meditations

The March of Folly

Brad DeLong has an excellent post (with some fairly good follow-up commentary) about the weak labor market and its relation to the administration's severely misguided fiscal policies. I couldn't say it any more clearly than Brad, "...the effect of the 2003 (and 2001) Bush tax cuts was to enlarge the budget deficit in a relatively un-job creating way. It is as if they were designed to reduce national savings as much as possible in the long run while providing little short-run boost to demand."

As an added bonus, Brad works in some well-deserved criticism of the blinders worn by far too many "experts" in the mainstream press who checked their brains at the door when Bush was nominated (in this case Robert Samuelson).

I have a couple quick observations to add to Brad's thoughts: It's not like this should be a complete surprise. A wide range of sensible and respected economists predicted, back in the early days of the 2000 presidential campaign, that Bush's proposed tax cuts would have just this effect. At the time, before the recession and sharp drop in the job market, the arguments centered primarily about the wisdom of what to do with the surplus, and the relative fairness of giving so large a proportion of the cuts to the wealthy --- leave it to the Democrats, they seldom miss a chance to substitute brain-dead populism for clear policy --- but now that we're in an extended jobless recovery (Brad estimates we're 4 million jobs behind where we could be with sensible fiscal policies) why isn't the press (and the public at large) all over these guys for it?

The standard "talking point" given by the administration is that "but for the president's policies, the job market would be even worse" which is (a) completely hypothetical and (b) even if you accept it means we are arguing over whether Bush is the absolute worse or just the second worst president for job creation in the last 100 years. Don't we expect better?

What I Like to Read

For me, as for so many other people in this country, the events of 9/11 were an unexpected shock, and their aftermath has brought enormous personal change. I was fortunate enough not to lose any relatives or close friends in the tragedy, but know far too many who did, and my heart goes out to them, and to the thousands of others who suffered such quick and terrible losses that day.

Since then, I've made a conscious effort to live a more informed life, and to cherish the freedoms and good fortune which I, and most Americans, had too often taken for granted.

Trying to become a better "citizen of the world," I am working my way through an extensive reading list, including most of Bernard Lewis' books, various histories of Islam and the Middle East, and several volumes on military history. To understand the current role of the US and the challenges we face I read books such as Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers." In the lead up to the Iraq war I read Tuchman's sublime "The Guns of August" and Fromkin's equally good (and more readable) "A Peace to End All Peace." In time I'll offer assessments of these and other books (and am always open to suggestions for what to read next).

But what has really proven educational is regular consumption of the blogosphere. For what it's worth, I was one of the early pioneers of the internet/web --- and no, I don't remember Al Gore being involved much --- and I think that the weblog is, thus far, the truest incarnation of Tim Berners-Lee's original vision: an open marketplace of ideas so nimble, so widespread, and so open that the quality of thought is the only real currency. It's hard to say whether the mainstream media has become passe, or just cowed by a disciplined and heavy-handed administration, but either way, if you want to learn about current affairs, the blogosphere is the place to be.

Here, in no particular order, is a short list of the blogs I try to skim at least daily, mainly centered on foreign affairs, economic policy, and a certain amount of domestic politics. I'll frequently link to stories on one or more of these sites, along with my own commentary. As with my (physical) reading list, I'm always looking for suggestions on good blogs to follow, and make a conscious effort to read a wide range

Talking Points Memo: I'll start with the best! To me Josh Marshall is the master of the game nowadays, respected on both the right and the left, and better described as a "real time on-line journalist" than a blogger. As befits a historian, his posts are almost always well researched and impeccably written.

Brad DeLong's Web Journal: Brad is a Professor of Economics at Berkeley, and he consistently has the best economic commentary to be found on-line. He's also quite a comic stylist, and I'd read his blog every day just to catch the occasional faux Socratic dialogue.

Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Dish: One of the acknowledged masters of the trade. His posts are cryptic, sharp, almost cutting, but on TV he seems different from his written persona: warm, thoughtful, balanced... thus, of all the bloggers I read, Andrew is the one I would most like to meet in person.

Calpundit: I began reading Kevin Drum's excellent work during his well-researched analysis of GWB's national guard service discrepancies.

Daniel Drezner: This eponymous web site by a University of Chicago PoliSci professor focuses on foreign policy, current affairs, and on more than one occasion, beautiful women wearing skimpy swimsuits.

Kausfiles: Long brought to us by Slate, Mickey's daily musings always give me a laugh and more often than not leave me thinking hard about an issue or two. He does such a good job of covering the blogosphere you could almost treat his column as a "blog portal."

Other excellent blogs sampled less regularly:

The Whiskey Bar: An aptly named "hangout" for leisurely and well informed posts by a former journalist with a bent for history, politics, economics, and populism.

Instapundit: Law Professor Glenn Reynolds' musings can be found here, as well as at GlennReynolds.com. I used to read this regularly, but suspect Glenn is pulled in too many directions at the moment. The price of success.

Patrick Ruffini: Want to meet someone for whom being a Republican is a divine experience? Patrick fills the bill and makes it fun, if occasionally over the top. Welcome to "red state" America!

The Belgravia Dispatch: Excellent, thoughtful, blog focusing on Foreign Affairs, and with a non-US slant, by Greg Djerejian in London.

Opening Night

Just a short note to get things started.

For several months now, more like a year actually, I've been considering starting a blog, both as a formal way to capture my daily thoughts (and sharing them with others) and as a way of taking a stand on some of the important issues facing the world today. I truly believe that we in the US are at, or are rapidly approaching, a critical point in our history. It's not just the political choices we soon will make or the ongoing problems of the "War on Terror". It's the short-sighted fiscal policies our nation is pursuing, both at the national and local level; the continual coarsening of our culture; our decreased standing in the world; the depersonalizing nature of our ever greater focus on materialism and technology for its own sake; the lowest common denominator of our educational systems (and mainstream media), and the rampant anti-intellectualism that pervades our society threatens to dim our future.

Empires have fallen over less, and if we want to leave the next generation a better nation than the one we live in we need to speak out, to take stands, and to ask a little more of ourselves. My writing a blog is but an easy first step, but one which I think will be in a positive direction, at least for me. It will force me to think more deeply about issues, to craft my arguments with a little care, and to respond to (constructive, I hope) criticism.

That being said, I don't plan on this being overly serious, and certainly not doom and gloom. I also want to share my thoughts and experiences on some of the fun subjects that interest me, such as science (particularly physics), computers and information technology, life in the Pacific Northwest, and, of course, bicycle racing!

So welcome to my sector of the blogosphere. I plan to "meditate" here fairly regularly.