10 Things I Think I Think

1. Megan McArdle's right, this is not 1932 and Obama is not FDR.

2. If we're going to give the Fed massive new powers, as per Obama's financial regulation plan, they need a better IG.

3. The Business Law Prof's right: Obama's financial regulation plan rewards the holder of the very office that did so much to create the problem.

4. Speaking of IG's, the Obama administration's firing of 3 IGs is starting to smell a bit niffy. To quote Michael Dukakis, ''a fish rots from the head first. It starts at the top."

5. Peter Callison's right about the impact of Obama's economic policies: "In AIG, GM, Chrysler, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac we can see the future that the administration envisions for our economy -- a sclerotic and unchanging structure of big companies working with, protected by, and relying on big government."

6. Obama's mishandling of Iran and his non-handling of North Korea is going to cost us.

7. I don't share David Skeel's view that Obama's proposed consumer financial services protection agency "is a good idea." I think it's rubbish. OSHA and CSPC regulations have routinely had higher costs than any benefits they generate. Their regulations have stymied innovation, discouraged investment in new plant and equipment at many industries, and, along with the trial lawyers, very nearly killed off any number of industries.

8. Eight of the top 10 Amazon bestsellers in the fantasy category are vampire romance novels by female authors. Whatever happened to elves, orcs, swords, and sorcery?

9. High tech firm hostile takeovers are rare, supposedly because uncertainty and risk of downsizing will drive employees to look elsewhere. This got me to wondering whether hostile takeovers are also rare in other sectors in which human capital matters a lot. It also got me to wondering about the prospects for hostile takeovers of law firms if they ever go public.

10. There are days you need a big steak and a big red wine. Today's one of them.

Comments

[Allan]

About #4, if he is firing them for being Republicans, so what?

If he is firing them for doing their jobs too well... then there is an issue.

[Mike]

#6 How do you think he is mis-handling Iran? I think staying out of it is precisely what we should be doing right now.

[Mark H.]

I'm glad to read someone who does not believe Obama is FDR and that this is not 1932 - I hope the writer is correct, I fear fear she is not.

Obama remains a popular cult figure, even if his policies are causing some distress among the politically attuned. And as politics is perception (rather than reality) the fact that it is not 1932 doesn't matter to a public that thinks it is.

If he does not get his health care and cap/trade then I'd be floored (and ever so grateful), but I am also resigned to accept that the Republic has lost its mind and that a Democratic machine will roll over those stand in front of their tank.

And I agree that an consumer financial services agency is one of the most dunderheaded regulatory enthusiasms since FDR's NRA. Like the NRA's attempt to regulate "fair competition" and prevent "destructive competition" through process and price control(benighted concepts) the CFS is going to decide what contract instruments are "fair or unfair" while perscribing rates and processes on a completely subjective level.

And the most annoying aspect is that this is going to be "an agency". Excuse me? You need an entire on-going agency to specify the terms of mortgage and credit card agreements? After six guys get in a room and draw up a couple of agency orders, what are they going to do for the next 20 years?

I can't believe they need a consumer protection type agency for such little effort.

[CJB]

I guess I don't really understand how Obama is mishandling Iran. Obama's approach to Iran is cautious. I believe jumping in to Iranian domestic politics is a fool's errand because it would empower the regime by tainting "the people's choice" as a puppet of the US. If any kind of change is going to happen there, it has to be indigenous.

[C.E. Petit]

1. Absolutely true, if only because it's been less than 30 months since the market collapse.

6. After the last thirty years of neoisolationist control of the foreign policy apparatus (yes, even under Clinton), there isn't really anybody left with the expertise and experience to actually do anything about/in/around either Iran or North Korea. Hell, there are extremely few in either the military or State who even speak the respective languages well enough to spot the fallacies in a state-censored newspaper!

7. OTOH, Chevrolet Corvair and Ford Pinto. I don't defend everything that the so-called "trial lawyers" bar does... but far oftener than the "tort reform" advocates think, they've got a point, and it's cheaper to make that point through litigation than through lobbying or rational debate (which is REALLY disturbing).

9. Any takeover of a law firm is necessarily hostile... giving the personalities (or lack thereof) of the "human capital" at issue.

10. I'll bring the dessert.

[Max Lybbert]

> About #4, if he is firing them for being
> Republicans, so what?

Well, one problem is that he co-sponsored legislation that makes it hard to fire Inspectors General ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511811033017539.html ). Attorneys General work for the President and serve at his pleasure. Inspectors General work for Congress, and while the President can fire them, he has to have a valid reason.

> That's because last year Congress passed the
> Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires
> the President to give Congress 30 days notice,
> plus a reason, before firing an inspector
> general. A co-sponsor of that bill was none
> other than Senator Obama. Having failed to
> pressure Mr. Walpin into resigning (which in
> itself might violate the law), the
> Administration was forced to say he'd be
> terminated in 30 days, and to tell Congress its
> reasons.

> If he is firing them for doing their jobs too
> well... then there is an issue.

That's where this gets really fun. The Administration keeps changing the reason they want to fire or have fired the Inspectors General in question. Walpin was originally told that it was simply time to move on, then the story was that the President had lost confidence in him, then the Administration claimed Walpin was senile. The whole time it's just been a big coincidence that Walpin happened to have fined one of President Obama's biggest political supporters for mismanagement of federal funds, and was trying to prevent the supporter from managing future federal funds.

You may remember a different human resources problem when President Bush fired four Attorneys General who served at his pleasure. The outcry from the left was pretty loud. Since they are so incredibly principled, I'm sure that any day now they'll start covering this story. Aren't you?

[roger Byrne]

The fish rots from the head down is an old Greek saying

[save_the_rustbelt]

Agree with most (especially the steak and wine).

About #7: Wonder how you measured this? I am old enough to remember when maiming and killing workers was considered a normal (and mimimal) cost of doing business. Having worked in industries ranging from construction to health care, I have yet to see any hindered seriously by safety practices.

[Steve ("Professor") Bainbridge]

Re 6: As I've learned more and watched Obama, I actually think he's being very prudent about Iran and N Korea. So I withdraw the complaint.

[LDC]

ooh, finally, one I know! about #8, I think the boys who, when I as growing up, would have been reading about orcs are no reading those graphic novel things. Those of us girls who re-read Tolkien, like, 10 billion times, read all the sword and sorcery books for a decade or so, got sick of them, tried some of the never-ending fantasy series (wheel of time), but quickly got sick of them too, moved on to the space-military stuff for another decade or so, then the magic-in-the-modern-world-stuff ... Finally got a "dark fantasy" book for our birthday and were so relieved to finally be reading something different we got hooked. (Actually it's starting to get kind of old now.)