How to Stimulate the Economy

This MoJo article has some good information on the ways to stimulate the economy. I was first struck by their explanation of the myth of the free market:

"In fact, the economy has no natural, "free" state; it is shaped by the society in which it exists. For the past 30 years, it's been steered toward unlimited profit taking at the top, book cooking, management for short-term shareholder return at the expense of actual viability, maximum greenhouse gas emissions, and so on. Washington wrote the rules. Wall Street and Detroit followed."

Secondly I was struck by this analysis of rates of return on investment (ROI):

"Whatever the butcher's bill ends up being, we better be damn sure we get the best possible return on investment. And here's where things get interesting. Turns out that putting money into the hands of corporations or wealthy individuals has a negative roi—we get no more than 37 cents to the dollar. (See "Bang for the Buck.") By contrast, a dollar spent extending unemployment benefits prompts $1.64 in economic activity; building roads and bridges (or the new utility grid we so badly need) brings $1.59. The very best return? Food stamps, which provide a full $1.73 in return for every dollar's worth of stimulus, with the added benefit that we're investing in the well-being of actual people—the same people who have borne the brunt of the past few decades' corporate and political chicanery."

Hamas not Iranian Puppet

This article gives reasons why Iran is not controlling Hamas, though it may have some influence and certainly sympathy. The Middle East conflict is far more complex than most Americans are aware of, including myself, and it is rarely helpful to demonize any side in a conflict. Hamas is terrible in calling for Israel's death, and in their terrorist activities. But like many similar organizations, like the Sadrists in Iraq, they often provide social services that are no longer being provided by governments, and that is a source of their support in Gaza. This argues that one of the best things Israel could do is to ensure that social services reach the Gazans.

Book Review: What Happened, by Scott McClellan

Title	What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception
Author	Scott McClellan
Rating
Tags	bush administraton, press secretary, iraq war, valerie plame wilson
	The Bush administration will be studied heavily by future historians. Whatever is written by those who were part of it will be valuable. Even if they lie or obfuscate, it will tell much about them. McClellan comes across as being quite honest, and more, quite likable. According to him, and he seems believable, he was unaware of some of the lies, and did his best to represent a President he started out believing in, only to have his belief undermined by, well, what happened. McClellan grew up in a political family. His mother was a mayor of Austin and held several other elected positions. McClellan ran at least one of her campaigns, and came to the attention of George W. Bush during his tenure as governor of Texas. As governor, Bush worked in a bipartisan way with Democrats, and did things McClellan strongly believed in. So when he became part of the Presidential campaign and then of the Bush administration, he was part of something he was proud of. But then mistakes were made. McClellan was like many Americans. When the push for the Iraq war started, he was a bit doubtful of the reasons, but was persuaded that the President and his advisers knew through intelligence that Hussein was a genuine threat. So he became part of the selling of the war. McClellan now believes that Bush's main motivation for the war was his sincere belief in the benefits of democracy, and that a free Iraq would start a domino effect of democracy in the Middle East. When the story about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson broke, McClellan was press secretary. Both Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told him that they had not been involved in the leak of her name, and he did not find out otherwise for almost two years. By then a number of things had begun to disillusion him. McClellan does some interesting analysis. He blames part of government dysfunction on the permanent campaign, where governing and campaigning become so intertwined they can't be sparated from eacdh other. He recommends the book The Permanent Campaign and Its Future edited by Ornstein and Mann to anyone looking to understand the current Washington atmosphere. At the end of the book, McClellan makes recommendations for how to end the permanent campaing and get back to governing. Very useful book, which adds to the picture of the Bush White House built up by other books such as Barton Gellman's Angler (on the Dick Cheney vice presidency). Recommended.
Publication	PublicAffairs (2008), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 368 pages
Publication date	2008
ISBN	1586485563 / 9781586485566

"What You Don't Know About Gaza"

New York Times op-ed piece by Rashid Khalidi about the events in Gaza and some of the facts behind them that are not well known or reported in the U.S. This is a hopeful sign of more balance than there has been in the past on reporting about Israel and the Palestinians.

Bananas and Profit at Any Price

This fascinating article shows how poisonous the search for short-term profits, regardless of long-term costs, can be, discussing both the social horrors perpetrated on banana workers and citizens of "banana republics", and that the breeding of only one type of banana has pretty much destroyed the fruit.

Rick Warren and AIDS work

Sigh. I really dislike some of the things Warren has said on social topics, particularly LGBT stuff, but somewhat agreed with Obama that he reach out to people he disagrees with but have done valuable work on certain issues. This article shows that Warren's work on AIDS in Africa is less valuable than I thought, and that his allies in Africa cut condom distribution leading to a rise in the number of AIDS cases.

The Pressure to Produce Short-term Profits

This New York Times article does a good job of beginning to explain how the financial world got into such a bad mess. Greed was an insufficient cause, there's always greed. It talks about how bad the pressure is for companies to provide short-term profits, and how badly the rating agencies and the S.E.C. were at providing any valid information or regulation.