Category: Political Science

My evidence from Uganda suggests that, when coerced, children are the
most likely to be indoctrinated and disoriented, and so are the least
likely to escape.

Here is much more, from Chris Blattman, interesting throughout.

Economists often argue that voting is a waste of time, since the chance that your vote will influence the election outcome is virtually nil.  Maybe, but after watching this fear impels me to the polls. 

Thanks for the Scrooge treatment go to loyal reader and GMU student Adam.  If anyone knows of something similar for other candidates I will post an addendum.

If a smattering of libertarian ideas can bring it [the system] all down, then the problem isn’t really libertarian ideas, is it? If the integrity of the economy in your preferred model requires a high level of ideological conformity, you might think to reconsider the wisdom of harnessing it so thoroughly to democratic political institutions meant to accomodate pluralism.

That’s not the part where he is really upset.  He’s also upset here and here.

Arnold Kling weighs in:

We got into this crisis because power was overly concentrated relative to knowledge. What has been going on for the past several months is more consolidation of power. This is bound to make things worse. Just as Nixon’s bureaucrats did not have the knowledge to go along with the power they took when they instituted wage and price controls, the Fed and the Treasury cannot possibly have knowledge that is proportional to the power they currently exercise in financial markets.

He refers to Paulson as "the American Mussolini."

Is this a race to the top or a race to the bottom?

“The Europeans not only provided a blueprint, but forced our hand,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard and an adviser to John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee. “We’re trying to prevent wholesale carnage in the financial system.”

Here is much more on today’s events.  In the current version of globalization the equilibrium seems to be that non-guaranteed banking systems are swiftly penalized and turned into zombies.  This suggests, by the way, that undoing current bank guarantees, when recovery comes, won’t be as easy as we might have thought.

Addendum: Here are the opinions of many economists.

There is a new InTrade.com contract, this one on whether oil futures and the Democratic President contract move in the same direction on Election Day.  Right now it’s running at about 50 percent, which means an Obama victory won’t on average bring a higher price of energy.  Mark Thoma directs us to this interesting article on the bursting of the Green bubble, most of all among the Democrats.

David Brooks is right that the failure to pass the bailout represents a massive failure of American governance and leadership, most of all at the Congressional level.  That’s true even if you think, for other reasons, that the bailout was a bad idea.  (Can any hero be cited in this debacle?)  Andrew Sullivan (and others, including myself) was right that early versions of the Paulson plan bypassed checks and balances and gave far too much power to the Executive Branch.  So Congressional oversight was needed.

That’s the problem, namely that both of these views are right.  And this is just one reason, of many to come, why the Paulson plan (whether or not we need it) will not work as promised.

Much like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, who accompanied the presidential
candidate on a campaign plane earlier today, is very interested in what
happens with the government’s bailout plan. That’s because his law
firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, is letting potential clients know it can best steer them–with its new Task Force– to deal with the bailout.

See the photo and press release, which says this:

Mr. Giuliani noted that the Bracewell Task Force includes a former
Comptroller of the Currency, a former Assistant Secretary of
Legislative Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, former
members of Congress from both political parties, former federal
prosecutors, and former SEC enforcement attorneys.

They will even have a blog, to update people on the latest revenue opportunities.  I thank a loyal MR reader for the pointer.

According to the study…almost one in two voters in Karnataka, where assembly elections were held in May, had taken money for voting or not voting.

However, the share of voters is higher among the voters in the so-called below the poverty line, or BPL, category: 73% in Karnataka while the national average is 37%.

“The bribe money varies from state to state. It may be Rs100-150 (a voter) in some states and it can go up to Rs1,000 in some constituencies,” said Rao, adding that the CMS study refers to only cash bribes, not the value of liquor or other material inducements being doled out during election campaigns.

"Why does one person have the right to grant $85 billion in a bailout
without the scrutiny and transparency the American people deserve,"
asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif) a reference to the loan
the Fed gave AIG with the Treasury’s blessing.

And:

"No one in a democracy, unelected, should have $800 billion to spend as he sees fit," said Mr. [Barney] Frank.

He was referring to Bernanke’s balance sheet and not to Gerald Ford, in case you were not sure.  Here is the link, courtesy of Arnold Kling, who responds: "I just get a chuckle hearing a Congressman complain about someone spending other people’s money."  Here is Arnold on RTC-like plans.

Research by UCLA political scientists into the "facial competence" of candidates puts the Republican VP hopeful in the top 5%.

Their paper (http://renos.bol.ucla.edu/AtkinsonEnosHill.pdf ) shows that facial competence explains a significant portion of the vote — about 4% of independent voters in a congressional election.

Here’re some more details: http://renos.bol.ucla.edu/AtkinsonEnosHill.pdf

This was "unscripted", from Sarah Palin:

Disappointed that taxpayers are called upon to bailout another one. Certainly AIG though with the construction bonds that they’re holding and with the insurance that they are holding very, very impactful to Americans so you know the shot that has been called by the Feds it’s understandable but very, very disappointing that taxpayers are called upon for another one.

That’s via Andrew Sullivan.  It’s the phrase "very, very impactful" I object to.  The point about construction surety bonds is actually correct, as indeed AIG did issue them and it doesn’t seem that any regulation or state authority will make good those guarantees (readers, correct me if I am in error but I can find no record of such guarantees).  That means a lot of people bought insurance against adverse construction events and will be left without that protection.

Of course this matters less at lower levels of construction.

The real lesson of this quotation is that the Republicans have no good language for discussing recent events.  They’re not allowed to say anything that sounds like "showing sympathy for Wall Street," so they have to find someone else to show sympathy for but they can’t turn to traditional Democratic rhetoric about how an unregulated capitalist economy is failing us.  Citing the construction bonds is like worrying that the financial crisis will postpone the retirement of many professors.  Yes that is true but it’s odd (though not unprecedented) if that’s the first thing that comes to your mind or for that matter to your talking points.

Here is John McCain on the crisis, again unscripted, from The Today Show:

LAUER: So if we get to the point middle of the week as we heard in that report where AIG might have to file for bankruptcy, they’re on their own?

McCAIN: Well…quote, "on their own"…we have to – we cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else…this is something we’re gonna have to work through — there’s too much corruption, there’s too much access, we can fix it, I believe in America – we can have a 9/11 commission such as we had after 9/11, ’cause this is a huge crisis and we can come up with fixes and we can make sure that every American has a safer future and that is to make them know that their bank deposits are safe and insured.

Here is more of the session.  He did worse than she did and that’s after decades on the national scene.

The empirics on beautiful women imply that, in a great many cases, a) they have their own agendas, b) they stick to those agendas, no matter what they may say in public, or no matter what "more experienced" men tell them to do, c) they are very good at fooling the men they associate with and they are used to thinking they can get away with it, and d) agendas are often more local and less global than you think.  If you don’t believe me, read the final act of Henry V.

Andrew Sullivan is calling Sarah Palin "Rovian."  Maybe, but her first order of business has been to fool the Republican establishment, not
the American people.  (Read this silly AEI guy.)  Her few genuine words on foreign policy indicate her positions are hardly the modern Republican norm.  She is "unusual" on pot smoking and benefits for gays and juror nullification.  The Republicans are underestimating her role as a Hegelian agent of world-historical change, just as the Democrats did at first.

Which narrative do you find more plausible?:

"Lovely Sarah, she’s saying and doing everything we want her to.  What a quick learner.  How pliable she is.  Remember Descartes on tabula rasa?"

"Once John and I are elected, they’ll need me more than I need them."

The people who are right now the happiest may end up the most concerned.  For better or worse, they’re about to lose control of their movement.