1. Why does political gridlock seem to be over for now?
2. Interesting NYT piece on how Israel is trying to restore domestic safety. It’s not even a lead or main article, but an excellent example of insightful reporting, analytics, behavioral understanding, and real world relevance, all rolled up into one piece. Hardly a day goes by on MR that I don’t like to something from the NYT,and this is one good illustration why.
3. Is California overregulating driverless cars?
4. Gifting a mountain to Finland isn’t as easy as it might sound. And five intentionally missed free throws, also on that side of the Atlantic.
5. David Brooks hands out Sidney Awards.
6. Canadian prizes for babies.
1) I think it’s a combination of the electorate’s anti-establishment mood (as personified by Trump) having a very clarifying effect on the minds of incumbents of both parties as to the need to stop grandstanding and get something done in addition to the fact that Obama is not running for re-election again so GOP feels it has less to gain by stonewalling this time around.
Interesting! So giving up everything to the Democrats for the right to export oil is going to enamor the voters to the Establishment!
OK, that was very snarky. Your theory may be right.
I just don’t see giving Harry Reid victory after victory while he’s in the minority is seen as a win. But I respect that guy’s ability more and more.
The more the government does, the worse things get.
Call it “gridlock. Obama, leftist lobbyists, and progressive special interests have gotten everything they wanted and, unexpectedly, everything is turning to shit. The solution: whine about “gridlock” and blame the GOP.
And, it’s spend, spend, spend. The US has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Since 2009, they doubled the national debt to $18.8 trillion, and Beltway, Silicon Valley, Wall Street Bankers and a certain Wizard of Omaha get richer. How much more did they need to spend to make “it” work?
No wait! Any reduction in the rate of increase in the national debt is “grid lock.” Now, I see.
And, there isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between a democrat and an establishment Republican. Ergo Trump.
FYI, if the elites’ ingenious programs engender deflation, the debt crisis becomes even (if you can imagine it) worse and the gig’s up.
Yup, I just hate it when I need less money to buy the same things.
“And, Ergo Trump.”
If Trump is the billions’ worth difference between Democrats and themselves that fringe Republicans want, thanks God there isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between a democrat and an establishment Republican.”
You have the wrong trade off. It was compromise by everyone, or a very bad holiday season for everyone as government services are disrupted, the news of this dominates every hour of media burying the feel good fluff news, and worst, Congress and staff are stuck in Washington being hounded by reporters looking for something that can explode on the boring shutdown news.
What I find interesting is how every compromise is seen by conservatives as Obama crushing lyrics defeating conservatives. Obama wanted tax hikes but compromised only only making Bush tax cuts permanent, something Bush could not do with a Republican majority, and yet, that compromise has been declared anot Obama victory crushing Republicans.
Admit that you will see Obama as the victor unless he first kills Biden and then himself so Ryan becomes president.
Honestly you just cheered me up a bit.
@mulp, this was great. More comments like this, please!
‘Hardly a day goes by on MR that I don’t like to something from the NYT,’ which just happens to pay him for columns on a regular basis.
Good God, you’ve hit on it! You’ve uncovered the corruption inherent in the system!
And not a day goes by that you don’t harp on some trivial nonsense. I suspect you’re being paid by Tyler to make him look smart in contrast.
I think more people read this weblog than read the NYT.
That doesn’t speak well of your knowledge of the world.
1) Because the political impetus for political gridlock – opposition to anything Obama proposes – is fading as his second term comes to an end. Congressional Republicans would like a smooth landing spot for the new president, which they mistakenly assume will be from their own party. Either that or Paul Ryan’s beard.
I think the Democrats are post-Obama. When everyone ignores him things go more smoothly.
They are passing all the same crap that the Republican majority in the house has been blocking for years. There was always a majority of the overall House to pass the bills, there just wasn’t a majority of the majority to get past the made up Hastert Rule. Now that the HNIC is on his way out they don’t have a reason to hold it up anymore poof. There isn’t any big issue that the Democrats have just caved on out of the blue.
Actually, the rules was that bills must pass with no Democrats voting for it to get it to pass. Lots of majority of thenergy majority bills were never allowed a vote because they would have passed easily over the opposite of the Freedom caucus and other conservative blocks.
Obama has been quite hands off on legislation for a while now. It’s really that the Republicans are post-Obama and/or just happy to look competent by passing anything at all, even if it is all done in back-room deals with more Dems voting for it than Rs.
1) when was Obama ever hands on? One of the interesting elements of his signature Obamacare legislation was the fact that he was so detached from its making
2) why would the GOP suddenly feel the need to look competent when they’ve been sweeping federal and local elections for years now? The ire here is because they’ve rarely been stronger and yet apparently gave the Democrats everything they wanted.
And I’d say gridlock is not inherently a bad thing when one side is doubling the debt. The end of gridlock could also be the policeman joining the thief in robbing the bank.
“The end of gridlock could also be the policeman joining the thief in robbing the bank.”
I suspect that Bernie Sanders would just consider that a couple of his voters helping to fight inequality and would applaud their actions.
Or maybe it’s despair over the rise of Trump.
1. Why does political gridlock seem to be over for now? –
Because the Ryan-McConnell K Street Kaffeeclatch decided to team up with the Democratic caucus to shiv their own constituency.
If so, why did they do that? Note that it’s hard to please people who think any kind of governing and the compromises that entails = shivving voters.
Stupidity? The deficit isn’t $1.3 trillion so there is room to spend? They are intent on being the anti Trump ?
Their constituents don’t care whether they adhere to their purported principals of fiscal responsibility. Maybe they’d care if they had raised taxes, though.
So, if you did not vote for the elected official, you are no longer his constituent, and he is free under the principles that define our republican government to screw you over, perhaps by seeking laws to take all your property?
Expect something from your own party and I’ll expect something from mine.
From the NYT article: “When the latest Palestinian uprising erupted in early October, set off by increasing fears that Israel was seeking to take over Al Aqsa Mosque compound”
Should read: “set off by propaganda and lies, which we and TC (GMU) are oh so happy not to deny, that Israel was seeking to take over Al Aqsa Mosque compound”
Surprise surprise, a population that has seen decades of settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing, land grabs and collective punishment are skeptical and angry at the government behind all of that.
#2 Here was a comment from the NYT article
(palestinians) agreed to banish youths identified as inciting violence in return for the police agreeing to ease searches of women. The police could not confirm those claims.
“We can lose the whole world, but our honor is not to be touched,” said Amir Dibs, a 22-year-old youth counselor in the Shuafat camp.
These people are still stuck in the 7th century.
Here are the honor killings in Pakistan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/28/in-pakistan-honor-killings-claim-1000-womens-lives-annually-why-is-this-still-happening/
“ease searches of women”
The people of San Bernardino can confirm Muslim women never commit terrorist acts.
You are perpetuating stereotypes. Some Christians say things that make it sound like they would be quite happy living in the 7th century too.
Far better to say something like “in the modern world there are still some Muslims who wish to remain stuck in the 7th century” than to say “these people are stuck in the 7th century”.
Your sort of approach opens the door to complaining about those who want Christian Sharia as law and who want to ban science class in favour of Bible school.
7th century christianity was a heck of a lot more peaceful and nonviolent than 7th century Islam. It wasn’t until the 8th century that it was even argued that a soldier killing someone in battle was not necessarily a mortal sin as long as he was following a Christian king and did not plunder, feel wrath, or take pleasure in it, but that was just one writer and even thinking about killing people during a battle required lengthy penances. And the first idea that it could actually be a meritorious act did not occur until the 11th century.
Even then a soldier killing in self defense during a war was described as requiring a forty day pennance. I would suggest looking at things like the Erminfrid Penetential from 1070.
It is notable that except for one misrepresented passage from St Augustine, who opposed all killing on principle, every single example of theologically supported Christian violence is post 7th century.
Are you describing native Americans?
Surprise surpirse, Arjun incorporates three inflammatory lies into one sentence.
Everything he said is true.
And completely, utterly irrelevant.
E – the first comment (HC) pointed out that Palestinians were incited by propaganda. The second comment (Arjun) explained why it is so easy for this to happen. How is that irrelevant?
You remind me of right-wing Canadians, who in the previous election season were mocking the Liberal leader who said we should try to understand root causes of terrorism.
If you don’t want to understand root causes, then how can anyone credibly believe that you actually want solutions?
“skeptical and angry at the government behind all of that.”
So that explains why they murder innocent people on the street.
You mean like the Allies bombed German civilians and nuked Japanese civilians into submission?
You might explain how your expert hands would have prosecuted the war effort so deftly as to not kill any civilians in 1943.
And exactly what is achieved by sticking a knife in someone’s chest at the farmer’s market.
Re: 1943 – I’m with you that it’s not a good comparison.
But for the second point – when young angry men start killing people in a disorganized fashion, the appropriate question is “why are they angry?” not “what is achieved?”. Young angry men are not rational, and it doesn’t make sense to try to see logic in it.
Why are they angry? How many years/decades of foreign occupation would you tolerate until you started to dream about doing violent things to the occupiers?
The same can basically be said about the local population of Watts circa 1990-2015. However, any outside and unbiased rational assessment would conclude that this is primarily the fault of the Grape Street Crips, not the LAPD. What if the population of Gaza and the West Bank had been magically replaced with Koreans forty years ago. Does anyone seriously think that we’d see anything remotely resembling an Israel-Palestine conflict today? Ergo the critical fault almost assuredly lies with the Palestinian population. It might have something to do with the quality of government you’d expect when your the mean IQ of your electorate is 81.
I’m surprised that Palestinians are as peaceful as they are. After all, they’re under military occupation of a foreign imperialist.
One that has endlessly triumphed against them whenever provoked.
What was the original provocation?
I’ll tell you what. Canada will take over NY state, and if anyone lifts a finger, you’re a terrorist and we have God’s right to kill you and take Vermont too as punishment.
Come up with a precise analogy:
1. Canadians buy property in the New York wine country. A mess of people move in from Pennsylvania and Ohio to work there as the economy prospers.
2. The state government allows a membership organization of Canadians some para-statal powers.
3. The mess of inmigrants plus some of the longtime residents engage in episodic violence against the Canadian wine growers
4. Canadians continue to move to New York, especially as political violence in Canada intensifies. Canadian militias are set up in the wine country.
5. The State of New York decides to cut loose the wine country, partitioning it between Canadians and the others.
6. The Canadians declare their own Republic. They are militarily attacked by Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as by proximate militias. A large mass of Pennsylvanians and Ohioans leave the area to clear the decks for the invasion.
7. The Canadians win the war and establish a state, ejecting some non-Canadians in the process.
8. A large mass of Canadians move to the wine country, some from Ontario, some from Canadian populations in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
9. Pennsylvania and Ohio refuse to negotiate with the wine country Republic and maintain they will destroy it militarily. They eventually set up an umbrella organization of wine country ‘refugee’ militias.
10. Pennsylvania and Ohio provoke another war which they suffer a humiliating loss. More of their partisans leave the wine country. They refuse to negotiate.
11. Pennsylvania fires a great deal of artillery over the border, then thinks better of it and elects to negotiate for a time.
12 . The Wine country holds municipal elections in the territory in acquired during the recent war. The population elects revanchists.
13. Ohio and Pennsylvania attack the wine country again. They still do not gain any territory. A cease fire is brokered by New York.
14. Revanchists take nearly all municipal offices in certain areas of the wine country. The government dissolves those municipalities in stages over the next several years.
15. Pennsylvania cuts a deal with the Canadians in the wine country for a return of its territory and an interim devolution re the non-Canadian territories in the wine country. Pennsylvania is diplomatically ostracised by Ohio and all kindred states. The wine country returns all Pennsylvania territory over a span of three years.
16. non-Canadians in the wine country begin a campaign of riots in their areas in the wine country. It runs on for six years.
17. The wine country government negotiates an accord with the non-Canadian political leadership to transfer authority in stages. Over the next several years, about half the territory where non-Canadians live is handed over, wherein live > 90% of non-Canadians.
18. The non-Canadian leadership sets up criminal syndicates and begins a grinding campaign of violence against Canadians. The government suppresses it in stages.
19. New York tries to broker a grand bargain and the Canadians offer the non-Canadians a territorial state in the areas in which they predominate. The non-Canadians reject this and begin a new campaign of violence.
20. The Canadians suppress the violence successfully, in large measure by constructing a network of checkpoints and walls (which anti-Canadians condemn).
21. The Canadians execute a complete and unilateral withdrawal from a territory wherein live 40% of all non-Canadians. Non-Canadian mobs destroy agriultural infrastructure.
22. Non-Canadian militias take control of said territory, and begin diverting foreign aid to build tunnels to inflitrate their members and kidnap Canadians and also begin lobbing rockets over the border at Canadian towns.
23. Elections are held in the territory occupied by non-Canadians. A majority of the vote goes to a party whose program is to disposess and expel all Canadians.
24. The Canadian wine country government offers the non-Canadian authorities another deal: a territorial state in the areas where they predominate numerically. This is rejected.
25. The Canadians launch a military campaign to destroy the tunnels and artillery pieces. This is condemned by various foreign governments.
26. Nathan and Arjun lie their asses off about all of the above.
Art Deco nailed it here, very well done.
North Koreans or South?
…insightful reporting, analytics, behavioral understanding, and real world relevance, all rolled up into one piece.
It’s competent reporting, sure, but I’m not sure there’s anything really great about it. Maybe standards have fallen in these days of declining circulation and cost-cutting.
I’d like to see this topic given more press, as well as how other Nations threaten to disregard patent on drugs, created & manufactured in the USA, unless they’re sold to them at cost of production: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-drug-prices/
You think Adam Smith was all wrong about economics?
I’m pretty sure the author of the book “Wealth of Nations” wouldn’t have been surprised at this.
1. This seems to me the key reason: “Democrats’ priorities (renewable energy tax breaks) were coupled with Republican favorites (repeal crude oil export ban). Tax breaks for business were matched with permanent child care and low-wage worker tax credits.”
Polls show the biggest shared priority for Republican and Democratic voters is lower taxes. Republicans don’t want to raise taxes on anybody and Democrats only want them raised on the rich.
Don’t forget more visas for foreign workers!
The GOP is just brilliant. The electorate seems riled up about this, so let’s push their noses in it!
They must think this is their chance to sneak it through and no one would notice.
Note: I’m pro-immigration, but some of these visa programs aren’t exactly immigrant friendly, either. They are big business friendly.
Should the GOP campaign on nationalizing all big businesses?
2) “Hardly a day goes by on MR that I don’t like to something from the NYT”
Would today be one of them? or can you only count things NYT shows you, not what NYT dosn’t want to show you: http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/18/the-new-york-times-just-memory-holed-this-devastating-obama-admission/
The “admission” is stupid, because no one needs to watch more cable news.
Once written, though, trying to remove it from the paper of public record just smells.
Shorter Obama, ” I don’t watch enough cable TV to appreciate just how crazy this country has become…”
2) Fascinating that so much analysis and insight can arise from a single, unitary point of view. Only one apparently non-Palestinian Israeli, who is not identified as such, is quoted. He had been involved in the government 20 years ago. No interviews of non-Palestinians who had been among the crowds crashed by vehicles or stabbed. No, all we need to know is what the Palestinians say about why they kill non-Palestinian Israelis, and that the Israeli government [sadly] is managing to slow the carnage.
For all the criticism the nyt gets from internet comments, it consistently has the most interesting articles of any newspaper online.
I don’t like its editorial viewpoint, but I think it is still the best newspaper around.
I think WaPo’s better. Its editorial viewpoint stinks, and that’s putting it mildly.
The NYT’s, that is. WaPo’s is disgusting too (neocon).
1) A- Obama is not running for office again, B- the economy has improved to budgets are less tight. Less tight budgets make it easier to grease the wheels.
Supposedly Ryan will revert to “regular order” for budgets next year. But don’t they always say that?
Its also Xmas season – they make sure its always around this time, to add pressure for a deal.
I agree with A & B, but I’d also add C – The Election Season is well underway and Republicans don’t want a Congressional fight distracting from the campaigning.
Whereas Hillary Clinton would be absolutely thrilled to have the focus off of the Democratic primary. If nothing changes, she’ll be coronated. So, a news black out is completely in her favor and indeed she could probably drop spending to minimal levels and save her money for next summer.
Normally I would agree, but given the Trump phenomenon, is attention on the Republican campaign really a good thing right now? It might be better if people don’t pay much attention until the voting starts and Trump (hopefully) gets eliminated in short order.
Trump should not be eliminated!
https://tinyurl.com/gws6k8n
Trump 2016!
Actually, a fight distracting from the campaigning would help the Republicans. I think Congress is using the campaign as an opportunity to massively boost the deficit.
On #3, I think California may have identified where ‘driverless cars’ will be for the next few decades. We may find that the best solution for tasks that combine cold calculating with creativity (like driving) is a human operator augmented by a computer. Chess, I think, is another example of this: human/computer pairs have proven far superior to any human or computer alone.
Apparently driverless cars suffer higher-than-normal accidents-per-mile entirely because of human drivers running into them. To me this suggests humans have an intuitive understanding of how other humans drive, and the rules governing automated cars don’t quite approximate this. For example, if a squirrel ran into the road then back onto the curb, a human might slow down then accelerate once the squirrel was gone, while an automated car might stop entirely. As a driver, I would anticipate the human’s behavior, and might even begin accelerating before the first car did, knowing they would soon be accelerating too. I would not readily anticipate a car stopping completely, and it drives me batshit crazy when people do this very thing. (There is a particularly perilous freeway entrance I use often, and I’ve started observing how human drivers interact with each other to get through the light as quickly as possible, what with all the articles on driverless cars. There is unquestionably a high level of intuition at play, and I wonder if Google’s stable of public-transit-enthusiast engineers really understand human drivers beyond to say “they suck”, which is not helpful.)
It will be a long time before the world’s current non-automated fleet is entirely replaced by an automated one, and until it is we’ll probably find humans and computers driving according to very different rules. Probably for the next few decades our best bet is computer augmentation, which is already fairly prevalent: lane departure warnings/corrections, automatic braking, dynamic cruise control, and even acceleration limits that compel the driver to drive as fuel-efficiently as possible.
I don’t think Google engineers are public transit enthusiasts. Instead they live in the Mission and ride their company-sponsored private buses to Mountain View to go to work. These exclusionary private buses are widely scorned by the more publicly-minded public transit enthusiasts (though their derision seems to lack a sound rationale, at least to me).
I’d like to see evidence that human/computer pairs have “proven far superior to any human or computer alone.”
At any rate, just as with chess chips in driverless cars, will keep getting better and better. Driverless vehicles everywhere won’t take decades — closer to a decade.
2025 or bust.
I think a trained and regularly evaluated human/computer pair such as a modern airliner pilot can have superior performance, but for typical users, unless the system is very well designed to take account of human inability to quickly and appropriately take control of a task that until a fraction of a second ago was automated for them, then I think the pairing of humans and computers can definitely be worse. This creates major problems for Tesla’s piecmeal approach to automated driving, even though, to me at least, it looks as though their approach is superor in pretty much all other ways to Google’s all at once approach.
the brain makes decisions organically far faster than the brain can take in inorganic signals information (“The computer recommends doing X”), process it, and make a decision. I don’t think this is even similar; chess isn’t played with computers in real-time. Has there ever been a computer-aided blitz chess?
#2 is OK but it leaves out the most important policy, Open Borders. This will bring huge new wealth to Israel and bring millions of new immigrants who will over from the nativists who as we know are as nativists always are,holding back the country.
#4: giving a mountain to Finland seems to be just about as hard as it might sound.
#1 I liked 2013 better.
The economy has added more than 13 million jobs since the employment trough in 2010 and I think we’re spending a lot less on various wars, but the deficit is still $440 billion and set to increase based on higher spending and tax cuts in the budget deal during a mature phase in the economic cycle…
…and the whole Baby Boomer Entitlement Iceberg inches closer every day.
Tyler, I never hear you talk about this. Are we all Dick Cheney now?
“…and the whole Baby Boomer Entitlement Iceberg inches closer every day.”
Indeed, that topic should get a lot more coverage on a site such as this.
Especially since the site’s proprietors are Boomers
Tyler is a Boomer; Alex is, like, totally, a Gen Xer.
True, my bad.
Born in 1962. Not truly.
And there isn’t any iceberg.
“And there isn’t any iceberg.”
That’s just quibbling over terminology. You’re aware of the coming revenue/spending gap. It’s significant enough to require drastic changes. Either spending goes down or taxes go up. To the tune of hundreds of billions per year.
It’s too scary. I don’t want to think about it. At least global warming is way out there, it won’t bother me.
I was surprised the Chan article about WeChat made Brooks’s otherwise impressive list.
I think WeChat clearly disproves hyperbole about China. It’s a terrific app that truly does it all.
But the app to end all other apps is also hyperbole. The user interface is not on par with Facebook, the photo sharing service is miles behind Instagram, and WeChat doesn’t function like twitter at all. Specialization among apps will continue for a long time; WeChat style apps are not the endgame.
Then there was this from Brooks’ op-ed:
“It is an app that contains millions of apps within it. As Chan says, it shows what happens when an entire country skips the PC and goes straight to mobile.”
That is obviously wrong but wondered just how far off. So I looked it up:
In 2000, 0.3% had PCs while a tiny fraction had cellphones (service began in 1999)
By 2005, 15% had PCs while 30% had cellphones
By 2012, 40% had PCs while 80% had cellphones
So, fun quote, although not true.
Maybe the Times columnist missed this from the public editor
“Two front-page, anonymously sourced stories in a few months have required editors’ notes that corrected key elements – elements that were integral enough to form the basis of the headlines in both cases. That’s not acceptable for Times readers or for the paper’s credibility, which is its most precious asset.”
If I needed the Times I would also ignore this
#4. Maybe it would be easier to give the mountain to Finland, rather than gifting it.
Why does “gift” need to be a verb, exactly?
Tyler, I’d be interested to know about the relative frequency of NYT occurrences in Assorted Links (normalized by the frequency of Assorted Links posts) since the inception of MR. Maybe working with monthly aggregates would give about the right amount of granularity. Perhaps you can get a research assistant to compile this? It should be an easy exercise, and even easier if they have direct access to your blog’s data (rather than having to scrape it). I think the results could say something interesting about the recent history of journalism (or they might not — it could be dominated by your own idiosyncratic evolution as a consumer of news, although that in and of itself might say something interesting about the recent history of journalism).
Same here. What about the Marginal Counterrevolution assorted links?
political gridlock is low because democracy is low….
democracy is low because the american control now has little control over their politicians…
Let me explain:
DC is supposed to represent the american majority …That is called “democracy.”
The degree to which DC ACTUALLY represents the american majority is proportional to the degree to which the american can CONTROL their elected representatives…
DC politicians do not really want to represent the american majority—they want to represent donors and those monied interests that will pay them off in speaking fees and cushy director sinecures when they leave office.
This is the conflict–who controls the politicians….
the american majority can BETTER control the DC politicians when the american majority has a clear and well defined common interest and public will.
For example, if 100 percent of the american majority wants X done by DC, then the common interest and public will is VERY well defined.
On the other if 10 percent of the american majority wants X done by DC, and 0 percent of the american majority wants Y done by DC, and 10 percent want Z done, etc etc etc, then the common interest and public will is NOT VERY well defined.
With me so far?
Good! Then let us proceed.
What factors INCREASE the common interest and public will and what factors DECREASE the common interest and public will?
Once we understand these factors, we will know why gridlock is low.
The primary factor affecting common interest and public will is HETEROGENEITY/HOMOGENEITY.
As heterogeneity increases,the common interest and public will DECREASES.
The USA is becoming more HETEROGENEOUS due to immigration and nonwhite vs white birth rates. As heterogeneity increases, the the common interest and public becomes LESS WELL DEFINED, meaning that the electorate is LESS ABLE to control the DC politicians.
That means that the DC politicians are able to disregard the will and interests of the voters and do as the donors and other monied interests want them to do.
The root error behind the missed free throws, and the other odd episodes linked, is counting points scored in overtime as equal to points scored in regulation time. A win in overtime (by however many points) is a win by a smaller margin than a win by one point in regulation time, and that ought to be reflected in tournament rules.
WeChat came out when 500 million Chinese owned computers. How is that “an entire country skips the PC”?