An entire day dedicated to Star Trek posts at National Review Online? I don’t know which is more tragic — that it’s the geekiest thing I’ve seen in a long time, or that I’m not going to have time this weekend to read them all!
But if you’ve ever read my website during football season, you already knew that. Still, you might not know that he’s 8-2 in his last 10 games with his only two losses to the Patriots and Colts!
I realize that on the unproven guilt scale, Barry Bonds is somewhere near an OJ level of obviousness. Still, it seems a bit tacky to brand his home run ball at this point, don’t you think? Stupid internet polls…
GM and the UAW have reached a tentative deal already? Back when I lived in a factory town the strikes went on for years and destoyed the livelihoods of thousands. I guess things work faster in the 21st century.
Megan McArdle cites a Times story about the dating challenges of young professional women in major cities who make more money than their male counterparts. One of her quotes is far better than anything the article has to offer:
Yes, if you make a decent salary, some of the men you meet will make less than you. But many more will not. And any lingering problems in this department can be readily overcome by letting go of the fairy princess fantasy where Prince Daddy provides everything worth having; or, alternatively, by not dating men who make less money than you do. If this is still not enough–if you want to date sensitive artistic types who still play the role of Big Earner–well, then, it should be a relatively simple matter to find a lower paying job.
I haven’t experienced this problem yet, though I will admit to having experienced a different one — I’ve occasionally found myself in situations where the woman I’m dating is quite verbally proud of her work. This seems desirable on its face, but unfortuntely — in spite of the fact that my nonprofit work is deliberately chosen — sometimes her rhetoric can at times make the (probably unintentional) implication that I couldn’t hack it in her profession. This can result, and indeed has resulted, in more than one tense conversation.
And by the way, the Times piece interviewed a software designer, a consultant, a lawyer, a brand strategist, a producer, and an advertising executive. Replace software deisnger, brand strategist, and advertising executive with consultant, consultant, and consultant, and this story works quite well for DC.
Courtesy of Slate, my thoughts summed up nicely:
[I]n the grand scheme of things, the latest installment of the UAW-GM battle has the makings of this fall’s Army-Navy football game—a match between two ancient powers whose rivalry once dominated the headlines but who now play a largely symbolic role.
You can read what’s actually going on — at least from a public relations perspective — from the Times.
If this reporter’s assessment of the incident at the Kerry speech is accurate — and the video evidence suggests it is — the student was clearly trying to be as disruptive as possible. I don’t know when the police procedures call for tasing so excessive use of force may be an issue in that respect, but to argue that the police infringed on his free speech rights is a to misrepresent the facts of the incident in my opinion.
[Update 9/20/07: According to this article, UF police procedures allow an amount of non-deadly force “that is reasonably necessary to protect officers or others from harm or to effect the lawful arrest of an individual.”]
Arnold Kling and Brian Caplan have an interesting exchange about this — I’ll link to Arnold’s entry as the most recent thus far.
Via Ezra, I read Donon Taussig’s review of The Trap by Daniel Brook. I might read it, partially because it looks like something I might enjoy and partially to see whether I disagree with the thesis as much as I think I do. To summarize:
In today’s hyper-capitalist America, he argues, the basic touchstones of a middle-class life—health insurance, a quality education for one’s children, and home ownership, particularly within reasonable commuting distance of a metropolitan center—have become exorbitantly expensive. At the same time, the compensation gap between people dedicating their lives to the public good and those dedicating their lives to corporate enrichment has grown immensely. And so a generation of young, educated people who want to do good in the world is forced to choose between material sacrifice and spiritual sacrifice, or “selling out”.
In other words, there are too many people working for corporations who would rather be working for advocacy groups but can’t because it’s too hard for a bright single college-educated person to survive in a big city on an activist’s pay. Or worse, they’ve been “economically coerced” to work for a corporation because the money is just too good compared to what they would really do if money were no object. And apparently this wasn’t a problem during the Glorious Era of the Middle Class (see Krugman, Paul) and only recently became a problem thanks to conservative brainwashing:
What changed? Brook blames linguistics. Well, not exactly, but he spruces up his inevitable recounting of the rise of the conservative movement, from Buckley to Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush, by focusing on the right’s appropriation of the word “freedom.” Through rote repetition, Brook says, conservatives redefined freedom as the absence of government interventions such as progressive taxation and business regulation. This enabled the right, under Reagan, to slash top tax rates from 70 percent down to 28 percent, and unleash Brook’s real bogeyman: inequality.
And you may have already guessed Brook’s proposed solution to the ill that has befallen the upper 10% of American twentysomethings (or perhaps you remember that I gave it away in the title of the post).
I’ll refrain from quoting any more of the review, which I thought was quite good and worth reading. But I will make a brief case for the other side. I know at least two DC nonprofits whose philosophy is to intentionally pay below market for entry-level positions. They are mission-driven organizations who rely on a passionate, innovative team, so they initially favor commitment and later reward talent and entrepreneurship with rapid increases in pay and responsibility. If someone is unwilling to make a financial sacrifice to join the cause, that person is a bad investment for the organization.
And in any case, I agree with Ezra that when I’m looking for problems to solve — particularly those that apparently can only be solved with massive taxation and public spending — this one’s going to be rather low on my list.
It’s rather kind of him to lay out his political philosophy so succinctly so I can vomit once and get on with my life.
In all seriousness, I don’t believe any of his facts are in dispute, nor his interpretation of the facts. His description of the “Middle Class America” era (mid ’40s to late ’70s) is, as far as I’m aware, dead on. And I’m certainly in agreement with him that politics has played a more forceful role than economics in shaping people’s lives in the last century — though in my view for the worse pretty much whenever politicians get involved, and in Krugman’s view for the better when FDR gets involved and for the worse only when too many Republicans get involved.
But what he’s never been able to convincingly explain is why reducing inequality is the virtuous aim we should be striving for, and why this will cure the ills of society. And here Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, one of the influences of the “Thatcherite Britain” to which he refers, offers some thoughts on why that is an insufficient answer:
That a government which undertakes to direct economic activity will have to use its power to realize somebody’s ideal of distributive justice is certain. But how can and how will it use that power? By what principles will it or ought it to be guided? Is there a definite answer to the innumerable questions of relative merits that will arise and that will have to be solved deliberately? Is there a scale of values, on which reasonable people can be expected to agree, which would justify a new hierarchical order of society and is likely to satisfy the demands for justice?
There is only one general principle, one simple rule which would indeed provide a definite answer to all these questions: equality, complete and absolute equality of all individuals in all those points which are subject to human control. If this were generally regarded as desirable… it would give the vague idea of distributive justice a clear meaning and would give the planner definite guidance. But nothing is further from the truth than that people in general regard mechanical equality of this kind as desirable. No socialist movement which aimed at complete equality has ever gained substantial support. What socialism promised was not an absolutely equal, but a more just and more equal, distribution. Not equality in the absolute sense but “greater equality” is the only goal which is seriously aimed at.
Though these two ideals sound very similar, they are as different as possible as far as our problem is concerned. While absolute equality would clearly determine the planner’s task, the desire for greater equality is merely negative, no more than an expression of dislike of the present state of affairs; and so long as we are not prepared to say that every move in the direction toward complete equality is desirable, it answers scarcely any of the questions the planner will have to decide.
This is not a quibble about words. We face here a crucial issue which the similarity of the terms used is likely to conceal. while agreement on complete equality would answer all the problems of merit the planner must answer, the formula of the approach to greater equality answers practically none. Its content is hardly more definite than the phrases “common good” or “social welfare.” it does not free us from the necessity of deciding in every particular instance between the merits of particular individuals or groups, and it gives us no help in that decision. All it tells us in effect is to take from the rich as much as we can. But, when it comes to the distribution of the spouils, the problems is the same as if the formula of “greater equality” had never been conceived.
I tend to disagree with Krugman because I dispute his claims that economic inequality is intrinsically bad, that greater equality is more critically important than universal (even if inequal) increases in human prosperity, that political action is the best force with which to deal with problems of human suffering, and that any good that is ever done by government is done by one party alone. And since I like to voice my disagreements, I suspect this won’t be the last time I mention Krugman’s new blog.
[Update 9/23/07: Tyler responds.]
There’s a great article in this week’s Economist that’s supposed to be about the new book Until Proven Innocent, which in its words is ”a superb new book by Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson: a book that not only reads like a legal thriller (John Grisham provides one of the blurbs), but also exposes deep problems with America’s legal system and academic culture.”
In actuality, though, the article is mostly about the Duke lacrosse case. The most interesting excerpt, in case you haven’t already heard it elsewhere:
The only people who, it seems, have learned nothing from all this are Mr. Nifong’s enablers in the Duke faculty. Even after it was clear that the athletes were innocent, 87 faculty members published a letter categorically rejecting calls to recant their condemnation. And one professor, proving that some academics are as far beyond parody as they are beneath contempt, offered a course called “Hooking Up at Duke” that purported to illustrate what the lacrosse scandals tells us about “power, difference and raced, classed, gendered and sexed normativity in the US.”
I didn’t believe it so I had to look it up for myself: here’s the syllabus and here’s the Spring 2007 course schedule. (Incidentally, I also stumbled across the Fall 2007 course “Dating and Mating: Hookup Culture at Duke” that looks awesome!)
And by the way, I’m not oblivious to the reasons why 87 faculty members would reject calls to apologize. As the faculty members note, the original ad didn’t technically prejudge the lacrosse players, and more importantly, the faculty members obviously don’t feel that the truth of their statements is dependent on the facts of this incident alone. Nonetheless, I think it’s fair to say that the “Group of 88″ attempted to capitalize on a case that fit neatly into the rubric of their preconceptions, and that’s a dangerous game to play.
Two things struck me when reading the Times and Post editorials about the DC voting bill now being taken up in the Senate. First, the not-so-subtle suggestions that opposing the bill is racist amount to a politically shallow and personally offensive tactic fueled only by vulgar ad hominem assumptions about the opponents. Second, both editorials focus on justice as defined apart from constitutionality, which in my view misses the point. A debate over voting rights in this nation is entirely about constitutionality, of which justice is a derivative.
If there’s a dispute over constitutionality, then — as the Times rightly notes — the courts ought to sort it out. And if the Senate gives serious consideration to the constitutional issues in its debate (and actually considers that debate rather than special interests in determining their votes) then they deserve some credit for doing so. But in any case, congressional legislation is still the weak man’s path on this issue — if there’s a serious constitutional question a constitutional amendment can resolve it.
Passing congressional legislation just because you want something in spite of the constitutional questions may or may not be “good” in the short run, but in the long run failing to protect the solvency of the Constitution is a blow to justice for everyone.
I’ve been a nonprolific writer lately, as I’ve been trying to catch up on some work as I prepare for a much-needed vacation to Nashville. This weekend I’ll be catching Wine on the River and the Titans-Colts game, and I’m looking forward to some good eats at half the price I’m paying in DC. Blogging unlikely to resume before next Wednesday at the earliest…
Todd Zywicki points to great commentary on events at Dartmouth College that essentially consitute a valuable case study in university governance. The fact that Professor Luke Froeb of Vanderbilt’s Owen School of Business was involved is also worth a shout-out.
Related: My favorite study on university governance is the Olivet College case study written by Michael McLendon, also of Vanderbilt.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the problems associated with the Katrina recovery can’t all be pinned on the leadership of a handful of politicians – they’re systemic problems. Dan Rothchild points out the same in a great piece about the real leadership in New Orleans.
