Quips: Quick commentary on politics, technology and life, I think.

Thursday, May 22

Economics of varying stripes

Yes, these are a bit old, but I still like them. Thank you, MeFi.

• DoD accounting 101: "Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units." ... "We are overhauling our financial management system precisely because people like David Walker are rightly critical of it," said Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's chief financial officer, in a San Francisco Chronicle story. (The proposed solution: "The department is asking Congress to allow Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to replace the civil service system governing 700,000 nonmilitary employees with a new system to be detailed later." So, scrap what we've got and, trust us, we'll come up with something better.)
• Free trade's tide might not lift all boats: "The evidence shows that the benefits that would flow from increased international trade will not materialise if markets are simply left alone. When this happens, liberalisation is used by the rich and powerful international players to make quick gains from short-term investments. ... The way forward is through a regime of managed trade in which markets are slowly opened up and trade policy levers like subsidies and tariffs are used to help achieve development goals." — so writes Stephen Byers, a British MP who had been trade secretary.
• How much stimulus can one economy take: "We have never had a recession where we have put so much stimulus back into the economy," said C. Eugene Steuerle, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration and now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, as quoted in a Washington Post story. Steuerle calculated that the previous Bush tax cut, increases in federal spending and reduced tax payments due to the downturn have already pumped $600 billion into the U.S. economy. Amount drained out during the current slump: $300 billion to $550 billion.

Posted by jb, 10:53 AM :: :: #

Sunday, May 18

Winning makes you right?

• Even if it turns out you might be wrong: "Our constituents like a victory, and at this point it's a victory. ... In the beginning, our constituents were saying, 'They better find weapons of mass destruction.' With it over so quickly, we are not hearing that refrain." — Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.), quoted in a Washington Post story that notes the percentage of Americans believing the war in Iraq was justified even if banned weapons weren't found grew by 20 points during the fighting.
• I love Molly Ivins: "They are, at long last, the perfect unpoliticians -- they don't compromise, they don't deal, they don't look for the middle way, they don't give a damn about accommodating anybody else. Because they believe they're right. And they won't go out for a beer after work. They think it's them against evil. And everybody who ain't them is evil. These are Shiite Republicans."
• Apparently, it doesn't matter where you're going if you like the person in charge of the route: From an AP story — Recent polls show that 65 percent to 70 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, and slightly more say he has strong qualities of leadership. Bush and his political team believe the leadership trait will trump any concerns voters have about the president's policies
• And, slightly unrelated, anything in the name of safety: "18 men named David Nelson, all residents of Oregon, confirmed they have been repeatedly delayed at airport counters and security checkpoints in the last year or so."

Posted by jb, 5:10 PM :: :: #

Thursday, May 15

As long as I get mine

or, just because we don't understand it, doesn't mean we won't support it

Millions of Americans apparently are in favor of various Republican plans to cut taxes. A Washington Post report notes a couple of things:

• The most recent poll on the topic shows slightly over half think tax cuts are "a good idea", up 10 points from two weeks ago.
• Bush's original proposal — $726 billion over 10 years, including trying to stimulate employer activity by cutting investor taxes, not company taxes — would give households earning $40,000 to $50,000 about $482. Households earning more than $1 million would get a cut averaging $89,500.
• The House scaled it down to $550 billion. (You would think a blow had been struck for sanity. You would be wrong.) While the $40,000 to $50,000 crowd would get less tax relief ($452), the million-earners now get a cut of $93,537. (Yes, a tax cut equal to what two middle-income families earn in an entire year. Of course, all of the millionaires will use that cut to hire two more people. Or buy a boat.)

If any of these middle-income types are voting Republican and paying attention to their pocketbook, the logic apparently goes something like, "As long as I get a check, I don't care how much anybody else gets."
  Yo. There's a big picture over here somewhere...

Posted by jb, 10:21 AM :: :: #

Friday, May 9

Suburban money fuels city drug problem

Detroit, like most big cities, has become the center for sin and vice for the suburbs. It's part of the hypocrisy and one of the major points of dishonesty in American culture.
— Carl Taylor, a Michigan State University criminologist, quoted in a Detroit Free Press story about how three of every five people charged with simple drug possession in the city live in the suburbs.

I suppose you could counter that most people live in the suburbs, too. But this should counter the idea that an inner city is where all the problems are. Seems an infusion of cash from the outside can be behind some of those problems.

Posted by jb, 10:23 AM :: :: #

Thursday, May 8

Hints from a travel writer

Gerry Volgenau is retiring from the Free Press. In his farewell column, he offers several good hints for anyone who wants to see the world:

• If you do not want to look like an American overseas, do not wear a baseball cap, do not wear white running shoes and lose weight.
• Flying is all about reading. To be airborne without a book is equivalent to being drenched in honey and staked out on an anthill. If you don't read, drive.
• Ever since I was in the Peace Corps in the mid-1960s, I travel with a sense that I am a representative of my country. And I must act that way, always.
• Marcel Proust captured the idea: "The real voyage of discovery is not in discovering new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

Posted by jb, 10:34 AM :: :: #

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