David Brooks is a ideological Hack, does anyone besides Liberals read him?

Patterico lays the smack down on Brooks here.

Narcissism? Brooks thinks the Tea Party suffers from it, but does not mention Obama. I guess Brooks thinks there’s no narcissism in Obama’s comparing his election to the fall of the Berlin Wall, or turning the White House into almost a shrine to himself, or reading a letter from someone who says she is going to be buried in an Obama T-shirt, or building an imperial stage for his nomination speech, or writing his autobiography years before being elected President.

Victimhood? Brooks thinks the Tea Party has it — but not Obama, who thinks people don’t like him because of his middle name, which his wife calls the “fear bomb”; or who plays the race card (I don’t “look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills”).

An egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity? Are you kidding me, David Brooks?

Obama humiliated the Supreme Court in front of the nation. He humiliated Netanyahu. He gives his opponents the finger (not once, not twice, but three times). He is haughty with opponents (even as Michelle assures us that he is never disagreeable).

A willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil? David Brooks, are you telling me that the Tea Partiers distort the truth, and President Obama doesn’t?

Not Dead Just Moving

I haven’t posted in a while because I’m getting the hell out of Arkansas. I’m moving to Upstate New York. I probably won’t be able to post much for a few weeks. Hope everyone is doing good.

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

Hope everyone has a good Fourth of July. Eat, Drink and Have FUN!!!

I’m not dead

Just been busy; end of semester crap (all As though), work and other things. Going to NOLA this weekend. Yay!

Jefferson on Welfare

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

– Thomas Jefferson

Saints Win!

I wanted the Saints to win, but didn’t know because you can never underestimate Payton. I wanted them to win cause they have a great team, not cause I feel bad cause of Katrina like that asshole Obama.

Brees was phenominal! As much as I agree he deserved MVP, what does a kicker got to do?

Hartley was great! 3 field goals longer than 40 yards and an incredible onside kick!

Smoot-Hawley Revisited

This started out as a comment to a podcast at Econtalk on Smoot-Hawley.

Justin P writes:

Russ,
I’m glad you and Dr. Rustici started the talk on how easily people try to disregard SH as one of the many causes of the GD. Far to often is the notion that a Government policy could wreck the economy discounted with no actual look at the evidence, merely because it doesn’t fit a priori views. In this case, that Government intervention is a “good thing.” This is my main problem with Keynesian economics. Keynes had some good ideas and some really crappy ones. I view his “General Theory,” as his absolute worst work. Paradox of thrift is one of the worst ideas, second only to the magik of G.
Smoot-Hawley flies in the face of the “Government is good” meme, so it’s no wonder why mainstream Keynesians stick their head in the sand and dismiss any such argument that SH was a major contributor.
The big flaw I find in their reasoning is the notion of Animal Spirits. Keynes never goes into the cause of recession, another big flaw in his theory, instead laying all at the feet of irrational people ie Animal Spirits. Why don’t they want to find out what spooked those spirits in the first place? As I see it, SH as a major cause of the Depression fits in quite nicely in the Keynesian framework of Animal Spirits.
People saw a major piece of legislation coming down the pipes and reacted to it, which is Rustici’s thesis.
Now why do they still disregard “SH as a cause” analysis, because they’d have to admit that G isn’t always benevolent. That G can be on net negative. I think for some, that’s just to hard, it’s much easier to ignore SH and therefore ignore the possibility that G can be bad. Then they can go about their merry way advocating more government spending as a solution to all life’s problems. Unicorns and Pixies dust I say to that.

There are a few things I want to clear up and go over and a few things I want to add to my original comment.

Government Failure vs Market Failure

For the purposes of honesty, I want to admit right now that I am of the belief that behind most
market failures are government legislation. Meaning, markets fail because government make them fail. Whether you agree with me or not, that is the basis for my line of reasoning. Now that that is out of the way we can continue.

I see the idea of Market Failure as a key ingredient to Keynesian analysis. I think it goes without saying that most, not all but most, Keynesians see that the answer to market failures are government intervention, either through regulations, taxation or spending (subsidization). The problem with this argument is that not all government action give a net benefit. I’d argue that most, if not all, government action produces a net harm to the economy. The current crisis is only one example, where government action to produce affordable housing, coupled with stupid Fed monetary policy produced the “Greatest Recession since the Great Depression.” The Market played within all the regalatory rules that Congress set forth. Banks bought and sold AAA rated securities. Why didn’t the SEC step in? Why didn’t the Fed step in? Maybe because they were utterly clueless that a bubble had formed and was on its way to pop. How can we be confident that government will save the day when they can’t see the problem staring them in the face. It was Government action that helped cause the Great Recession of 2008 and it was Government action that helped cause the Great Depression.

Why Keynesians don’t want to mention Smoot-Hawley

As my comment above states, Smoot-Hawley fits into a Keynesian Animal Spirits framework. Is it that hard to imagine massive government intervention in the export economy causing investors to freeze up investments? Is it that hard to imagine, the tariff war that ensued causing consumers to buy less stuff, both foreign and domestic stuff? It is perfectly rational for consumers to buy less, under a tariff war than under free trade condition. Tariffs raise the price of a product, this will cause a decrease in supply which will raise prices for domestic producers as well. Now think about how that effect the overall economy.

Another aspect of Smooth-Hawley that isn’t mentioned that much is how the decrease in net exports will effect the money suppy. Rustici talks about banks but in a Keynesian framework, there is a multiplier effect in play as well. Government spending isn’t the only thing that has the benefit of a multiplier, any consumption will have a multiplicative effect. Exports produce profits for domestic producers, which in turn pay their employees a salary, which they will spend on other consumer goods. Now once that export money enters the salary chain it goes through the same multiplicative mechanism as Government spending, hence a export multiplier. Companies don’t horde cash, they pay expenses and the rest they invest to try and earn a return.

Admission of error

Personally, I think the reason they don’t give Smoot-Hawley it’s due, is precicly because it puts doubt in the “Government is good” mentality. Think about it, generally anyone that wants to increase the power of the State, won’t want to talk about how the State can harm you and the economy. Why would they want to harm their case? It’s perfectly rational for them to try and dismiss any arguments that hurt their own. To admit that Smoot-Hawley had a devistating effect on the Economy, they would have to recognize that other Government action, in the name of helping a certain interest group oh like farmers, can have a disaterous and harmful effect on the economy.

You’d think they’d want to earn some good political points by pointing out how Hoover signed SH into law. Yet, that would mean they’d have to give up the Hoover as a “do nothing” President. They’d also have to give up the notion that it was the “free-market” that caused the Depression. It would be an admission of error on the whole concept of government being necessary to “fix” the market.

Moved to WordPress.

I moved my blog to wordpress. Maybe I’ll post more often now. Probably not, but wordpress has more features than blogger and I can post tweets and from my iphone so who knows.

Government Failure vs Private Solutions

Government failure:
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) joined GOP critics in asking how the suspect was able to retain a U.S. visa — issued by the U.S. Embassy in London in 2008 — after his name appeared in the terrorist database.

“What happened after this man’s father called our embassy in Nigeria?” Lieberman asked. “What happened to that information? Was there follow-up to try to determine where this suspect was?”

Private Solution:
Jasper Schuringa, an Amsterdam resident, lunged toward the fire in Row 19, jumping from one side of the plane to the other and over several other passengers. He burned his fingers as he grabbed a piece of melting plastic held by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused Saturday of trying to bring down the passenger jet with a homemade explosive device.

Schuringa, a video producer, restrained Abdulmutallab as others used blankets and fire extinguishers to douse the flames.

“When I saw the suspect, that he was getting on fire, I freaked, of course, and without any hesitation I just jumped over all the seats,” Schuringa told CNN on Saturday. “And I jumped to the suspect. I was thinking like, he’s trying to blow up the plane.”

“I am grateful to the passengers and crew aboard Northwest Flight 253 who reacted quickly and heroically to an incident that could have had tragic results…”

ClimateGate Denial

There is a lot of denial out there, from the alarmist crowd on the effect of ClimateGate on Global Warming, err, Climate Change. Jones wrote: “My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well… Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.”

As can be suspected, RealClimate is still in full “Cover Our Ass” mode. They are saying that it is all taken out of context. As I said before, I’m sure some of it is out of context. The code that CRU used is the worst offender. The code used to plot the data and create those wonderful “hockey Stick” graphs used to scare everyone to cut off their left foot to save the planet, was not, I repeat not out of context nor was is written in the “heat of the moment.” The coding is deliberate, and as such gives a greater insight into what was going on.

• In the Files maps12.pro maps15.pro maps24.pro

; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures. of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually

• From documents\harris-tree\recon_esper.pro:

; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass Esper et al. (2002) series,
; anomalies against full NH temperatures and other series.
; CALIBRATES IT AGAINST THE LAND-ONLY TEMPERATURES NORTH OF 20 N
;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid ; the decline

• From file documents\harris-tree\recon1.pro

; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass MEAN timeseries of MXD
; anomalies against full NH temperatures.
; THIS IS FOR THE AGE-BANDED (ALL BANDS) STUFF OF HARRY’S
;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1940 to avoid ; the decline

• From file recon_mann.pro

; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass MEAN timeseries of MXD
; anomalies against full NH temperatures.
; THIS IS FOR THE Mann et al. reconstruction
; CALIBRATES IT AGAINST THE LAND-ONLY TEMPERATURES NORTH OF 20 N
; IN FACT, I NOW HAVE AN ANNUAL LAND-ONLY NORTH OF 20N VERSION OF MANN,
; SO I CAN CALIBRATE THIS TOO – WHICH MEANS I’m ONLY ALTERING THE SEASON

• briff_sep98_e.pro:

; PLOTS ‘ALL’ REGION MXD timeseries from age banded and from hugershoff
; standardised datasets.
; Reads Harry’s regional timeseries and outputs the 1600-1992 portion
; with missing values set appropriately. Uses mxd, and just the
; “all band” timeseries
;****** APPLIES A VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION FOR DECLINE*********

Of course there is more. It will take time to figure out all the tricks they used to “avoid the decline.” The main point is that they CRU crew were deathly afraid of this decline. Specifically the divergence from the tree ring data and temperature. Here is what the graph would look like if the post 1960 data is put in to the graph.
Where is the sudden rise in temperatures that the very “credible” CRU crew has been telling us is right there? There is no “Hockey Stick!” Tell Gore to give back his Nobel.

Now there can be something said that the tree ring data for post-1960 isn’t accurate. So if it’s not accurate post-60’s, how can we be certain it’s accurate pre-1960? There is a serious lack of credibility in the data here. This same data has been used to write up IPCC reports that keep telling us we are cooking the planet. These same data sets have been referenced and used in hundred of climate models. The same models that fail to show the recent cooling/stability in global mean temperature. Simply put, the whole deck of cards has been built on a very weak foundation, that is now starting to crumble. Every paper that has used the CRU data sets, has to be re-written and reevaluated. Anything less is sloppy and junk science. This from CBS news.

…the CRU wields outsize influence: it claims the world’s largest temperature data set, and its work and mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report. That report, in turn, is what the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged it “relies on most heavily” when concluding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and should be regulated.

Let’s put it in terms that the Left knows, Enron scandal.
Enron (CRU) has been keeping it’s books closed so know one can verify what they have been doing. A whistleblower (hacker) alerts everyone that Enron has been cooking the books. Auditors (McIntyre/Skeptical crowd) comes in and finds serious breaches in ethics and standards (Emails, Code from Jones, Mann and Hansen).
Do you:
A) Try to prosecute the whitle blower for violating Enron’s right to privacy? (Not the case in CG, since CRU is publicly funded and subject to FOI laws)

B) Admit that is looks bad, but assure everyone that Enron is doing a full internal audit and they will straighten everything out themselves. (This is whats coming from RealClimate, Univ East Anglia, WaPo and numerous Left media camps)

C) Demand full transperency and hold Enron (Jones, Mann, Harris, Schmidt etc) accountable for what is, FRUAD! Demand that everyone has a chance too look at the books and do full independent audits and hold Congressional hearing in the matter.

D) A&B

I’m simply amazed at how the Left, in response to Enron, wants C. Now that it’s ClimateGate, they want D.