An Upside to Opposing the Bill?

By Dave

While I feel strongly that killing the health care bill would be a tragic loss for the American people, not to mention a blow to this administration and the Democratic party, there may have been one upside to the recent outburst by the left: It may have given Ben Nelson less leverage to negotiate his position. Here's Nate Silver:

While the very nature of last-minute negotiations makes it hard to draw straight lines from point A to point B, it seems likely that if the kill-billers had not pushed back so hard against Lieberman, the bill would have been worse -- maybe much worse. It's sometimes said that a good compromise serves to make everyone equally unhappy. I'm not quite sure if that's the case here, but it does seem that Lieberman pushed things very close to the brink, to the extent that Nelson didn't have much leverage. Allow states to opt-out of their Medicaid obligations, for instance, as Nelson was said to have desired, and the unions might have gone from neutral to outright hostile to the bill, the opposition in the progressive blogosphere would have become nearly universal, and even the "wonk bloc" -- people like Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn and Paul Krguman and myself -- might have said this was a bridge too far. Nelson certainly could have voted to kill the bill outright, but he wasn't going to succeed in making it substantially more conservative.

To the extent that the backlash by the left was a signal to conservative Dems that a pound of flesh had been exacted and no more would be tolerated, I say more power to 'em. However, to the extent that progressives really want to kill the bill because it lacks a public option, I still say that's downright crazy.

Andres Duany Interview

By Dave

Great interview with one the father's of "New Urbanism" Andres Duany. Duany talks about the problems with implementing Smart Growth strategies. I found this bit particularly thought-provoking:

BUILDER: What is the biggest impediment to smart growth?
DUANY: Citizen participation in the planning process is probably the biggest roadblock. If you ask people what they want, they don’t want density. They don’t want mixed use. They don’t want transit. They don’t even want a bike path in their back yard. They don’t want a grid that connects, they want cul-de-sacs. They can’t see the long term benefits of walkable neighborhoods with a greater diversity of housing types. This book is a quick read and is dedicated explicitly to them. It’s for the people, not for planning professionals.
BUILDER: Proponents say that smart growth can’t happen effectively without regional-scale planning because so much of it is about connectivity. How do you reconcile citizens’ rights to have a say in their communities with the need for big-picture thinking and decision-making?
DUANY: There is a theory of subsidiarity that considers at what level a decision is properly made. Most of today’s planning decisions--large and small--are made at the wrong level. Take transit. You do not ask the neighbor next to a 16-mile bikeway whether they want a bikeway in their back yard because they will say no. That’s a decision that needs to be made at the regional level. Conversely, let’s say you want to have free-range chickens to provide eggs for you and your neighbors. Right now that’s controlled by municipal ordinance. City zoning codes say no chickens, when really this is a decision that should be made at the block level, because chickens affect the block, not the whole city. Then you have municipalities enforcing rules about what color you can paint your house, which is ridiculous. That’s the wrong level of decision making.

Worst Christmas Song: Part 4

By Dave

If you're like self-righteousness, patronizing views of the developing world, and mullets, this songs for you.



This is the last in the 'worst' series. Starting tomorrow, we'll begin the 'best Christmas songs' series. Just so you know, we could have kept going. It turns out there are a ton of awful Christmas songs.

A Decision Best Left to the Individual

By Dave

Ezra Klein points to David Waldman's take on the Nelson Amendment:

The problem with leaving the decision up to the states, he says, is that it doesn't go far enough. "I think states should leave the abortion question up to the counties," he explains. "Then I think counties should leave the abortion question up to municipalities. Then the neighborhoods should leave the abortion question up to each block." And each block, as you might have guessed, should leave the abortion question up to each household.

At the One Yard Line

By Dave

Big news today! The Democratic Caucus has struck a compromise with Ben Nelson over abortion and it looks like Reid has his 60 votes. They are now scrambling to get this done before anything else can derail it. Here’s Reid’s schedule:

• 1 a.m. MONDAY – To end debate on “a manager’s package” that includes all the latest changes to the bill. 60 votes required.
• 7 a.m. TUESDAY – To approve the manager’s package. Simple majority required.
• Also TUESDAY – To end debate on Mr. Reid’s original health care proposal, as amended by the manager’s package. 60 votes required.
• 1 p.m. WEDNESDAY – To approve Mr. Reid’s original proposal. Simple majority required.
• Also WEDNESDAY – To end debate on the finalized health care legislation. 60 votes required.
• 7 p.m. THURSDAY, Christmas Eve (or anytime after the prior vote if all senators agree) – To approve the final bill. Simple majority required.

The Nelson compromise essentially tries to keep federal money from subsidizing insurance plans that cover abortion procedures. Apparently, it give states the ability to 'opt-out' of receiving those funds. It's by no means an optimal compromise. The Pro-Choice Caucus is obviously upset, but it sounds like it is less bad than the Stupak Amendment.

Speaking of Stupak, it sounds like he may try to block the Nelson language, if that's what comes out of the conference committee. In order to pose any real threat, Stupak needs to keep 45 of the 64 conservative House Dems who helped push his amendment. I don't think it's clear yet who in his coalition couldn't as easily be satisfied with the Nelson compromise. But my guess is, that at this point Stupak's opposition will be a minor roadblock.

From Fox News:

"Former comedian Al Franken apparently is done cracking jokes.
...
Unlike during his days on "Saturday Night Live," no one is laughing."

Yeah, it's almost as if he's acting exactly how he said he would when he won the Senate seat! What a great example of Fox's brazenly bad reporting to continue to qualify Franken as "Mr. Funny Guy," as the title suggests. Franken has proven time and time again that he's the kind of person we want on Capitol Hill, the kind that actually reads bills.

Help Me Jeebus

You might wanna put a pillow on your desk to prepare for the inevitable head thumping.

Undersea nuclear Christian warrior! The new toy from Hasbro! Er... actually just the crazy guy on Wheel of Fortune. DURP!

Microsoft Seeks to Continue to Lose Money

Source.

Here's the relevant bits:

"An avatar generator for a virtual environment reflects a physiological characteristic of the user, injecting a degree of reality into the capabilities or appearance...Physiological data that reflect a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication. Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise."

I love Wii Fit. I love that video games have avenues for bettering your body and mind (Big Brain etc.). I will be very interested to see where they go with this. If Microsoft still has business sense, then they will take a similar route to Nintendo and incorporate this into a game where only you and your closest friends will be able to see just how chubby you've gotten. Otherwise, Microsoft will face the same deserved ridicule that Lincoln University received.

Whether the weather....

It really isn't a surprise that Bill Kristol thinks Ben Nelson should filibuster health care reform because it might snow.

Everyone knows it's classical neoconservative theory that when the chance of percipitation in DC gets above 50% we should screw the poor and go to war.

File Under: IOKIYAR

IOKIYAR.

From the WaPo, this pretty much sums it up:

"They are prepared to jeopardize funding for troops at war," Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said Thursday evening. "If Democrats did that, there would be cries of treason."

Two things: 1) Why aren't there cries of treason?
2) Why are the Democrats so much worse at spinning their blunders than the Republicans?

Seriously, Durbin is absolutely right about this. This would be a minor mass media explosion if the roles were reversed. And how is it that, even still, in the face of a bill that could potentially give millions of people much-needed healthcare, we still have people like Nelson throwing minor tantrums over abortion? At the very least, Feingold (D-Wis.) puts aside his personal disagreement with a Pentagon spending bill to block the filibuster, but too many other Dems are refusing to follow this good example. I know we've come a long way into understanding why the left seems to collapse in on itself whenever it should be powerful and dictating the agenda (see: George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant for starters), I'm just wondering what else it'll take besides a mandate rewarding one of the most well-run presidential campaigns in history.

Regardless, the meat of the article is a demonstration of something I've always maintained: Republicans are like the Sith. Fear, anger, hatred, and deceit are their weapons, and they wield them well.


Addendum: And here's the exciting conclusion.

The Questions that Keep Chuck Norris Awake at Night

Like what if the Virgin Mary wanted to have an abortion and the government agreed to pay for it....

"What would have happened if Mother Mary had been covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor and uninsured teenage woman had been provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy? Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind if their parents had been as progressive as Washington's wise men and women! Will Obamacare morph into Herodcare for the unborn?," -Chuck Norris, Human Events.

...seriously....

Via The Daily Dish

The War on Christmas Heats Up

Don't tell Bill O'Reilly!

Worst Christmas Song: Part 3

It's not Christmas until Bon Jovi says it is...

Medical Term of the Day: Scabs and Synthetic Platelets

Hooray for scabs!

Platelets, or Thrombocytes, are the small, non-nuclear cells in your blood that are one of the main factors that cause clotting. When you cut yourself deep enough to cause bleeding, a mechanism is activated in which platelets are sent to the site of the wound and begin to build up. They are irregularly shaped, so they catch onto each other and the other components of your blood to basically form a dam. As the site is exposed, the dam dries up and becomes our good friend the Scab.

Scabs are a very important part of the healing process. A scab is like a bandaid that is made directly from your body! They are great protection against infection, and as they cover the wound site, they allow for the regeneration of cells that will replace the tissue that was lost in the initial damaging of the area.
(photo courtesy of photobucket)

New research is being done on synthetic platelets. Scientists are working on a powder that can be administered intravenously to a patient with severe bleeding to speed up the clotting process. This is great, because some people have blood-clotting conditions called Thrombophilias in which their body has a hard time producing clots. This can be due to lack of platelets or inefficient mechanisms of the blood.

This research will be especially helpful for trauma that causes internal bleeding. As it stands, internal bleeding is a big problem for doctors because you have to physically get to the site to stop the bleeding, which means, in some cases, opening the patient up and having to clamp the blood vessels closed. BUT, if the bleeding is somewhere critical, such as the BRAIN, the patient is S.O.L. (wear a helmet everywhere!)

If surgeons could simply give the patient an IV drip of clotting agent, then there would be more time to find the injury and take care of it.

The Upside of Supporting the Bill: Updated

In response to my post, a friend writes:

I don't see the upside of supporting the Senate Bill. When people realize how bad it is, they will abandon the Democratic Party

There's plenty to be upset about, but we can't walk away without a victory. It has come too far, with too much heartache along the way. I'm not unconditionally supportive of the Senate Bill, it's not perfect. It doesn't help as many people as it could with the Medicare Buy-in or the Public Option. BUT, that doesn't mean it's not good.

Here are some of the upsides of the bill:

• Insurance companies are no longer allowed to deny people based on pre-existing conditions
• Insurance companies are no longer allowed to practice rescission (essentially canceling a patients contract because they became too expensive to cover)
• Millions more will gain access to health care, as many as 31 million more
• It will lower premiums and make healthcare more affordable
• It provides billions in subsidies for lower- and middle-income families
• It mandates minimum levels of coverage
• It controls costs by bundling payments, ensuring 'prudent purchasers' with exchanges, and by creating a Medicare Commission. (Ezra Klein has more)
• It creates health insurance exchanges. These are marketplaces that will certify, rate, and regulate insurers and will allow consumers to find and compare insurance plans.They also regulate how insurers raise their premiums. These exchanges will likely begin small but grow over time. As they grow, consumers should see prices become more competitive and the quality increase.
• No lifetime or annual limits.

This is not a comprehensive list, but its still nothing to scoff at. Here's a few more defenses from Senator Jay Rockfeller, Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum, John Podesta and Nate Silver.

I would support the outrage coming from the left if I thought it could achieve something tangible. But I don't. The votes don't exist to keep a public option. Worse, I'm afraid this outrage will only convince people that success is a failure.

Unfortunately, the Senate is broken and majority rule doesn't carry the day. Democrats need 60-votes, 100% group compliance, to pass this bill plus a Republican or two. The leverage lies with those at the margin. So we get people like Lieberman, who can anoint themselves as the '60th vote.' With that power, Lieberman destroyed a really good compromise for what appears to be no good reason.

And while that really sucks, we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can't walk away at the finish line. Starting back over, beginning from scratch, is a recipe for disaster.

If the bill fails, and reform collapses, it is likely that Congress will become more risk averse and enact even less of the President's agenda, Democrats will look like failures, and the momentum will be given to the teabaggers. To me, this is an unacceptable alternative.

People won't leave the Democrats because they didn't go far enough, but they'll leave if Dems do nothing at all. Just because we can't finish the journey in one step doesn't mean it's not worth taking that step. Our system favors the incremental revolutionary.

Final thought: why can't Democrats come back, after this passes, with a reconciliation bill to add the parts they still want? Why does this bill have to fail?

Update: Krugman says 'pass the bill"

what dave said about avatar

yup. nailed it. avatar ftw.

Just saw Avatar in 3D IMAX

Wow, is all I have to say...

The Known Universe - Kottke.org

This is easily one of the coolest and most mind-boggling videos I've seen to date. To just think of the enormity of space, and of life in general! I used to get so overwhelmed as a kid, thinking about everything. After watching this, try not to get depressed at how meaningless our lives really are in the grand scheme of things....ha!



via kottke.org

'Architecture Is Public Art'

Great Interview with architect Daniel Libeskind via Spiegel:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You don't agree with critics like Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times, who called CityCenter "one final echo of the boom years"?

Libeskind: Great visions that transform cities are not going to disappear. We won't lose heart and start building smaller houses now. Of course this is a difficult time for many. But it's also a good time to rethink architecture, to rethink what it is we're doing here.

I've been hearing a lot about how the recession will put the breaks on suburban sprawl and gear development to focus on downtown, urban projects. I can only hope so. I dream of a time when America will embrace urbanity. Real urbanism. Urbanism that promotes diviersity and interaction, that provides places of quiet and places of gathering, places for commerce and for community. This is what cities should be like. We need to stop the messy expansion of dead, soulless places.

Just Another Day in My Kitchen

while we're on the topic of movies...

is anyone else as excited about this as i am? i hope so. the first was a great flick, downey jr. is about the damned perfectest (shut up, it's a word) choice for stark in hollywood. mickey rourke is always worth seeing and his whiplash looks captivating (no pun intended). scarlett johanssen is boybait anyways, and her casting as natasha romanoff (aka the black widow) looks to be spot on. the don cheadle / terrence howard fiasco shakes a bit of confidence (who wants broken character continuity?) but despite all of that, anticipation for this one is high (at least around my house).

i'm gonna admit something here. iron man? not my favorite superhero. i totally get the appeal, it's a realization of the american dream and all that. he's been through some great story arcs, sure, but i'll take spider-man any day of the week. that being said, i've enjoyed these movies a whole lot, frankly way more than any other marvel movie, especially after x3 and spider-man 3. here's to hoping the iron man lightning strikes twice!

Youtube leading the way?

from the daily galaxy: a youtube video just snagged someone a directing gig.



how awesome is that? this never would've happened twenty years ago. a potentially amazing director (and hopefully he leg-ups his cg team, that wasn't just well-directed, the visuals were phenomenal) would've just slipped through the cracks. good for fede alvarez, and good for us too. when his movie comes out, i'm gonna be first in line to catch it.

original article

Inmates Running the Asylum

The John Birch Society is co-sponsoring the next CPAC...ugh...

This is another in a long line of moves by the right to court its base and further marginalize themselves from society at large. More power to 'em.

Now its Procedural!

And John McCain doesn't like it one bit...

Via TPM

Gingerbread Mansions

WebUrbanist has 32 architectural designs for gingerbread houses.

Keep Gitmo?

In other depressing news, according to a Gallup poll, support for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison drops.

It's not a huge shift, but I hope the fear-mongering from Hannity/Beck/Cheney/et.al is not beginning to take hold.

Worst Christmas Song: Part 2

Nothing like an 80's ski trip...oh it's so bad...

Reconciliation Skepticism

‘Kill the bill’ advocates believe we should scrap the existing bills and begin anew with the reconciliation process (which requires only 51 votes in the senate).

I’m very skeptical about this process for a couple of reasons:

1) Congress is generally very risk averse, the closer we get into 2010, the greater this aversion becomes. Speaker Pelosi has already said that 2010 will be a quiet time, in terms of controversial legislation.

2) Killing the bill will take the wind out of the sails of legislators and give the momentum to the teabaggers and the ‘Party of No.’ Republicans are determined that health care be Obama’s ‘waterloo.’

3) Health care only passed in the House by 5 votes and that was with the Stupak Amendment. Will the Blue Dogs come along this time? Are there even 50 votes in the Senate to pass a reconciliation bill?

4) A reconciliation bill could take a long time to hash out in both chambers. Does Congress, or America for that matter, have the stamina to begin again?

5) A reconciliation bill might not actually do what supporters think it will. Reconciliation only deals with budgetary issues, not regulatory issues. So, no banning rescission or policies that deny people with pre-existing conditions.

6) Even if Congress wants to scale back the number of controversial issues, big issues loom in 2010. Regulating the financial industry, passing worthwhile energy legislation, winding down U.S. involvement in Iraq, etc., are all potential 2010 or 2011 issues that Democrats will need 60 votes on. Don’t collapse the big tent out of spite.

What Happened to the Simpsons?

The Simpson's seasons 3-5 are brilliant and really form the basis of my childhood. I think I can probably quote almost every episode. But I've been saying forever that the Simpson's really stopped being funny after season 10

Here's John Ortved, author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, over at Salon:

"After it hit that 10-year mark, the show had a serious drop-off in quality, and it's just never, ever come back. They started relying on guest stars and more topical humor, which they can't really do because the lead time is so long. So I think this actually speaks to how outdated their writing room is. They'll do an "American Idol" episode, but they'll do it four years after "American Idol" became this big thing. Or they'll do an iPod episode, but they do an iPod episode in like 2006."

Couldn't have said it better....

New Clash of the Titans Trailer!

The new Clash of the Titans trailer looks like the coolest Ronnie James Dio music video never made

Intraparty Squabbles

Unhappy with compromises made to appease conservative Senators, like stripping away the public option and the Medicare buy-in, progressives have now come out against the senate bill and against the President

Former DNC Chair Howard Dean has rallied the troops with the refrain “Kill the bill.”

Glenn Greenwald grumbles the administration hasn’t done enough:

“The evidence was overwhelming from the start that the White House was not only indifferent, but opposed, to the provisions most important to progressives.  The administration is getting the bill which they, more or less, wanted from the start -- the one that is a huge boon to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry.”

Even unions are considering pulling their support, and Bernie Sanders says he will vote against the bill.

To what end is this opposition useful? Progressive advocacy for the public option kept it alive a lot longer than it would have without it, but I can’t see an upside to riling the progressive base in opposition to this bill. If this is a hardball negotiating tactic, what are they negotiating for? What else is still on the table?

My chief concern is that this opposition will further turn people off at a time when they should be excited. Most people aren’t policy wonks. They aren’t interested in the nuance of Congressional negotiation. They’re concerned about their families, about the economy, and about their own welfare. We shouldn’t call a success a failure. This bill will help them. The Democrats need to get on message about how this bill will benefit the American people, their families, and their children.

Democrats should be singing their praises for being just outside of accomplishing what has no one has been able to do in 50 years, not fighting with each other because the bill didn't turn out perfect.

Did you get enough sleep last night?

Rarely do I get enough sleep. But thanks to modern technology, we now know what causes the side-effects of lack of sleep, AND how to fix it. For those of you that don't know, cAMP is "cyclic adenosine monophosphate". It's what's called a second messenger, which basically is responsible for intracellular communication. So, if you don't have enough of it, or if it's being blocked by this newly discovered enzyme, your brain is literally not functioning correctly.

Coffee is going to be a thing of the past (except of course for the weirdos who drink it because they like how it tastes...ahem). From now on, we will simply have to take a pill every morning that will decrease the amount of this new enzyme in our system, and we can start our day as if we had gotten our prescribed 7-9 hours of sleep.

Cool.

I wonder what this will do to the economies of the coffee producing countries of the world?

Minimum Wage Ctd.

Bryan Caplan responds to Krugman on minimum wage:

Paul does address the real balance effect, but he still ignores the main arguments I've made before:

1. Cutting wages increases the quantity of labor demanded.  If labor demand is elastic, total labor income rises as a result of wage cuts.

2. Even if labor demand is inelastic, moreover, wage cuts reduce labor income by raising employers' income.  So unless employers are unusually likely to put cash under their matresses, wage cuts still boost aggregate demand.

An even simpler way to explain it: Imagine every firm divided its existing payroll between a larger number of workers.  How is that bad for aggregate demand - or anything but good for employment?

Tyler Cowen adds:

I would add two points.  On Bryan's #1, workers at the current minimum wage are unlikely to receive nominal wage cuts if the minimum wage were lowered, for the usual morale and efficiency wage and lock-in reasons.  So the chance that total labor income rises is very high.  Second, no I don't believe in an upward-sloping AD curve, but in any case multipliers from production increases plus wage bill increases are likely to be more potent than multipliers from aggregate demand increases alone.

Dangerous Wands

Sometimes the best defense against the dark arts, is to care....

Worst Christmas Song: Part 1

As Christmas draws near, we appreciate the very worst in Christmas music:

Nickleback mashup... with Nickleback

Even the drum fills are nearly identical...just wow

Still a Better Deal Than Nothing Ctd.

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones sums up why there's no going back:

If healthcare reform dies this year, it dies for a good long time.  Say what you will about the Democratic leadership, but Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Steny Hoyer all know this perfectly well.  So do John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.  (Boy do they know it.)  But if it passes, here's what we get:

• Insurers have to take all comers.  They can't turn you down for a preexisting condition or cut you off after you get sick.
• Community rating.  Within a few broad classes, everyone gets charged the same amount for insurance.
• Individual mandate.  I know a lot of liberals hate this, but how is it different from a tax?  And its purpose is sound: it keeps the insurance pool broad and insurance rates down.
• A significant expansion of Medicaid.
• Subsidies for low and middle income workers that keeps premium costs under 10% of income.
• Limits on ER charges to low-income uninsured emergency patients.
• Caps on out-of-pocket expenses.
• A broad range of cost-containment measures.
• A dedicated revenue stream to support all this.

What's more, for the first time we get a national commitment to providing healthcare coverage for everyone.  It won't be universal to start, unfortunately, but it's going to be a lot easier to get there once the marker is laid down.  That's how every other country has done it, and that's how we did it with Social Security and Medicare, both of which had big gaps in coverage when they were first passed.

Krugman and the Minimum Wage

Krugman slams the idea of lowering the minimum wage to boost employment:

Here’s how the fallacy works: if some subset of the work force accepts lower wages, it can gain jobs. If workers in the widget industry take a pay cut, this will lead to lower prices of widgets relative to other things, so people will buy more widgets, hence more employment.

But if everyone takes a pay cut, that logic no longer applies. The only way a general cut in wages can increase employment is if it leads people to buy more across the board. And why should it do that?

Well, the textbook argument — illustrated in this little writeup — runs like this: lower wages lead to a lower overall price level. This increases the real money supply, and therefore liquidity. As people try to make use of their excess liquidity, interest rates go down, leading to an overall rise in demand.

Even in this case, it’s hard to see the point of cutting wages: you could achieve the same effect, much more easily, simply by having the Fed increase the money supply.

But what if we’re in a liquidity trap, with short-run interest rates at zero? Then the Fed can’t achieve anything by increasing the money supply; but by the same token, wage cuts do nothing to increase demand.

The problems at a zero interest rate are complicated and Krugman may be right on this point (he won the Nobel prize after all), but I'm confused. As I understand it, a minimum wage law is only redistributing money, not creating new money. This redistribution increases the cost of a unit of labor. The higher the cost of a unit of labor, the fewer units will be demanded. This argument has nothing to do with the demand for the widgets they produce, like Krugman was talking about.

In theory, at least during normal economic conditions, lower wages create demand for my units of labor. It essentially, frees up money within a firm to be distributed to additional workers. That's the theory anyhow. Obviously, there is no guarantee, if a firm had low demand for new labor they could always just save the money and keep their staffing the same.

One more question on Krugman: in his notes he writes:

But in liquidity trap conditions, the interest rate isn’t affected at the margin by either the supply
or the demand for money – it’s hard up against the zero bound. And as a result the usual
explanation for the downward slope of the AD curve doesn’t work. You can appeal to the Pigou effect, I guess – but against that you have to put Fisherian debt deflation. In a liquidity trap, the AD curve is at least as likely to be upward-sloping as it is to be downward-sloping.

Again, I'm not an economist, but how can an AD curve ever be upward sloping? Vertical, I get, but upward sloping?

Still a Better Deal than Nothing

Even if the Senate Bill has been watered down, Ezra Klein makes the point that it's still better than nothing:

To put this a bit more sharply, if I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier to compare plans and access consumer ratings, and generally worked more like companies in a competitive market rather than companies in a non-functional market, I would take that deal. And if you told me that the price of that deal was that insurers would move from being the 86th most profitable industry to being the 53rd most profitable industry, I would still take that deal.

I have too many friends on the left who think that without the public option this bill will simply subsidize insurance companies. But that's too simplistic and ignores the real accomplishments of the bill. Like the subsidies that give lower-income families access to health care, the regulations that stop the denial of coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, the reforms that will bring  down costs across the board.

I understand it's because they're mad. I get that. But don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Especially when you're about to win. That's like walking away at the 1 yard line. It's vanity. It's not in the best interest of the uninsured or the country.

The system isn't designed for broad, sweeping changes. It favors the incremental revolutionary. That's what this is: big change achieved step-by-step. Don't give up the quest just because it turned out to be a longer walk than you'd anticipated.

This Deal is Getting Worse All the Time...

Many liberals are worried that health care negotiations have begun to look like this:



It's a reasonable concern. As I said, progressives have very little leverage in this negotiation. It's not just Lieberman who could demand more concessions. It's really any conservative Democrat or moderate Republican willing to negotiate in return for a cloture vote. It sounds like they can have the votes by next week but we're definitely not out of the woods yet...

Via Reason with a hat tip to The Daily Dish

Hannity's Disgusting Manipulation of 9/11 Families

Via The Daily Dish

 

Hannity is as vile a propagandist as you're likely to come by. Here he manipulates his audience with a small room full of family members of 9/11 victims.

The Internet Knows Everything

And here be proof.

I know that people have delivered babies without instructions before, but it's certainly an accomplishment to do so successfully in a culture that emphasizes specialization to the degree that ours or Britain's does. Most people haven't got the first clue, and I'd be right there trying to Google the "how to" also.

Smelly Presents

I wanted to post this because I did most of my Christmas shopping yesterday, and it made me wonder if any of my gifts have a particular smell. Unfortunately, I have already wrapped all of them, so I cannot test this theory. Also, I didn't buy thread, car tires, or pencils, so I don't know if my shopping habits apply to this study.

Will Tax Cuts Worsen the Recession?

That's the argument of Wade's Krugman post yesterday.

The argument, which comes from a paper by Gauti Eggertsson goes like this: cutting taxes on labor or capital can have contractionary effects on the economy under a special set of circumstances, like when the interest rate is at zero, like it is today. Part of the reason is that at a zero interest rate, production is not the problem. Demand and spending are, which is why cutting capital taxes won't work. We don't need more shovels or tools, we need more people who want to buy the products those tools create. Tax cuts will only reinforce the "paradox of thrift." i.e. people will just save their money, which will cause further contraction.

However, the paper suggests that sales tax breaks may be expansionary because they will cause consumers to spend more. One problem with this, from a policy perspective, is that sales taxes are controlled at the local level. Unlike the federal government, most local governments can't run deficits. So, it's unlikely that they will be able to afford a sales tax holiday of any kind.

Kill Bill?

"Kill the Bill," says DNC Chairman Howard Dean.

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

1) It's an over reaction to say this is the collapse of health care reform. Especially if this compromise can yield the 60-votes to break a filibuster.
2) It's true they only need 51 votes with reconciliation but don't forget reconciliation has problems of its own. The reconciliation process doesn't include regulatory issues, only budgetary ones. So if the votes exist to pass the regulations, and the regulations are good, why can't progressives come back with a reconciliation bill?
3) Starting back over is wrought with even more peril than going forward. Failure on this issue will be a huge blow to this administration and a feather in the cap to 'The Party of No.' This is unacceptable.

I will say it until I'm blue in the face: this bill does a tremendous amount of good. Start the reconciliation process if you're still not satisfied but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Via Greg Sargent

Does the Minimum Wage Hurt Workers?

TPM puts up this picture with the heading: Today in Fun Fox News Chyrons.

I didn't see the Fox segment (mostly because, God help me, why would I watch Fox News), so I don't know what their argument was. The TPM post assumes that question is total bunk, but it might not be. I think it's just not worded very well. Is lowering the minimum wage better for all workers? No. Is it better for some? Probably yes. As with any public policy, some people are usually made better off and some worse off.

Here's a back-of-the-envelope example: A business with 10 full-time employees pays them $5 an hour. Their annual payroll (not including any benefits) is approx: $96,000. If the minimum wage goes from $5 to $7 an hour, their annual payroll shoots to $134,400. To a small business owner, this can be very burdensome. So what would an employer do? Well,  chances are employees may have to go, they may have to lose hours and work part-time, or maybe the business can't hire new people and will work with less.

Who is made better off by a minimum wage? Worker's who keep their jobs or who are able to find jobs. Who is worse off? Employer's on the margin, workers who lose their jobs or lose hours, and workers who want to work but can't find jobs. Remember that a minimum wage generally only affects those with very-low human capital (training, education, job skills, etc). So it's only affecting a certain group of people.

This is not really an argument against the minimum wage, but one to say that it's not crazy to ask how the minimum wage is affecting employment during a recession, because it might be. One problem is that we tend to want the policy to reflect a living wage,  not a minimum wage.

More Reasons to Pass Health Care Reform

This analysis comes via Nate Silver:

"I understand that most of the liberal skepticism over the Senate bill is well intentioned. But it has become way, way off the mark. Where do you think the $800 billion goes? It goes to low-income families just like these. Where do you think it comes from? We won't know for sure until the Senate and House produce their conference bill, but it comes substantially from corporations and high-income earners, plus some efficiency gains."

It's hard to argue with the numbers. Compare the Senate Bill column to the status quo. Families will be better off with this imperfect bill than they would with nothing at all.

Also Ezra Klein says it's always possible for Dems to come back later and pass the public option or Medicare buy-in later with reconciliation, a question I had yesterday. Although given the Administration's desire to pivot away from health care to jobs and the economy, it doesn't seem like a very likely possibility, but the option is always there.

Public Option: RIP

The public option died last night but maybe it was too optimistic to think that it wouldn't.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) apparently thinks this is all Rahm Emanuel's fault, which seems kinda silly and misplaced to me. Why be mad at Rahm and not Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Blanch Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and all the other conservative Democrats who made passage impossible? Negotiation is all about leverage. Given that 60-votes were needed to move anything forward, the Democrats needed 100% group compliance. Conservative Dems had all the leverage. What did the PCCC really think Rahm could have done?

The question on the liberal blogs today is: is the bill still worth passing? Greg Sargent says the debate breaks down an operative/wonk line, where activists say kill it, wonks say save it.

Count me among the wonks. I say absolutely yes, pass the bill. We've come too far to go back now. This bill still means billions for low-income families to access health care. It means the days of rescission policies and denied coverage due to preexisting conditions are over. If the CBO numbers are right, it also means lower costs for everyone. It means millions more with health care than without. It is the biggest liberal accomplishment since the Great Society. With or without the public option, or even the Medicare Buy-in, this is a bill progressives can smile about.

Your Octopus is Arming Itself

So, apparently Octopuses (Octopi?) have started using tools, specifically, coconut halves. They are now on the evolutionary level of apes and humans, except we started out using sticks instead of half spheres.

It's cool that they have figured out that their survival rates increase if they have a portable practical shelter.

I apologize in advance for the advertisement before the video, but trust me, it's worth it!

Medical Term of the Day

Okay, so I am going to try and post a cool medical term each day, in hopes of spreading a little bit of the awesome tidbit knowledge that non-medical people are usually unaware of.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Capgras Syndrome. This is a true and identifiable delusional disorder in which the patient believes that a friend/relative/pet/houseplant has been replaced by an identical impostor.

And if that's not good enough, they can also see themselves as being their own double.

Makes you rethink the definition of doppelganger.

Cuz We're Like... Politico-economic?

More Krugman.

Here's the important bit:

"So what’s the paradox of toil? If you cut taxes on labor income, this expands labor supply — which puts downward pressure on wages and leads to expectations of deflation, which increases the real interest rate, which leads to lower output and employment."

Economics is more Dave's forte, but I do find it interesting that some of these highly academic hypothetical situations have actually come to pass.

Nerds Uniting

penny arcade is a nerdcomic. if i need to tell you this, if you did not already know, then sit down. it's time to learn.

nerd was an appelation that once was entirely derogatory. this has changed in the last few years, and it's interesting, having lived on both sides of that flux.

it's easy to point at the internet as the key source of this change, but that's not what this is about, here.

this is about gamer ascendance.

penny arcade started in 1998, when the internet was still in growing pains. a webcomic that focused on video games, it managed both hilarity and social insight, especially making fun of popular media's constant potshots at video games and gamers.

i'm personally still not sure if penny arcade itself was one of the key catalysts of the new nerd paradigm, or if it's the benchmark, but it serves a vital function. the misadventures of gabe and tycho, the creator's (mike krahulik and jerry holkin's alter ego's, respectively) are utterly hilarious, and wildly popular (y'know, on the internet, where important things happen.)

the vast popularity and network that these two men have become the focus of has morphed. their canny business sense and genuine love of games and gamers of all ilk has been turned to a variety of ends. PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo, is one such event, and the Child's Play, a charity devoted to helping sick children, is another.

now, at their website, they launch a new venture into the collective consciousness of the world. Penny Arcade TV has been born, and seems to be chugging along. This webseries is something of a reality show, showing the behind the scenes in mike and jerry's lives, and especially into the makings of PAX.

You don't have to play the games that they make comics about (although it helps) to enjoy the comics. you don't even have to be a nerd. but in this day and age, why wouldn't you want to be?

Flies and Alcoholism

Who knew that flies could be alcoholics too?

One More Alternate Timeline

This time, it's British!

I find these things so fascinating.

File Under: Are You F'ing Serious?

Why doesn't anyone ever listen to Krugman?

FTFA: "...what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses."

*Forehead slap*

Okay, I get that lots of people have raging hard-ons for the free market, and y'know what, I'll come out and say it: I agree, there are times when the market regulating itself is a wonderful idea.

However, this is not one of those times. How many segments like Samantha Bee's Cash Cow do we have to see before we, as a nation, realize that we are being milked (har har) for all we're worth by the money farmers on Wall Street? They DO NOT CARE about our well-being. It's hard to do so when your entire vision is filled by one gigantic bottom line.

Problems with the Reconciliation?

Ezra Klein doesn't sound too impressed with the idea of using reconciliation to bypass a filibuster:

What would be eligible? Well, Medicare buy-in, for one thing. Medicaid expansions. The public option. Anything, in short, that relies on a public program, rather than a new regulation in the private market. That means we'd probably lose the regulations on insurers, many of the delivery-side reforms, the health insurance exchanges, the individual mandate and much else.

Reconciliation, in other words, tips the bill towards an expansion of the public sector rather than a restructuring of the private sector.

The market reforms really are as important, if not more important, than the public option or the Medicare buy-in. What I don't understand is why can't they do both? Why can't they get the 60 votes on the reform measures and then use reconciliation for the rest? Why are we limited to one or the other?

Why hasn't the prospect of reconciliation been enough to drive the conservative side to the table? Being the Party of No makes sense if you think a bill will fail. But if they can push reconciliation with only 50 votes, why not step in and try to get the better deal out of 60. One reason is that the reconciliation has not been pushed harshly enough and has remained largely off the table.

Niebuhr and Obama

Obama has long said one of his main philosophical influences is Reinhold Niebuhr. Here is Andrew Sullivan's worthwhile take on how Niebuhr's thinking can be seen in Obama. He ends with a quote from Niebuhr:

"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; there we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; there we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

That Daily Dish also found a great interview with Niebuhr circa 1958

Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan

The Cat With No Face

Hello kitty!

May not be for the weak of stomach.

AMEX Smart Cookies = Annoying

So I don't know if anyone else has heard the American Express Smart Cookies commercials, but they start with a baritone generic American accent male announcer thanking us for joining them today (as if we're really interested, or would be listening if we had a choice) and then he goes onto introduce the Smart Cookies.

From the site:"The Smart Cookies started their money group when they were all secretly drowning in debt. Today, as authors of The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough and contributors to a column for the New York Daily News, they help readers to achieve their financial goals. We have teamed up with the Smart Cookies to help inspire you to take charge of your finances."


Sounds nice, doesn't it? The classic American pick-yourselves-up-by-your-bootstraps story.

Only... this is a credit card company encouraging you to get another credit card to get yourself out of debt. As if the commercials weren't irritating enough with this group of harpies and their soothing white male ringleader, they're designated the "Smart Cookies," a name that only grows in condescension the more you look at it.

Seriously, just stick to saying that you're somehow better than your competitors with over-the-top ad nauseum grandstanding.

Irish Parliament is Awesome

How often do you get to say that a video of Parliament is NSFW? Well, now you can!



Via The Awl

Joe Vs. the Left Ctd.

UPDATE:

Via Ezra Klein:

Here's Joe Lieberman offering support for Medicare Buy-in three f***ing months ago!?




Update Update: Jonathan Chiat at the New Republic says Lieberman doesn't want anything. There's no plan. He's just dumb...

Joe vs. the Left

AAAHHHHH!!! (/head explode)

Effectively killing the senate compromise of last week, Lieberman says he will filibuster any bill containing the public option OR the medicare buy-in for people age 55-64.

“You’ve got to take out the Medicare buy-in,” Mr. Lieberman said. “You’ve got to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the Class Act, which was a whole new entitlement program that will, in future years, put us further into deficit.”
Class Act refers to a federal insurance program for long-term care, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act.

I shouldn't be surprised, Atrios predicted this a week ago: "any "compromise" which will make liberals sort of happy will just be a shiny object which will be pulled away at the last second."
What does Lieberman want? Is he actually opposed to a public option or Medicare buy-in based on policy analysis? No. The very same Medicare Buy-in Lieberman promises to filibuster was part of the Gore/Lieberman platform in 2000. Are his constituents opposed to reform? No. Connecticut voters support the public option. Is he bargaining for something unrelated to reform, like the ability to retain his committee chairmanship. Maybe, but other bills will require 60 votes in the future. He would probably have retained that seat if reform passed.

I think it is what it looks like. He trying to destroy the most progressive health care reform in 50 years just because he can? This is the glove that fits. Lieberman is doing this because he can. Because he has the power and he can finally get back at those who tried to destroy his career 3 years ago.
This is essentially Lieberman's revenge against liberal and progressive Democrats who opposed him in the 2006 primary and forced him to run as an independent. In a broken Senate that requires 60 votes to even go to the bathroom, this is a war Lieberman looks like he can win.
The only question now is what other cards does Reid have to play?

Science!

Here is an example of what science is capable of teaching us free from ethical restrictions.

Enjoy.

A Case of What If...

It almost seems like a little bit of wish fulfillment on the part of Newsweek, but it's certainly an interesting read. I'm a big fan of speculative historical fiction.

WTF, Brayden?

Best dating resume ever?

Sen's 'Idea of Justice'

Amartya Sen has a new book coming out. (Hint, Hint: Christmas shoppers) Sounds like a interesting read and maybe a rejection of Austrian economics. Here's a snippet from The New Republic's review:

Sen rejects, as a matter of principle, the nature of Rawls’s project. The reader who seeks in this book yet another exercise in grand theory--another abstract discussion out of which the foundations for the institutions of a just society may be generated--will be disappointed. And the reader who wonders about the connection of all these abstractions about justice to the remedying of actually existing injustices will be glad. Sen questions the plausibility of such edifices of pure reason. His book quite radically attempts to shift the grounds of the conversation altogether. Its seeks to provide a counter-framework rather than a counter-theory. And this is only one of its many admirable ambitions.

Ghosts of Shopping Past

Via The Morning News. Photo of JC Penny at the abandoned Dixie Square Mall .

Cool interview with photographer Brian Ulrich and his work on abandoned malls.

At the end of 2007 with many rumblings of recession, I thought of those pictures and began the project in earnest in May of 2008. In many senses it was a vindication of what I had been talking about in my earlier work. How can an economy sustain a lifestyle based on exponential growth and the leisure and wealth to support it? It’s not rocket science to expect these kind of illusions to fail. What’s strange is how ingrained the brands and spaces are to us that so many were not only surprised to see major retailers and malls sink but were saddened. Many of these ideas were set in motion decades ago.

'Mugged by Reality'

The American right has been frighteningly out of touch with reality for the past year. So it's not surprising to hear Abe Greenwald at NRO claim that Obama's Nobel speech was a 'shift' that demonstrates Obama has been 'mugged by reality.'

Which is funny because it shows the exact opposite. It shows conservatives have come back to earth, however briefly, and now are now standing confused, blinking in the sunlight. Their reaction confirms the obvious: they're are not paying attention. They see in Obama what they've wanted to see, not what actually existed.

The speech is not a shift and it is not a pivot. This is who Obama is and has been for the last year. To anyone listening, this speech was nothing new. Obama has governed from the middle since day one. During the campaign, he made clear his intent in Afghanistan. He made clear who his political influences are, especially his affinity for Reinhold Niebuhr. He has made clear he is not against war, just dumb wars.

Maybe conservatives will stay with us this time, but my guess is that they'll be on the next quixotic Red Dawn-inspired fantasy in no time.