"A hero who has become the scandal of his generation, aware that he is a paradox that cannot be understood, cries undaunted to his contemporaries: 'The future will show I was right!'"
No, this is not a reference to our soon-to-be-former President George W. Bush (although it certainly applies). The quote dates back to 1843. Soren Kierkegaard, an influential philosopher, penned them in his seminal work, Fear & Trembling.
So, is Bush a misunderstood hero? Will the future prove him right? No one knows, especially when it comes to Iraq.
President Bush gave a great speech today (haven't heard that one lately) about our current financial crisis. His main points were along the lines of what we previously mentioned here.
With the election upon us, we conclude our series on Obama's 'Chump Change'. Today, it's his change with foreign policy we have our doubts about.
Obama Change: Pull out all troops from Iraq in 16 months and meet with rogue dictators without preconditions.
Chump Change: Leave Iraq and the entire Middle East in a state of chaos by pulling out troops too quickly and make a huge diplomatic mistake by meeting with rogue leaders without preconditions.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that countries in turmoil are great at rebuilding themselves. For example, Germany after World War I.
It's not all gloom and doom for the Rust Belt these days. In fact, this NY Times article shows how the best days might be ahead for states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Iowa.
Three thoughts (that just so happen to be ones we've been saying here at The Relevant Elephant) stood out while reading this article:
After almost two years of hearing about 'Change' from Senator Obama, many are still wondering what exactly this 'Change' will be.
In case you've missed the past couple days, we've been having a little fun by intepreting what we think is actually 'Chump Change'. Today, it's his change, or lack thereof, with Social Security that we call into question.
Obama Change: Keep Social Security as it is and don’t allow it to be privatized.
Chump Change: Maintain a failed program when privatizing it would give twentysomethings more options with saving for retirement.
When Obama ironically fails to change our bankrupt system, he is forced to swap retirees’ monthly checks with coupons good for one Hot-n-Ready from Little Ceasar’s.
"Change, it turns out, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Barack Obama is discovering that there is quite a bit he likes about the way things are." - Gerald Baker, Times Online
Although Obama is appealing and has a good message of unity and hope, the change he wants to bring has no significant value – it’s Chump Change. It's actually regressive, not progressive.
That's why over the next five days leading up to the election, we'll be sharing with you some of Obama's 'Chump Change'. Today, it's health care.
It's nice to see people are learning a thing or two from us... especially if they're Harvard economists.
We probably can't take all of the credit, but here is a great NY Times article talking about our need for better financial regulation, not more. It makes three great points:
- We need a new regulatory structure that makes our market work better.
- Good regulation makes sure investors can get their money back.
- When making new regulations, our lawmakers shouldn't do it with a sense of vengeance but with a rational approach to make our markets work best.
It goes on to explain more about how we could set up this "better regulation," but you'll just have to read it for yourself. Some of it might be controversial, so let us know your thoughts.
"I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way." - Barack Obama
If you think we've been a little hard on Barack Obama lately, you're probably right. It's because his economic worldview continues to be drawn into question with little more than a week until the election. By now, we're all familiar with Barack's conversation with "Joe the Plumber", where the democratic candidate advocated "spreading the wealth around".
Barack Obama says he's for the middle class. What's one of the best ways to help them? Create more jobs.
According to this NY Times article, though, Obama's healthcare plan would do just the opposite. As part of his healthcare plan, Obama would raise taxes on businesses with uninsured employees in order to pay for his government-funded health insurance. While this might sound great in theory, the effects of such "play-or-pay" policies haven't had a great track record at the state level over the past two decades.
Fines on businesses would cause them to either hire less people or keep employee wages low, which doesn't benefit anyone. Obama's campaign said they "decided not to decide on" the amount of the fine, but studies estimate it would cost 6 percent of a company's payroll. What does that mean? According to researchers at Harvard and the University of Michigan, 224,000 workers would be laid off as a result.
Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister before World War II, was the Bill Buckner of 20th century politics. Buckner cost the Red Sox the ‘86 World Series by letting a routine groundball roll between his legs. Chamberlain’s error was just as avoidable but far more costly. In 1938, Chamberlain broke his promise to protect Czechoslovakia and gave away part of that country to Adolf Hitler to appease the dictator and secure peace. Encouraged by Chamberlain’s weakness, Hitler broke the agreement and took the rest of Czechoslovakia.
At a glance Chamberlain and Barack Obama couldn’t be more different. Chamberlain was nearing seventy when he served as Prime Minister, the son of a prime minister, and in many respects epitomized the British aristocracy. Who could be so foolish as to compare the inspiring, rags-to-riches political saga of Barack Obama with Chamberlain, one of history’s greatest failures?
There are more slaves today than ever before in human history. This slave trade is worth $32 billion a year - more than what Nike, Google, and Starbucks make combined. Human trafficking (which is a nice way of saying slavery) involves victims who are forced, defrauded, or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation.
If you're like most Americans, it seems impossible this is still happening. It also makes you wonder why you haven't heard more about it.
Thankfully, the Republican Party has a plan in their 2008 Platform to fight human trafficking: "We advocate the establishment of an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, reporting directly to the President, and call for increased diplomatic efforts with foreign governments that have been negligent toward this evil."
As with most issues, we shouldn't just look to our government to solve the problem. That's where nonprofit organizations and individuals come in. One way to fight slavery is by creating awareness, which is just what the film Call + Response set out to do. Below is their (slightly graphic) trailer. Be sure and check out their website to see if the movie is playing in your city.
We have talked quite a bit about taxes lately as it's taken a more prominent role in the presidential election. In order to paint a picture of how our current tax breaks are not just for the wealthy, here is a simple illustration by an economics professor from Georgia.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil. Today it's nearly 70% and growing.
T. Boone Pickens' advertisements have been all over television the past several months. If his name alone doesn't scream 'oil baron', his slow, Texas accent certainly does.
The Pickens Plan is clear: we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He's positioning the issue as a matter of national security ... and it is.
Obama's 'new kind of politics' is starting to resemble its predecessor: 'the old kind'. The airwaves have been bombarded recently with attack ads that mischaracterize McCain's health care plan.
To be fair, it's not like Senator McCain is winning any Congeniality awards in this campaign (as we well know: Maverick, etc.), but it's important to separate fact from fiction on this critical issue.
This article from the National Reveiw recently brought these false accusations to light, but here's a quick summary...
Aristotle had a unique outlook on life. He taught his students to live between extremes. In battle, for example, the extremes were cowardice and irrationality. Nothing was worse than cowardice, but a foolhardy rush to war with no consideration of the costs or risks wasn’t much better. Courage lay between the two.
Courage recognizes the fear that drives the coward to inaction but acts anyway; however, such action is marked by caution and sobriety rather than haste and foolish bravado. Thus courage fits neatly between (and is superior to) the two extremes.
I’m no Aristotle, but if I could be so bold, let me give you this piece of advice: live between panic and intellectualism. It’s a little place called common sense, which I urge us to live in because it’s going to see us through the dark economic days ahead.
Gov. Palin stopped the bleeding last night. She's bounced back from punch line status to legitimate Vice Presidential candidate. It looks like Tina Fey is back to her day job (aka 30 Rock).
Palin's interview with Katie Couric was a dark day for the GOP ticket—she stumbled over several questions which replayed repeatedly for the viewing public. If you watch CNN with any regularity, you've probably seen the clip a dozen times.
Certainly the media has been too critical of Palin, but that's not the most unfair part. It's hard to understand why our media literally makes fun of a Vice Presidential candidate for not having vast foreign policy experience. Since when was that a prerequisite?
Lyndon Johnson was probably the best negotiator in U.S. political history. Known as “Master of the Senate” before becoming president, he was often able to get other Senators to do what he wanted. Perhaps his greatest feat in the Senate was getting civil rights legislation passed when Segregationists dominated his party.
As president, he even talked a justice of the Supreme Court into resigning to become ambassador to the United Nations.
There was one battle, however, Johnson couldn’t negotiate his way out of...the Vietnam War. Johnson felt sure that if he could just sit down with Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, he could talk him into ending the war. Regrettably, Ho was of the opinion that as long as Johnson was willing to talk, he wasn’t willing to fight hard enough to win. Even more regrettably, Ho was right.
The presidential campaign has been awfully dramatic lately. Will there be a debate? Why did McCain go to Washington? Who's wearing lipstick?
While all of this drama might be entertaining, the most important piece of legislation this decade has seen is still being debated in Washington. In case you haven't seen the news lately, our financial institutions are in a bit of a pickle, and Bush has proposed spending $700 billion to buy up bad loans that banks have made, allowing them to lend freely again.
In the first two parts to this series, we gave Mayor Bloomberg's thoughts of the current financial woes and how we got here in the first place. In short, he said our government pressured banks to make bad loans, the banks were too aggressive in making these loans, and greedy Americans gladly bought more than they could afford. He also said the government shouldn't create more regulations but simply create a better (more simplified) system for oversight. Washington should also remember what fiscal conservatism means and work to get our country out of debt.
We've always heard how most Americans would rather have a beer with President Bush than other politicians. According to the Honorable Michael Bloomberg, Bush has (figuratively speaking) took it up a notch and bought alcoholic Americans a round of drinks. Let us explain.
In Part 1, we shared thoughts from Mayor Bloomberg about America's financial crisis, explaining what the government bailouts mean. Today, we'll give you his thoughts on how we got here in the first place.
Michael Bloomberg, business mogul and New York mayor, spoke at Georgetown last week. He talked about what's happening on Wall Street, the Federal Government's bailouts, and how we got to the place we find ourselves today.
While Bloomberg considers himself an independent, his economic views are mostly conservative. His assessment of what's going on with the financial industry seems to be accurate, and his prescription for improving it sounds convincing.
In this first part, we’ll cover Bloomberg’s assessment of the recent government bailouts and the need for fixing how Washington regulates the financial industry.
New York's Fashion Week wrapped up last week, but don't worry fashion fans... an all-new episode of the beloved Project Runway airs tonight.
Fashion has been newsworthy for decades, but Bryant Park is now mentioned more than ever thanks to Bravo, Heidi Klum, and Tim Gunn (aka the “Silver Fox”).
Few industries capture the attention of Americans quite like the world of fashion. While we could never imagine wearing 97% of the clothes paraded down the runway, we’re still captivated.
As we all know, though, the fashion industry can have its dark side – from malnourished models on runways to sweat shops in developing countries. These sweat shops, controversy aside, illustrate what truly makes the fashion industry work: trade.
As we mentioned previously, education is a unique issue because both sides strongly agree on the desired outcome and have committed large amounts of money to it. It's also an area where more Americans are generally okay with larger-than-normal government programs, mainly because equal opportunity is a value deeply embedded within us.
Differences are clear in this election, however, and they mainly fall along party lines. Obama wants to increase funding for several programs while starting several new programs. He proposes this as his "historic commitment" to improve the current public system, which would make the federal government's role in education much larger than it currently is (a liberal value). McCain wants to keep funding at its current level while proposing ways to make our current system better. He also wants to increase a parent's ability to choose where their child goes to school (a conservative value).
Last time, we summarized Obama’s education plan. Today, we will take a look at McCain’s. For his complete plan, you can visit his website.
McCain’s plan isn’t as long or detailed as Obama’s. That’s likely due to his general philosophy about education: it should mainly stay in the hands of the states. The McCain approach is about allowing the states to determine what is working and to provide support for those programs. In this view, the states drive change and the federal government's role is to draw attention to working models, encouraging other states to try them.
The previous entry in this education series outlined a brief history of America's current education system. The next two blogs will discuss both Obama and McCain’s specific plans.
Today, we’ll look at Obama’s. You can click here to view his entire plan on his website, but here’s a brief synopsis:
When it comes to Early Childhood Education, Obama plans to implement universal pre-school for all children, quadruple funding for Early Head-Start, and increase Head Start funding.
President Bush will address the Republican National Convention tonight. While he's sure to focus on McCain, he might also mention the beneficial effects of his 2001 tax cuts.
As you might have noticed, this was also a large topic of discussion at the Democratic National Convention last week. A good amount of their speakers said Bush only gave tax cuts to the wealthy.
Not surprisingly, the two sides are at odds over the effects of the tax cuts. Some argue the tax cuts stimulated our economy, helped us recover from 9/11, and kept this current recession from being worse. Others say these cuts are reckless and have led to our growing federal deficit.
Education is one of the most important issues for young voters in the upcoming Presidential election. And for good reason.
Education is an interesting topic because everybody agrees on the desired outcome: an educated population. The debate occurs over determining the best means to that end.
Both Republicans and Democrats are pro-education, but there is a difference. Conservatives tend to favor choice and financial freedom for parents, which lines up with the conservative principle of freedom of choice. Liberals, on the other hand, focus more on strengthening existing systems. This is why you often hear of Republicans advocating for a voucher system while Democrats argue that funding should stay in the public system.
“Back-to-School” is here. Many of us are moving into dorms, adapting to new classes, or taking the little one to Target to buy oversized pencils.
While the start of the new school year looks different for all of us, one thing is certain: we naturally think a bit more about education.
If you happen to be entering grad school or are starting a savings account for Baby Einstein’s future college bills, your initial thought about education probably has something to do with its skyrocketing price tag.
As mentioned in a previous entry, natural gas could eventually power our cars, which would be a good alternative to foreign oil. According to this New York Times article, Pelosi is investing in a company that produces natural gas for use in automobiles. While her investment is controversial (a potential conflict of interest with her role as Speaker of the House), Pelosi dismisses any such suggestion: "I'm investing in something I believe in."
Whatever you think of the ethical ramifications, Pelosi could make some serious dough with recent increases in natural gas production. America's natural gas production is rising faster than it has at any point in the past 50 years because of new technologies related to drilling. This may be good news for all Americans for two reasons.
Last time we took a look at expanding both fossil fuel production and the kinds of fossil fuels produced. While further exploration of fossil fuels is a necessary part of energy relief, the development of alternative energy technology is imperative if the U.S. is to achieve energy independence. So let’s look at what’s needed for alternative energy to catch on as well as the benefits of switching.
First, if alternative energy is to succeed, it needs to be marketed in a new light. Conservatives are a funny breed, and if the Left is all for something, that’s usually enough of a reason for them oppose it (although to be honest, liberals are the same way).
The Olympics officially kick off tonight at 8:08pm. As Olympics go, it's an historic event, and China has spared no money in making sure their “coming-out party” goes off without a hitch.
In fact, China has spent close to $40 billion building 19 new venues, doubling the capacity of their subway system, and adding a new terminal to the airport. Beyond wanting to impress the world with their infrastructural and architectural prowess, Beijing want us to see Chinese culture at its finest. Chinese officials have even gone so far as to launch etiquette campaigns forbidding spitting, smoking, littering, and cutting in lines by its citizens.
What do dictators, nuclear proliferators, and genocidal regimes all have in common? It's certainly not that they conjure up images of bunnies and daises. China has often protected these different types of countries and leaders from international pressure, reversing any progress made on human rights and humanitarian principles by Western countries.
These “problems” (i.e. Iran, North Korea, and Sudan) have grabbed the attention of many in our generation, and for good reason.
For many Chinese, the upcoming Olympic Games highlight the gap between the attractive face Beijing is trying to present to the world and the much uglier political reality of their daily lives. China's human rights record is nothing new; in fact, it's been all over the news for decades. The Beijing Olympics have shed more light on these violations, though. From San Francisco to Seoul, protests seemed to follow the Olympic torch like a shadow.
So, what's behind the global community's concerns with China's human rights record? Mainly, it comes down to two types of violations: religious persecution and political discrimination.
The term “fossil fuel” has become a dirty word when discussing energy policy. Not only are they responsible for draining our pocketbooks at the pump, they also destroy the environment and may or may not fund terrorism. Outrageous!
The unfortunate truth, however, is that for the foreseeable future our economy will continue to run on fossil fuels, primarily oil. Thus we need a short-term (fossil fuel) and long-term (green technology) energy strategy garnered toward delivering a cheap, reliable, domestically produced supply of energy.
The Relevant Elephant recently presented ideas from Mickey Edwards about how the conservative principle of restraint should apply to the United State’s foreign policy. He claimed that Americans should champion liberty and justice, not necessarily democracy.
In the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the US’s foreign policy, including the spread of democracy and the war on terror. Today, we’ll provide a summary of her defense for the war on terror – specifically in Iraq.
There is much debate on whether we should have invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Interestingly enough, the war in Iraq did not start with President Bush.
The Relevant Elephant recently presented ideas from Mickey Edwards about how the conservative principle of restraint should apply to the United States’ foreign policy. He claimed that Americans should champion liberty and justice, not necessarily democracy.
In the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the US’s foreign policy, including the spread of democracy and the war on terror. Today, we’ll provide a summary of her defense for spreading democracy.
The spread of democracy is a high calling, and a responsibility of the United States. Democratic development is not only an effective path to wealth and power for other countries; it’s also the best way to ensure that these benefits are shared justly across entire societies, without exclusion, repression, or violence. For the United States, promoting democratic development must remain a top priority.
On April 15, Barack Obama said that, as president, he would tell the Chinese government, “You guys keep on manipulating your currency, we are going to start shutting off access to some of our markets. If you are doing the right thing and not trying to manipulate your currencies to our disadvantage, then you will have access.”
This isn’t simply campaign rhetoric for Obama. Last July, he co-sponsored legislation with his former rival-turned-pal, Hillary Clinton, addressing the US trade deficit with China (the result of our importing more goods from China than we export to them).
The highly anticipated 3G iPhone arrives tomorrow. Along with its 8:00 am launch comes the further domination of American life by Steve Jobs and his Cupertino crew. Have you ever wondered where the iPhone came from? What was its little life like before you force-fed it your favorite tunes and enslaved it in service of your every communication-oriented whim?
Maybe you remember that fateful day last year. Perhaps you sat in a lawn chair for 10 hours to be one of the first to experience the incarnation of the “Jesus Phone”. You thought about your little, lonely friend sitting on the stockroom shelf, just yards away from your heart and life. Or, maybe that was just us.
