Pangloss

Sure, but they don't rule out stuff they can't check either. I agree, and I think it certainly does. Actually it probably does. Regulation is central to the ongoing dispute between post-Keynesian market controllers and post-Friedman free marketers. Sure, there are some Keynesian economists out there who are okay with some free market practices, and some free market economists who favor some regulation. But Paul Krugman is not one of these, in my opinion. If they were failures, as opposed to minor inconveniences that lead companies to reject all moral/ethical considerations in their decision-making and begin to use "what the law allows" as their only determiner. Alan Greenspan himself wrote a fascinating and enduring essay along these lines, analyzing the history of Alcoa in the context of the then-current debate over breaking up the trusts. He suggests that the process was gradual, but that early minor regulations forced companies into a posture of doing everything allowed by the law, and remove all other considerations from their practices. In other words, regulation may not technically have come first, but it caused the need for more regulation. I believe the question to be moot, because a free society is ultimately intolerant of non-regulation -- the mob will ultimately rule, one way or another, and it will not tolerate pain and suffering. So there was never a possibility of a free market in this country. Not ever. It has nothing to do with economics. Sure, my point is just that it's not the profit motive that's causing that problem, and as even Krugman admits with regard to HMOs, it is possible that we could have for-profit health insurance. He's not even advocating its demise -- he's suggesting that it be regulated. I think the biggest danger in this lies in doing what he says and then thinking we've solved the problem. It's almost as bad as Congress ignoring the problem entirely and simply having the government PAY the high cost of health care (the coniferous plant "fernus monetaris" grows right behind capital hill; everybody knows that!). Sure! I'm not trying to hide that. It's my opinion. Though at least I back it up and explain why I feel that way -- give me credit for that! Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Nobody's saying that it would.

I think you all might've missed my point. My problem with Krugman isn't that he's wrong, but that he's distorting things to suit his ideological goals. Krugman isn't arguing that they shouldn't make a profit -- he goes out of his way to say he's not advocating socialized medicine. What he's advocating is a higher degree of regulation. That's right, that's what he's saying, but his "evidence" for this is that complete freedom won't solve the problem. That's like saying if NASCAR removed all regulations the cars will go flying off the edge of the track, therefore a quarter-inch change in the restrictor plate is a bad idea. They don't do that -- they make slight changes in BOTH directions and then observe the results. That's what a good scientist or engineer does. But that's not Paul Krugman. Krugman believes that any lightening of regulation is always a bad idea. And the argument he uses to support this belief is that no regulation would be chaos. It's an illogical and sophomoric argument. And it's about ideologies, not realities.

Well what I think is that it makes me mad. (grin) Sorry but I gotta rant on this one. Nothing against you, of course -- I appreciate you passing it along. If I had a virtual bird cage I would line it with this virtual column. (Ooo -- Facebook app!) See what I mean about Krugman selling out his academic laurels for his progressive ideology? He's an economist, but he's talking about how profit motive is the root of all evil in the health care system! He even has the audacity to point to himself as an example of economist who believes this to be the case. "Why, it's too expensive! It's too complicated for people to compare! You can't sell something that expensive or complicated as if it were 'like bread'! Pay attention, children -- expensive things have to be paid for by insurance!" What a load of malarkey. I realize he's not suggesting socialism, but what he is suggesting is something almost as bad. I like to call it "regulation uber alles", and it's a general socio-economic position that regulation is always a good thing, and more regulation is a better thing. Krugman conveniently overlooks the fact that there ARE no free markets in this country. None! ALL commerce is regulated to some degree. How would he know that free markets can't fix this? He doesn't, of course. So he's suggesting that everything that's bad just needs the application of the appropriate rule to fix. Only hey, guess what? Regulation makes a business MORE complicated. Regulation makes a business MORE expensive. The two things he says are most symptomatic of a broken system are the same two things he wants to make worse! I believe he's wrong, and that the right answer is a balance of regulatory force and market force. Of course, I don't have a blackened Pulitzer sitting on my mantle. But then I haven't sold out, either. I call it a wash.

I guess that makes it a weapon of message distraction?

What I think is that it's one of the rare times when I see actual wisdom in the writing of Paul Krugman -- a man who has long since sold out his high academic credentials at the altar of progressive social policy. And it's an interesting example of how the worst thing you can do to a political party is to put it in charge of the whole shooting match, forcing it to face very real internal differences in philosophy -- stuff you can't resolve by rallying around a burning effigy of George W. Bush. (On a brighter note, at least Bill Maher has substantive debates on his program now.) But getting back to the point, I don't know if there is a realistic path we could have followed that would have been trouble-free. Perhaps we're just going to have to accept the fact that there was no clean path to success. Just to step back to the bigger picture for a moment, the problem is how to restore the economy to some semblance of its previous stature. But because its previous stature was based on faulty practices, that may not actually be possible. Like a mob boss after his street enforcers are all put in jail -- he hires new ones, and tells them to not be quite so brazenly illegal for a while, and everyone is shocked when they don't bring in as much income as before. It's going to take a while for them to switch from drugs and prostitutes to internet porn and semi-legal gambling houses, right? I suspect that's kinda where we're at right now. Certainly not an entirely fair analogy by any stretch, with most of the economy probably on very sound and ethical footing, but perhaps it works at the level of the 10-20% of the economy that's really hurting, which, given our low tolerance for pain, probably makes it accurate.

And you, being a relatively well-off white male, seem to feel that black people should be given certain advantages over white people as compensation for perceived disadvantages that may or may not be real. Or maybe neither one of us fits into an oversimplified stereotype and in fact both of us are thinking along more complex lines. I suppose it's possible, but you'll want to flip that cui bono. The White House is going to be thoroughly embarrassed if the current bills don't pass before the recess (because he threw his full weight behind these deeply flawed bills). A victory in the race wars would be a nice way to offset some of that damage. The opposition, on the other hand, would probably rather have health care front and center at the moment, if recent poll numbers are any indication. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR2009072501949.html

I stated an opinion and personal observation. BTW, a subtle insinuation that I'm a bigot does not make it so. I disagree. You comply. Always. If they're wrong, you determine that after the fact. If a cop asks you a question that you think is inappropriate or unnecessary, you answer it and then you hire a lawyer and file charges of harassment. Screaming at the man isn't just moronic and pointless, it actually undermines your own case. This man has set his own reputation back thirty years, and may have harmed it irreparably. All because he ASS-U-ME-D he was being looked at because of his race. Now, whether or not this applies in this particular case is a reasonable question, and I don't believe we have enough information at this time to fully answer that question. However, your interpretation of the sequence of events in the following quote is a perfectly reasonable one: I agree that the issue is one of investigation and IF they were able to get everything they needed, and the ONLY issue was that they were insulted, then they should not have arrested him. I basically acknowledged that possibility in my last post, though perhaps not very clearly. I agree. Though I do think (and perhaps you'd agree) the issue is a good one to have in the public discourse. I would also point out that it may be that the professor is the one who escalated to a "new level". But yes, it's a distraction to some extent. I think it's interesting that nobody in the mainstream media seems to walk to talk about the possibility that, as you say, the professor may have been acting stupidly in suggesting that the police not investigate someone trying to break into a house, black OR white. That's one of the reasons I look forward to this meeting with the president -- it'll give the morons in the media and the stupider parts of the public to see things more clearly.

But they did pay back the money they were given directly, and if the government had required them to pay back the AIG money they would have done that instead of paying bonuses. Whether that particular problem rests with the government or Goldman Sachs is an interesting debate, but it doesn't necessarily take anything away from what's been accomplished. Why can't it be both a good example of how a bailout can work, AND an example of the pitfalls and back doors that can occur?

There are plenty of indications that the man hindered police in their effort to determine whether or not he was, in fact, the owner. He was charged with disorderly conduct, but it's all about the same underlying issue -- we need the police to be able to investigate a situation without being hindered, verbally abused, accused of racism without foundation, and so forth. We need to wait for the full information before determining which side was right (and it's possible both sides have merit). I wonder if you realize, iNow, that the result of President Obama's meeting with the two men is not going to be a unilateral condemnation of that policeman. Short of him pulling a Mark Fuhrman, the President is going to support him, even if he also supports the homeowner. Free speech has limits. This is one of them. You do what the police tell you to do first. You question their tactics and reasons later. That is how you behave around law enforcement, and the reason why you do so is as much about the benefit to you as it is about the benefit to their safety, their search for the truth, etc. If you don't like what the police tell you to do, you STFU and you hire a lawyer. The African American community has determined that a different set of behavior is acceptable under certain conditions. The African American community is mistaken. And every time they display this behavior or support it they demonstrate immaturity. Incidentally, something similar to this happened to me once. I was parked on the street outside a friend's house just off the Georgia Tech campus (this was around 1985) and I was parallel parked and the cars in front of and behind me were really close. It was very late (after midnight) and I was tired so I wanted to be careful and just get as close as I possibly could to the car behind me before pulling out, so I backed up as far as I could see from inside, then I got out and walked back to look and see if I'd contacted his bumper or not. Suddenly the night lit up and I turned around and there was a bright light shining in my eyes from the parking lot across the street. It was a police officer who'd stopped at the gas station there and had been filling out his paperwork and he'd just happened to notice what I was doing, and he thought I had actually hit the car behind me and was checking for damage. Well I was like 19 and tired and it was just a stupid cop, right? So instead of calmly answering his questions, I tried to make him listen to my explanation, and when he didn't listen I was impatient and rude towards him, because I knew I'd done nothing wrong and therefore he had no justification for questioning me. (Just exactly like being questioned about breaking into your own home.) Big mistake. It took ten seconds to realize I'd screwed up, but two hours to fix it, listening to him ask me questions, sitting in his car, watching him fill out paperwork, most of which probably had nothing to do with me (but it sure looked terrifying). I knew I'd screwed up, and I knew he was letting me know it, but it STILL scared the hell out of me. I'm lucky I wasn't arrested. Thank GOD I hadn't been drinking. But I'll tell you this -- I'll never question a cop again. And the man never even raised his voice. Not once. I don't care what the color of your skin is. If a police officer tells you to do something, you do it. It's not about race, it's about safety (yours and theirs) and it's about upholding the law so that we don't live in anarchy.

I agree. Did any one catch these two interesting facts from the story? - This is a professor who teaches about the history of racism in this country - This is a police officer who teaches courses on the pros and cons of racial profiling I'm not suggesting that either one deliberately set this up. I'm suggesting that they may have seen what they were looking for. The professor have have known how his actions looked and expected to be racially profiled if the cops happened by. The police officer knew what might happen and expected the professor to react in that manner. This may be a learning opportunity of a different nature from what people think. We don't actually know that any more than we know that the professor overreacted. We have no video, just second-hand statements. So in some way we're all seeing what WE want to see in this event as well. But Obama was wrong to leap to a conclusion and I think he has come to agree with that point as well. Perhaps, though I think you're making the same mistake Obama made, for the same reason. You're right about what's supposed to happen, though. But I think you're also ignoring what's supposed to happen by the other party. Put another way, the officer may not be the only one who may have acted stupidly. But I won't leap to the conclusion that either party did.

Exactly. Stay on message, accept human flaws in people, and don't stoop to their level. Now if I could only follow my own advice!

Some interesting posts above. I think also people get too caught up in "what happened" or "what's happening now", and don't focus enough on the effort itself. If you look at the long history of civilization, what matters is not so much the mistakes that were made, but whether the society in question acted to try and fix them. My country solved slavery with the stroke of a pen on July 9th, 1868. But it took more than a century more to actually begin a conversation about race relations that is still under way. So I have a lot more respect for the society of 1968, who wanted to change than I do for the one of 1868, which was mostly unmotivated and disinterested in change, and in fact wanted stability and peace at any cost. How will people in the future look back at us? Won't they already judge us harshly -- ALL of us -- as the society that tolerated back-alley abortions, foolish politicians saving patients with zero brain activity, and nonsensical debates about enforced prayer disguised as free speech? Even knowing that we fixed those problems, they'll still view us as the same set of people who allowed them before they were fixed. So I think what matters is the *effort*. Converting everyone to the right cause isn't the point at all (and is impossible anyway). What matters is the WAY in which you fight the good fight. We even see signs of this every day. When a special interest group makes a hypocritical statement about how other special interest groups are influencing a vote. When a politician talks about "family values" and then gets caught committing adultery. When an radio ideologue roasts a "family values" politician for committing adultery just to win over more supporters to the cause. These are all examples of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Our judges in the future will know what we accomplished, and they will also know exactly how we did it.

I think bascule is overstating the case, but maybe it's just really bad in his area. I've never had to wait more than an hour or two for urgent care, and that was in the middle of the night on a holiday. I think the real problem is people who don't have adequate health care coverage. They're worried about cost so they wait longer and then need more urgent care that costs even more, and end up in dire straights.

Have you guys been following the story about the situation with the Cambridge professor who was arrested trying to break into his own home, and reacted by accusing the police of racial profiling? That story in itself was not one that I thought noteworthy enough to discuss here, but when the President weighed in on it it suddenly got a lot more interesting in terms of political discussion. (There's a link below that can help catch people up if they missed this.) I cringed when I saw the President say that the police acted "stupidly", but I also noticed that he said that the officer in question had a respectable history. He was trying to be fair, but he really blew it with that one comment, and of course the press and the opposition launched into that big-time. But what's even more interesting to me is what Obama did today. Sure, it's damage control, but it's pretty darn GOOD damage control. He called the officer and expressed sincere regret at his choice of words, and even more interesting, invited the officer and the professor to come to the White House to seek common ground! That's a pretty amazing thing if you ask me. Sure, there's a side to it that we could be cynical about. We could question what the president is doing involving himself in something like this (as if he doesn't have enough on his plate already). We could say that he's just embarrassed over his choice of words (and he probably is). But -- isn't this exactly what he SAID he was going to do? Didn't he say he wanted us to have a dialog about race in this country? Isn't this a perfect opportunity to do that? Anyway that's my two bits. What do you guys think? http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2447761120090724

I understand.

No no, we have to forget that earlier conversation -- THE DOW KNOWS ALL! (Pangloss quickly deletes the old thread.) Just kidding. But seriously, what I like about this is the impact it has had on my 401k, which has recovered most of its lost value, and my wife's plan is right behind it (we picked pretty conservative plans). I have several friends who had more aggressive plans but even those seem to have recovered at least half of their lost value. I do know one couple who's plan has not recovered at all, though.

I'm sorry, I thought you were saying that the message occurs more frequently, but apparently you're saying that global warming deniers use misinformation more frequently than people who accept global warming as fact. (Yes?) You could be right, and it's an interesting opinion. It doesn't justify demonization, in my view -- especially since many of those people are operating on lack of information or the information they have is out of date (which I believe we've agreed happens frequently, especially in conservative circles where anti-GW discussion is popular). In my view such people aren't encouraged by demonization -- they're driven farther away. I agree. Which is one of the ways in which a private forum community differs from the larger public community, which has an obligation to be more tolerant of dissent. But we're not talking about censorship, we're talking about demonization (ostracizing behavior). Different subject. Just as I don't think such people should be silenced, I also don't think ostracizing should be made illegal. I just think ostracizing people for their views is counter-productive and a bad idea. You mentioned in your post that you think it worthless to try to reason with an anti-abortion advocate. I'm sure you're right, but the problem is determining whether the person whom you're communicating with is that sort, or is another sort who might have an open mind. If you insult them, do you get to find out which sort they really are? Or do they just insult you back? One of my concerns is that if ostracizing behavior is deemed socially acceptable, what happens to the overall discourse? In other words, are we going to have a conversation about global warming on this planet, or are we going to make everyone pick sides and line up for the appropriate abuse and then see who wins? Not that that applies to anyone here (even our most hair-triggered and frustrated members are still able to listen, at least in my experience), but that's where I'm coming from with my concern about ostracization and justified abuse.

Exactly -- because it's illogical, counter-productive, and a poor way to convince anybody of anything. Just like ostracizing them.

So you feel that a large number of posts indicating a specific position on a Web message forum stands as conclusive evidence that the anti-GW message is more prevalent than the pro-GW message? (Did I read that right?) Interesting. Which of those two positions gets more weighted treatment in the mainstream media? If we were to, say, review the last 52 issues of Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report, I wonder whether we would find more anti-GW articles or more of those in support of the concept. (Actually, aside from the odd guest op/ed piece, I'd be surprised if there were a single article amongst those 156 issues questioning the overall science of global warming.) I realize there's a difference in that the latter are scientifically accurate and the ones you're complaining about are not. But that's not the point -- your complaint is that people are getting more inundated by the wrong message than the right one, yes? The reason I'm pressing this point in the context of this thread is because I feel that such reasoning is sometimes used to justify ostracizing attacks for the "greater good". In my opinion the danger inherent in this approach is clear. The ends do not justify the means.

Does it? Or does it just seem that way? Is there any statistical evidence for this? Also, I'm curious whether folks thing it acceptable if the pro-GW noise is along the lines of "do the right thing and don't worry about the reasons why"? Should we be okay with telling people to fix global warming because George Clooney says it's the right thing to do?

I'd call you a total denier, but I'd have to spin quite a yarn to to do it, sew I won't.

You folks should know better than to inject an SFN policy discussion into this. In case you've forgotten, SFN has rules that essentially remove the SFN community from applicability in this debate. As far as I can tell bascule's not suggesting we hang people who deny global warming (in fact he's as pro-free speech as anybody I've ever met). But if you are rude to a fellow SFN member, regardless of cause, you're going to have to deal with the consequences (but only within SFN). So let's drop the jryan discussion, please. Makes sense to me. Well said. Why is it necessary to bring him around to the realization that the Apollo landings are in fact real?

Has violent confrontation thwarted moon hoax denial, or encouraged it?

Interesting. Let me approach that from the perspective of a confused American voter seeking a sensible and responsible ideology, using your stated (and very commonly held) opinion as a guide. First, do you think Obama is lying about empathizing with George W. Bush, or lying about being able to have empathy for people who disagree with him? If your answer is the former, then you seem to be saying that you believe Obama cannot empathize with Bush because no reasonable person could. But is Obama reasonable? In fact you say he is lying, which would be an hypocrisy, and surely hypocrisy is an unreasonable act. This presents a fascinating Catch-22: You believe it's not impossible for him to believe one thing and state the opposite. In other words, if he said he DIDN'T empathize with Bush, he could be lying and actually DOES -- but you say that's impossible. (I'm not criticizing -- I think people do this all the time, and I think it's fascinating!) And if it's the latter (that you don't think he can honestly feel empathy for people who disagree with him, which gets back to the subject of this thread), then doesn't your belief that he's a liar preclude you from being able to support him in any manner, on any issue? Haven't you just cut yourself off from accessing this man ever again as a source of hope? So our confused voter has quite a dichotomy to deal with here, but as I say I think it's an ABSOLUTELY DEAD-ON ACCURATE reflection of how people think. I see people go down this exact same path of reasoning all the time, and I think it's just amazing. I think it says a great deal about the extent of the problem we face if we're ever going to learn how to work together to accomplish anything.

And you wonder why nothing changes. Guess who said it: These quotes are from The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, page 51 (paperback edition). Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedThat reminds me of an interesting story (or so it seemed to me at the time). I got into a debate with one of my wife's friends a couple of weeks ago about a major political issue familiar to everyone here (the substance of which is not important). She went on at some length about how she couldn't understand how anybody could feel a certain way, that it was wrong and evil, and that she had to speak out against it. She said all this knowing I agreed with her, but what she wasn't aware of is that my wife disagreed with her position, and in fact held the position that her friend thought evil and intolerable. I knew this from private discussions at home, but not once in the conversation did my wife open her mouth. She just smiled, laughed when her friend made a joke, and waited for the conversation to move on. I suppose it comes as no surprise to anyone here that my wife has a lot more friends than I do! But I think it's also an example of how not everyone feels the need to change society overnight.