Posted 6:28 PM by Robert

FURTHER UPDATE: New Korean War Comes On Little Cat's Feet?

The Economist bird-dogs this story:

A number of countries are keen to talk North Korea into making the Korean peninsula an area free of nuclear weapons—even China and Russia, both old allies of the North from the cold war. Japan, too, has also been trying to establish relations. But Kim Jong Il, the North’s leader, is unpredictable.

"Unpredictable?" Is that what Kim Jong Il is? He is, for example, the leader of the government that kidnapped Japanese civilians from places like beaches and parks in Japan to serve as involuntary teachers of Japanese customs and language to North Korean spies - and is still holding their families in North Korea hostage against the abductees returning from their trip back to Japan.

One can think of stronger and more accurate adjectives for Kim Jong Il than "unpredictable."

Posted 5:37 PM by Robert

CAUTION: Highly Disgusting Links

There is nothing ironic about the above caption. No reader with a weak stomach - or lacking a high tolerance for the bizarre and disgusting - should open the Reuters or FAZ links in this post.

Best of the Web thought this disgusting Reuters item was so bizarre as to be a likely hoax.

But the F.A.Z. says it's all for real, and even more disgusting and strange than Reuters suggested.

As James Taranto would say when he lambastes Reuters for classifying such items in its "Oddly Enough" files: Oddly enough!

But perhaps at least as strange as where Reuters put this item is the F.A.Z.'s classifying it under "Politics."

Is videotaped consensual cannibalism considered a particularly political act in Germany? Why did the F.A.Z. not put this item under "Arts and Leisure?"

Posted 8:34 AM by Robert

Eliot? O, Eliot? Can We Have A Word In Private, Please? For Your Own Good?

Eliot Spitzer's various crusades increasingly seem to presume that the Econ Monsters of the Midway don't understand economics.

Is this the best way to enter history or help out a struggling markets-dependent State of New York?

Sample of Mr. Spitzer's economic insight:

Relying on the market to fairly price prescription drugs has also failed, he insisted, since some severely ill people rely so much on one particular drug that they will pay anything to get it. "The government," said Spitzer, "has to come up with a pricing scheme."

Yes, indeed. Mr. Spitzer is no doubt proceeding on the basis of the notable success of past government imposed pricing schemes for rare and valuable products? Gas? Oil? Trucking? Western water? Security brokerage services? California insurance? Maybe he'll pause sometime to give us an example or two.

If Mr. Spitzer finds the icy economic winds from the Midway uncomfortable and harsh, perhaps he may wish to consider - on a completely secular basis, of course - the "The Parable Of The Pearl Of Great Price." Few would considered the parable to be an argument for government price regulation for religious services - even though Jesus is making the same point about faith that Mr. Spitzer is noting about certain drugs. Now, if the owner of the Pearl of Great Price had actually possessed monopoly power, the Parable might have had a different ending - the man might have brought an anti-trust action, instead of selling everything he owns. It only takes a few competing pearls to strip the supracompetitive profit from the scarcity rent! And there are at least a few busy oysters in the sea. Mr. Spitzer could try this out at the midtown jewelry exchange – he won’t even need a subpoena, just a gimlet eye for the deal.

Mr. Spitzer's argument doesn't seem to dawdle in the uncertain terrain of the interaction of the "patent monopoly" and "market power." He seems to leave those details to the Chicago Boys and their followers, who have spilled many gallons of ink on the subject! Reform may be required in the structure of the patent monopoly for various products, including drugs. There is now a lot of literature on the difficulties faced in attempts to establish the right (often, “wealth maximizing”) intellectual property rights. That topic is and has been for decades much studied and discussed on the Midway and elsewhere. Gosh, even Justice Brandeis recognized and wrestled with the problem.

But not Mr. Spitzer! He's too busy drawing charicatures that could easily devastate New York State and much of the rest of the economy if some legislature were foolish enough to act on them:

Free markets, the theory goes, will correct most excesses by making it impossible for those guilty of bad behavior to survive. "They've said that intervention by...government is wrong," Spitzer said. "But they haven't taken into account that markets can have structural flaws." Contacted by BusinessWeek Online for a reaction, University of Chicago professor of business and economics Kevin Murphy said Spitzer's interpretation of the schools position was simplistic. Says Murphy: "I think we have better things to do than beat up a straw man."

Maybe it's time for the SEC and Justice Department - or even Congress - to put Mr. Spitzer in a bag.

And it's getting well past time for the Nobel Committee to deck Professor Murphy's halls.

Posted 4:06 PM by Robert

Blogger's Prayer

Fritz creates a classic.

Posted 1:24 PM by Robert

New Korean War Comes On Little Cat's Feet?

Jon Corzine seems to have no clue as to where his new found concern over North Korea should lead. But other people also have concerns, including China:

A senior U.S. envoy said Thursday that China shares American concern about North Korea's nuclear program and is expected to urge "different behavior" on its isolated, secretive ally. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage ... didn't give any details. ... China is the North's last major ally, but ... Chinese leaders have reacted coolly to appeals to pressure its hard-line Stalinist regime.

"China shares the same concern that the United States has ... and that is that we have to find a way to de-nuclearize the peninsula of Korea," Armitage told reporters. "I'm sure the Chinese will be urging some different behavior on the North Koreans."

China's Foreign Ministry said it had no immediate comment on the talks with Armitage, who was to meet later Thursday with Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and Vice Premier Qian Qichen, the government's top foreign policy official.

North Korea last week rejected an appeal by the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency to abandon its nuclear weapons program and allow foreign inspections.

"Different behavior?" Non-military options to induce "different behavior" from North Korea seem limited - even for China. Could the foundation for a new Korean War be under construction, this one with Chinese support? Probably not soon - but North Korea has not shown willingness to respond to diplomatic or economic persuasion, except, of course, with respect to the phony 1994 oil-for-no-nuclear "deal" that it cut with no intention of complying. China supported the [UN] resolution [authorizing inspections of and action against Iraq] but has argued against U.S. threats of military action, insisting that the United Nations respect Iraqi sovereignty and settle the matter promptly.

But, unlike Iraq, North Korea is right next to China, and that may cut both ways: the Chinese have more to lose from a nuclear North Korea, but authorizing a US incursion right over the border presumably raises a lot of delicate issues for the Chinese and others, including possible use of Chinese military forces together with or in lieu of American forces if the need arises.

UPDATE: The Economist says: Iraq first. Then North Korea. But “North Korea-US relations are heading towards the end of a cliff,” said a spokesman for South Korea’s unification ministry. And a fall from most cliffs is short, with all of the lasting consequences at the very end.

Posted 9:14 PM by Robert

What The Counter Told

Permalinked to Man Cosmetic!

Located between "Bermant Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery' and "cosmetic surgery for men."

Who knew?

UPDATE: Deleted! Shucks. How fleeting is fame in the fashion business!

Posted 8:31 PM by Robert

Tremors and Rumors Rack Goreocosm!

Matt sez that the New YorkTimes will say that Al's "associates" say that they are becoming increasingly convinced that Al won't run!

But the "associates emphasized that Mr. Gore had not told them his intentions and that in fact he had not made up his own mind."

So these Gore "associates" say they go mind-readers one better!

This article seems best conveyed in its almost incoherent stream-of-conciousness tidbits:

his demeanor and actions since Election Day had convinced them that it was becoming increasingly unlikely ... starkly different from those previously voiced ... Mr. Gore had been strikingly more animated (!) when talking about the private life ... than when contemplating another two-year race for the White House ... taken steps that stirred speculation that he would run ... speeches next month ... not cultivated contributors and political leaders, as would be customary ... "baggage he has with the media." Mr. Gore is distressed... reinventing himself ... convinced that Mr. Bush could be defeated in 2004 but wondering whether another Democrat might be a stronger challenger ... said tonight that Mr. Gore "has not made up his mind" ... "on a book tour" ... decision will have a huge effect on the early dynamics of the Democratic primary campaign .... would open the way for Senator Joseph I. Lieberman ... to join the race ... Tom Daschle ... strongly considering entering the race ... Mr. Gore's ... content with a life they described as interesting and lucrative ... he is well aware of the anti-Gore sentiment ... and is reluctant to proceed ... "He is really sort of assessing whether he is the best person" ... Further, ... not made ... preparatory telephone calls ... Donna Brazile ... had not heard from him in months ...

Now, how about that? The only kind of "friend or associate" who says this kind of thing to the media without Mr. Gore's permission is an erstwhile "friend or associate." What a way to run a political career. What a mess.

And now open the swinging saloon doors of Pandemonium!

Posted 5:02 PM by Robert

Mississippi Burning

The Note reports:

Six days and three written statements after his remarks at Strom Thurmond's birthday party, Senator Lott's PR problem has escalated from a slow burn to a modest forest fire. Still ... we don't hear a widespread drumbeat. The clubby Senate, including the Democratic wannabes, has been mostly quiet and accepting of Lott's apologies; there hasn't been a critical right-leaning website piece in what seems like a full news cycle; the party's (outgoing) sole African-American member has some good pro-Lott spin going; and this thing might just be lapsing into the more familiar "Democrats (and the media) vs. Republicans" dynamic that will serve to rally core support to Mr. Lott's side, just as Democrats hope it will rally African-Americans to theirs.

"There hasn't been a critical right-leaning website piece in what seems like a full news cycle?"

Well, if the folks at the Note had waited a bit later in the day to publish, they might have noticed the double barrelled blast against Senator Lott by OpinionJournal Best of the Web:

Remember a few weeks ago when Republicans were crowing about the Dems' selection of Nancy Pelosi as House minority leader? She was going to take a more confrontational approach, steering her party hard to the left and thus outside the mainstream. Thanks to Lott, the first issue on which Pelosi is confronting Republicans is . . . the 1948 presidential election. And no, she's not sticking up for Henry Wallace. Pelosi is on the side of Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey and the 97.59% of the 1948 electorate that didn't support then-Democrat Strom Thurmond's segregationist candidacy. You can't get much more mainstream than that. .... Call it Dixiecrat Lite. But it's an embarrassment for the party of Lincoln to have a defender of segregation among its leaders in the 21st century.

There's a lot more (pardon the pun) where that came from. James Taranto's keyboard is probably still smoking!

How could Senator Lott be such a repeat fool?

UPDATE: Note take note! John Fund pours some extra strength detergent into the next news cycle.

FURTHER UPDATE: It's better and smarter to agitate than spin.

Posted 4:00 PM by Robert

Buffaloed?

Winterspeak demurs from a prior post (at least I think this is the post, but Winterspeak's link is to another post):

Musil, incorrectly assert[s] how IP in the public domain too can get "overgrazed". Answer -- someone can use it in a way that gives it negative connotations and so reduces its value. Urgh. Musil gives the example of a Cole Porter song that was parodied in the toilet cleaner add, and cites the harm done to the Cole Porter estate as a result. The argument is really tortured, because the song actually was under copyright and the Cole Porter estate (productive artists all) did not charge the toilet cleaner company enough to make up for subsequent loss of sales.

Yes, that's exactly what happened - and that's the problem. Alternatively, the Cole Porter estate would have placed a restriction on use that would have prohibited the toilet bowl ad. But in either case (that is, higher royalties or more use restrictions), the license wouldn't have come into existence, since the licensee would not been able to realize enough from the toilet bowl ad to pay to the licensor to compensate for the damage done to the residual value of the song.

In general, each user of common property will use it to maximize his or her own returns, and doesn't care about what damage done to residual value. The insufficient license terms (which did not impose enough owner control to preserve the residual value of the song) simulate the effect common ownership of the song (i.e. no enforceable copyright) in the sense that the license allowed the song to be used by a licensee who did not care what the residual value would be and didn't pay for the damage done to it. In the absence of an enforceable copyright, every property user is in the position of such a licensee.

The situation is mirrored in the case of real property. If one leases one's house to a renter who is free (because of an inadequate lease) to party hardy without paying for damage and therefore doesn't care about the residual value of the house after the lease ends, one will end up with a seriously run down house. If the house were made common public (i.e. the property rights nullified), every user of the house would be in position of such an uncontrolled renter.

Ever notice how some people treat the property located in public parks?

Winterspeak also notes: The whole "overgrazing" idea comes from a story called "The Tragedy of the Commons". The economic lesson behind this has been so mangled by so many people that I refuse to ever refer to it again. Just be warned, if someone refers to something as being a "Tragedy of the Commons", 90% chance it's not.)

"The Tragedy of the Commons" or the "Overexpoitation of the Common Pool" is now often used broadly to refer to any systemic reduction in economic value stemming from inadequate private property rights. That is to say, it is a term that has entered the language and has become cut loose from its original moorings in large measure because the effect is so common and important.

One who doubts how important and widespread the "The Tragedy of the Commons" really is might consider reading the highly entertaining Soviet novel, or watching the wonderful movie, "Heart of a Dog."

Posted 9:51 PM by Robert

New Jersey's Senior Senator Speaks Out!

Jon Corzine was on Fox News a little while ago. Senator Hutchinson was also there, but she seemed disciplined and intelligent and anodyne. It was Senator Corzine's behavior that really stood out. They are mostly reacting to, among other things, the seizure of the North Korean missile shipment.

He says the missile shipment proves that North Korea is more dangerous than Iraq - a position that is at least arguable, although he does little to actually make the case.

Then he really starts to get strange. He seems sure that because by some measure not really explained North Korea is the "more dangerous" country, all military action against Iraq must stop until action against North Korea is completed (at least I think that was what he was saying).

But just what the heck does Senator Corzine want to do with or to North Korea now that he has discovered it is so dangerous? He wants action against Iraq to stop, I think. He opportunistically criticizes "American intelligence" for ill-defined reasons. But Senator Corzine offers no constructive suggestion whatsoever as to what, if anything, should or can be done about North Korea. Does he want the President to go to the United Nations and get a mandate to invade North Korea if the North Koreans don't get rid of their weapons of mass destruction programs and allow immediate inspections? Does he plan to introduce a resolution in the Senate to authorize the President to take action against North Korea? Does he think Japan or Russia would support such a move - or even not become hysterical? He doesn't say. Anything. Not a word.

Nor does he address even briefly how likely it is that the United Nations (or whatever else he means by the "international community") will authorize military action against North Korea. He does not mention whether he or any American intelligence service he knows of (he seems to claim a lot of knowledge about what the intelligence services are up to, at least when it comes to free form criticism of "American intelligence") has considered what China or Russia - each of which has veto power in the Security Council - would feel about that Council authorizing an essentially United States occupied North Korea next door. He therefore does not say whether he thinks the US should take unilateral action against the North Koreans over a Chinese or Russian veto - and, of course, he doesn't say what we should do if action against North Korea created a risk of war with China.

He does not address whether an essentially United States occupied North Korea would then create an obligation or pressure for unification of the Koreas - at least if that is what South Korea wanted (it is far from clear it would).

WEIRDLY, IN GENERAL, SENATOR CORZINE IS SO BUSY ATTEMPTING LITTLE POLITICAL SKIRMISH MANEAUVERS THAT HE DOESN'T SEEM TO HAVE A CLUE HOW CLOSE HE IS TO PROPOSING ANOTHER KOREAN WAR. Neither Ms. Van Susteran nor Senator Hutchinson raise the issue, either, perhaps because the whole North Korean thing is so obviously a cheap and insincere political dodge. I think that is a mistake on Ms. Van Susteran's part - but may be part of Senator Hutchinson discipline.

The thought passes through my mind that maybe Senator Corzine thinks we could offer the North Korean government some hot IPO stock, the Senator's favored means of currying favor with corporate bigshots when he was running Goldman Sachs. His whiskers seem strangely unkempt and if they are concealing something possibly unhygienic.

For a moment I make myself take Jon Corzine and what he is saying seriously, and from my effort he looms at me as a complete, bearded, almost unspeakably dangerous mess. My effort is exhausting. He seems confident that there is no chance anyone is or will be taking him seriously. From my just-ended effort, I now understand his confidence.

I'm find myself unsure which is more terrifying: that he is now Senior United States Senator from New Jersey or that he ran Goldman Sachs for years.

Posted 1:33 PM by Robert

Paul Krugman, The New Miss Cleo; or Damn The Facts, Self Promotions Are Us! II

Back in December of 2000 Forbes.com did not seem to be reporting the "unanimous applause" Paul Krugman says emanated from the "financial press" when Paul O'Neill was appointed as Treasury Secretary.

Sample:

Unlike almost all the secretaries of the Treasury since the Eisenhower administration, O'Neill does not come from a Wall Street or academic background. That makes some people nervous. "In this day and age, you have to be a little concerned in how someone from industry is going to manage a financial crisis. We've had a lot of those recently," says Michael Knetter, a professor of international economics at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. "We may find ourselves looking at a recession, and if market participants don't know who Paul O'Neill is and don't feel he's the right man to have his hands on the controls, that's not good."

Maybe the following is what Professor Krugman thinks counts as "applause":

As someone who was able to turn an aging rust-belt company into an aggressive global player, O'Neill may be the tonic the U.S. economy now needs.

Well, it was better for Mr. O'Neill than a sharp stick in the eye!

On the other hand, I don't want to suggest that Mr. O'Neill had NO applauders in the financial press in 2000. Jim Cramer from The Street was one. But it didn't last long.

UPDATE: It appears that the actual New York Times editorial page (apparently uninformed or unimpressed by Professor Krugman's brilliant dissent), went right ahead and "lauded" Mr. O'Neill's appointment.

FURTHER UPDATE: The Economist hardly "applauded" Mr. O'Neill's appointment - although it didn't condemn his appointment, either (but, then, neither did Professor Krugman). In fact, the Economist said little of substance at all, mostly clapping with one hand:

For the inner circle, Mr Bush reached back to the Ford administration, and to his father’s. [This group includes] Paul O’Neill, then deputy head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), now nominated as Treasury secretary .... This group gives the Bush cabinet a strong corporate and managerial flavour, as if it were a meeting of America’s board of directors. All [of them] served at the pinnacles of the old economy. ... Mr O’Neill ran Alcoa, a virtual aluminium monopoly. .. These men exemplify Main Street Republicanism. Ronald Reagan surrounded himself with swashbuckling Californian businessmen with ill-concealed contempt for the east-coast establishment. Now, the fiscal conservatives of the east coast have come out on top. With the exception of Larry Lindsay, a former Fed governor and now chief economic adviser to Mr Bush, there is hardly a supply-sider in the bunch. The inner core [is] a collective safe pair of hands. ... But they are undoctrinaire, unflamboyant, and experienced at managing big organisations.

Is that the "applause" a performer, executive, president or cabinet member longs for? Only if they are unusually modest ones, indeed.

[Link provided by Tom Maguire]

Posted 11:37 AM by Robert

For The Lawyer In The Family

Regardless of religious affiliation (if any), most lawyers would benefit from keeping this in mind:

St. Thomas More Prayer

Lord grant that I may be able in argument,
accurate in analysis,
strict in study,
candid with clients
and honest with adversaries.
Sit with me at my desk
and listen with me to my client's plaints,
read with me in my library,
and stand beside me in court,
so that today I shall not,
in order to win a point
lose my soul.

Posted 11:19 AM by Robert

Trouble For Daschle

NRO reports:

On Monday, [Senate Minority Leader Tom] Daschle seemed to give [Senate Majority leader Trent] Lott a measure of absolution when he told reporters that, "Senator Lott, in my conversation with him this morning, explained that that wasn't how he meant them to be interpreted. I accept that. There are a lot of times when he and I go to the microphone, would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I'm sure this is one of those cases for him, as well."

But Rep. Maxine Waters was having none of that:

"I think that Mr. Daschle moved too quickly to explain Mr. Lott," Waters said today. "I consider that this is a Democratic party issue, and to the degree that the Democratic party understands that it must relate to the concerns of African Americans, they will pause and take into consideration what message this and other kinds of statements like this are sending into the African American community. It is not enough to simply defend or to explain these kinds of statements and then at election time talk about why black Americans should turn out in large numbers. So we've got some work to do."

Yes, indeed, keep those race cards in play ALL THE TIME, Ms. Waters.

Posted 11:06 AM by Robert

Morally Clueless At The New York Times

The New York Times ran an article yesterday celebrating the award of a Rhodes Scholarship to Chesa Boudin, 22, for overcoming "striking challenges" to earn this most establishment certification of promise. What were those "challenges?" Well, after making passing reference to some very real obstacles (including dyslexia), the Times gets down to the actual reason for the story: Boudin's parents have been in prison since he was 14 months old. The article opens by describing how Boudin was not even able to share the news of his accomplishment with them.

Emily Yoffe describes the Times coverage in Slate:

Boudin's parents are Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who were members of the violent 1960s radical group the Weather Underground. They are in prison for their part in the murder of two police officers and a guard as the result of a robbery of a Brinks armored car in New York at the late, unradical date of 1981. The Times, while having space to describe the origin of Chesa's unusual name—Swahili for "dancing feet"—apparently didn't have room for the names of the men murdered. They were Sgt. Edward O'Grady, police officer Waverly Brown, and Brinks guard Peter Paige. You can read more about them at www.ogradybrown.com. Nor does the Times mention the obvious point that the nine children left fatherless that day—the youngest was 6 months old—have also missed the pleasure of having their fathers see their accomplishments over the years.

So the names of the murder victims are not news to the Times. But, see, if CBS is not harping on Augusta National and Tiger Woods and all that, Howell Raines says THAT'S front page material!

[Link thanks to John Ellis]

Posted 9:58 AM by Robert

All Krugman, All The Time!

Well, Paul Krugman just keeps getting more and more prolific! Now he's posted a squib asserting that Mickey Kaus is trying convince the world that "even Krugman's old students are attacking him." Kausfiles' sin was to ambiguously write: "Krugman was an adviser for Drezner's Ph.D. dissertation," where Professor Krugman was only an outside chair to the defense of the thesis (not Mr. Drezner's doctoral advisor). Krugman's howl is absurd because, as Kausfiles points out, the full story is set out in the very same Drezner post to which Kausfiles links. Worse, Professor Krugman does not offer a word of rebuttal to the substance of Mr. Drezner's analysis. That would have taken some real effort and imagination on Professor Krugman's part. This Krugman-piffle certainly supports Drezner's thesis that the quality and quantity of Professor Krugman's output are inversely related.

Indeed, Professor Krugman's recent ever more massive textual extrusions are perhaps best explained by an old story from post-war physics:

Each volume of the the main physics journal at the time was exponentially larger than its predecessor. Alarmed, one physics professor exclaimed that if present trends continued, a stack of the journal's volumes would soon have to grow faster than the speed of light! His colleague comforted him by pointing out that because the information content of the articles in the journal was rapidly going to zero, expansion of the journal at more than the speed of light would NOT violate relativity!

No doubt Professor Krugman is counting on the same effect in his current inflationary epoch.

Posted 12:00 AM by Robert

Southern Discomfort

Paul Krugman says that the Southern (and especially Mississippi's) drift to the Republican Party is all very simple to explain: racism - plain, pure and simple:

Why do Mississippi and its neighbors support politicians whose economic policies seemingly run counter to their interests?

Do I really need to answer that?

Fifty years ago the politics of race in America weren't at all disguised. Jim Crow laws both impoverished and disenfranchised Southern blacks; Southern whites voted for politicians who promised to keep things that way. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act ended overt discrimination. Yet race remains a major factor in our politics.

Why are Mississippi and the rest of the South trending Republican? Maybe it has something to do with some people in places like Mississippi figuring out that the state can use the Senate to get lots of subsidies from the federal government and still foster a pro-growth economic policy in a family values society. But not all Mississippians are like that, and the ones who are that way don't always get their way. Professor Krugman can take comfort and find his Democratic legacy in the run-away power of the Mississippi trial lawyers bar, which almost succeeded in driving every single obstetrician out of the State, among other choice accomplishments, before the state legislature finally took action to stop them just months ago.

But there is plenty to think about with respect to the economics of the South. Clever, good economists would search for economic reasons - maybe hidden economic reasons - to explain the Southern Republican drift. Professor Krugman can't be bothered with any of that. Nor does it appear that Professor Krugman has actually ever lived in Mississippi - not even for a little while. But he KNOWS what racists they all are down there. He doesn't let his complete lack of experience stop him from forming and sharing absolute conclusions that just happen to conform to his vulgar Northeastern style prejudices.

Prior posts have noted that Mr. Lott's paens to Strom Thurmond were awful, and Mr. Lott has retreated from them. But the riff Professor Krugman spins from Senator Lott's excesses is transparent, opportunistic and ridiculous. For example, no sensible person could write: “[T]his year efforts to suppress nonwhite votes were remarkably blatant. … Topping it off was last Saturday's election in Louisiana, in which the Republican Party hired black youths to hold signs urging their neighbors not to vote for Mary Landrieu.”

Does Professor Krugman think this use of African-American workers was somehow unfair? The workers apparently didn't threaten their neighbors. So what's wrong here in Professor Krugman's giant mind? Did the Republicans have an obligation to hire only white campaign workers? Even worse from Professor Krugman’s point of view, I suppose, the Republicans ran television ads with African-American actors telling people not to vote for Mary Landrieu! How dare they! And does Professor Krugman's outrage work both ways? Was Mary Landrieu (a white!) making an unfair effort to suppress white voter turnout when she personally told people not to vote for her Republican opponent?

As Professor Krugman puts it: Might I suggest that this tells us something? Yes, yes, it does, and in so many ways: It tells us that Paul Krugman does not think like an economist.

UPDATE: More from the Minute Man.

Posted 2:10 PM by Robert

Wrong Side of History II

Fred Hiatt at the Washington Post points out that there is something wrong with international law's 17th Century obsession with "sovereignty" while essentially ignoring the focus of law of the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries on individual rights:

[Y]ou have to wonder whether ... there isn't something peculiar, something out of whack, about international law itself. Yes, national borders should be respected. But why should a gangster who has maintained power only by violating every norm of morality and law -- including international law -- be permitted the sanctuary of those borders? Why should his regime be entitled to the same protection as a government that represents its people?

No one, not even the most dovish of the doves, maintains that Saddam Hussein is the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people. He rules by means of a brutal secret police using murder (of thousands and thousands of innocent people over the years) as its tool. The British government last week issued a brief report on Saddam Hussein's crimes that listed some of his favored methods of torture, in addition to the usual beatings and fingernail extractions: eye gouging, piercing of hands with electric drill, suspension from the ceiling, electric shock, sexual abuse, mock executions, acid baths. Wives are raped to extract confessions from husbands, while children are made to watch. Prisoners "are kept in rows of rectangular steel boxes, as found in mortuaries, until they either confess to their crimes or die."

...

The opponents of war often claim to be speaking for the Iraqi people. In any dictatorship, it is impossible to gauge how the people feel, particularly in one as brutal as Iraq. Two years ago the Revolutionary Command Council added "amputation of the tongue" as an approved punishment for anyone who speaks ill of Saddam Hussein or his family.

Still, there are clues. About one in seven Iraqis has left the nation rather than live under his regime, as the British report pointed out.

And last week, the nonprofit International Crisis Group (ICG), which conducts research in troubled regions in an effort to encourage wise policy, issued, to little notice, a compelling report entitled "Voices From the Iraqi Street." The ICG researcher, interviewing ordinary Iraqis for the sixth time in recent years, found them more open than ever before. This in itself might be seen as an initial success of Bush's policy; the ICG attributed it to "the feelings shared by many Iraqis that some kind of political change is now unavoidable."

More remarkable, the interviewer found an "overwhelming sentiment . . . of frustration and impatience with the status quo." People want change, are willing to say so and, "if such a change required an American-led attack, they would support it."

As I have pointed out in many prior posts, there is no way for any government to claim legitimacy other than through sufficiently democratic and open elections. That does not mean that the form of the constitution meet any particular, rigid format. While the first and most important protector of democracy and human rights is open elections, their protection depends also on protecting them from the still substantial threats of mobocracy.

But a government which is not democratically elected is illegitimate - and this, in my opinion, should be reflected in international law as depriving the illegitimate state of the right to argue under international law that other states are prohibited from invasion and military action by the sovereignty rights of a legitimate state. Such an illegitimate state would have to rely, instead, on other principles - such as arguing that the particular invasion would cause more harm to the populace than the persistence of the illegitimate government causes. Iraq probably could not make effective use of such other principles, but, for example, Saudi Arabia at least arguably could.

It is absurd that "opponents of war often claim to be speaking for the Iraqi people," thereby acknowledging that the democratic will of those people is of paramount importance in determining whether war may be waged against Iraq, a principle which is nowhere included in international law. Instead of looking for clues as to the popular will of the Iraqi people in opinion polls and emmigration statistics, international law should expressly shift the burden of demonstrating compliance with that popular will directly onto the government purporting to act in the name of the Iraqi people.

Perhaps some other reform of international law would be more appropriate than the one sketched above. But the current principles of international law are nothing short of a disgrace that only a cynical and self important diplomat or legal academic could love.

Posted 1:44 PM by Robert

FURTHER UPDATE: Augusta Anyone? Or Perhaps The Head Of Caesar On A Platter?

As predicted by the Man Without Qualities in a prior post (and, I'm sure, elsewhere, too), the New York Times edited the two previously-spiked sports section articles on Augusta National.

Posted 10:00 AM by Robert

Jim Crow Nostalgia

Virginia Postrel rightly takes Trent Lott to the woodshed.

He did much damage with his loathesome homage to Strom Thurmond's dark days. Maybe Mr. Lott should spend some time asking himself why Democrat Mary Landrieu next-door in Lousiana got more African-American support than her record deserved in her victorious Saturday election.

UPDATE: Kevin L. Martin, government and political affairs director of the African American Republican Leadership Council, said people were overreacting to the remarks. "By no means was he endorsing segregation or anything like that. It was lighthearted, it was humorous." Martin said Lott captures 25 percent of the black vote in Mississippi, which he said couldn't happen if Lott were a racist.

It is unlikely that Lott is personally a racist. But it is hard to understand how such mindless - at least - statements could flow so easily from him.

Posted 11:01 PM by Robert

Snow Job

President Bush is reported to have chosen CSX Corp. Chairman John W. Snow to replace Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

It is a curious choice. CSX is not generally considered to be the best-managed national railroad, nor does Mr. Snow enjoy a wide reputation as a brilliant thinker. Indeed, a case could be made that Mr. Snow may possess many of Mr. O'Neill's limitations, perhaps more of the same - although he does not seem to have a reputation for masking O'Neillian disloyal or ill considered comments as "candid," "refreshing," "independent," or, worse, "spunky," thoughts, either.

UPDATE: Omygod! And now Kausfiles reports:

This is too good to be true, but Bush's pick for Treasury Secretary, John W. Snow, appears to be a member of the Augusta National Golf Club. ... The New York Times editorial page will soon be calling for Snow to refuse to stimulate the economy until Augusta National admits women.

Maybe Paul Krugman is right! Maybe the whole world is run by a set of interlocking conspiracies!

FURTHER UPDATE: Well, at least Mr. Snow has some political sense.

Posted 9:30 PM by Robert

Affirmative

Aaron Haspel has some real insights into the University of Michigan affirmative action shell game.

Posted 7:41 PM by Robert

He'd Be Shocked That Anyone Thinks Dan Rather Slants Left

Croooow Blog details a grim story of E.J. Dionne arguing that the mainstream media tilts right.

Posted 3:28 PM by Robert

Paul Krugman, The New Miss Cleo; or Damn The Facts, Self Promotions Are Us!

Paul Krugman almost seemed determined to replace Miss Cleo, the disgraced fake prognosticatrix, as he recently wrote:

When Paul O'Neill was chosen as Treasury Secretary, there was unanimous applause from the financial press. Well, almost unanimous. What I wrote two years ago looks pretty good right now: ...

Paul O'Neill, the former Office of Management and Budget official who became Alcoa's chairman, wasn't exactly what the optimists had in mind. ... What's wrong with Mr. O'Neill? ... [O]verseeing world financial markets is nothing at all like running a large, very old-economy, command- and-control corporation (or, for that matter, working the details of the federal budget). ... Despite Mr. O'Neill's long association with conservative causes, his appointment does not please the hard right. ... None of this says that Mr. O'Neill will necessarily fail. - Originally published in The New York Times, 12.24.00; Originally published on the Official Paul Krugman Site, 12.6.02

Well, that shuts my mouth. Professor Krugman is a genius! There was unanimous applause from the financial press when Paul O'Neill was appointed, and only the brilliant Paul Krugman saw through to the TRUTH! Or, at least that's what Professor Krugman wants us to believe.

It's not completely clear what entities comprise "the financial press" - although it appears that Mr. Krugman includes the New York Times in that category, a choice many others would not make. But everybody would include the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times at the leading members of the "financial press." So, is it true what Professor Krugman says? Was there "unanimous applause from the financial press" other than his own brilliant dissent?

Well, fusty old, non-brilliant Robert L. Bartley, Wall Street Journal editor who doesn't keep telling us how brilliant he is but seems to get the job done, wrote on December 22, 2000:

At first blush the head of an aluminum company, of course, seems a curious choice for a post redolent of high finance. But at Alcoa, Mr. O'Neill has made a silk purse out of something of a sow's ear, marking himself one of the economy's most able executives. As chairman of RAND Corp., he cannot be a blindered old-economy type. His board membership at the American Enterprise Institute is a solid conservative credential. And his Office of Management and Budget apprenticeship in the Ford administration means he is no naif in Washington. ... By now the world knows that Mr. O'Neill came out for an energy tax at a Clinton economic summit in 1992. This has caused some consternation among economic conservatives. It has also led both the New York Times and Mr. O'Neill's hometown Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to editorialize hoping that he'll give lip service to the Bush tax cut but privately stab it in the back.

OpinionJournal also quoted Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform on O'Neill's prior comments supporting energy taxes: "That's the kind of stupid thing businessmen say when they are trying to suck up to politicians. It would be very important for him to clarify his pro-tax positions. Hopefully, they are a youthful indiscretion."

Is that "applause" from Mr. Barkley and OpinionJournal? Reads more like damning with faint praise while trying to give the man and the President appointing him a break. That's the Journal, but what about the Financial Times? I wasn't able to locate the actual FT editorial, but the Journal summarized the FT concerns this way:

The Financial Times, for example, greeted the appointment of Alcoa Chairman Paul O'Neill to Treasury by complaining that "businessmen, or, perhaps more accurately, industrialists, do not have a glowing record in government." They would have preferred an academic economist, Martin Feldstein perhaps, like departing secretary Larry Summers.

Doesn't that read a lot like Paul Krugman's own concerns? In fact, many, many people were having the same concerns about Mr. O'Neill, but they rapidly decided that for all his faults he did have real talent, and wasn't doomed. In fact, Professor Krugman admits this much in his own caveat: "None of this says that Mr. O'Neill will necessarily fail." Further, while Mr. O'Neill has not been a star, neither was he a disaster, nor did he fail for the reasons that concerned Professor Krugman when he summarized his main concerns about Mr. O'Neill:

Mr. Rubin excelled at the deft strategic intervention — persuading investors, when the situation was on a knife edge, not to pull their money out and turn a temporary loss of confidence into a self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse. Perhaps Mr. O'Neill will reveal a comparable talent, but nothing in his career to date suggests that this is his sort of thing.

Mr. O'Neill's tenure, which included huge crises - such as September 11 and turmoil in investor confidence flowing from corporate bookeeping scandals - certainly included more than its share of "situations on a knife edge." But none of those "situations" decended into a "self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse." And even when Mr. Rubin suggested to his former Treasury subordinate another of those "strategic interventions" Professor Krugman so admired - that time in Enron, to "save" the sacred bond market, of course - Mr. O'Neill's Treasury department wisely told Mr. Rubin to get lost.

In short, Professor Krugman's basic call on Mr. O'Neill is like the old publisher's rejection letter: "Parts of your work are original and good. However, that part that is original is not good, and the part that is good is not original" But Professor Krugman isn't the type to let details like that get in the way of a good self-administered pat on the back - and a chance for some undeserved self-promotion! Heck, any fool can get kudos for something he's accomplished. It takes a real self-promoting academic to garner it when he's done nothing worthwhle at all!

UPDATE: Brad DeLong reads Paul Krugman's self-promotional autobackpat and intones: "I confess that Paul Krugman was right." If one reads on in Professor DeLong's post it becomes unclear that he has any idea what Paul Krugman is actually attempting to take credit for. Professor DeLong seems to think that his fellow economist was "right" about listing certain attributes a Treasury Secretary should have. That's not what Professor Krugman is claiming credit for. He's claiming credit for identifying certain characteristics of Mr. O'Neill which actually caused him problems as Treasury Secretary. As noted above, Professor Krugman's correct reservations about Mr. O'Neill were relatively commonplace and the specific weakness Professor Krugman did identify in Mr. O'Neill as especially important was not the source of his problems.

FURTHER UPDATE: Daniel W. Drezner has interesting points on the decline of Paul Krugman and the fall of Paul O'Neill. I may not agree with everything Mr. Drezner says. For one thing, Professor Krugman has many more independent problems than the two identified here - starting with his truly terrifying easy willingness to indulge in conspiracy theories.

And the problems don't stop there. Mr. Drezner also points out that Professor Krugman's is "always stunned when leaders take actions that maximize their own power rather than benefiting the greater good." But this is just a special case of somethng the Man Without Qualities has pointed out previously: Professor Krugman has big difficulties in working with the economic concept of "agency costs" in general - which is one of the reasons he keeps lapsing into conspiracy theories, a construct which he uses as a substitute for the correct agency cost analysis. Agency costs are a basic tool of economic theory - and Professor Krugman's repeated inability to deal with these concepts shows that he often does not think like an economist.

But Mr. Drezner does say a good many insightful things. And he certainly makes a lot more sense on these topics than Brad DeLong does.

[Link found by KausFiles.]

Posted 1:58 PM by Robert

Confusion Of The Left

George Packer provides his survey of intellectual confusion in the "responsible left" as it gropes for an intellectual basis to oppose war with Iraq.

Curiously, the article includes a discussion of Christopher Hitchens, who has made quite a separate peace with the subject.

There is a striking lack of personal and political insight in these intellectuals. They complain that the President has not provided enough "ideas." ("The one level on which he hasn't even tried to make a case is the level of ideas." and "So the war that began on Sept. 11 is primarily a war of ideas, and Berman harshly criticizes Bush for failing to pursue it.") But there is a general palpable dislike for President Bush in these people (other than Hitchens), and that dislike seems to be a serious obstacle to their obtaining clarity of thought. Specifically, the complaints about the "lack of ideas" seem to distract them from dealing with their self-imposed obstacle. After all, if one is deeply and personally committed to believing that a particular person is an "idiot" it becomes a lot harder to acknowledge him as a source of ideas. They don't exhibit here the personal insight needed to realize and overcome that obstacle. Perhaps there is a niche for a specialized therapist here.

The criticism that the President has not waged a war of ideas also seems to completely misconceive the nature of the office of the Presidency. The President is a popularly elected leader and executive. The President should of course personally explain certain kinds of ideas. Mr. Bush has done plenty of that. His speech to the United Nations, for example, packed quite a wallop and was full of efficacious ideas. But the President does not run an academic seminar. It is nothing short of hilarious to imagine a President larding his public addresses with the kind of academic constructs most of the people considered in this article crave (other than Mr. Hitchens). And for those kinds of ideas there is no shortage of individuals inside and outside the Administration perfectly capable of conducting policy seminars. Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney, for example, have not been shy about getting into the theoretical and strategic aspects of things in the right settings. And I think there have been some public signs that Mr. Powell has done some good strategic thinking on these matters. But there is no need for the Administration to officially adopt as policy and justification some kind of rigid ideological constructs of the sort demanded here. For one thing, what happens to the losers within the Administration in the war of the apparachnicks needed to create and adopt such a construct - Siberia?

And, as with the reception given to Ronald Reagan's musings, the kind of people considered in this article don't necessarily know an "idea," or a valuable "idea," when they see one and it's effectively articulated. Mr. Reagan's recently released writings show him to have been brimming with extraordinary ideas that ultimately transformed much of the world, but would have been - and would now be - brutally dismissed in most academic seminars. Mr. Reagan's speeches effectively conveyed many of those ideas - and got him labeled as "stupid" and "naive" by the self-proclaimed intellectual class. Who, for example, could forget the academic howlings of "stupidity" and "naivete" occasioned by Mr. Reagan's references to the now-independent countries that then made up the Soviet Union as "captive nations" whose bondage need not be accepted?

Ultimately, the entire article emits a rather musty sense of some rather mostly rigid and unimaginative people who are annoyed, just plain annoyed, that the world is not presenting itself to them in a way that suits their 1960's-era seminar thought processes. One can almost hear them protest: "Where is the material for a career-advancing policy paper!" The mustiness shows up in so many ways - the most visually apparent being the complete absence of women and minorities in the group.

But, then, 1960's academic seminars were all about and by liberal, white guys ticked off that the world just didn't admit how important they and their thoughts really were.