American Exceptionalism Must Die

A couple Saturdays ago I attended the annual Symposium put on by Mass Humanities at Boston College. I defer to my wife on how things of this nature should properly be managed and since I attended only one of the three talks I will reserve comment. Also before I continue, full disclosure, I am an Evgeny Morozov fan.

I thought the talk was good and as much on point it could be with the topic pertaining to the naive debate that the internet can be a good thing for democracy, the participants mostly saw everything in the negative. I for one agree that the internet while having great democratic qualities (wikipedia, chat, forums) it has far more bad ones (malware, misinformation, government crackdown, selective censorship, etc). But that's not the point I'm trying to make here. I'm here to add my two cents railing against this American exceptionalism bullshit that happens to spew out of a pundit's mouth from time to time.

The particular pundit I wish to speak of is the Sunlight Foundation's Mike Klein (an amazing organization that I have great respect for, see this Planet Money story), whose pseudo rant about Americans being above allowing the government to co-opt them. Besides being incredibly rude in Mr. Morozov's arguement by saying that Morozov's accent (Belorussian btw) corrupts his thinking on the matter, Mr. Klein was flat our wrong in his interpretation of American history. His reference to the vote being given to former African American slaves and women as a sign of inclusion was pathetically naive. Both are evidence of our two party system co-opting a cause/people to further each individual parties own political gains. The American two party system (I don't think that exists for what it's worth) is adept at shifting with the national conversation and seizing on opportunities when they present themselves. African Americans and Women were each a large block of untapped voters who could help shift/maintain the balance of power. We like to tell ourselves it was the right thing to do, but hardly is that ever the case.

It might just have been ok if Mr. Klein's naive belief in the glory that is American people power was the only thing that bothered me, but of course it was not. What really got me was his insistance that America is not susceptible to Eastern European strongmen or Maoist party politics because we are America. Again with the incredible naivety but this time while having spent the whole time siting examples to the contrary. Jack Abramoff's 60 Minutes interview about buying participants in politics, our lack of campaign finance reform means incumbents rarely lose, the brutality towards OWS protestors. No it's not murdering journalists or rotating through presidents; but what is aides rotating through campaigns and administrations? What of campaigns speaking "unfiltered" to the American people or on slanted news programs?

Are we really that much better or are we just that much better at lying to ourselves?

Some Thoughts on America's Multi-Party System

From time to time political commentators and political novices (all mostly of the left variety) lament that if only America had a multi-party system like Europe does then we would all be ok. I think that's hogwash. America does have a multi-party system (I would argue at least 8), what is missing is the election day free for all and post election horse trading of European Politics. Which from political theater stand point is awesome and as a political junkie I would love to experience it. From a practical standpoint, not so much.

Instead of the chaos America gets that out of the way in the primary stage, narrowing the many factions down to two major choices with the malcontents of the two parties (usually the far ends and the center) occasionally posting third party candidates. Both styles result in the same thing the majority of the time, a right of center or left of center government (there are of course notable exceptions but you will be hard pressed to find many of them).

The key difference between the two forms is that one is good at hiding differences as well as co-opting them in the name of coalition stability (America), whereas the other (Europe) is good at highlighting these differences in order to promote individual factions and their respective hot button issues. Regardless each system has more or less the following 8 divisions:

Far-Left
Left
Center-Left
Center
Center-Right
Right
Far-Right
Politically Agnostic

In Europe they are given party names, in America they run in the Republican or the Democratic primaries. In America in a way it's like Communist party politics; all the factions fighting it out behind closed doors but in the end they all belong to the same party which has the power. The American system preserves stability for a set period of time while many European systems, because of their fractious parties, reflect more of the mood of the people and can be more volatile  (snap elections, government's falling after a crisis, etc).

Of course I am not advocating one or the other. I myself would prefer an open primary with a top two candidate runoff as my election model of choice. I think that would be fairer to states that tilt one way or the other of center (think Texas or Massachusetts). What I mean to say with this post is that most Americans don't choose to exercise their right to influence the coalitions that are the Democratic and Republican parties for whatever reason. Yet, in my opinion, even if they did the end result would more than likely be a centerish government such as American democracy, and democracy as a whole, has always put forth.

Some Thoughts on Townies and Rutherford Ave

The impetus for the post comes from this Boston.com article.

If you have ever driven down Rutherford Ave then you know it is nothing to look at. More than likely you haven't looked at anything because you are flying down the street at 55 MPH+. Is that safe? No. Is that a desirable place to open up a retail store? No. Is that a place to raise your children or walk your dog? Of course not. That is exactly why the city and state would like to change that. Their thinking is if you make the place more desirable it will attract development, with development comes people and with people comes economic activity, with economic activity comes sales tax receipts and increased property tax takes, which in turn leads to a better standard of living for all those around.

But Townies see it a different way. They wrongly foresee increased car use on their side streets (one would assume with an Interstate running parallel to a road with stop lights people would use the Interstate), they see it as a grab by developers (because their homes, retail and restaurants appeared by magic) and they see an influx of the dreaded yuppie. I understand people fear what they don't know, and I am all for people being critical of change simply to make sure the change is for the better. But development is not always a bad thing, shrinking and slowing the flow of traffic is good for the surrounding area. If you are concerned about traffic flowing to side streets then add stop signs and speed bumps. Not only will this limit outside traffic it will make the environment safer for pedestrians.

What townies do see correctly however is a rise in rents (though that is undoubtedly all ready happening) which is a real problem and should be mitigated for current residents so as to ease the change over process. With that said if those renters have a stake in the surrounding business community the rise in rent will most likely be offset by a rise in demand for services in the same community. If they have no such stake it may behoove them to find work nearer where they live or to move closer to where they work, though a negative in the short term it is very much a positive in the long term.

Some Thoughts on the Euro & the ECB

So apparently the world as we know it is in the process of ending. Euro Doom has finally arrived and we are all screwed. I don't believe that is happening. The ECB must intervene. World events have gone beyond politics to a point at which politicians are throwing themselves in the way of this just to fix it at the cost of their own careers.

This is not the end, it must not be the end.

More Thoughts on Banking

To clarify my post from yesterday a little I would like to say that my thinking does not stem from any feeling that free banking should be a human right. My mindset comes more from that if it were free it would make the world more efficient and remove impediments to doing business.

I think Republicans are misguided in their "over-regulation" crusade and should focus more on regulations that give the edge to specific actors in the market, government sponsored monopolies is what I'm thinking of. I for one would love to see more players in the bank seen, especially players that have a history of driving down costs for consumers.

Some Thoughts on Banking

I don't necessarily know where this post is coming from in terms of what spurred it but take it for what you will.

My thinking is starting to drift towards splitting the financial sector in two; one side being heavily driven by profit and investment, with the other being centered on basic banking services. I think the first needs profit in order to operate at peek efficiency, why else would you lend someone money who you dont know unless it was to make a return on your investment? The second however is should be more centered around defraying costs, not making money.

Think of the alternatives to bank accounts and the costs that it would incur if we did not have them (or people were priced out of having them). As a result people would have to carry and store more cash (possibly in a shoe box or under their mattress). One would assume that they would not carry their thousands of monies on their person for fear of losing it or it being stolen, and if that were the case they would probably be less likely to make large purchases as well as to make impulse decisions. If debit cards do anything they make it easier for someone to spend money (as well as for retailers to take money) so why would someone who is looking to turn a profit want to take that tool out of a consumers hand? By instituting fees and pricing out the "un-banked" you are inhibiting consumer spending.

I see two alternatives to our current system of banks leaching off of consumers.

1) Governments get into the game in order to lower the use of cash as well as spur spending, while I think this would be a great idea I don't foresee this being something that will ever happen, maybe in small wealthy nations but even then I assume currency is used very infrequently to begin with (rich people use rewards based Credit Cards).

2) Major retailers (like WalMart) get into the game and offer money losing accounts simply to get you in their stores or lower their operational costs (I can see Amazon getting in to this or Apple). You all ready see this with specific banking institutions who offer free basic services on the chance that you may use their other services For instance Charles Schwab offers a great banking service for free on the condition that you open a free investor account with them, they don't force you to use it but if you want to it is there.

I haven't quite wrapped my head around my exact feelings on this matter but I'm getting there. To me it makes sense in the same way that Google does everything in it's power to get you to look at more pages on the internet. The more pages you look at the more ads they can put up, the easier it is for you to manage and spend your money the more you are going to spend it. Banks are in this scheme just middle men, they are a barrier between the consumer and the retailer, and I don't think they are going to be in the way much longer. 

Some Thoughts on the TPP FTA

First off why is this article in this weeks Economist the first time I have ever heard of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership? There is a chance that it might become a big deal this month with an APEC meeting taking place, and it would be an even bigger deal if Japan were to enter into negotiations. Without Japan it does not look like it would be all that interesting due to the fact that most of the countries involved have a standing free trade agreement with the US, the notable exception of course being Vietnam and New Zealand. Opening up to another English speaking country would obviously be worth more to New Zealand and the US than a non-English speaking country of the same standing. Vietnam I would assume would benefit greatly from becoming even cheaper than it is to US firms in regards to China (which may force the US and China to finally work out their problems).

The big fish though, is Japan. Tying the 1st and 3rd largest economies together would be nothing short of fantastic and may entice China to join the club or at least play a bit more fairly.

I don't claim to know anything about FTA or trade in general but I really want to learn more about trade deals.