ProfessorBainbridge.com

Best Biden gaffe ever

Doug Mataconis reports that Joe Biden recently told a campaign rally that “There’s never been a day in the last four years I’ve been proud to be his vice president.”

Joe Biden's mouth: The gift that keeps on giving.

"How a Smart Conservative Would Reform FEMA"

Jordan Weissmann:

... there is an appropriate role for states and local governments, and there is an appropriate role for the federal government. And we've kind of lost sight of that in terms of disaster response. We've nationalized so many of the events over the last few decades that the federal government is involved in virtually every disaster that happens. And that's not the way it's supposed to be. It stresses FEMA unnecessarily. And it allows states to shift costs from themselves to other states, while defunding their own emergency management because Uncle Sam is going to pay. That's not good for anyone.

Indeed.

Outsourcing FEMA

Predictably, liberal commentators are bashing Mitt Romney for having once suggested that disaster relief should be left to states and private organizations. For example:

The Huffington Post has an absolutely essential piece  noting that Mitt Romney opposes FEMA and believes disaster relief should be either left to the states or to private organizations.  There is, in his world, apparently no role for the national government.  We're not all in this together, apparently. 

Romnery probably will backtrack in the fact of such criticism, but I'd live to see him take ownership of it. After all, in the wake of Katrina, I argued that we ought to outsource disaster relief:

This proposal will shock those who intuitively regard disaster relief as a core government function, but consider how many functions traditionally regarded as public sector responsibilities are already being outsourced to the private sector. Charter schools educate many of our children. Many more of our children are educated in public schools operated by for profit educational management companies. Many prisons are operated by for profit corporations. Even as basic a government function as war making has been partially outsourced, as illustrated by the military's extensive use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If we can outsource war, why not disasters?

Do me a favor: Before leaving some comment about how heartless I am, at least go read the whole post. Okay?

Employers telling employees that excessive government regulation is bad for business shocks leftists

Stefan Padfield complains that:

You may have heard the stories making the rounds this week about employers pressuring their employees to vote for particular candidates.  Much of this activity apparently traces back to Mitt Romney expressly encouraging business owners to do this.  As NBCNews.com reported (here):

The candidate himself suggested that business owners adopt this practice during a virtual town hall meeting with the National Federation of Independent Businesses back in June.  “I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections," he said, telling the audience, "Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I believe that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision."

Personally, I think a number of the reported tactics rise to the level of an abuse of power.  At least to the extent these are corporate employers, my rationale is:

1.  The leverage used on these employees is at least partly attributable to the corporate form.  That is to say, without the capital accumulation benefits of corporate status, the owners of these businesses would likely not have nearly as much power to exert over this captive audience of employees.

2.  These business owners were not granted the right to operate in the corporate form so they could pressure employees to vote for particular candidates.  Rather, they were granted the right to operate in the corporate form because of legislative judgments that making incorporation widely available would benefit society as a whole.  (If you believe that it is possible to create a corporation solely via private contracting, then this point will be unconvincing to you.  However, please let me know if you ever actually manage to pull off that feat.)

3.  Given this public aspect of corporate status, it is improper to divert the power of this corporate form to force the business owner’s personal political views on employees.

First, how is this different from a union telling its members how to vote? Or, for that matter, the UC system sending me emails about how the world will end if Prop 30 doesn't pass? The notion that a business can't tell its employees that elections have consequences strikes this observer as absurd, not to mention a gross infringement on First Amendment rights. Should the First Amendment really be interpreted as giving pornographers more rights than employers?

Second, blaming the corporate form is particularly inapt. If the issue is employer pressure on employees, that issue exists regardless of the legal structure of the employer. If you think employers shouldn't be telling employees how government regulation affects business, shouldn't you want to restrict employer speech regardless of whether the employer is structured as a corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship? Indeed, if we really are living in the age of the uncorporation, as my late friend Larry Ribstein used to argue, growing numbers of employers will be unincorporated. Corporate personhood and Citizens United thus are nothing but red herrings in this debate.

Third, even if you think that incorporation is a privilege, wouldn't restrictions on the speech of senior management be an unconstitutional condition?

In sum, this whole kerfuffle is just another way in which the left is seeking to silence its opponents.

I dote on political quizzes

Just took one. Long time readers will not be surprised.

Apparently, I'm a cockroach? Are you one too?

The inimitable Frank Rich: "conservatives are the cockroaches of the American body politic, poised to outlast us all."

This in the course of lamenting the laughable hypothesis that small government conservatism is winning the day. If that's true, why do regulations keep getting longer and more burdensome, spending keep going higher, deficits keep swelling, and more and more Americans becoming part of the culture of entitlement?

Was Pournelle prescient?

I'm a big fan of Jerry Pournelle's The CoDominium science fiction series. In it, as Wikipedia explains:

The United States of the CoDominium Era is a welfare state divided into two classes: Citizens and Taxpayers. "Citizens" are welfare dependents who are required to live in walled sections of cities called "Welfare Islands." People are given whatever they need, including the drugs like Borloi to keep them pacified. There are no limits to how long they can stay on welfare, except that they must live in a Welfare Island. Although people are free to gain an education and work or become a colonist, many citizens did not, preferring to live their whole lives supported by the government. Generally citizens are uneducated and illiterate. Some BuReLoc involuntary colonists are Citizens. By the late CD era, the Welfare Islands were three generations old. "Taxpayers" are the working, educated, and privileged upper class. They carry identification cards to separate them from Citizens.

Pournelle's vision of the future was the first thing that sprang to mind when I read John Hinderaker's pessimistic take on the current election (HT: Reynolds):

On paper, given Obama’s record, this election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn’t it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programs–not to mention enormous numbers of public employees–we may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

He may be right. And, if so, the big question is what comes next? Pournelle's fiction may be on its way to fact.

Three strikes

Apparently the Democratic Party's 2012 platform omits references to God, statements of pro-Israel policy, and important civil liberties commitments. Oh yes, and any deficit reduction will come only from tax increases. So that's four strikes. What do the American people see in this party?

Are we doomed to permanent deficits?

Buttonwood observes:

America has run a deficit for 40 of the last 44 years; Britain for 51 out of 60 and Spain for 45 out of 49. France has not balanced its budget since 1978; Italy since 1960.

I get the theory that in recessions one ought to run a deficit so as to stimulate the economy. But we haven't been in a recession for "40 of the last 44 years." The deficit is not about fiscal policy, it is about trying to have both a military hyperpower and a pervasive nanny state set of entitlements. It's long past time we tried austerity for a while.

Personally, I'm starting to believe that getting Paul Ryan into ever-increasing seats of power may be our last shot at sensible fiscal policy. Certainly, there's no reason to think the incumbent will make any progress. Obama's solution--to the extent he has one--depends on increasing taxes on the 1%. The troubel with solving the deficit with tax increases, of course, is obvious. As Milton Friedman explained:

... postwar experience has demonstrated two things. First, that Congress will spend whatever the tax system will raise—plus a little (and recently, a lot) more.  Second, that, surprising as it seems, it has proved difficult to get taxes down once they are raised.  The special interests created by government spending have proved more potent than the general interest in tax reduction.

If taxes are raised in order to keep down the deficit, the result is likely to be a higher norm for government spending. Deficits will again mount and the process will be repeated.

The solution remains a combination of starving the beast and cutting spending.

UCLA Lynn Vavreck's Political Moneyball Predicts Obama win

From UCLA Today:

UCLA political scientist and Associate Professor Lynn Vavreck and John Sides, associate professor of political science at George Washington University, are confident that they can predict the outcome of the November vote, based on their study of 60 years of post-World War II U.S. presidential elections and other huge datasets. Since December, they have been analyzing data from public opinion polling done by YouGov, a polling firm in Palo Alto conducting 43,000 interviews online from a representative sample of people nationwide from Jan. 1 to Nov. 6, election day. Vavreck and Sides have also tracked news and social media content as well as campaign advertising to apply their social science perspective.

Vavreck and Sides call this their "Moneyball" approach — basing their data-intensive analysis of the election on statistical patterns and models, facts and reams of data, like the hero in the baseball movie. ...

Obama is the likely winner. When we look back at the history of modern presidential elections over the last 60 years, we can tell you that the two most important factors that predict election outcomes are the state of the economy and party identification. And these fundamental considerations are not likely to change in a day or week. They are determined months before the election takes place.

Where's the political beef?

A friend asked why I'm not blogging much about politics these days. It's mostly because I find the present presidential campaign utterly dispiriting. It's a daily contest to see who can sling the most mud on the most trivial matter. Our country faces incredible challenges, and these guys are pissing away at each other over stuff that just doesn't matter ion the greater scheme of things.

I go back and forth on whether I find Obama and Romney more loathsome. All I do know is that it's a pity they can't both lose.

All of which goes to why I'm only blogging about the campaign, for the most part, when it impinges on an area of professional interest (as some of the Bain Capital stuff did, until Obama went off the rails and starting throwing around felony charges).

OTOH, my Twitter feed does tend to be more political, so you can always follow me there.

A political digression re Wisconsin recall election

I noticed something worrisome last night watching MSNBC's coverage of the Wisconsin recall vote. Many of the talking heads implied that those who supported Scott Walker were robots with quarters in their back, while those voters who opposed him were real flesh and blood people. Indeed, in some cases the dehumanization of the Walker voters went even further, giving the impression that it had been a contest between dollars and people, with people coming out on the losing end.

Unfortunately, we see the same sort of thing in this morning's news coverage. Case in point:

“It’s pretty clear that the voices of ordinary citizens are at permanent risk of being drowned out by uninhibited corporate spending,” said Michelle Ringuette, an official with the American Federation of Teachers.

If the implication is that "ordinary citizens" supported Walker's opponent, what does that make Walker's supporters? Bought and paid for automatons?

It cannot be healthy for our polity when we start dehumanizing the opposition. And, yes, I know both sides do it, so don't bother saying so in the comments.

10 Things about Barack Obama-updated

When I read the news these days, I am constantly dumbfounded by how petty and stupid our politics have become. Here, for example, are 10 things about Barack Obama that seem to get some folks on my side of the aisle all excited but about which I really could care less:

1. Where he was born. He's the President. Get over it.
2. His college grades. He's a smart guy. A lot of smart guys don't have great college grades.
3. He smoked pot. As long as he's not toking when deciding whether to have one of his drone killers bump somebody off, I'm okay with it.
4. He occasionally misspeaks (e.g., referring to sons or the current flap about a "Polish death camp.") Anybody who speaks in public is going to misspeak occasionally.
5. He went to Jeremiah Wright's church.
6. He supported Derrick Bell's crusade to get Harvard law to hire more minorities.
7. His religion or lack thereof.
8. He shook Hugo Chavez's hand.
9. He and Michelle celebrate with fist bumps.
10. He took a principled position against wearing flag lapel pins (which I think are silly) and then caved.

If you want to have a serious conversation about Obama, here's 10 things I take very seriously:

1. The way he screwed GM and Chrysler's creditors
2. The amount of debt he's piling up
3. His determination to avoid entitlement reform
4. His embrace of industrial policy, which inevitably leads to the government trying (and always failing) to pick winners and losers
5. His attacks on the profit motive, business, and finance
6. His embrace of assassinations by killer drones as a routine practice
7. His dismal civil liberties record
8. His "evolving" to take positions that are politically advantageous at the moment
9. His efforts to bully the Supreme Court
10. His smug paternalism and holier than thou attitude

Why rightwing bloggers and talking heads waste so much time blathering about crap that doesn't matter instead of those that do is one of the leading reasons I'm feeling alienated from the right.

Instead of spending so much time on the manufactured faux controversy of the day, we ought to be talking about the things that really matter. Not least of all, because there's a strong case to be made against Obama precisely on the things that ought to really matter.

Update: Over on Twitter, someone commented that:

good point but a bit hard to take from one who continually posted/tweeted about Romney's dog

Fair enough. But dogs are a special case. While it is not true that I like all dogs better than I like all people, it is true that I like most dogs better than I like most people. More important, how we treat our dog is a test of our character, of our capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship.

The assault on profit

Over breakfast this morning, I read Paul Rubin's WSJ op-ed taking President Obama to task for his attacks on profit maximization:

In justifying his attacks on Bain Capital, President Obama argues that "profit maximization" might be an appropriate goal for a private-equity firm, but not for more general public policy. This argument ignores one of the most basic premises of economics.

We economists assume that firms always maximize profits, and that profit maximization by firms (all firms, not just private-equity ones) is a very good thing. But this is not because profits are in themselves good. Rather, profit maximization is good because it leads directly to maximum benefits for consumers. Profits provide the incentive for firms to do what consumers want.

Consider what contributes to profit maximization. In simple terms, profit maximization means producing the products earning the highest returns, and producing these products at the lowest possible cost. Both are socially useful behaviors that benefit consumers.

The basic trouble with politicians

Ann Althouse has a scathing critique of Wisconsin Democrat gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett's inability to give a straight answer to how he would handle Wisconsin's budgetary problem.

One line in particular, however, caught my eye:

... doesn't want to generally lower tax rates to stimulate business. He wants particular businesses to come to him and ask for an individual incentive and convince him somehow that their business is the right kind of business, to work through him. He sees himself as a power broker, dealing in privilege. 

It is a common failing among politicians, especially but not exclusively Democrats. It is how, for example, the Democrats are destroying Illinois: Raise taxes on everybody and then dole out exceptions to a few select big companies with massive lobbying resources. See, e.g., Sears and Caterpillar--which got a combined $300 million in special tax breaks. But it's also how Obama and the Congress operates. See, e.g., the massive sums doled out to "green" firms like Solyndra.

One virtue of a flat tax with no exemptions or credits is that it would get politicians out of the privilege game. Which, of course, is precisely why it will never be adopted.