If soon to be former Alaska governor Sarah Palin intends to run for president in 2012, she has set a dangerous precedent by resigning from her current position. It requires only a cursory flip through the history books to reveal that resigning from an elected position, without doing so to take another one, does not bode well electorally. There are many circuitous routes to the presidency, but very few appear to include resignation. One has to travel all the way back to our 14th Commander in Chief, Franklin Pierce, who resigned from the Senate to practice law, to find a president who resigned the elected office held immediately prior to assuming the White House, hardly an example to follow.
Losing races, on the other hand, seems to be a right of passage for future presidents. One has to travel back to Gerald Ford to find a president who never lost a race prior to assuming the office. The last three presidents lost races for Congress, and the three prior to that all lost races for national office (Carter had Vice-President aspirations in 1972) before winning. Losing races appears to be not the mark of a doomed candidate, but the mark of one with extreme ambitions. The public views going down in a fight much more favorably than it does quitting.
When Sarah Palin announced her resignation, to take place at the end of this month, she insisted that she didn’t need a ‘title’ to make a difference and help people. While this is certainly true, it may be that you cannot make a difference from the White House if a certain title – Quitter – is next to your name.
I’m really actually taken aback by Bing’s shameless “verbing” of their own name (for those not in the know, Bing is Microsoft’s attempt to take down the market supremacy of Google). I feel as if the right of the public to bestow. Even the term which means to turn a noun into a verb, “verbed” in its construction indicates that an outside party must bestow the condition upon the object. Bing can’t “verbed” itself.
The way I remember it, Google didn’t merely start saying that we should “Google” something. Nor did they take part in shameless advertising. They were verbed by the public who so commonly used them because they simply provided the best product. After all, who ever gets on the Internet to “Yahoo” something. It’s like Kleenex and tissues, or Southerners and “Coke.” For myself, being “Binged” would remind me more of Matthew Perry’s friend’s character, Chandler Bing, than anything. “Binged” then referring to being assaulted by off-kilter neurotic sitcom jokes. No, no Microsoft, I will not submit to the purpose of your not-so-subtle cultural engineering!
Via Climate Progress:
China likely to reject bid for Hummer
The Chinese government will likely reject the bid of a local company to acquire the Hummer division of General Motors, partially out of concern that the infamous gas-guzzler conflicts with the country’s environmental goals, China’s state radio reported.
That’s right, the government which is more or less resigned to the fact that their own citizens may drop dead of suffocation from time to time because of air pollution problems, has rejected the hummer because it’s environmental unfriendly.
This after 8 years of debate about whether or not we should regulate tailpipe emissions from these babies, the other side debating that the right to drive a gas-guzzling aberration against nature was a matter of “freedom of choice.” Freedom to breathe, freedom to enjoy a healthful environment apparently never considered.
Mark Thoma and James Kwak both cite this study, which poses a major ethical dilemma for the healthcare community; in this country, we spend $440 billion a year extending the life of terminal cancer patients. That’s no small expense, the cost of which is no doubt driving up health insurance costs and therefor degrading the overall standard of living (vis-a-vis lowered free spending due to hiked healthcare costs) for the country as a whole. The study recommends that for prolonged survival only expected to be at two months or less, that treatment should only be provided at a cost up to $20,000.
Thoma is resolved not to provide a definite answer; neither is Kwak, merely forwarding an observation:
The observation is that our political and legal systems already put price tags on life routinely. If you die on the job, the workers’ compensation system calculates how much your life was worth; if you are killed as a result of someone else’s negligence, the tort system does the same. In either case, the calculation is primarily based on your expected earnings for the rest of the life; in other words, young high-earners are worth more than old poor people. And for virtually everyone, the number you end up with is much less than the value implied by the cancer treatment discussed in the paper Thoma cites.
I’m no fan of that system. I’m just surprised that as a society we can be so brutal and inegalitarian in one sphere and so touchy in another (health care, where the thought that any life-extending treatment might be too expensive is probably considered morally abhorrent by most people).
I’m not so canny as either one of them as to not wade deeper into the issue. However, I will say that the following is intended to be hypothetical, and provoke discussion over a contentious issue.
I’m neither an economist or a bioethicist, so I don’t have much to say about this matter specifically, but isn’t this a good topic to resume the debate over assisted suicide? It seems more ethically responsible to me that instead of mandating who dies when, that we just leave the option open that those who are terminal and wish to die may do so. It would recoup some of the costs, possibly save some people some agony, and leave others out of the tough position of having to make life-ending calls.
During the Bush administration, health and medical practices were “pre-empted” by federal law, essentially instituting a nationwide ban on the practice of assisted suicide. Obama has recently repealed that pre-emption rule. Washington and Oregon now offer doctor-assisted suicide, however, 34 states specifically criminalize the act, 9 prosecute it according to common law, 3 have left it in a legal gray zone, and in two states, court cases have confused its status. All of the states, in a quite contradictary fashion, have kept legal the right to refuse treatment, which is just suicide by other means.
It would seem to me that cracking these states would be the key to reform. States currently cover part of the cost of Medicaid, which pays for some parts of terminal cancer treatment. Considering most states budgetary difficulties for the moment, and the long-term effects on the deficit that Medicaid and Medicare are projected to cause means that the option should be left on the table.
BBC:
Russia’s energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria’s state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture.
The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.
Sullivan mimes Manzi, in a report that Manzi and I have already tangled over, wherein Manzi cites the work of Chip Knappenberger, who works for and blogs with some well-known climate change skeptics.
By Manzi’s estimate: “If the law works precisely as intended, in about one hundred years we should expect surface temperatures to be a about one-tenth of one degree Celsius lower than they otherwise would be.” Small benefit; trivial cost. And that’s the problem.
If you really think that citing a climate-change skeptic’s work on climate change without mention the man’s a skeptic is intellectually honesty, well then I suppose you’re allowed your opinions. As far as Sullivan goes I doubt he knows better.
I’m not aware of any studies of the effects on climate-change Waxman-Markey will have in its final form. However, the CBO did do an an analysis of what the effects of a bill like Waxman-Markey might be, and as you can see, it’s a hell of a lot more than 9/100th of a percent.
I like Ezra Klein, but this might be, by far, the worst idea of his that I’ve had the chance to read:
Is it Time to Get Rid of the Agricultural Committees?
We don’t have a House Committee on Dollar Stores. Nor does the Senate have a committee exclusively for People Who Write Poems. There’s no Producers of Consumer Electronics Committee, or Senate Select Committee on People Who Sell Thomas Kinkaid Paintings.
The only industry that gets a committee — and, indeed, an executive branch agency — all to itself is the agricultural industry. There was a time in American history when that made some sense. In 1862, the year Abraham Lincoln founded the Department of Agriculture, farm products made up 82 percent of American exports. The agricultural industry was one of the country’s most important employers. And in an age of wars, famines, and general instability, there was a direct government interest in keeping an eye on food producers.
But that went the way of powdered wigs and, well, sharecropping. In 2007, agricultural products weren’t one of our Top 12 exports (and, interestingly, the top 12 exports combined only amounted to 38 percent of total U.S. exports; a far cry from the 82 percent that agriculture once controlled). Nor was agriculture one of our top 10 employers.
Agriculture definitely has a decreased role in our society, and the Senate and House committees definitely do end up being the playground of special interests. However, Ezra’s argument that the size of the industry’s role in our export commodities is a flawed one. Nearly every government in the world has some kind of agriculture committee despite the reduction of agriculture’s impact on the economy being a worldwide phenomenon. That’s generally because there is a universal recognition that there should be some control over the food supply. Second of all, even though agriculture has an overall small role to play in the economy, it has a very large role to play with the rural populace. The Agriculture committee does much more than simply represent agricultural interests, so much as it’s come to represent rural interests at a time when democratically elected representatives are elected by mostly urban populations. Also, as far as committee’s go, Veterans Affairs and Natural Resources also have a small role to play in the economy export wise – should they be slated for elimination?
The final problem with Ezra’s comment is the idea that there is something wrong with the Agriculture Committee and not our committee structure altogether. It’s not as if banking special interests don’t reek havoc in Financial Services, defense contractors in Armed Forces, minerals interests in natural resources committees, etc… etc… Special interests generally have to great a role in policy making, which isn’t precisely news.
What I think bothers progressives like Ezra and myself is that as the Ag. committees have grown to be a voice for rural interests, those committees have grown to be lopsidedly conservative in compared to the make-up of the chamber. They tend to be populated by Republicans and Blue Dogs. Even though Democrats have a three seat advantage in the Senate Ag. committee, you have Ben Nelson, Max Baucus and Kent Conrad, all very centrist Senators. This makes the passing of any progressive legislation through that committee, well, damn near impossible.
However that’s still not an argument for why we should get rid of the Ag. committee, merely an argument for why we should change how it works.
-Marc-
No real feelings about Michael Jackson’s death, but you know, how often do you get to post Thriller?
Jim Manzi puts out his last ditch arguments against Waxman-Markey. It’s one of the worst faux economics propaganda puff pieces to have come out for a while. I’ve provided counterarguments to his analysis, feel free to use them freely in the slapping down of the idiotic echo chamber drones. I provide this for the benefit of the public interest.
1. It would be a terrible deal for American taxpayers. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it is projected to impose annual costs of about $1,100 per household (a little less than 1% of total consumption) by 2050. The benefits we will get in return? If the law works precisely as intended, in about one hundred years we should expect surface temperatures to be a about one-tenth of one degree Celsius lower than they otherwise would be. The expected costs are at least ten times the expected benefits, even using the EPA’s cost estimates and assuming achievement of the primary goal of the legislation.
I have an immediate suspicion of anyone who cites a study without providing the specific name of that study, or provides a link. That said, EPA’s most recent analysis of ACES, here, puts the costs at $80-111. So quite frankly, I don’t know what the hell Jim Manzi is talking about. The only thing I can assume is that he’s mistaking the cost per household for the consumption loss per household, which is right around $1100. The two things are not even close to being the same thing.
2. The argument that “OK, it’s a terrible deal standalone, but we need to lead the world by example” is extremely unconvincing. First, while you are probably not a climate science expert, I bet you’ve negotiated a few things in your life. What do you think about the negotiating strategy of unilaterally giving away our most obvious leverage – namely “we’ll reduce our emissions if you reduce yours” – and instead hoping that those nice men who rule China will be guilted into sacrificing their perceived economic self-interest if we just go first? Second and more fundamentally, as per many detailed analyses, the global deal that we would theoretically be chasing isn’t even attractive, even if we assume every technical climate change prediction by the UN IPCC is correct.
Who the hell is saying this? I’ve heard quite a few people say we need to do this because it’s a good deal for the environment and we need to do this so we can lead the world by example, but I’ve not heard a single person argue what Manzi says they have. Beating up on non-existent strawmen is a favorite past time of people who want to defeat ideas but can’t find a way to defeat the idea’s proponents.
3. Contrary to early expectations that auctioning cap-and-trade permits would generate $80 billion per year of government revenue, this law would not contribute materially to deficit reduction. You’ve seen the internal negotiations up close. Because so many allowances have been given away to special interests to try to get the votes needed to pass ACES, the CBO now estimates that it will bring in a net of a little over $2 billion per year over the next decade. As you know, this is about one one-thousandth of this year’s budget deficit.
True, but it’s certainly not adding to the deficit. Actually, of all the legislation that’s been passed recently, I think this is the only bill which doesn’t add to the deficit, so how exactly does this “damage the public interest?”
4. A further effect of all of these deals (which are entirely predictable in a democracy) is that ACES is very unlikely to achieve even the limited benefits that are claimed for it. The details of the bill mean that there is now not a hard cap on emissions for at least the first decade of its existence. What do you think the odds are that this will change at some undetermined point in the far future when all of the normal interest group pressures of a democracy are supposed to magically disappear?
I think myself and most of the environmental world would agree with Manzi here, we should toughen the caps. Isn’t that what he’s arguing? This bill still has to go through the Senate and then the House/Senate process of compromises, I’m sure their is still plenty of time to do so.
5. In short, Waxman-Markey would impose costs at least 10 times as large as its benefits, would not reduce the deficit, and doesn’t even really cap emissions.
Without providing a single solitary shred of evidence, Manzi comes to his conclusion. Clap, clap, clap. So, is this economic analysis? No. Republican propaganda? Most definitely, as it was crossposted at The Corner.
-Marc-
