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Bill Buckley, the conservative writer, commentator, and founder of National Review, died yesterday at the age of 82 in the town neighboring my own. I have subsequently spent time reading more on the man and watching more of him. His prominence is owed to his unfettered defense of conservatism throughout the post-WWII era when the Left really dominated the zeitgeist and moderates, in the mold of Nelson Rockefeller, had a hold of the Republican Party. Today, American politics is centered noticeably further to the right in part because of Buckley’s promotion of figures from Barry Goldwater to Ronald Regan. And the fact that it is now hard to imagine the Nixons and Rockefellers of the world leading the GOP is a tribute to Buckley’s way with words.

In the second-ever issue of his brain-child, the National Review, he declared the magazines mission statement, which included its famous vow to “stand athwart history yelling, stop.” While this represents my own fundamental discontent with the philosophy of conservatism–for no philosophy can have merit by virtue of being the status quo–it appeals to both my romantic sense, by unequivocally promising to fight for a successful tradition, and my rational one, by standing for limited government and individualism at a time when collectivism was rising to the top of the intellectual order.

The doctrines of conservatism, which today is often cast as a three-legged stool consisting of aggressive national defense, traditional social values, and economic libertarianism, was different in many ways from what it was in 1955. Perhaps the biggest change from early Cold War conservatism, was the relative rise of the third prong, economic libertarianism, which Buckley was particularly known for. As a matter of fact, he claimed that he floated between the self-label of conservative and libertarian for some time during the latter part of his career. Additionally, he came out against the war on drugs later in life, but at the same time his reasoning was rooted in the impracticality of the fight rather than individual rights–hardly the essence of a true libertarian.

Politics aside, what remembrances seem to have concentrated on are the style of the man himself and his unmatched way with words. Watching him and hearing him and reading him, I gained a sense of an aura of refined elitism–and I mean that in only the best way–that arose from his able mind and own rebelilon against the liberal intelligentsia. His quick wit and sesquipedalian vocabulary were second to none and made his writing unmistakable.

Of all the obituaries I read today, here are the links to the five best:

from The New York Times

from Ann Coulter

from The Nation

and from the the two most Buckley-esque journalists left: Peggy Noonan and George Will

While the sources of these articles generally mix as well as water and vinegar, all of their memorials include great recollections of the man and are well done. The irony of the timing of Buckley’s death is that it coincided with the nomination of a Republican presidential candidate who is out of favor with self-proclaimed conservatives and who appeals to the center of politics, while the Democrats may be running on their most liberal platform in decades this year. The question remains: did Buckley die alongside the modern conservative movement for which he served as a fountainhead? I think that is probably overly-simplistic, but the question has been asked and is well worth asking. I anticipate that the American conservatism is still politically strong despite an unpopular president and will remain more like the party of Ronald Reagan than that of Gerald Ford in the years to come.

Popularity: 37% [?]

In front of a House committee on Wednesday Ben Bernake claimed that lagging growth is the central bank’s chief concern.

This means only one thing: that the Federal Reserve will cut rates again in the relatively near future. His claim that growth is the chief concern also indicates that climbing inflation and the falling dollar are of secondary concern. The reality of both economic slowdown and climbing prices are beginning to revive worries of impending stagflation, which could be revealing itself for the first time since the 1970s and early 80s. The dilemma for Bernake is balancing these two inverse herrings. At this point, if he is indicating that he will cut rates to bolster short-term growth he is willingly accepting more inflation and a weaker dollar.

Yet there is still another side-effect that the fed is accepting: the stifling of long-term growth. This never gets talked about much on the news or by economically illiterate congressmen, but for the simple fact that more rate cuts encourage consumption at the cost of savings, we will be capital accumulation for usage of our economic resources in the short term. Its a simple matter of distorting time prefferances.

Additionally, unanswered is how rate cuts will actually revive the economy’s real capacity to produce and grow. While easier money encourages more spending, and thus creates the image of more growth by boosting aggregate demand in the immediate, it does not actually represent a real or sustainable spike in productivity. If rate cuts did boost real output then there would be no reason for the Fed to stop at 3%, they would just keep cutting and cutting the FFR down to 1% or less, and then keep it there. But the fact is that loose banking policy does little more than increase the money supply–which is the reason we are presently seeing more inflation–not wealth, contrary to the Keynsian and Mercantalist doctrines which apparently survive still today.

Another issue rarely addressed is the possibility of reinflating any bubbles in the economy by repeated rate cuts. Recall the slowdown in ‘01/’02 and how the Fed aggressively debased interest rates all the way to one percent by 2003. One of the consequences of the absurdly low rates was that investors that went bust in the tech bubble of the late nineties were to an extent bailed out by easy money and thus a standard of incentives were set which said that ‘even if you make bad investments, you will not be made to bear the full burden of your decision-making.’ Today, we may be seeing the deja vous in the housing market.

Henry Hazlitt once said, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” Currently, I think many in the public eye are not acting as “good economists” by this measure. Even many economist have jumped on the fiscal/monetary stimulus bandwagon without enumerating all the costs and benefits of those policies. Until and unless many more Americans, economists, and policymakers start heeding Hazlitt’s advice, we should all become accustom to the patters of moderate booms and busts that we have witnessed in recent history.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Today billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City wrote an OP-ED piece in the New York Times that confirmed he will not be seeking the run for the white house this election. It does seem to suggest that perhaps the deciding factor in his bid for the white house was who received the Republican ticket.

Mayor Bloomberg may have billions of dollars to spend on an election, but unless he saw a serious void between the two parties he would have no reason to run. McCain and Obama are both candidates who will attract many independent voters (voters who Bloomberg would have depended on in his White House bid) and with McCain only several dozen delegates away from the Republican nomination it seems clear that at least one of the political parties will be offering a candidate who will bridge the bipartisan divide and evolve from “traditional party orthodoxy,” as Bloomberg said in his article.

The most telling quote from Bloomberg’s piece in the New York Times suggests that if Obama gets the nomination from the Democratic Party, that both he and McCain will have to fight for his endorsement. “If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.”

Obama’s rhetoric promises to unite America and the two parties; McCain has been an affectionate son of America’s independent voters for 8 years and his record in the Senate is one of fierce independent (and perhaps maverick) behavior. For the first time in American presidential politics the independent votes may be seriously contested by both Republican and Democratic candidates.

If the race shapes up to be close, Bloomberg’s endorsement is one that could be vital to a victory in New York-a victory that both candidates will be tirelessly seeking.

Here is an excerpt from the piece, follow the link or pick up the February 28th NYT to read the article-
______________

WATCHING the 2008 presidential campaign, you sometimes get the feeling that the candidates — smart, all of them — must know better. They must know we can’t fix our economy and create jobs by isolating America from global trade. They must know that we can’t fix our immigration problems with border security alone. They must know that we can’t fix our schools without holding teachers, principals and parents accountable for results. They must know that fighting global warming is not a costless challenge. And they must know that we can’t keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals unless we crack down on the black market for them.

The vast majority of Americans know that all of this is true, but — politics being what it is — the candidates seem afraid to level with them.

______________

Popularity: 29% [?]

The candidate who manages the economy least.

At least that is the theme of John Stossel’s newest article, which hits the proverbial nail on the head. So often the question regarding the economy in presidential elections is who will best “manage” it. But that question, especially the term “manage” really implies that inevitably the president will be exerting a great deal of control over the economy, and the issue is relates more to how the president will then allocate spending and taxation and regulation–how he or she will “man the controls.”

But in reality, the question should be more open-ended and have more choices. Rather than ask, how the president will manage the economy, we should first ask, will the president manage the economy, and if so, how much.

By addressing the basic issues of government’s place in the economy, which voters systematically ignore in favor of the same amount of executive control year after year, Stossel is able to put into perspective the economic nonsense that Congress or the president is directly responsible for growth.

He writes:

Sen. Hillary Clinton told The New York Times recently, “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market. … You try to find common ground, insofar as possible. But if you really believe you have to manage the economy, you have to stake a lot of your presidency on it.”

Notice that she equates government power and market power. That is absurd. “Power” in a free market means success at creating goods and services that your fellow human beings voluntarily choose to buy. Government power is force: the ability to fine and imprison people.

Politicians who talk about managing the economy ignore the fact that, strictly speaking, there is no economy. There are only people producing, buying and selling goods and services. Keep that in mind, and one realizes that government action more often than not interferes with the productive activities that benefit everyone. When politicians propose regulations to fix some problem, they should ask if some earlier intervention created the problem and if the new regulations will make things worse. The answer to both questions is usually yes.

The economy is far too complex for any president — no matter how smart — to manage. How can politicians and bureaucrats possibly know what hundreds of millions of individuals know, want and aspire to? How can government employees fathom what trade-offs to make in a world of scarce resources?

They can’t. That’s why free people are more prosperous than unfree people.

Presidential candidates should promise to keep their hands off the economy.

Popularity: 30% [?]

While defeated GOP candidates, such as Giuliani, Romney, and Tancredo,  have been perfectly willing to endorse another candidate following their withdrawal, deposed Democrats have in no notable way gone out on a limb to endorse. Still much speculation remains as to who an Edwards or Richardson (or Biden or Dodd) might support, if they chose to do so at all. The two are in constant contact with both campaigns, and whereas Edwards managed a far larger portion of voters, the qualified Richardson appears to be an especially hot commodity of late.

Listening to the New Mexico Governor on Wolf Blitzer a few days ago, the hispanic pol said, not only that he was “genuinely torn” between Hillary and Barack, but also that he expects to make an endorsement some time in the next week. Moreover, Richardson may become even more important with the upcoming March 4th primaries ,which include Texas, where about one in every two Democratic voters may be hispanic.

Here is a very illuminating story from the NYT on Richardson and each campaigns’ effort to earn his endorsement:

Barack Obama calls every three days or so. He called on Friday of last week, but Mr. Richardson was tied up with the Legislature, so he tried again on Monday and left a message on voice mail (“following up from Friday”) before finally connecting with his defeated presidential rival late Tuesday, and then again two days later.

Mr. Richardson took a half-hour call from Bill Clinton on Tuesday and received about 10 others — a typical day — from people calling “on behalf of Hillary”: former cabinet secretaries, mutual friends, elected officials. “Heavyweight types,” Mr. Richardson calls them.

“Barack is very precise,” the governor observed, sitting in his office at the New Mexico Capitol. The Obama campaign rarely pesters him with surrogates. Mr. Obama’s approach is like “a surgical bomb,” he said, while “the Clintons are more like a carpet bomb.”

While Richardson is notable for his ties to Bill Clinton and his administration (both as Energy Secretary and Ambassador to the UN), he does not seem to have developed as much of a liking for Hillary as he has for, not only her husband, but Barack Obama as well.

But, just as with John Edwards, it is very possible that we are beating a dead horse, and that all of the major ex-candidates remain neutral as the race is neck and neck.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Contrary to his 2004 bid, where he ran independently, “consumer advocate” and Democratic ball-buster Ralph Nader announced his candidacy president today.

Of course, for Democrats with a Nader complex this is an ominous prospect in for the upcoming election. But lest liberals worry too much, the truth is that this news really doesnt matter, and I am quite surprised that the announcement has garnered as much attention as it has this Sunday.

While Nader certainly had an effect in 2000, garnering 2.7% of the vote, after much ado was made of the roll he played, he only managed .3% in 2004–virtually identical to the Libertarian candidate in the same election. Nader has over-stayed his welcome in the mind of liberals, and along with the enthusiasm of Democrats in this election, there should be no reason to think that he will affect the results in November. Don’t believe me? Take Nader at his word:

The consumer champion, who will turn 74 this week, rejected suggestions that he would damage the prospects of the Democratic candidate. “If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form,” he said.

Lastly, while Nader compiles little in the vote column, he never ceases to raise that age old question of whether to vote for the candidate who you are most closely alined with even if they dont have a chance, or vote for the least of evils among those who do have a shot at victory.

My own answer is typically somewhere in between. Not only does it depend on how much publicity the candidate can get–and ultimately how they can affect the discussion and undertone of the American political landscape–but also how close the candidate is to my views. As is, I may be closer on most issues to the Libertarian Party, but not only are they not close enough to my political philosophy but they have a negligible effect on America’s zeitgeist. To the contrary, my many reservations aside, I chose to support Ron Paul for the GOP nomination this year because he had a big enough forum to influence how voters–at least a notable fraction of them–think.

With all the money he raised, he hopefully was able to move the GOP a little further towards a platform of limited government than they were before. It may sound modest, but by focusing on the political discussion rather than number of votes, one can look towards affecting who is elected not just immediately, but also in the long run.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Since the negative article was published on the front page of the Wednesday Times, the backlash has been overwhelming against the story. An article from today’s Daily News covered not only the backlash but also the response of the Time’s executive editor.  It sounds a lot like he is blaming readers too:

The embattled executive editor of the New York Times defended its John McCain story Friday with a novel explanation for the flood of critical e-mails the newspaper received: slow-witted readers.

“Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction,” Bill Keller wrote in a Times Web site Q&A forum. Readers posted 2,000 comments and sent in 3,700 questions.

“I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot,” Keller added.

The problem, Keller went on, is that readers didn’t get it. “Frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story.”

That point, he said, was that McCain, “this man who prizes his honor above all things and who appreciates the importance of appearances, also has a history of being sometimes careless about the appearance of impropriety, about his reputation.”

Not only is the paper’s top editor arrogant in his defense, he does not actually address the substantive grievances raised about the story first among those being why the article featured a completely unsubstantiated implication of sexual impropriety with a lobbyist.

The rest of the story did little more than summarize past questions about potential conflicts of interest between McCain and certain lobbied interests on no more than a few occasions. It did not break any story younger than the eight-year-old story of the female lobbyist and went all the way back to the Keating Five controversy back in the late ’80s.

The common denominator among the few of these stories is that not one iota of malfeasance has ever been brought to light in the decades they have been known to the public. The Times’ front page article did not change that–at all. And its nothing more than arrogance and wishful thinking on the part of Keller and the Grey Lady to suppose that fault over the matter lies, not with the editorializing of news, but with the readers.

At the end of the day, however, this story may be a blessing in disguise for McCain who has trouble exciting conservative Republicans. But if the “liberal media” has it out for the presumptive nominee then he must not be so bad (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). For instance, conservative talk show hosts, who have spent the past month or so discrediting McCain’s ideological credentials, have rallied around him on this issue as have donors. Essentially, the Times story gave conservatives something to get excited about. And whereas funding for Republicans had been hard to come by of late, this controversy has been the fountainhead of new donations:

 Team McCain has parlayed The New York Times anonymous-source hit on the GOP front-runner into a cash bonanza.

A campaign fund-raising letter ripping the “particularly disgusting” Times story and pleading with contributors to fight back “was the most successful to date,” a top McCain aide said Friday.

The aide gave no numbers, but the McCain campaign reported raising $11.7 million last month - topping the $6.8 million he collected in the previous three months combined.

The Republican National Committee sought to piggyback on McCain’s success with a similar fund-raising letter of “outrage” at The Times. That prompted a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser defending The Times.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Yesterday, the New York Times broke an eight year old story announcing the possibility that McCain had an extramarital affair with a much younger DC lobbyist. The story cited former McCain aids who grew suspicious of the Senator for appearing more than usual with the woman thirty years his junior back around the time he was first running for president . Of course, the Times had no evidence of the impropriety but chose to feature the aspersion in the first paragraphs of an article entirely criticizing McCain for his involvement with wealthy and influential donors.

The thing is that some of the story may actually be relevant–regarding the “maverick” of a Senator, who is known for his battles on campaign finance and ethics reform, who may have gotten a little to cozy with some wealthy patrons–but the Times chose to relegate that story while featuring the aspersion of an allegation of McCain maybe having a crush.

Now, here is valid criticism from Megan McArdle:

McCain is not a classical liberal; he’s the product of an intensely hierarchical honor culture that he seems to think would substantially improve the rest of us if we adopted more of its values. I have no shortage of respect for the military, and their willingness to place their own lives between the rest of us and war’s desolation. But that doesn’t mean I think America would be a better place if we had a more martial state. His record bespeaks little respect for spontaneous order and individual freedom. What free-market instincts he evinces seem to have come as part of the conservative ideas combo-pack he bought because it was cheaper than buying the parts individually–all he really wanted was the national greatness and the moderately conservative social structure.

This is the most accurate description of McCain I have ever read and it goes to the heart of why I am not too fond of him. But, at the same time, I foresee myself voting for him because he is effectively less harmful to the economy and the country as a whole (”100 years in Iraq” not quite withstanding). On the other hand, Barack Obama is the image of a more rational, intelligent, thinking man’s president on the surface (juxtaposed with McCain’s traditional-patriotic image), but underneath it he will rule with a more heavy hand over the economy. My constant inclination is to vote for the political substance under the facade which is why I lean towards McCain. I don’t think there is much evidence to say that if America votes for what they perceive as a thinking man’s politician over a military-traditionalist one that it will in the long term lead to enough positive, free market reforms to necessarily outweigh Obama’s anti-market plans.

Hence, I disagree with the libertarian blogger’s assessment and endorsement of Obama, and choose to stick by McCain, who as of now appears to be the least-worst choice.

UPDATE: McCain responded to the allegations of the Times in a press conference this morning. The full video thereof can be accessed by clicking the link below:

Lire le reste de cet article »

Popularity: 36% [?]

In pretty big international news, Fidel Casto has announced the he does not plan to seek another five year term as President of Cuba.  The Christian Science Monitor has more.

“I will not aspire to nor accept – I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept – the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,” read a letter that appeared early Tuesday morning in the Community Party daily Granma.

Popularity: 21% [?]

From Obama’s website:

Obama will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. He will help the world’s weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.

Of course we are also used to hearing the clamoring of a myriad of inconsequential celebrities for more funding for the third world. And its not only liberals like Obama who trump up foreign aid. Remember that President Bush pledged $30 billion more in AIDS funding for Africa in the coming year.

Normally the foreign aid debate is casted as those altruists who care about the prosperity of the third world against the thrifty, America-centric who rather the money be kept at home. That’s conventional wisdom, but perhaps conventional wisdom is not always correct. At least in this case it appears not to be, as the same foreign aid that Obama proposes doubling has historically done little good to jump start the economies of the world’s poor.

From Michael Beran, regarding foreign aid to Africa and also addressing the Millennium Project that Obama endorsed:

From Walt Rostow and John F. Kennedy in 1960 to Sachs and Tony Blair today, the message, [NYU economist William] Easterly says, has been the same: “Give more aid.” Assistance to Africa, he notes, “did indeed rise steadily throughout this period (tripling as a percent of African GDP from the 1970s to the 1990s),” yet African growth “remained stuck at zero percent per capita.”

All told, the West has given some $568 billion in foreign aid to Africa over the last four decades, with little to show for it. Between 1990 and 2001, the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa below what the UN calls the “extreme poverty line”—that is, living on less than $1 a day—increased from 227 million to 313 million, while their inflation-adjusted average daily income actually fell, from 62 cents to 60. At the same time, nearly half the continent’s population—46 percent—languishes in what the UN defines as ordinary poverty.

Yet notwithstanding this record of failure, the prosperous nations’ heads of state have sanctioned Sachs’s plan to throw more money at Africa’s woes. In July 2005, G-8 leaders meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, endorsed Sachs’s Millennium thesis and promised to double their annual foreign aid from $25 billion to $50 billion, with at least half the money earmarked for Africa. This increased spending, the Gleneagles principals proclaimed, will “lift tens of millions of people out of poverty every year.” No doubt, too, Africans will soon be extracting sunbeams from cucumbers.

Once again, the notion that charity would actually hurt Africans in the long run is unconventional, but it is nonetheless all given evidence supports it. But if we dig deeper down and logically examine the incentives that the foreign aid creates we have no trouble rectifying theory and reality. This is what I wrote in a newspaper editorial (October issue, page two) on the subject back in the fall:

Charity demonstrates bad causation to Africans. In a simple economic sense it says: we will give you money because you are poor. At the same time organizations, like the Heifer Club, may say that they only will continue to supply funds for the needy if they show good behavior or meet some set of standards. To be sure, that is a more intelligent approach, but at the same time it does not eliminate the primary incentive which says, ‘we will give you money because you are poor.’ Hence the result is a confused myriad of incentives which occasionally set good standards on one hand, but always require minimal productivity on the other.

Let me also add, as I did later in the column, that aid only temporarily bolster the status quo, making the current regimes more acceptable, and does nothing to fix society’s foundational ethic and establish rule of law and defend property rights.

Popularity: 29% [?]