Category: Current Affairs
U.S. press coverage of foreign crises
Here is a well-known but now somewhat dated (1991) paper by Zaller and Chiu. It suggests two regularities:
1. U.S. press coverage tends to take its positions from the range of views which exist within government (“indexing”).
2. When a foreign conflict goes well, the U.S. press becomes more hawkish; when the conflict goes less well, the press becomes more dovish. The press swing in opinion is stronger than the swing of opinion from official sources.
Here is an empirical paper, applying this framework to the Libya crisis of 1985-1986. Here is a general look at the indexing hypothesis, again dated and pre-blogosphere. Here is a 2008 paper, showing greater influence for media, relative to the distribution of opinion within government.
A tale of Washington and Iowa and Libya
Sunstein got in such an involved conversation with a voter that he left [Austan] Goolsbee and [Samantha] Power outside, shivering in the snow. The three joked that, between their three sprawling areas of expertise, they had almost any potential question about Obama covered. They failed at the first door, when a voter wanted to know the location of the nearest caucus.
Sunstein and Power, who is 39, soon went on a date, and she asked him if he ever fantasized about doing anything else. “I expected him to say he dreamed of playing for the Red Sox,” she told me. “His eyes got real big and he said: ‘Ooh! OIRA!’ ”
“And I said, ‘What the hell is that?’ ”
The article is here (beware Canadians, not worth the click!). Here is a recent article on Samantha Power as the architect of Obama’s Libya policy. Here is an article on why last chapters disappoint.
Haitian update
Has a new dystopian form of urban organization been invented, or rather reinvented in the Western hemisphere, namely the aid-supported tent city?:
A large but unknown number of people in the camps are choosing to stay in them. Life is better there than in the sprawling, gang-infested slums. Camp-dwellers pay no rent. Nor do they have to pay for sanitation, because latrines are often provided by the aid agencies, or clean water, since that is often supplied by the agencies or by the government. Medical services are also easier to find and, again, probably free, courtesy of agencies like UNICEF or charities like Médecins Sans Frontières. A cholera epidemic makes that all the more vital.
The 1923 Great Kanto earthquake
Every now and then, there is some evidence for the moral progress of mankind. Looking back in time, Wikipedia reports:
One particularly pernicious rumor was that Koreans were taking advantage of the disaster, committing arson and robbery, and were in possession of bombs. In the aftermath of the quake, mass murder of Koreans by brutal mobs occurred in urban Tokyo and Yokohama, fueled by rumors of rebellion and sabotage. About 6,600 Koreans were murdered. Some newspapers reported the rumors as fact, which led to the most deadly rumor of all: that the Koreans were poisoning wells. The numerous fires and cloudy well water, a little-known effect of a large quake, all seemed to confirm the rumors of the panic-stricken survivors who were living amidst the rubble. Vigilante groups set up roadblocks in cities, towns and villages across the region. Because people with Korean accents pronounced “G” or “J” in the beginning of words differently, 円 銭 (jū-go-en, go-jū-sen) and がぎぐげご (gagigugego) were used as a shibboleth. Anyone who failed to pronounce them properly was deemed Korean. Some were told to leave, but many were beaten or killed. Moreover, anyone mistakenly identified as Korean, such as Chinese, Okinawans, and Japanese speakers of some regional dialects, suffered the same fate. About 700 Chinese, mostly from Wenzhou were killed.
On modern-day Japan, Edward Hugh has an excellent post.
Senator Obama on the Constitution
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
Senator Barack Obama, Dec. 20, 2007.
Hat Tip: Radley Balko.
Time to choose, Japan
This post, by Tom Noir, is radical and I cannot say I agree with all of it. Nonetheless, it is worth a read, excerpt:
The shock to Japan’s society, economy and infrastructure will be huge…
Whether or not the Tokyo Electric Power Co. is able to ultimately prevent a nuclear disaster on a level with Cherynobyl, these events will leave a deep impression in the national psyche. The Japanese have the dubious distinction of being the only nation ever to have nuclear weapons used against them. They have an understandable horror of nuclear power: their society’s so-called ‘nuclear allergy’. Now they truly face the sum of all their fears.
This time it is not an external threat being imposed by a foreign enemy. This is a nuclear disaster of their own making. Japan is going to have deal with a cultural identity crisis in the wake of this disaster.
Japan now faces simultaneous threats to its infrastructure, its economy and its society. We have to ask seriously if Japan, as a nation, has the reserves of will necessary to weather this crisis…
The Japanese economy flatlined in 1991 and has never recovered. In the face of these doldrums they have financed their standard of living by taking on massive quantities of debt. Their total debt was set to climb to 228% of their national GDP this year without taking into account this disaster.
This disaster will do one of two things for Japan. On the one hand, it could be the wake-up call that that country needs to galvanize it into real change. But it could also be the real beginning of the end, the collapse of the entire elaborately constructed house of cards. Either way, Japan post-tsunami will not be the same as Japan before. Change is coming.
By the way, here is a good corrective on the “why no looting in Japan?” question. And here.
Bayesian inference about nuclear disasters and press coverage
Via Brad DeLong, Clive Crook writes:
From the start of this calamity I have wanted to know, “What is the worst that can happen at these nuclear sites? Suppose everything that could go wrong does go wrong: what then?” I still don’t know the answer. In what I have read so far–dozens of articles–nobody who knows what he is talking about has spelt this out carefully.
I have had this same frustration. The question is what to infer from this gap in the coverage. Is it that newspapers have been asked by a government not to panic people? Is it that newspapers are simply feckless? Is it that we are in “uncharted waters,” relative to previous knowledge and previous nuclear disasters? Or could it be “all of the above”? Is there any hypothesis where this gap in coverage indicates the problem soon will be solved? I don’t see it.
By the way, major evacuations are very difficult to pull off. Nonetheless, will it be considered a moral failing that the Japanese are not currently trying to accomplish one?
Is Japanese leadership broken?
Never has postwar Japan needed strong, assertive leadership more — and never has its weak, rudderless system of governing been so clearly exposed or mattered so much…
Japan’s leaders need to draw on skills they are woefully untrained for: improvisation; clear, timely and reassuring public communication; and cooperation with multiple powerful bureaucracies.
Postwar Japan flourished under a system in which political leaders left much of its foreign policy to the United States and its handling of domestic affairs to powerful bureaucrats. Prominent companies operated with an extensive reach into personal lives; their executives were admired for their role as corporate citizens.
But over the past decade or so, the bureaucrats’ authority has been eviscerated, and corporations have lost both power and swagger as the economy has foundered. Yet no strong political class has emerged to take their place. Four prime ministers have come and gone in less than four years; most political analysts had already written off the fifth, Naoto Kan, even before the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.
I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but the points are well-taken and the article is interesting throughout.
Givewell on Giving to Japan
I agree with this advice from Givewell the most analytically tough of the charity ratings agencies.
* Those affected have requested very little, limited aid. Aid being offered far exceeds aid being requested.
* Charities are aggressively soliciting donations, often in ways we feel are misleading.
* Any donation you make will probably be used (a) by the charity you give it to, for activities in a different country; (b) for non-disaster-relief-and-recovery efforts in Japan.
* If you’re looking to pursue (a) and help people in need all over the world, we recommend giving to the best charity you can, rather than basing your giving on who is appealing to you most aggressively with images and language regarding Japan.
* If you prefer (b), a gift to the Japanese Red Cross seems reasonable.Overall, though, a gift to Doctors Without Borders seems to us like the best way to effectively “respond to this disaster”. We feel they are a leader in transparency, honesty and integrity in relief organizations, and the fact that they’re not soliciting funds for Japan is a testament to this. Rewarding Doctors Without Borders is a move toward improving incentives and improving disaster relief in general.
Where does Japan put its nuclear reactors?
Chris Blattman reports on the work of Daniel Aldrich, quoting Aldrich:
Using a new dataset from Japan, this paper demonstrates that state agencies choose localities judged weakest in local civil society as host communities for controversial projects. In some cases, powerful politicians deliberately seek to have facilities such as nuclear power plants, dams, and airports placed in their home constituency. This paper then explores new territory: how demographic, political, and civil society factors impact the outcomes of siting attempts. It finds that the strength of local civil society impacts the probability that a proposed project will come to fruition; the greater the concentration of local civil society, the less likely state-planned projects will be completed.
The economics of Japanese earthquake insurance
Here is one interesting bit:
…very few people in that region of Japan held earthquake insurance, and also because of strict loss limits imposed by the Japanese government. For instance, residential buildings and furniture can be covered, but very expensive jewellery and artwork cannot, and there are rules that ban people from taking out insurance once an earthquake warning has been issued.
Mr. McGillivray said the Japanese government protected domestic insurers by limiting foreign participation in the system and, to keep the risks manageable, limited the payouts.
Are the capital requirements on Japanese insurance companies well-designed? Probably we will find out. Can anyone recommend readings on this and related questions?
Paging John Lott
CNN: A man who broke into a house in Portland, Oregon, called police — afraid the homeowner may have a gun.
The suspect, Timothy James Chapek, was in the bathroom taking a shower when the homeowner returned to the house Monday night…[He] locked himself in the bathroom and made an emergency call, police said. He said he had broken into the house, the owner had come home, and that he was concerned the owner might have a gun.
Why he was taking a shower I do not know.
Hat tip: Radley Balko.
Eurozone update
It has slipped off the front page, but the underlying problems are not solved:
The cost of borrowing for Portugal, Ireland and Greece has hit euro-era highs, amid concern in the market that European leaders will fail to take concerted action to dispel fears of sovereign defaults in the eurozone.
The long-term market interest rate for Spain has come close to setting a record and Italy’s borrowing cost rose above 5 per cent for the first time since November 2008. The moves came as Portugal was forced to pay a sharply higher premium in a debt auction on Wednesday, raising renewed fears that it will be forced to seek an international bail-out.
In Greece there is a national, and growing, anti-austerity movement.
War
KABUL, Afghanistan–Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake.
How would you feel if foreign helicopters periodically rained hellfire on your children?
How bad is the state pension funding mess?
Dean Baker says not so bad; Kevin Drum, Paul Krugman, and others seem to take his side. Josh Barro says it's bad. I side with Barro. Here is one Baker passage:
The total shortfall for the pension funds is less than 0.2 percent of projected gross state product over the next 30 years for most states. Even in the cases of the states with the largest shortfalls, the gap is less than 0.5 percent of projected state product.
Beware of the 30-year comparison I say. A lot of sums look small compared to thirty years' worth of output. I worry when I read sentences such as this:
The major reason that shortfalls exist at all was the downturn in the stock market following the collapse of the housing bubble, not inadequate contributions to pension funds.
In my house, that's what inadequate means. I also see Baker relying on a dangerous version of an equity premium argument, when I'd rather see a probability distribution of scenarios. I don't see Baker — not once — analyzing the public choice considerations of how state governments actually behave and treat their finances. Or how about how state voters hate tax increases, reasonably or not, and think their governments should be forced to actually solve their mismanagement problems? A crisis usually is an institutional crisis.
Here is a typical passage from the Barro piece:
New York taxpayers have learned about these dangers the hard way. There is a reason that the pension fixes enacted in 2009 were called “Tier V” and not “Tier II”: There had been three previous attempts to rein in the excessive cost of New York’s public-employee pensions by creating less generous pension “tiers” for newly hired employees. These reforms date back to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, when unsustainably generous contracts with public-employee unions threatened to throw New York City into bankruptcy. Since then, though, New York’s public-worker unions have been highly successful in unwinding previously enacted pension reforms. The new Tier V is nearly identical to what Tier IV was at the time of its enactment in 1983–but Tier IV has been repeatedly, and retroactively, sweetened through increases in benefit formulas, cuts to employee contributions, and reductions in the retirement age. Similarly, by the time substantial numbers of workers actually start retiring under Tier V around 2040, this plan, too, will probably bear little resemblance to its current form.
Most of Barro's piece focuses on public choice considerations — of how state and local government institutions actually work — and thus it is the better analysis. Here is a related piece by Eileen Norcross, closer to Barro than to Baker.