Do you find it odd that so few economists foresaw the current credit disaster? Some did. The person with the most serious claim for seeing it coming is Dean Baker, the Washington economist. I saw it coming in general terms.
But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis? Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.
What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science? It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.
Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes, and that his role was peripheral to the bank’s main operations even though he was one of its highest-paid officials.
“Nobody was prepared for this,” Mr. Rubin said in an interview. He cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the crisis.
[T]he commissars, the secular priesthood, the state ideologists…I think it is an extremely corrupt group. I think this is also the group that is the most subject to effective indoctrination, tends to have the least understanding of what is happening in the world, in fact, tends to have a sort of institutionalized stupidity.
Judge Patricia Wald, former chief judge for the D.C. Court of Appeals and jurist on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, writing in the new report “Guantánamo and Its Aftermath” (pdf):
There are bound to be casualties when any nation veers from its domestic and international obligations to uphold human rights and international humanitarian law. Those casualties are etched on the minds and bodies of many of the 62 former detainees interviewed for this report, many of whom suffered infinite variations on physical and mental abuse, including intimidation, stress positions, enforced nudity, sexual humiliation, and interference with religious practices. Indeed, I was struck by the similarity between the abuse they suffered and the abuse we found inflicted upon Bosnian Muslim prisoners in Serbian camps when I sat as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, a U.N. court fully supported by the United States. The officials and guards in charge of those prison camps and the civilian leaders who sanctioned their establishment were prosecuted—often by former U.S. government and military lawyers serving with the tribunal—for war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in extreme cases, genocide.
The dramatic decision to deliver Milosevic to the tribunal in defiance of an order by the Yugoslav Constitututional Court staying any extradition threatened to plunge the Balkan country into a political crisis.
Milosevic’s successor, Vojislav Kostunica, denounced the handover as ‘’illegal and unconstitutional.'’ Others accused Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who spearheaded the decision, of ‘’treason'’ and knuckling under U.S. pressure….
President Bush praised Yugoslavia for handing over Milosevic, saying the move showed the Balkan nation wants to turn away from ‘’its tragic past and toward a brighter future.'’
U.S. officials said the administration planned to make a pledge in the range of about $100 million for a Yugoslav assistance package, to be discussed Friday in Brussels at a conference of international aid donors.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the handover as ‘’a thoroughly good thing.'’
I applaud today’s transfer of indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. This very important step by the leaders in Belgrade ensures that Milosevic can finally be tried for his war crimes and crimes against humanity. During various visits by Yugoslav authorities to Washington, they pledged that Yugoslavia was committed to cooperating with the Tribunal. Milosevic’s transfer is a strong sign of that commitment. We are confident that the government of Yugoslavia will continue down the path of cooperation with the Tribunal.
The transfer of Milosevic to the Hague is an unequivocal message to those persons who brought such tragedy and brutality to the Balkans that they will be held accountable for their crimes. Milosevic’s transfer further signals the commitment of the new leadership in Belgrade to turn Yugoslavia away from its tragic past and toward a brighter future as a full member of the community of European democracies.
The United States stands ready to assist the people of Yugoslavia as they continue to take the difficult steps to advance its democratic and economic reform.
(Suggested by Glenn Greenwald’s reference here: “[T]here were early statement from the Bush White House in 2001 about how critical it was to prosecute these Yugoslav leaders for war crimes…”)
This is from Scott Horton’s new article in Harper’s on creating some kind of accountability for the torture conducted by the Bush administration (subscription required):
[I]n a 2006 radio interview, Dick Cheney said simply that the use of waterboarding to obtain intelligence was a “no-brainer.”
Cheney at the time declined to refer to this practice as torture, preferring instead to describe it as “robust interrogation,” and that reluctance has been echoed in the press. I myself was twice warned by PBS producers, in advance of appearances on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, that I could use the word “torture” in the abstract but that I was to refrain from applying it to the administration’s policies. And after an interview with CNN in which I spoke of the administration’s torture policy, I was told by the producer, “That’s okay for CNN International, but we can’t use it on the domestic feed.”
As always, the question remains: why is the major US media so incredibly left-wing?
… a new design in the shop, available on the usual assortment of items — the perfect gift and/or apparel for your inauguration celebration! (Limited time only, I’ll probably take this one down sometime after Jan. 20.)
I’ve also put together a 2009 calendar featuring some of my full-page cartoons from the New Yorker, the American Prospect, and the Village Voice, mostly from 1999-2003 (though my more recent Bill O’Reilly piece for the Voice is included). The unifying theme: George Bush is not mentioned, not one damn time.
I live in a dense urban neighborhood, in which the majority of houses are built close together, with few driveways. So most people park on the street, and like urban residents anywhere, you have to keep an eye on the street cleaning rules — which, the permanent signs clearly state, are suspended for the winter beginning Nov. 1.
So here’s what this lovely cash-strapped city of mine does: they come by late in the day, after dark, after most people are already home for the evening, and put up a few temporary paper signs up and down the street, announcing with no warning that — surprise! — tomorrow’s a street cleaning day. And that’s considered sufficient notice, and if you don’t see the signs in time, you’re shit out of luck. I did happen to go out last night, so I didn’t get towed, but a lot of other people around here weren’t so lucky, and the city of New Haven probably just made an easy thousand bucks for itself, on my street alone. It may be legal to give people less than a day’s notice and then tow their cars, but morally, it’s barely one step above a mafia protection racket. Especially when the street cleaning “emergency” is not a massive snowstorm or something — just a normal accumulation of fall leaves.
Sometimes I think the most important thing the internets have done is to expose the craziness simmering just below the surface in most people (excluding thee and me, of course). Then again, it just confirms what I have long suspected.
When it comes to bailing out the auto industry, count me in the “let them starve” camp. The auto industry has been outsourcing American jobs for 25 years now with little regard for the devastated communities they’ve left in their wake (seriously, re-watch Roger & Me sometime). The big three have also used their lobbying might to oppose every environmental regulation in their sights. And on top of all of that, their cars suck. Bailing out the auto companies whose single-minded devotion to SUV’s made them blind to the hybrid revolution is like bailing out a record company that hasn’t had a hit since “The Macarena”. Screw them.
That said, I am sensitive to the fact that letting the big three go out of business would be a pretty serious blow to our already fragile economy. But if the solution to what ails automakers is an infusion of cash, wouldn’t it be better to get banks involved? If we’ve already set aside $700 billion to help bailout banks in the hopes that it will free up lending, wouldn’t it be a better idea to just have Congress mandate that banks participating in the bailout must offer debtor-in-possession loans to the big three. That way, if an auto manufacturer fails, they need to file for Chapter 11 like any other company whose poor business decisions lead to their downfall AND the banks free up some cash and start lending again.
Obviously this is probably an oversimplification, but there’s gotta be a better way of saving the auto industry than just writing another giant check.
U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman blasted the Democratic Party Sunday as protectionist, isolationist and hyperpartisan.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Lieberman, I-Conn., said it is not the same party that made him its vice presidential candidate in 2000.
“It’s not the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party, which was strong internationalists, strong on defense, pro-trade, pro-reform in our domestic government,” he said. “It’s been effectively taken over by a small group on the left of the party that is protectionist, isolationist and very, very hyperpartisan. So it pains me.”
Lieberman, who won re-election to the Senate as an independent after losing the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, still caucuses with Democrats.
But he has endorsed Republican John McCain’s presidential bid, and said Sunday that among the three presidential candidates, McCain comes closest to reflecting the legacy of John F. Kennedy.
(Ran across this because I’m starting to gather material for my Year in Review cartoons. Lord knows this last year has been chock full of strange little moments, but I’m very open to reader input — if you’ve got any suggestions for items I might want to include, please feel free to send them to tomtomorrow (atsymbol) ix (dot) netcom (d0t) com.)
It’s important for the government to bail out GM, so that GM can continue as one of the main sponsors of talk radio diatribes against government (and government bailouts).
… reminds me of a small irony from last summer that I never got around to blogging: at the same time all the radio talkers were mocking Obama for suggesting that we keep our tires inflated, one of the carmakers was pushing a brand new innovation — self-monitoring tires which inform you when they need inflating. So you’d go directly from a rant about the idiocy of thinking you can improve mileage by keeping your tires properly inflated to a commercial about how you can definitely improve mileage by keeping your tires properly inflated. In one absolutely classic moment I caught on my car radio late one night, Laura Ingraham was the ranter — and was also the person who read the immediately subsequent commercial copy.
Sorry, gang. It turns out Sarah Palin isn’t THAT dumb. On the plus side, she refuses to go away, so at least we’ll have that trainwreck to enjoy for a little while longer. It’s amazing to think that Palin has been in the national spotlight for less than three months and she’s already gone from serious vice-presidential contender to the sort of “why won’t she go away?” level of fame that’s usually reserved for former reality show contestants.
UPDATE : My bad. It turns out I misread the article regarding the Plain hoax. She really is THAT dumb. Sorry folks. Blogging and NyQuil don’t mix.
