an indictment against Hussein. Then US could have then have called the Iraq operation as law enforcement effort? Would that have pleased the proponents of the cavalier use universal jurisdiction? Would the Left be pleased if a Conservative country issued indictments against other judges in other countries who ruled in favor of abortion rights. Would the Left be happy if the US issued indictments against Chinese officials for actions against Tibetans. Would the Left ever seek an indictment against President Bill Clinton who boasted that he ordered the assassination of Osama  Bin Laden without an judicial authority.

Perhaps the most pernicious problem with universal jurisdiction is that it may hinder important diplomatic efforts. Say for example, the international community can persuade a particular tyrant to step down and  allow a democratic government to take over in exchange for free passage and asylum in a third country. If that particular tyrant is concerned about universal jurisdiction, he or she might calculate their self interest rests with toughing it out in their own country.

One can apply diplomatic pressure and moral suasion to deal with issues between sovereign countries. Indeed, if a country believes it is morally necessary it can impose sanctions of some sort against other countries. To use universal jurisdiction is to allow tyranny by small number of judges who choose to extend their jurisdiction beyond that mandated by international law.

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Measure of Conservative Success: Denial of the Left

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

One can always tell when a particular Conservative policy has met with success. On the part of Left, there is first denial, then when success becomes undeniable the argument shifts to “the success would have happened irrespective of Conservative polices.” This can be seen in the reaction to the the  “Surge” policy and now our memories of the Cold War.

Before “The Surge” in troops, the Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid claimed that the Iraq War was “lost.” This looks foolish in retrospect, but public opinion at the time was ambivalent about who was winning. When the number of Americans casualties began to dramatically decrease, there was an unwillingness on the Left to seize these initial results optimistically. By and large, the Left was convinced that any success was momentary.



The plot above shows the Rasmussen Poll on the question who is winning the War on Terror. Although there is consensus now that we are on the road to success, the Left was slow in acknowledging it. They had too much emotionally invested in failure. In Slate in January 2008, Michael Kinsley, although acknowledging some positive trends in Iraq, would not accept the growing consensus that The Surge was working. Now that casualties have been dropping for almost two years, success can no longer be denied, but from the Left the Surge cannot be given credit. Some argue that the US improved its intelligence operations, others claim the the Iraqis would have rejected violence on their own. In short, the Left can not say they were wrong and President George W. Bush was right about the Surge strategy.As more and more time passes, people forget the arguments that were made originally, and this latter approach of denying the cause of the success is more effective. Hence, when the Left is giving alternative reasons for a success, we have a tacit admission of success.In yet another periodic re-incarnation of this sort of argument witness Tom Friedman. The argument he tries to make is that the United States loses and its enemies win when the price of oil increases. Likewise, when the price of oil falls, our enemies suffer. This is a reasonable argument. There are national security arguments to take steps to reduce US dependence upon oil.However, in his eagerness to buttress his argument he stretches the truth beyond all recognition. He now argues that Reagan’s policies did not win the Cold War. Rather,  according to Friedman, “… it was the collapse of global oil prices in the early 1990s that brought down the Soviet Union.”While the drop in oil prices hurt the Soviet Union, these prices dropped to levels that Soviets had lived with for generations. Indeed, Liberals at the time insisted that the Soviet Union would not collapse. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., scholar of American Liberalism and one of its most articulate spokespersons  told us in 1986, after the collapse in oil prices, that “those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to over the brink are wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves.”Friedman overlooks the support of rebels opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan, the support of Contras in Central America, the increase in the US defense budget, the Strategic Defense Initiative, the incredible recovery of the US economy, the deployment of Intermediate Nuclear Weapons in Europe. Friedman is too smart to be making such silly assertions about winning the Cold War, but it is too hard to admit that Reagan won the Cold War.

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Krugman Needs Reagan to Make His Growth Argument

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Science can advance more quickly when there is the ability to construct controlled experiments within which variables and their effects can be isolated. Observational sciences like astronomy or archeology cannot construct direct experiments, but try to create explanations consistent with the more traditional sciences like physics and chemistry and ongoing observation. Economics falls in this latter category without the advantage of some reliance on other sciences. Given the unprecedented nature of today’s economic circumstances, prudence should restrain the certainty of any prediction.

Nonetheless, in terms of our future prospects, the importance of economic growth is conceded by all. If the extremely large spending increases of the Obama plan result in very significant economic growth say 4-5% per year range, growth will generate sufficient government revenue that service on the debt will not strain the economy. The question reduces to  what level of growth will result after the implementation of the Obama stimulus package.

Nobel-prize laureate Paul Krugman argues that historical evidence suggest periods of strong economic growth quickly follow high unemployment to support Obama assumptions about growth. There is some plausibility to this view. After unemployment peaks, putting labor back to work should increase output or gross national product. Indeed, Krugman suggests that when Harvard economist Greg Mankiw (who specializes in macro economics as opposed to Krugman’s international trade specialty) arguments otherwise are “evil” wonkishness. Mankiw responded that if Krugman is so sure that he is willing to risk the economy on his prediction, perhaps he might be willing to wagee a small fraction of his Nobel prize. Frankly, aw we shall see the data are so murky, that I would not wager much on either prediction.

Krugmam cites data to support his assumption of growth from Brad Delong.



The above graph shows the  unemployment rate on the horizontal axis and future economic growth 2 years later on the vertical axis. The association is not particularly strong, The points on the far right of the regression line seem to drive even the weak association in the graph. After Mankiw’s response to Krugman,  Delong went back and looked at the data. He found that those points on the end of the regression curve, as guessed by Mankiw, were associated with the Reagan recovery in the early 1980’s — a recovery dominated by large reductions in the highest marginal tax rates. Refer to the graph from Delong below.


The pink points are the ones associated with the Reagan recovery. Thus, Krugman is relying on the Reagan recovery to support his confident assertion strong growth inevitably follows high unemployment rates. Although the deficit rose during the Reagan years, at least at first, it was associated with increased defense spending coupled with reducing marginal income tax rates. Obama stimulus relies on high levels of spending and increased marginal tax rates. The past evidence does not allow us to predict with even modest assurance that high rates of growth are to be expected. For Krugman to make this argument confidently without caveat suggests at least at best some ignorance of the past.

Posted in Economics, Politics | No Comments »

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