December 9, 2007

Explaining Punditry, In Two Sentences Or Less

Over at Ezra's place, one of the weekenders has an interesting piece of meta-analysis about investment advice publications. But as I was reading it, it occurred to me that it perfectly describes political media too:

...the financial press isn't in the business of supplying useful information; it’s in the business of feeding people’s lust for predictions. "You keep buying the magazine regardless of how the forecasts turn out," Wellington says, "and they’ll keep supplying the forecasts."

That just about perfectly explains why so many pundits often get it so spectacularly wrong and yet never, ever suffer any consequences for it. For the people producing the magazines and the TV shows, the predictions aren't a means to an end, they are an end in and of themselves. How things play out tomorrow is irrelevant if all you are worried about is the ratings you'll get today.

December 8, 2007

More Laffer

A shorter version of my previous post, courtesy of Greg Mankiw:

"I've never said all tax cuts pay for themselves. I never even said Reagan's tax cuts would pay for themselves."

Arthur Laffer


A President, Not a King

I've long claimed that the Bush administration's justifications for the expansion of executive power amount to a reinterpretation of the power of the presidency as monarchical. On Friday, that argument picked up an important new ally: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Whitehouse - the former Attorney General for the state of Rhode Island - along with fellow senators from the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, was granted limited access to the Justice Department's legal opinions on executive authority, and yesterday afternoon he summarized what he had learned as follows:

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

Here is how he interprets those rules:

1. “I don’t have to follow my own rules, and I don’t have to tell you when I’m breaking them.” 2. “I get to determine what my own powers are.” 3. “The Department of Justice doesn’t tell me what the law is, I tell the Department of Justice what the law is.”

There's really nothing new here, I suppose, but it is nice to see this issue getting some much needed attention from members of the Senate. Bush may not ever undo the damage he has done to the constitution, so it will be up to the Senate in 2009 to do so.

Now I Get It!

Ah... suddenly it all becomes clear. The reason that I hated Romney's religion speech is because I am a "devil worshipper." So sayeth BillO!

December 7, 2007

A "Wide Stance"

This is brilliant.

Context here.

November 20, 2007

The Kids Are Alright!

Anyone who knows me knows that I think most mass protests are worthless. But this? This is brilliant.

Embattled former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was a few minutes into his speech Monday night when the first two protesters took the stage, their heads covered and hands tied behind their backs like Abu Ghraib prisoners.

One of the young men stood silently beside Gonzales, who looked down at his notes and waited for two police officers to lead him away. Then came a young man in a military fatigue jacket, who stood directly in front of Gonzales with a sign declaring: “Habeus corpus.”

ThinkProgress has the video.

It wasn't just the two or three students getting on stage. Watch the videos and you'll see that Gonzales gets heckled throughout his speech.

Hey kids! More like this please!

November 15, 2007

I'll See You, And Raise You...

McMegan, ever the libertarian at heart:

The government can't fix society for the same reason that you can't remove your own appendix.

If true, then why not this:

The government can't fix society for the same reason that you can't remove your own appendix. But just as you can improve your own health by living more wisely, so too can government improve the health of society.

Right?

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