 |
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||
Tickle Me Obama: Lessons from Sesame Street on TIME.com is certainly an eye-catching title—truly an example of good headline writing, even if the content is less than insightful.
Considering how many things are going on in the world, I wouldn’t think that there’s a dearth of news stories, but maybe at least in the case of Obama, we’re running out of things to say.
Technorati Tags: Obama, media
Bank bailout? Auto bailout? Health care reform? Education reform? Ending the Iraq war? Total security review? International diplomatic push?
Is there any major, explosively controversial issue that Obama has not promised to tackle in his “State of the Nation” address? One particularly interesting aspect of Obama’s address is that he does not shirk from criticism at all. He takes the arguments of his strongest critics, calls them out, and rebuts then. This is not what recent American Presidents, especially the last one, have done.
In many ways, it was another fireside chat. It was another “Good Morning, America.” I think the media and blogosphere has described it as both at this point. He was blunt and treated Americans as fellow stakeholders, instead of obstacles to be dealt with.
But many of the points he made were also in his speech at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit that came before this particular speech. My feelings on his chosen set of Titans—and he’s chosen almost every single one—is that Obama is over his head. Read more…
I’m really hoping that the Obama Administration’s recently announced “stress test”—where they will simulate Great Depression conditions by computer and see what would happen to each major bank in that scenario—is just an excuse to nationalize the banks.
I’m really hoping that the Obama Administration doesn’t ACTUALLY naively think that despite a wide consensus about the lack of soundness in these banks (and more significantly, the market’s complete lack of faith in them), that these banks will come out of the stress test even close to looking like they’re ready for such conditions. Or even solvent at all.
I’m hoping that since they are expecting it, they should have a plan (which has been curiously absent so far). Read more…
The New York Times recently did a very interesting interview with a certain Dambisa Moyo on aid policy to Africa. She’s apparently an ex-Goldman Sachs banker who is trying to stop aid from being sent to Africa. The New York Times is calling her the “anti-Bono.”
She makes, in my opinion, a valid point that’s long overdue in getting coverage.
In response to what she feels had held back Africa:
“I believe it’s largely aid. You get the corruption — historically, leaders have stolen the money without penalty — and you get the dependency, which kills entrepreneurship. You also disenfranchise African citizens, because the government is beholden to foreign donors and not accountable to its people.”
Long overdue. Besides the points which she made, there’s also the issue of American and European farm policy (which is inseparably linked to aid policy) impoverishing Africa by wholesale annihilation of its agricultural sector. I wrote about this issue of farm policy in the Dartmouth Free Press (which is where the link goes) and other blogs, though haven’t gotten around to doing so here yet. Don’t worry, though, I intend to give you all an earful on it soon.
Regardless, it’s always rather ironic that so many of the things we do out of “kindness” turn out to be so terribly harmful in reality. The Law of Unintended Consequences, or perhaps of Good Intentions. Economics is sometimes counterintuitive. But sometimes, tough love is really the right thing to do.
I really wish American politicians begin to understand that someday.
People who know me can tell you that I don’t like Greenpeace.
It isn’t to say that I don’t find their grab-bag of causes important. It’s simply their methods, with the sensationalism, deliberate distortion of scientific facts, and knee-jerk reactionary conservatism (because it certainly isn’t progressive) that annoy me to no end.
However, there is one cause, above all others, that has caused me to personally hate the organization. GMOs, or genetically modified organisms (food in this case). Read more…
“If the Taliban were still here, that rapist would have already been executed by now. It would have been a lesson for all,” she says. “If there is no law, and the government does not listen to people’s complaints, then it is better to go back to the Taliban era. At least then we had justice.”
- An Afghan woman, reported by TIME
One should hope that we have not yet forgotten our campaign for the hearts and minds of the Middle East. And although I hate to simply add to the pile-on of criticism for what is occurring in the military campaign there, overall, what we have seen is a resounding failure.
Afghanistan’s version of the the “Sahwa” or Awakening movements in Iraq, where the indigenous people fight alongside the U.S. against insurgents and terrorists, is the alliance between NATO forces and Afghanistan’s warlords. Unfortunately, instead of respected tribal heads (or, at least, leaders who can pass as that), we have lawless tyrants who were part of the very reason the Taliban gained support from regular Afghans—at least, before the religious movement imposed its own brand of tyranny once in power. Read more…
Although some might argue that the point is moot at this point, it appears that the broader financial analyst/reporter community has suddenly decided to adopt collective amnesia and paint financial regulation as the boogeyman that brought the financial industry to its knees. Of course, this is the same community that happily declared the beginning of a “new era” in investment and stocks during the tech boom (which busted), along with enthusiastically invented reasons why the real estate market could never go down even though it has gone both up and down throughout all of human financial history.
Overall, I suppose it shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise, given that track record and the relative ease that one can blame recent changes in the regulatory framework. Especially given that it comes with a very easily swallowed “us versus them” story of greed, corruption, and all those bad things. However, they’ve been wrong before, and I’m going to relatively confidently say they’re wrong again about the reason for the financial crisis—and why, ultimately, all of this hubbub about regulation, for better or worse, is mostly hot air. Read more…
I apologize for the rather sparse posting at the moment. I’ve been in China for past few weeks (and will be for roughly the next two months) on an exchange program.
For at least the first part of the program, my internet access has been on-and-off, and for at least a period of time, dePolitik was blocked by the Chinese government firewall.
Given the limitations, I’ve decided to try to at least post short segments, if not the long articles I normally do, just to comment on the rapidly developing/devolving situation in the U.S. financial market.
It should have been easy to check (and find out) that Bristol was pregnant. It should have also been easy to notice that Palin was in the midst of a controversy in her home state of Alaska, which has the potential to develop into a huge scandal.
Finally, the McCain campaign should been alarmed that although Palin delivered a rousing speech to the Republican base, it was one that was ridiculously easy to tear apart and fedd to moderates who would promptly flee from the party in its wake—at least, if Obama cared to do so.
In a campaign now run extremely professionally by veteran campaign staff, and characterized by meticulous planning, it was more or less impossible that the McCain campaign didn’t know about all of these problems beforehand. This is especially true, even for Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention, given that Palin’s speech was almost completely pre-written, without excessive veering from the teleprompter.
Only one conclusion seems to make sense. She was meant to be attacked. Read more…
The media has recently been abuzz, in the aftermath of the Georgian invasion by Russia, about how Russia is now resurgent and (suddenly) one of the great challenges ahead for the next president.
As if, of course, Russia was not before this. While the next president does have to deal with Russia—a great-power, at the very least—this certainly isn’t a new occurrence. The only difference is the level of brashness that Russia is now willing to display in international relations. We, or rather, many pundits and the media, thought that Russia was weak and cowed just because it was hesitant to cross the America’s path. After all, not only was it reluctant to be defiant towards the U.S., it offered its wholehearted support on various diplomatic issues and in America’s “War on Terror.”
Despite all of the buzz now, though, the only significant factor that has changed between then and now is how much military and diplomatic power the United States has to deploy. What changed was that the United States invaded Iraq. Read more…
