Mr. cluck asked for a new post. I feel a bit like a dull boy these days – been distracted by work and computer problems – but I think there’s something else going on, or, as the case may truly be, not going on.
Doesn’t mean that important processes aren’t running their course or that there’s much to depend on. Indeed, as one informed observer of the stock and commodities markets put it, the underlying message is that risk is back (while confusion reigns). Yet it feels as though the great political and cultural wave has receded, and that the tide has crested – for now. Whether something like it again arises, and soon, and can reach an even higher mark, is an open question.
For now – maybe not much longer than it takes to finish this post, for all I know – we’re in the pools of the Obamian backwash.
What I’m referring to is reflected in the conclusion to Charles Krauthammer’s Friday column. He observes the post-Massaschusetts state of things under the title “The great peasant revolt of 2010,” but what he describes is a correction toward the center, nothing approaching a revolution:
For liberals, the observation that “the peasants are revolting” is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.
The ankle-dwelling populace pushes back. It recenters. It renormalizes. Even in Massachusetts.
ObamaCare seems well and truly dead, dead enough to provoke laughter from Democratic Reps quizzed about its prospects, leaving its remaining backers looking to Al Franken to express how seriously they feel about it. On domestic affairs, the President himself seems like a Corpse-Man walking, his post-SOTU bounce evaporating, each passing day making his “hard pivot” on jobs and the deficit, and his office, look ever more trivial. Retrenchment (in both figurative senses, economizing and fortifying – not settting off on new lines of march) seems to sum up the current phase of foreign and security policy, too.
The right is gaining, or has gained, but if “re-centering” is enough, then how much farther does it need to go? It would be enough to blunt the Obama program, and otherwise muddle through, taking some losses here and there, resting on the resiliency of the American economy and “bedrock common sense.”
Re-centering and re-normalizing read to me as treading water, or maybe floating in place for a while, maybe a good long while… It makes me think of some lines by John Ashbery, whom I think of as a poet of fraught complacency:
We Were on the Terrace
Drinking Gin and Tonicswhen the squall hit.
Comments 28
The pushback against the 0bami has been very heartening.
Still, mainstream Republicans worry about the inevitable “they’ll take away your social security” ads.
This is the time for the young turks in that party to get help from the grass roots, tea party, etc to organize a clear program to reduce taxes, cut government, and to at least modify entitlements.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:07 am
No wonder poetry is a corpse walking in this age,
When intullecshul self declared sages,
Have blithely renounced all logical guages,
And declared rhymeless clucks to be all the rage,
No wonder awards are given to Obamas,
In a world where Ashberry is treated to honors.
February 6th, 2010 at 8:46 am
The rot crept in,
on little cat feet.
It sits heavy
on the new effete,
smothering haunches,
making all arts corpses.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:07 am
The right is gaining, or has gained, but if “re-centering” is enough, then how much farther does it need to go?
Either the right or the left needs to go the furthest of all positions,tell the truth to the American people. Once that’s done,we as a nation can begin to make decisions not based on phantasy premises. The main phantasy premise is that we are not bankrupt. We’ve just had a rough patch and things will eventually normalize. Everyone right and left,wants a return to the way we’ve done business for decades,but,as this weeks markets showed,for every step forward,there’s a step backward. In fact,the laws of thermodynamics are in effect,Action/Reaction etc. If extreme debt is the action,bankruptcy is the inevitable reaction,on the other hand,if Savings is the action,Solvancy is the reaction again etc etc.
So CK,the time for Radical action is required,and what is more Radical than informing the citizensof a wealthy nation,that’s its government,bankrupted itself as well as its middle-class.
http://www.businessinsider.com/20-reasons-why-the-us-economy-is-dying-and-is-simply-not-going-to-recover-2010-2#the-second-wave-of-foreclosures-1
February 6th, 2010 at 10:02 am
@ Sully:
Your plaint against free verse would have been a bit more timely a century or so ago, though I agree with it to the extent that I accept that the retreat from rhyme and other traditional elements of poetic craft has much to do with the lack of public interest in “high poets” like Ashbery. They’re more like court painters than like national bards. So their place is taken by dudes with brutal or nonsensical monikers who embed more rhymes in a line than Ashbery would have found room for in several books, or taken by work in other media. (I used to like to argue that the TV commercial was the lyric poetry of our age.) But the fact that Ashbery wasn’t writing for the masses doesn’t mean that his work is worthless. What’s wrong with creating exquisitely refined meditation talismans out of words? So what if it’s esoteric? Most of the world’s spiritual traditions have been in some respects remain highly esoteric throughout most of the millenia in which they existed. That’s part of what establishes their peculiar value to the seeker.
Ashbery has been honored enough in his own life to sustain his work and spread it around. He is or was quite good at what he was doing, even if only an extremely small fraction of the populace had the slightest idea at any given time what it was. I approve of what his writing does for me, and the rest of the world can seek its own diversions on its own time.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Best Economic article of the Week:
Fot those Zombies that actually enjoy unravelling the mystery of Macroeconomics circa 2010.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB126532966453340891.html?mod=BOL_hpp_dc
February 6th, 2010 at 10:28 am
CK MacLeod wrote:
and what makes you think that Sully wasn’t plaining bout it then?
February 6th, 2010 at 10:38 am
@ Rex Caruthers:
We’ll see how far it goes, but predictions that the unwinding of the “carry trade” might be brutal shouldn’t be news to anyone who’s been reading closely here. The timing isn’t very surprising either. Question is how far how fast. Roubini was predicting a flat market for 2010 – which, taken literally, at this point would project gains from here.
Xie seems to have been wrong about the price of oil being the catalyst, though maybe it played something of the anticipated role before its recent plunge.
In the words of George Carlin, “Doom, doom, doom. Jenny!”
February 6th, 2010 at 10:59 am
@ CK MacLeod:
Free verse grew into the perverse. I actually like some of Ashberry’s stuff; but it ain’t poetry, just as most of ee cummings stuff ain’t poetry.
When Sandburg wrote Fog he was still writing poetry even though it didn’t rhyme. But it led down the slippery slope to no rules at all. Just as Picasso and others who were still artists, led to folks slopping splotches on canvas works that are now permitted to disgrace the places where real art is kept.
I write stuff that ranges from atrocious to (very occasionally) half decent; but I write poetry. Ashberry sometimes writes brilliant whatever; but he doesn’t write poetry.
Further, the reason I always write formulaic verse is because I’m smart enough to know I’m not Sandburg to carry off blank verse. Ashberry is smarter than me in some ways; but he’s not smart enough to realize he’s not Sandburg.
Our whole culture suffers from a related problem. Hence Obama is a “genius” to be awarded a prize before he does anything.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Roubini was predicting a flat market for 2010 – which, taken literally, at this point would project gains from here.
Subtract out the Zero interest loans* that the Fed provided the Banks to slow down the “Unwinding” in 2008/2009,and tell me what the market would have been so far in 2010. The answer is not flat,but well under 6000. Bernanke’s Carry Trade added another layer of Phantasy to this jigsaw puzzle.
*Reloaned & Ending up in the clutches of the Fund Managers giving them another stellar year.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
Why are you bothering us with the fate of the world? Can’t you see we’re having a much more important discussion about poetry???
Actually just another way of saying I don’t disagree, but I’ve had enough unfortunate experience in the markets to know that the one about the market staying irrational longer than you can stay solvent is the truest statement of all. I’d have to be bald-faced liar and faker to claim that, when BHO called the market bottom around a year ago, I thought there was a chance he was right. Instead, if you had gone all-in on that day, the same one I believe that he made his infamous “profits and earnings” statement and spoke about good values, you’d have cleaned up, at least in unadjusted dollar terms.
From a technical standpoint, January was about as clear a bearish indicator as you can get, coming at the end of a year long overbought low volume rally. I personally would not be surprised by an ungodly whomping in equities any day now, as the “fully invested bears” rush over the carry traders and panicked retirees for the exits.
But the determination to believe that the economy is resilient, that the politicians are finally oriented at least not to making things too much worse too quickly, that the top-line numbers CAN be trusted, etc., is strong and widespread. It’s true that the underemployed are getting more hours. It’s true that the US of A is still a better place for your money than almost everywhere else, even if that’s not saying much. So Roubini might be right – he certainly follows this stuff a lot more closely than I do.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Sully wrote:
Eh – the definition of a word is another word. I use the broad definition of poetry – and am happy to view any work of art according to its own internal rules.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
But the determination to BELIEVE that the economy is resilient, that the politicians are finally oriented at least not to making things too much worse too quickly, that the top-line numbers CAN be trusted, etc., is strong and widespread. It’s true that the underemployed are getting more hours. It’s true that the US of A is still a better place for your money than almost everywhere else, even if that’s not saying much. So Roubini might be right – he certainly follows this stuff a lot more closely than I do.
Unfortunately,Irrelevant. Our economy is being unhinged by the downwards direction of Portugal,Spain,Ireland,Greece,and Iceland(This Round). Who can bail them out? Only Germany or the IMF. California will be in the next round. CK, The game is now out of our hands. Only more Monopoly money can forestall the Bankruptcies of these Sovereigns.
February 6th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
This Monday’s edition of IBD has a column by George Will summarizing Wi. Congressman Ryan’s detailed program to restore fiscal sanity.
This involves a complete makeover of taxes, spending and entitlements.
Can someone more internet savvy than I provide a link here or in a new discussion so we can debate its relative merits?
February 6th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I’m not sure what people think they mean when they say the economy is “dying and isn’t going to recover.” What, are the people all going to drop dead? I quite seriously agree with those who say our deficit spending is on an unsustainable path; but as long as there are humans alive trying to feed and house themselves, there’s an economy.
Most of our economic problems are caused by politics. This is as true in the US, with our spiraling tons of regulation and taxes weighing down every economic transaction, as it is in African countries with man-made famines, and in full-frontal socialist countries where no one ever climbs out of the economic stratum he starts in.
It’s the politics that have to change. I’m not unrealistic enough to think they can change forever, but if they’re going to start moving in the right direction at all, it will have to be in the next decade.
We do not have an unfettered free market economy in the US today. The one thing we have almost never tried, since the 1930s, is lifting from the economy the weight of government. It’s that weight that the economy is staggering under today. For one thing, it took government to force lenders to lend at privileged rates to people who were bad credit risks — and government is still enforcing that same policy! But in literally every nook and cranny of our economic life, government is there discouraging economic transactions, every second of every day, with regulation and taxes.
We have not yet tried lightening the load of government on the economy, as a means of unleashing it to perform better in this current recession. Until we have, it’s too early to say that there is no prospect of recovery. There are 7 billion people on the planet, 300+ million of them in the USA, and the vast majority of them have every capacity to get a great deal out of life through activities that are economically productive. Governments everywhere, including ours, function largely today to stand between their people and economic success. Unless that changes, we have no basis for saying anything “can’t” happen or “can’t” be done.
February 6th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
@ Zoltan Newberry:
You mean this article – yes?
I’ve been thinking about some different political and economic directions proposed by various authors recently, but absorbing, criticizing, and synthesizing them all would be a job, and it’s not clear to me how interested everyone is in trying to take on the whole thing all at once.
There was the Castellanos’ piece on “The New Republicans” at NRO: It’s much more political than substantive, but I think it can stand for a bottom-up, neo-libertarian response to the economic conjuncture, and for the political approach required to realize it.
There was Ramesh Ponnuru’s center-right version of a new Contract for America, also at NRO – much less ambitious, much more conventional, aimed more at giving Rs something to talk about today and going forward through 2010. I think it’s a good summary of muddle-through right-centrism.
There’s Ryan’s plan, as described in the Will article above and as already discussed earlier. Since I put up that post, there’s been extensive further discussion, some of it following the predicted course as Republican leaders like Boehner have been at pains to emphasize that it’s Ryan’s plan, not the Republican plan, and as sundry lefties have attacked it as a throw-the-sick-elderly-into-the-streets thing.
Rex has also e-mailed me some very interesting material and proposals from economist Mike Hudson, which have the benefit of being truly thoughtful and also of addressing the worst case scenarios.
I’ll be interested in seeing Palin’s speech tonight, and whether she gives any hints toward an economic approach that goes beyond Reaganism with energy development. Whether or not she does, I think that’s a third significant variant to consider, and whether it’s best identified with Palin, Gingrich, or Reagan is rather immaterial. Call it the effective Tea Party consensus, including heavy suspicion of Bernanke-ism.
I’ll see if I can put together a post with links, but maybe it should wait until tonight. Plus most of us are probably busy manana.
Anyone else want to suggest some links or summary positions that should be taken into account?
February 6th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Or maybe I should set up a permanent page for this discussion to be carried on at whatever length, with new links of interest added at will.
February 6th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
“We have not yet tried lightening the load of government on the economy, as a means of unleashing it to perform better in this current recession.”
I want the same thing you do,but here’s a hurdle that you might not be aware of. There are millions of families who are in fact bankrupt(by every definition)except legally, for the criteria established by the redo of the Federal Bankruptcy laws in 2005. This means,they can’t pay their debts,and they can’t discharge them,so they float in limbo. Their creditors still keep that debt on their asset sheets,but it is worthless. The debtors are like phantoms,they add nothing to the economy,the way discharged debtors can. It’s ironic that the changes the banks and credit card companies wanted so bad for decades,are now a major albatross on their neck.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
J.E. Dyer wrote:
Forgive me if my habit of trying to see everyone as a little bit right has become annoying, but I think the way to interpret such statements is that “the economy” refers to the concrete realization of the rules of the game as we’ve known them since… well, that would be a complex discussion, too. You could call it, provisionally, “that which is to be surpassed” (kind of like Nietzsche’s definition of humanity), then assign a beginning point or periodicity to it once you’ve determined what needs to be changed, discarded, undermined, etc.
In other words, the author of the piece Rex linked is pretty much saying the same thing that lots of other more “mainstream” people are saying – that “it” is unsustainable. Define “it,” and you define “the economy” that is dying and won’t recover.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
That “it” is unsustainable.
It was the Economy of Fiat money,and international “Floating” rates established by Government* Policy in 1971.
*JED/The Government is always the problem (except for individuals).
February 6th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Yes, that’s exactly the piece. (a little too exactly!) We have each had our dots to connect, and our aha moments galore. One of mine came at my first firm about 28 years ago, and a little talk from Art Laffer. Even I could immediately understand what he meant when he said, “Politics rule economics and economics rule the world.”
February 6th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
(a little too exactly!)
How do you get the keys to other people’s safes?
February 6th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Well, OK, and when I said “I’m not sure what people think they mean,” that was a shorthand way of saying “Whatever they mean, and I know they mean something, their premises are invalid and their thought process leads nowhere useful.”
Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of “dying” is, and what the implied import of that is. If “dying” means “we can’t keep it going, and we have to adjust and move in a different direction” — cool. If “dying” means “the sky is falling and we’re all going to end up helpless in a ditch because, for the first time in human history, man has created a system that genuinely and utterly robs him of choice” — BUZZ!! Gong!! Wrong answer. Off the stage, bozo.
I do know that much of what is currently considered our collective “assets” today is private debt that will never be repaid. I must emphasize once again that the racking up of that debt was promoted, enabled, and coerced by government policies.
But people and tangible assets are still here, and a huge percentage of both are underperforming right now, through unemployment, underemployment, and underutilization of real property and capital assets. The main reasons for that are two: the misguided government interventions to prop the current situation up and prevent exactly the adjustments the economy needs; and the exceptionally high risk of further arbitrary government intervention represented by the Obama administration.
Everyone who’s out of work right now is someone who is not working our economy out of its funk. Those people represent economic power, not walking failure sumps. People are the ultimate form of capital, and if the people are unleashed to make voluntary transactions, I think we’d be amazed at how much of the left-over debt would be serviceable, and how obvious the cut-off would soon be, beyond which we could agree to write it off.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
@ Zoltan Newberry:
If I understand you correctly: Went to Google or Bing (Bing has prettier pictures), a search for “Investors Business Daily Paul Ryan George Will” brings up a direct link to the piece as one of the first results, copy the link, paste the link. Ta-da.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Rex Caruthers wrote:
Yes, and the government created the gold standard and devalued whenever it suited their fancy. Find a new villian. I agree with much of your concern on the financial front, but the gold standard is a red herring. As you mentioned once before, why does gold have value, because people think it does. No different than paper. Our problems stem from the fact that much of the political class is corrupt or stupid or both. And the MSM are just dumber than a box of rocks – spend time in any journalism school – worthless.
February 6th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
And we just keep voting them in. Barney Frank and Chris Todd are two of the people most repsonsible for the mortgage bubble and has JE has mentioned, they are still pushing the same stupid policy – lend money to people who cannot pay it back. It is the same mentality that suggests health care reform occurs by jettisoning prudent insurance standards and just giving health care services away.
February 6th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
A decade or two of 10%+ inflation and all these debt problems are solved. And, as J.E. pointed out, all the productive assets and skills will still exist, just in different hands.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:03 am
Well that is what we did to the British in the early 1800′s. WE defaulted on our debt to them that was used to expand the canal systems and other infrastructure improvements to open up the interior US. And when we defaulted, we still had all the improvements. It isn’t like they could be taken anywhere.
February 8th, 2010 at 5:45 am