Paul Krugman: Katrina All the Time

Paul Krugman says the administration may find success through its failures:

Katrina All the Time, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Two years ago today, Americans watched in horror as a great city drowned, and wondered what had happened to their country. Where was FEMA? Where was the National Guard? Why wasn’t the government of the world’s richest, most powerful nation coming to the aid of its own citizens?

What we mostly saw on TV was the nightmarish scene at the Superdome, but things were even worse at the New Orleans convention center, where thousands were stranded without food or water. The levees were breached Monday morning — but as late as Thursday evening, The Washington Post reported, the convention center “still had no visible government presence,” while “corpses lay out in the open among wailing babies and other refugees.”

Meanwhile, federal officials were oblivious. “We are extremely pleased with the response ... to this terrible tragedy,” declared Michael Chertoff, the secretary for Homeland Security, on Wednesday. When asked the next day about the situation at the convention center, he dismissed the reports as “a rumor” or “someone’s anecdotal version.”

Today, much of the Gulf Coast remains in ruins. Less than half the federal money set aside for rebuilding ... has actually been spent... On the other hand, generous investment tax breaks, supposedly designed to spur recovery in the disaster area, have been used to build luxury condominiums near the University of Alabama’s football stadium..., 200 miles inland.

But why should we be surprised by any of this? The Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina — the mixture of neglect of those in need, obliviousness to their plight, and self-congratulation in the face of abject failure — has become standard operating procedure. These days, it’s Katrina all the time.

Consider the White House reaction to new Census data on income, poverty and health insurance. By any normal standard, this week’s report was a devastating indictment of the administration’s policies. ... What the data show ... is that 2006, while a good year for the wealthy, brought only a slight decline in the poverty rate and a modest rise in median income, with most Americans still considerably worse off than they were before President Bush took office.

Most disturbing of all, the number of Americans without health insurance jumped. ... Yet the White House ... declared that President Bush was “pleased” with the new numbers. Heckuva job, economy! ...

The question is whether any of this will change when Mr. Bush leaves office.

There’s a powerful political faction in this country that’s determined to draw exactly the wrong lesson from the Katrina debacle — namely, that the government always fails when it attempts to help people..., as if the Bush administration’s practice of appointing incompetent cronies to key positions and refusing to hold them accountable no matter how badly they perform — did I mention that Mr. Chertoff still has his job? — were the way government always works.

And I’m not sure that faction is losing the argument. The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause.

Future historians will, without doubt, see Katrina as a turning point. The question is whether it will be seen as the moment when America remembered the importance of good government, or the moment when neglect and obliviousness to the needs of others became the new American way.

_________________________
Previous (8/27) column: Paul Krugman: A Socialist Plot
Next (9/3) column: Paul Krugman: Snow Job in the Desert

Comments

[Martin]

Mark,

Professor Krugman writes,

"Future historians will, without doubt, see Katrina as a turning point. The question is whether it will be seen as the moment when America remembered the importance of good government, or the moment when neglect and obliviousness to the needs of others became the new American way."

Well, ye. With your indulgence, and for whatever it's worth, I would like to claim the credit for having been the first to see its historic significance -

"The collapsed levees of New Orleans will have consequences for neoconservatism just as long and deep as the collapse of the Wall in East Berlin had on Soviet Communism" -

http://theggnomeridesout.blogspot.com/2005/09/neoconservatisms-berlin-wall.html (September 1 2005)

"All ideologues, be they communist, fascist, or gonzocon, claim that they are able to solve all problems confronting their adherents; and when they can't, they fail.

With Nazism, that moment came at the Battle of Stalingrad. With Soviet Communism, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Gonzo neoconservatism is an ideology whose great hook is the global projection of national power. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina showed that the ideology that demanded national power be projected internationally could not project national power nationally; at that point, its fate in the dustbin of history was sealed" -

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kelly2.php?articleid=8694 (March 14 2006).

[ChinaK]

Krugman's most recent editorial, like most of his prior offerings, leads me to a troubling question. Krugman frequently agitates for more state involvement in regulation and services while relentless castigating the current administration for its astonishing incompetence and corruption.

Given the historic campaigning success (7 out of the last 10 presidential elections) of the Republican party AND given that Democratic administrations are unlikely to be categorically superior administrators, what use is it to expand the levers of state power when the man in charge is likely to be an idiot man-child?

If we are to be honest with ourselves, we must conclude that the gains of switching out ruling parties are likely to occur on the margin. The role of democracy in creating convergent party platforms and personal political profiles seems to guarantee it.

Where then are we to find our Krugmenian Ubermenschen? While reasonable people can disagree about the relative merits of single-payer healthcare and public education, it would seem that only a complete fool would trust Bush or his cronies with the administration of a national healthcare system- would you want THAT guy taking care of you?

I feel that Krugman, bedecked in his own smartness, sees many an opportunity for deft intervention in domestic affairs that, governed and administered with penetrating intelligence, could substantially improve life for many people. In short, Krugman's frustration stems from a belief in what the State could accomplish if it weren't run by such a corrupt moron. Milton Friedman, responding to a similar complaint directed at the FDA, once said "that's like going into a pet store and saying 'I want a cat- as long as it barks'".

Barring the discovery of a method to prevent the election of morons and crooks, I fear that granting politicians greater power will only produce more spectacular failures. To paraphrase Dick Cheney, You govern with the politicians you have, not the politicians you wish you had.

This actually reminds me of a conversation I had with a (avowedly) Progressive friend of mine. He spoke passionately, and at length, of the need for greater government oversight in order to reign in the deleterious effects of corporate greed. I responded by asking him whether or not he believed that current regulatory systems had been corrupted to serve the interests of the corporations they were supposed to restrain. (He replied in the affirmative) I then asked him when the US suffered this foul corruption of civic virtue, what period of US history featured virtuous and responsible administration with respect to suppressing special interests? Given history, what are the odds that further regulation would be used to uphold the rights of the downtrodden, rather than be used to enshrine established interests and shield them from competition?

[reason]

ChinaK...

yes and no. First I dispute that the convergence in the parties is as substantial in the USA as you imply. Read some David Brin on the effects of gerrimandering. Second, the change from one Administration to the other is itself an important purgative mechanism, and apathy on the part of the electorate is dangerous because it leaves the field open to zealots.

But Yes, US democracy is sick and needs reform.

[anne]

"The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause.

"Future historians will, without doubt, see Katrina as a turning point. The question is whether it will be seen as the moment when America remembered the importance of good government, or the moment when neglect and obliviousness to the needs of others became the new American way."

Immensely important and poignant and worrisome. Thank you, Paul Krugman.

[ndd]

ChinaK:
The decades after the New Deal were remarkably free of corruption. The democratic appointees during those decades by and large truly adhered to their fiduciary or civic obligations. By contrast, it is a feature, not a bug, of the new Republican coalition, just as it was of the Republican bosses that Teddy Roosevelt railed against 100 years ago, to raid the Treasury to line their pockets. The new coalition at base, is a coalition of racial bigots, old fashioned plutocrats, and those who did not grow up in the former regime and so assumed the economic restrictions enacted in response to it were unnecessary. There is really no difference between this administration and a Banana Republic except for the size of the economy and the size of the military.

We can either throw up our hands and go the way of Argentina, or else remember that eternal vigilance is the price of good government.

[reason]

ndd...
Brilliantly put.

[anne]

Ndd...
Brilliantly put.

[ChinaK]

I'm always a trifle suspicious of the lionization of the New Deal era, particularly with regard to economic management. We frequently laud the Roosevelt administration for its fiscal intervention and its role in restarting the economy, but would that intervention have been (as) necessary were it not for other monumentally ill-advised economic policies? Even if we credit Roosevelt et al for helping Americans off of the crucifix of Depression, we've got to accept that those same individuals helped to nail us up there in the first place with the Smoot-Hawley Act and a patently insane monetary contraction. If we want to praise Roosevelt for his wartime resolve, we still have to reckon with daffy wage and price control (and a preference for indirect tax-free healthcare policy that is only now beginning to drive us all barmy).

I have no desire to revisit the endlessly tedious 'what caused the depression' debate- both because I believe it to be unsolvable and because I believe that 1930s economic interventionism hardly tells us anything useful about how to structure our current economy.

But, for the sake of argument, I'll concede that Roosevelt et al did more good than bad, and were (for politicians) squeaky clean (although how would the readers of this blog react if Bush were to ask congress to allow him pack the Supreme Court with new judges sympathetic to his broad interpretation of presidential authority?). If the New Deal 1933-1938 is the best example of successfully expanded economic authority in the past century- we're still looking at an awfully high ratio of cack-handedness to competence.

I'll even concede that the current Republican party is rotten to the bone- but do we really believe that the Democratic party is running anyone that is categorically cleaner or more competent?

Is there a political organization active in the United States today that, given expanded powers to intervene in the economy, would effectively utilize these powers to preserve average growth rates while ameliorating social and structural inadequacies? Having heard Pelosi and Obama's opinions on trade, and Edward's opinions on energy policy, I doubt that very much.

My primary point (before I forget) is that reasonable and intelligent individuals often see opportunities for government intervention to optimize economic outcomes. What we fail to consider is the politicians we chose to enact those policies (and the politicians who inherit those levers of power, for those who can imagine a Gore II 2032 campaign) operate according to their own utility functions, NOT our of altruistic desire to improve economic functioning.

...and ndd is right, we must beware a slide into Argentinian madness. After all, assumption of monetary, price-regulatory, and fiscal power by politically motivated, populist national economic-managers didn't work out quite so well for Argentina's downtrodden.

But then, Paul Krugman wasn't running the show.

[anne]

"Even if we credit Roosevelt et al for helping Americans off of the crucifix of Depression, we've got to accept that those same individuals helped to nail us up there in the first place with the Smoot-Hawley Act and a patently insane monetary contraction."

Now, there is a startling willful ignorance or a purposeful pervesion of history. Imagine, Franklin Roosevelt who was elected President in November 1932 was responsible for the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of June 1930, and which Roosevelt always opposed.

The problem is always how to find a way to apologize for Republicans by blaming Democrats. Republicans have methodically gone about changing the history of the New Deal, and possibly been all too successful.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/26/specials/schlesinger-hundred.html

April 10, 1983

The 'Hundred Days' of F.D.R.
By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER Jr.

Exactly half a century ago, the Republic plunged into the Hundred Days - that time of tumultuous change when a flood of legislation swept away venerable market practices and gave the American economic system a new contour.

In the frenzied weeks from March to June 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt sent 15 messages to Congress and steered 15 major laws to enactment: among them, central planning for industry and for agriculture, new regulation for banking and for the securities exchanges, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Civilian Conservation Corps and a national system of unemployment relief.

''At the end of February,'' Walter Lippmann wrote when the special session adjourned, ''we were a congeries of disorderly panic stricken mobs and factions. In the hundred days from March to June we became again an organized nation confident of our power to provide for our own security and to control our own destiny.''

The Hundred Days were only the start of a process that ended by transforming American society. Who can now imagine a day when America offered no Social Security, no unemployment compensation, no food stamps, no Federal guarantee of bank deposits, no Federal supervision of the stock market, no Federal protection for collective bargaining, no Federal standards for wages and hours, no Federal support for farm prices or rural electrification, no Federal refinancing for farm and home mortgages, no Federal commitment to high employment or to equal opportunity - in short, no Federal responsibility for Americans who found themselves, through no fault of their own, in economic or social distress? ...

[dd]

Roosevelt's greatest gift was not the New Deal; but his moral suasion that exposed selfishness and fear as repugnant to the American ideals of equality and liberty.

[Brenda Rosser]

Arthur Schlesinger Jr: "Who can now imagine a day when America offered no Social Security, no unemployment compensation, no food stamps, no Federal guarantee of bank deposits, no Federal supervision of the stock market, no Federal protection for collective bargaining, no Federal standards for wages and hours, no Federal support for farm
prices or rural electrification, no Federal refinancing for farm and home mortgages, no Federal commitment to high employment or to equal opportunity - in short, no Federal responsibility for Americans who found themselves, through no fault of their own, in economic or social distress? ..."

I can't see any 'social security' in a nation where ordinary citizens become bankrupt often when they get an illness that requires a hospital bill to be paid. Or when they suffer such extraordinary illness rates (in comparison to the UK, for instance) due to almost non-existent protection from industrial pollution.

How reliable will the provision of food stamps be in a time of climate change and in the context of peak grain and peak fresh water? Ordinary citizens will find they need to engage in food production to obtain some degree of food security, I think.

Federal protection of collective bargaining?? How strong are the unions now that multinational corporations can play nations and workers off against each other?

Federal support for farm prices?? Subsidies to the big corporate 'farmers' headquartered in New York.

["..-- The Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service last year showed a correlation between counties receiving the highest crop subsidies and those that suffered the most rapid population decline.
-- Two-thirds of the nation’s farmers receive little or no benefit from farm programs because they produce 'non-program” foods and crops like fruits, vegetables, meat or hay.
-- More than 92 percent of all farmers rely heavily on off-farm income..."
www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20689 ]

Federal refinancing of home mortgages?? See how many have lost their homes already. The process continues.

Federal commitment to high employment?? Witness the US Fed raise interest rates whenever employment levels are judged too high.

Equal opportunity?? In North America? Can't see that from Australia.

Federal supervision of the stockmarket?? Is that a joke?!

"Without the rest of the world's absorption of dollars, which recirculate via cheap goods and low interest rates, the U.S. would have seen runaway inflation. Also the Federal Reserve – the supposed inflation watchdog – ignores a host of data signaling price appreciation. Spending more for food and energy? Too volatile to consider. Did your real estate tax just double? Doesn't count. Your new car more expensive than the last one? It's really cheaper due to the extra pleasure it affords. In other words, the Fed disregards about 40 percent of what the normal person spends money on. //The Fed also turns a blind eye to asset inflation. Ownership is good, even if increased valuations in stocks, bonds, and real estate are merely the result of the pumped-up supply of greenbacks. How does the Fed create extra money? In a magical act called "deficit-backed financing," (4) it buys Treasury notes from banks or other institutions and simply makes an offsetting credit to them out of thin air. (5) Thus, an anointed committee, creating money and poring over spending data gleaned from consumers' diaries, has replaced gold's automaticity with a sugar-coated economy that keeps the consumer spending and foreigners financing both public and private debt. The dollar, as much as any politician, lobbyist, or mercantilist, is the silent accomplice to the unaffordable pursuits of conquest. . ."

When Sterling Bowed to the Dollar
by Ann Berg. November 3, 2006
http://antiwar.com/orig/berga.php?articleid=9957

[anne]

Franklin Roosevelt's gift was honor and dignity and compassion and courage and the willingness to experiment to find the policies that would lift us from the Depression; policies that build an American middle class as a middle class never before known and policies that have sustained us to this day. Republicans then and now, but even more so now, are doing everyhting possible to distort history and as Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong have pointed out to destroy the New Deal legacy. Enough of allowing the perversion of history.

[ChinaK]

Anne,
If I am an ignoramus (a possibility that I don't discount) I am not a willful one, and while I may be perverse, I don't think that I've ever actually perverted history, unless one considers misremembering the party affiliation of two deceased congressmen particularly heinous. Thank you for the clarification.

In any case, my intention was, as I believe I stated quite clearly, to argue that Roosevelt caused the Depression. Nor was my intention to argue that the New Deal was a failure. I think I was fairly clear on both points- but then, I am not a professional writer.

My point of contention is that 1930s interventionism is often considered a uniform success when it is perhaps more reasonable to conclude that many of Roosevelt's successful (and admittedly visionary for their time) reconstruction policies were necessary, in part or in whole, because of interventionist failures (failures not always of his making).

My main point, which hasn't been discussed much, is that intelligent and reasonable individuals often propose expanding the power of the state to intervene in the wider economy. Reasonable people can disagree over the merits of the specific policies they would like to see enacted. However, expanding interventionist power yields, on net, disappointing outcomes because the interventions are not carried out by reasonable and intelligent individuals, but by politicians whose interests are only tangentially connected to the longterm health of the economy.

In short, interventionism would be a far more reliable policy mix if we were ruled by a phd dictator- we are not. We further fail to appreciate that interventionist levers persist, and are often inherited by less-than-competent political agents (witness the appalling mismanagement of Roosevelt's social security system by his political heirs).

The minimum wage is a good example. While 75ish% of American economists believe it to be a bad idea (American Economics Association), we can be sure, if it is a good idea (leaving the wider debate for greater minds, for the moment), that the optimal rate depends largely on the shape of the demand curve for labor. Does congress consider this (seriously) when it debates the minimum wage? I doubt it. As a result, what is potentially a socially useful intervention, is prone to chronic mismanagement that swamps its usefulness.

...as an aside, many here seem to believe that I'm defending the Republican party. Considering that I've called them "astonishingly incompetent", "morons", and "rotten to the bone", I don't seem to be doing such a good job, if such were my aim (which it isn't). I merely point out that, political incentives being what they are, expecting a sea change in administrative capability or political honesty under the Democrats is...unrealistic at best.

[ChinaK]

ooops

My intention was NOT, as I believe I stated quite clear, to argue that Roosevelt caused the Depression.

-apparently I didn't state it quite clearly... typo

[Sam Z.]

China K and others raise an interesting point about the perils of government activity in the presence of one or both of corruption and incompetence.

However, the fact that today's political parties are somewhat corrupt does not remove the need for extra-market regulation and collective action to remedy various market failures. The only way forward then is for smart, principled folk - like Krugman perhaps, or indeed many readers of this blog - to get actively involved in politics.

Viewed in this way, there is clearly no shortage of potential candidates for political office who are both smart and honest. The questions to ask then are, first, what stops such people gaining office and second, what can be done about it?

A good place to start would be reforming political finance. As it stands, an individual who is not well-connected to the wealthy has essentially no chance of a political career. This is not the case - or at least not to the same extent - in much of Northern Europe or even in the UK. I don't believe it's a coincidence that these countries have, by and large, avoided the level of corruption and incompetence one now sees in US politics (although both corruption and incompetence are, of course, present everywhere). This in turn has, over the years, led to greater trust in government among electorates in those countries.

These issues are inextricably linked. Without a complete overhaul of the political process, you won't see the kinds of candidates you want. And without those candidates, there'll never be widespread support for government.

Sam.

[RW]

Plato would have agreed with Sam's point I think viz "[T]hose too wise to engage in politics are punished by the governance of the foolish."

[ctm]

"And I’m not sure that faction is losing the argument. The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause."

Unfortunately, this effect doesn't extend to the realms of military adventurism.

[Winston]

Part of me thinks that the lack of rebuilding on the gulf coast is a better outcome that would have been obtained if the federal government had been more competent in handling the disaster, people would have rebuilt in the same high risk locations as before. As it currently stands, people are reevaluating if it is really a good idea to live in an area prone to catastrophic storms and flooding, reducing the need for flood protection and producing more disaster resistant communities.

[anne]

Thank you, China K, and I was careful in wording angrily but pleased to know that I was wrong and I apologize.

The issue is however important because there has been a slew of writing that has surprised me several times recently in looking for work on the New Deal and finding distortion dominating the recent work. When I use the word distortion, I mean exactly that. So, I will have to go around to original sources to figure out if I knew what I thought I knew.

There is a determined think tank history mill, at times university related that is changing history new and old. President Bush's speech writers reversed historical writings of MIT's John Dower a few days ago, while a White House press officer explained when pushed that the President can interpret as he wishes to interpret. Yes; but this was a reversal adding to a reversal of the thoughts of Graham Greene.

[anne]

Smoot-Hawley by the way was a wish of Herbert Hoover from at least 1928. Franklin Roosevelt was early on sympathetic to farmers and found the tariff a threat to farmers as well as manufacturing workers. Though the agricultural sector was much more significant in 1930 than ever since, I am not sure where Roosevelt's sympathy came from. The expression can be seen in aggressive experimental farm policy from 1933 on. Rural America was transformed far beyond the depredation of the Depression during the New Deal.

China K also mentioned monetary policy before the New Deal, and to show just how muddy history has become, the Austrians insist that money supply was grossly increased before the New Deal while competing conservative writers insist the reverse. Which story is correct?

[bakho]

GHW Bush had his own hurricane problem, Andrew. FEMA under Bush was dysfunctional. When Clinton came into office, he put people in charge of FEMA that had experience with disastars and made FEMA into a functional agency. GW Bush destroyed FEMA with his cronyism. Or take the VA system which under GHW Bush was abysmal. Clinton brought in competent Vets with experience with the VA to transform it from a dysfunctional agency into a better functioning agency with much improved outcomes. Under GW Bush the VA is again sinking.

There is a real difference between a political party that wants the government to solve social problems and a political party that states that they don't believe the government can or should try to solve social problems. Alan Wolfe wrote about the problems, "Why Conservatives Can't Govern".

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html

Conservatives do OK as an opposition party to provide checks on the excesses of progressive government. However, Conservatives are lousy at solving problems. It is a fundamental ideological problem that has been plaguing the GOP for years. The GOP needs major reform to develop a positive governing philosophy.

[BJ Feng]

Have you heard the phrase power corrupts? I don't know much about Northern Europe, but those few countries seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Italy is notoriously corrupt, and France and Germany have seen their share of scandals too. Given the examples around the world, it seems that expecting government officials to be great public leaders who act only for the benefit of the people is too much to ask. Let's not base our decision on a dream. Sure there are people who win the lottery, but I don't live my life expecting that I will win.

[bakho]

Here is the money quote from Wolfe:

"Contemporary conservatism is a walking contradiction. Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government"

[anne]

China K

"The minimum wage is a good example. While 75ish% of American economists believe it to be a bad idea (American Economics Association), we can be sure, if it is a good idea (leaving the wider debate for greater minds, for the moment), that the optimal rate depends largely on the shape of the demand curve for labor. Does Congress consider this (seriously) when it debates the minimum wage? I doubt it."

Notice now....

[anne]

http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/002703.html

November 28, 2006

The Economic Thought of the Morally & Intellectually Superior N. Gregory Mankiw
By Max Sawicky

"Here is a question that I would ask any politician: If you could set your ideal policy to help the poor, wouldn't you prefer to expand the EITC [earned income tax credit] and abolish the minimum wage? Any politician that fails to answer 'yes' is either misinformed or engaging in demagoguery."

Among the misinformed or demagogic are these 650 economists, * including five Nobel prize winners, the latter a distinction that has thus far eluded Professor Mankiw.

* http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/minwagestmt2006

Over 650 economists, including 5 Nobel prize winners and 6 past presidents of the American Economic Association, believe that increasing federal and state minimum wages, with annual cost-of-living adjustments for inflation, "can significantly improve the lives of low-income workers and their families, without the adverse effects that critics have claimed."

[anne]

So, then, decide. A Republican Congress was determined to prevent a minimum wage increase, a Democratic Congress finally forced the increase. From $5.15 an hour or $10,712 a year; almost surely with no health health and often with no paid sick days in a year and no legislative mandate for paid vacation days and weakened unions, where was the wage increase supposed to come from?

[BJ Feng]

So only Conservatives want to expand government for political gain? How about those conservatives who genuinely want to decrease government? Where are the liberals who want to?

[calmo]

This bit, the core of PK's missive and repeated by several posters above

"And I’m not sure that faction is losing the argument. The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause."

needs some work (and I am so employable) maybe ChinaK-like clarification, starting with the phrase "they foster a cynicism..."

Who B "they"?
Not the conservative politicians who mess up, but the media thugs (not confined to FOX) who cast the Republican screw-ups as government failure, as government "over-reach"...and who will, on occasion, buffer this stance by digging up Democratic screw-ups from the past no matter how ancient or irrelevant. Fair and balanced (and of course rotten) baloney.
The Democratic screw-up is cast as that party's incompetence and disorganization.
So despite the miserable performance of this administration, the GOP still succeeds...by reducing the participation rates --by turning off people who believe there is no good choice.
Corrupt Republican government was "balanced" by Dem Jefferson...and the issue of corruption, so large in the last mid-terms, buried.
Media, not in our hands but the GOP's and a huge part of the corruption.

[donna]

"it would seem that only a complete fool would trust Bush or his cronies "

Well, a lot of us were telling America that seven years ago, but the idiots in the Supreme Court let him take office anyway.

And the rest is history....

[kthomas]

donna, fools love a fool.

[Patricia Shannon]

In regards to the great depression of the 1930's and Roosevelt's action against it, I have read that the country was on the verge of a popular revolution. There were food riots. We can't know how history would have gone otherwise, but Roosevelt may very well have prevented the election of extreme socialists that the capitalists would have been much worse under.

Yes, it will be hard to get good people in office because of the way the mainstream media operates (including NPR). Look at the way they piled lies on Al Gore. Recently, they tried to demonize John Edwards, (I don't know anybody who thinks the price of his haircuts is relevant) and it resulted in increased donations for him, so now they are trying to ignore him and hope people forget about him. If you look at most media reports about the Democratic presidential race, it appears there are only two candidates.

http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/35821.shtml
"While First Class mail went up 5 percent, smaller magazines were surprised by postage increases of 15 to 30 percent. An increase like that hurts, especially at a nonprofit magazine. What hurts more is that the new rates give big discounts to media giants like People while charging smaller independent magazines like The Nation—and UU World—more. Even worse, the media giants wrote the new rules."
"The new periodicals rate schedule was proposed by Time Warner, Inc., the largest magazine publisher in the United States, and adopted by the politically appointed Postal Service Board of Governors over a rate schedule proposed by the U.S. Postal Service itself."

[anne]

Patricia, what was the book on personality-authority traits or deference you referred to; the book that is online? I cannot find your note, and thank you.

A Canadian author, I think. Possibly on authoritarian personality traits.

Thank you for remembering.

[anne]

Could this be the reference?

Right-wing authoritarianism
By B. Altemeyer
University of Manitoba

What link however, if this is correct?

[bakho]

Clinton administration had little difficulty managing the disasters that happened. 2 years later, Bush is no where close to managing the Katrina disaster. Bush poll numbers tanked because most people think his handling of Katrina and Iraq has been incompetent, not that the problem is beyond can-do Yankee ingenuity.

[anne]

About the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of June 1930; the slowing of growth that was evident from 1928 had turned to recession to severe recession to Depression by the time the tariff took effect. The competing tariffs became a problem internationally, but by timing and by the relatively small impact on national income since trade was just not that significant the tariff simply did not cause the Depression.

[anne]

Republican Herbert Hoover was elected in 1928, along with a Republican Congress. The Supreme Court after years of Republican appointments was oriented to a Republican business philosophy. The Depression that developed during the 4 years following 1928, was not caused by Administration or Congressional Republicans. There was too little sense of what was happening on a theoretical basis; the blame however was on a Republican response that was simply not sympathetic as the Depression developed. There was no experimental policy such as Franklin Roosevelt fostered and Republicans, especially the Supreme Court, resented and tried to block or blocked.

[anne]

Friedrich Hayek and like-minded economists have complained that there was an attempt by bankers to extend credit to buoy the stock market during 1929, but the credit extension was minimal. The Federal Reserve however did not cut the money supply in the wake of worsening recession, but worsening recession resulted as such in a lessening of liquidity and fed to what would become deflation. Again, the issue was a Fed that would not experiment.

[ndd]

ChinaK, actually I "got" your idea. If power always corrupts, then the question arises as to government regulators, "who will watch the watchers?"

My response was that the "watchers" most likely because of intellectual commitment to the policies they oversaw, were remarkably un-corrupt. Only when the new governing coalition I described came to power did the corruption rear its ugly head.

If we visualize a "Pie of Power", then the worst corruption is in that pie with the biggest slices. Government oversight of a capitalist economy makes more slices divided between plutocrats and bureaucrats. Of course the plutocrats will try to seize control of the other slices as well. Hence the "eternal vigilance" point.

And I chose Argentina deliberately, in congruence with your point. If we give up on "eternal vigilance" there will be right-wing corporatist power that periodically alternates with left-wing Peronist power, which together ensured Argentina's descent from first-world to third-world status.

[STS]

ChinaK raises valid concerns about regulation and government action generally. The New Deal included some duds along with the many successes, and the court packing idea was unwise.

But the debate too often poses silly extremes of "regulation good"/"regulation evil". The framers of the constitution obviously didn't believe people could be trusted with government power, yet felt it necessary to create a strong central government capable of promoting the general welfare. And government as practiced by confident, visionary (and generally conservative) figures like Alexander Hamilton, certainly did not limit itself to passivity for fear of "unintended consequences".

The founding generation understood the essential tensions in establishing a state between tyranny and anarchy. This is not news -- or should not be.

The key to the constitution was to set the right *form* for government institutions and similarly the key to effective government *policy* is to give it the right structure. Social Security has been highly effective because it is quite simple in structure. FDIC has been tremendously effective because it did not "burn down" the failing retail banking industry, but instead created a protective firewall of "reinsurance" behind the existing industry.

Healthcare could be approached along similar lines (and this idea has been floating around for a while) by establishing a "Federal Healthcare Reinsurance Corporation" which sits behind the retail medical/prescription insurance industry and offers them access to a risk pool composed of the whole US population, charging a reasonable premium for reinsuring catastrophic coverage and requiring the participating firms to offer standardized "universal" policies with strong portability, etc.

A lot of people who think like ChinaK will need to stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater (or drowning it, ala Norquist) and start thinking about what makes for effective government intervention, or the present historical turning point may prove to be one for the dramatically worse.

[DJM]

I believe you are looking for this;

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

[DJM]

You can now get a book as well for only $9.77 ; http://www.lulu.com/content/923565

[DJM]

Anne, I was having trouble accessing the online version of The Authoritarians today...but I am sure that was the link I used before.

[kthomas]

For a good laugh: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2007/08/31/0831DCmartinez.html

anne, you'll love this one.

Talk about having your head up your arse.

[robertdfeinman]

To get back to New Orleans:

The arguments seem to be that things are going badly there because of greed/incompetence/corruption/all of the above.

I'd like to propose another reason. The continued displacement of the poor (read black) and the lack of aid for those stubborn enough to come back is deliberate. It's a form of urban renewal. We have seen dozens of instances over the decades in the US.

First low income housing was knocked down and replaced by "projects" which were ghettos that soon became slums. Then these in turn were knocked down and replaced by parking lots. (Chicago comes to mind.) After the local population has given up trying to come back the land is turned over to developers who build more upscale housing. Promises of "affordable" housing are never kept.

This week there was an article about an area in Brooklyn which was torn down decades ago and is still a parking lot.

When things don't seem to make sense it's because we are trying to fit our preconceptions into events. If you look at the situation so far, everything falls into place. The casinos get waivers to build on land, lots get combined making large-scale development feasible, and money gets diverted to prestige housing.

There is no incompetence at all. The plan is so well orchestrated it almost seems deliberate...

[Tom W]

China K:

Your posts were thoughtful and interesting--a rarity in online forums.

I think your argument could even be taken one step further. Krugman not only assumes that competent politicians are likely to win future elections, but also that those future politicians will competently administer state programs just because they're capable of it. Which seems unlikely to me, since future politicians could just as well be conservative and may believe they have an obligation to sabotage state programs even if they were able to administer them. In other words, even if future politicians were competent, they may be opposed to state intervention on ideological grounds and may wish to sabotage such interventions in order to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of government.

Krugman makes two assumptions: 1) that future politicians will be competent to administer any social service programs (in other words, most politicians thus far have been anomalies); and 2) that future competent politicians will share Krugman's ideology and will administer the social service programs well, solely because they're capable of it, even though they fundamentally disagree with those programs and think they shouldn't exist.

The second condition seems even less likely than the first. Suppose Bush were competent but strongly ideologically opposed to state intervention. Would Katrina have been different? Would socialized medicine fare well?

Progressives often complain that conservative politicians do not administer "great society" programs with enthusiasm. I'm not sure what they expected.

[narrow gauge]

City, D; Mayor, D; Governor, R; Senators, D; President, D:

For one terrible week in July 1995, daytime temperatures in Chicago soared above 100 degrees; even at night the mercury barely dipped below that. Public-health officials knew the prolonged heat would be deadly, especially for frail seniors, but they were stunned by the final death toll. Altogether, the heat wave killed more than 700 Chicagoans, more than double the number who died in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. As New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg writes in Heat Wave, his remarkable book about the tragedy, "The proportional death toll ... in Chicago has no equal in the record of U.S. heat disasters."
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=6589

[anne]

DJM, thank you, I will look to the internet access but also send a donation of the price of the book. The work is often suggested, but I have somehow set it aside. No longer.

K Thomas, thank you.

[Thomas More]

Tom W

Ditto.

Nicely said and properly discussed by China K and NDD.

[anne]

No; whateverr the secret intent, the supposedly reasonable though dramatically wrong comments cited, are simply meant to make sure that no one understands that the problem was not Franklin Roosevelt or New Deal Democrats or Democrats now. The problem is the Republican Administration and past Republican Congresses that have insured disaster from Iraq to New Orleans.

The trick of desperately afraid Republicans now is to explain that the Democrats are really as bad or worse, but this is of course nonsense, as much nonsense as blaming the Depression on a tariff legislated well after Depression had come or muddled monetary policy while Republican leaders were content to do nothing.

[anne]

The problem is not a minimum wage that was finally raised to allow for more than $10,700 income a year, not raised by Republicans but by Democrats, while we are told nonsense about 125% of economists against any sort of minimum wage at all. Nonsense. The problems from Iraq to Katrina are Republican problems, but Republicans are desperate to blame blame blame. Blame is what Republicans are after as long as not blaming themselves.

I am not the least impressed by everyone is terrible in government game.

[evagrius]

And now a "Monty Python" commentary;

The Long View
Advisory thoughts on the 43rd president.

By Karl Rove

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDBkZWQzNWM2ZDIwN2QyMTg4OTUzMjc1ZGFhOTc5OTM

[DJM]

Anne, while you are picking up books to try to get a better understanding on what seems unfathomable, I again recommend the book; Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986

The more we understand about how we all justify our beliefs and actions, and how even our memory is often faulty in order to prevent dissonance, the better we will be able to survive these divisive times.

[Patricia Shannon]

Anne

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/

Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians

I'm sure you'll find it interesting.

[Robinia]

robertfeinman, I think you really have a point. What Krugman comments on is the PR that the rest of the nation is supposed to take away from the situation ("government can't do anything right, have to rely on the churches"), but the people in New Orleans know the truth. Check out Aaron Neville singing "Wash Us Away."

[Patricia Shannon]

Thanks DJM - I'll look into getting that book.
Anyone who thinks humans are rational has to be totally unrational, or at least oblivious to the world.

I have found most people, whether conservative or liberal, tend to act like tape recorders, or at best computers. This is encouraged by the fact that people tend to hang out with people like themselves. That's a nice thing about this web site. We have a mix of opinions, with a lot of knowledge among us, and people putting effort into trying to understand each other.

[DJM]

as robertdfeinman said...
"I'd like to propose another reason. The continued displacement of the poor (read black) and the lack of aid for those stubborn enough to come back is deliberate. It's a form of urban renewal. We have seen dozens of instances over the decades in the US."

an excerpt from Greg Palast | Aug 24 2007;
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/9523
Hurricane George: How the White House Drowned New Orleans

A hurricane is an act of God - but a catastrophic failure of the levees is a act of Bush. That is, under law dating back to 1935, a breech of the federal levee system makes the damage - and the deaths - a federal responsibility. That means, as van Heeden points out, that "these people must be compensated."
The federal government, by law, must build and maintain the Mississippi levees to withstand known dangers - or pay the price when they fail.

Indeed, that was the rule applied in the storms that hit Westhampton Dunes, New York, in 1992. There, when federal sea barriers failed, the flood waters wiped away 190 homes. The feds rebuilt them from the public treasury. But these were not just any homes. They are worth an average of $3 million apiece - the summer homes of movie stars and celebrity speculators.
For the 'luvvies' of Westhampton Dunes, the federal government even trucked in sand to replace the beaches.

[BJ Feng]

There is a distinction between the Republican party and conservatives who want to limit the role of government. This is an important and real distinction. Many conservatives are well aware of the stats showing that Republican administrations are only marginally better than Democratic ones at increasing spending. I believe there has never been an administration that has actually cut overall government spending in nominal terms, the best ones only manage to slow down the expansion of government. Now there's good reason and justification for this as the US population continues to expand and so spending must at least rise as fast as population just to keep service levels the same. Still, there's been little overall progress, just brief periods of hope dashed by more of the same.

Just because someone decides to run as a Republican doesn't make them fiscal conservatives, or even any type of conservative. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards could decide to switch parties tomorrow and no one could prevent that. Michael Bloomberg ran as a Republican. I'm sure there are Democrats who are more conservative than Republicans, especially if compared to Republicans on the coasts.

If conservative ideas are applied and fail, then criticism is justified. But criticizing Republicans for incompetently applying liberal ideas and portraying that as a failure of conservatism is misplaced.

As for Katrina, there's been precious little detail about what exactly is going on in New Orleans and why people are not rebuilding, or what exactly the problems are. What specifically is the government's goal? Rebuilding is too broad because the government cannot make people rebuild their homes. Nor can the government go in and just start building block after block of residential housing and make everything "normal" again. Nor can the government force businesses to come back and open up shop again. Most businesses are local, mom and pop stores, and the ones that define communities are always small local stores, not giant corporations.

So we have to ask why homes aren't being rebuilt. And then what can the government actually do to help? Media sources just aren't providing that kind of detail. They rather go for the personal heart-wrenching piece rather than provide a detailed analysis. We all know things are bad in New Orleans, now we need to know why. It is this type of failure that is dooming newspapers. Newspapers need to deliver in-depth hardcore investigative research that provides new information or detailed information that can't be provided by other sources. We don't need more soft, superficial stories that involve a five-minute phone interview and a quote from some government idiot who is just going to give the usual speech from the manual.

[DJM]

One of the points discussed in 'Mistakes Were Made...' is that when people do hear both sides to an issue they tend to remember the well articulated ones which make the points they agree with, and only the poorly articulated ones of the opposition. Is it any wonder we can listen to the same debate and declare different winners.
I think it is the same with news, we tend to forget the stories that we refuse to believe anyway (or are afraid to believe might be true). That has to be one reason why we can't face the fact that displacing thousands of poor, black, Democrats (even knowing "the end justifies the means" with this crowd) could just be a totally immoral, but well calculated kind of Gerrymandering, and an opportunity they couldn't resist to evict those in low income housing and to raze properties that were primarily--but perhaps not even entirely--blighted (long delays of every sort that they can cause to keep an area not quite livable will work to their advantage), in order eventually to transfer their sites to private redevelopers, perhaps a brand new type of undeclared Condemnation via eminent domain is in their plans. It is certainly not all about incompetence!

"I will look at any additional evidence to confirm the opinion to which I have already come." ~ Lord Molson, British politician (1903-1991)

[anne]

Repeatedly, the New York Times has carried articles in meticulous detail and depth on New Orleans and the problems continually being confronted with no reasonable government reponse. Complaining about lack of information is either a sign of being willfully ignorant or worse a means of deceiving denial. Notice however, the complaint is not about lack of personal information but an accusation that there is no media information which is simply deception.

[Jenna's Bush]

To those who would say the private sector is always superior to the public: What about the insurance companies foot-dragging and outright refusal to pay out to their customers in New Orleans?