ROLL CALL: Farm Team: Arkansas Has Deep Democratic Bench but Few Opportunities. “The problem for Democrats: There do not appear to be many — maybe any — winnable federal offices for ambitious members of the party this cycle, at least right now.”
Archive for 2013
March 7, 2013
BOB CORKER: ‘Appalling’ waste and abuse in Iraq reconstruction.
An “appalling” report on the misuse of U.S. reconstruction funding for Iraq shows the need for a “top-to-bottom” review of the State Department and its aid agency, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Wednesday.
Say, who was Secretary of State while this was happening?
March 6, 2013
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, THIS SORT OF THING WOULD HAPPEN: If a New York police officer thinks your skirt is too short and you happen to be carrying condoms, that’s reportedly enough evidence to arrest you.
MICHAEL BARONE: Spending cuts may be answer to slow economic growth.
Is new-normal, slow growth inevitable? Even if you accept Cowen’s argument that productivity-enhancing innovation occurs sporadically, can’t America do better than it has in the past five (or, if you like, dozen) years?
Barack Obama has been trying to stimulate the economy with record-high government spending funded by higher tax rates and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s low interest rates.
But as Stanford economist Michael Boskin points out in the Wall Street Journal, “Japan tried that, to little effect, in the 1990s.” Slow growth has become the new normal there.
There are alternative policies. One is to cut government spending, or cut it more than you raise taxes. As Boskin points out, the Netherlands in the mid-1990s and Sweden in the mid-2000s “stabilized their budgets without recession [with] $5-$6 of actual spending cuts per dollar of tax hikes.”
And he notes that Canada reduced government spending in the mid-1990s and early 2000s by an amount equal to 8 percent of gross domestic product.
Those cuts weren’t painless, but they put Canada on a trajectory different from ours. Canadian voters value budget surpluses, and Canada managed to avoid almost all the bad effects of the 2007-09 recession.
Read the whole thing.
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DANA LOESCH: On Drones, SNL Was Right.
WHO CAN FILL JOHN KERRY’S SHOES? PRETTY MUCH ANYONE, APPARENTLY: UMass Lowell/Herald poll: Markey Dems’ favorite — But there’s hope for 3 GOP no-names.
UPDATE: Scott Brown more popular now – after losing. “A new UMass Lowell/Boston Herald poll shows the former GOP senator is much more popular now than when he lost his re-election race in November and is in a strong position to run for governor in 2014. Six in 10 Massachusetts voters have a favorable opinion of Brown and say they are very or somewhat likely to back him if he runs for governor next year, according to the poll of 589 registered voters. Brown’s unfavorable rating has dropped dramatically since his loss, from 39 percent in early November to just 24 percent now, the poll shows.” Well, that’s because the unrelenting attacks from the media have stopped. They’ll start again when he runs against a Democrat for something.
COLORADO DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATOR/GUN-CONTROL SUPPORTER’S CRIMINAL RECORD EXPOSED.
According to a Colorado Bureau of Investigations report obtained by Media Trackers, State Representative Rhonda Fields (D-Aurora) was arrested in 1976 on a charge of larceny and again in 1991 on a charge of shoplifting. Despite her own criminal record, Rep. Fields has sought to limit the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. . . .
Rep. Fields has sponsored multiple gun control bills currently under debate in the Colorado Legislature, including legislation to ban on magazines with the capacity to hold more that 15 rounds, criminalize the private sale or transfer of a firearm without a background check,ban on concealed carry permits on the college campuses, and increase background check fees.
Well, criminals prefer unarmed victims.
LEGAL EDUCATION AND the costs of apprenticeship.
ROLL CALL: Rand Paul Filibuster Spectacle Rivets Senate.
As the hours went by, other senators joined him, asking Paul to yield for the ostensible purpose of asking a question. In reality, that gave Paul a brief respite from an otherwise lonely crusade. The first member to intervene was Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a tea-party-backed Republican like Paul, at the three hour and 10 minute mark. Others followed, including GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.
“Just let me give you some free advice: keep some water nearby,” Rubio quipped in a jab at himself over his own conspicuous consumption of spring water during this year’s Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address. Rubio, who voted to advance Brennan’s nomination from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, said he thought Paul was asking a straightforward question of the administration and deserved a clear answer.
When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to get consent to bring the debate to a close and allow votes on Brennan’s nomination before the end of the evening, Paul rebuffed him. . . .
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon lent bipartisanship to the filibuster effort. Wyden has expressed concerns about numerous Obama administration policies on civil liberties grounds. Wyden said he would support Brennan’s confirmation but backs Paul’s underlying inquiry.
The best part was when Rand Paul sought unanimous consent for a sense of the Senate resolution that the President shouldn’t kill American citizens in America — and Democrats, led by Dick Durbin, objected.
CAREER PLANNING AND NEWCOMB PROBLEMS.
Related item here.
DANIEL LUZER SAYS THAT HIGHER EDUCATION IS NOT A BUBBLE. But what he really seems to be saying is that it’s not as bad as the housing bubble.
That may be true, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t bad. Note this from the Financial Times:
In basic economics, a bubble occurs when the value of an asset exceeds the level determined by economic fundamentals. The fundamental value is typically measured by the discounted stream of expected future cash flows. For equities, this is a function of the fundamental value of the stock market, which analysts use different measures to gauge. And for housing, the fundamental value is a function of the potential return of renting the property. We therefore look at the ratio of home prices to rent as a gauge of fair valuation. In the case of tuition, fundamental value can be defined by future earnings, and hence income. . . .
A basic rule of thumb, as advised by FinAid, is that total education debt should be less than half of expected starting salary upon graduation. The median salary for 25-34 year olds with a bachelor’s degree is $45,000, and $54,700 for a master’s degree and the average debt upon graduation upon is about $25,000 for undergraduate and $35,000 for a Master’s degree (the latter is based on estimates from FinAid). This suggests the debt burden is too high – in both cases, it is more than half of the starting salary.
And for many, it’s much, much worse than that. Also, focusing on the amount of student loan debt being traded, which is what Luzer does in concluding that it’s not a big problem misses the point. As the Financial Times piece notes:
It’s unlikely that, say, German Landesbanks or Norwegian pension funds will surface as major holders of student loans — we don’t expect flashbacks to funky structure subprime revelations. And why is that? Because the US government is holding a hell of a lot of it — something in the region of 85 per cent of student loans outstanding were either issued by the government or have a government guarantee.
That’s not to say that the potential for inaccurate pricing of the risk, especially given the cultural aspects of education, isn’t there. It very much is.
Who’s making simplistic comparisons to the housing bubble, again? Also, the consequences of higher education debt being too high play out in a lot of different, but destructive, ways. First, they make the housing bubble worse, as people leave college or graduate school with the kind of debt they used to not take on until they bought their first (or second) home. The student loan debt makes it harder for them to buy a house at all, thus limiting a major source of new demand.
Another impact is that student loan debt causes people to delay marriage and have fewer children, which not only (again) reduces housing demand, but has a long-term negative effect on economic growth. Not only does it exacerbate the “baby bust” in general, but it makes the baby bust worse among the most educated, which can’t be good for society, unless your goal is something like Idiocracy. This seems like a bad idea.
Meanwhile, if you’re thinking about borrowing money to attend college, check out these charts.
UPDATE: Reader Aaron Chmielewski writes: “Looking at gross income isn’t quite good enough either, what we should be looking at is also cost of living. Many of those jobs are in expensive areas. What really matters is the person’s ability to save. What is their debt relative to discretionary, disposable income (income after taxes and basic living expenses and financial obligations)? What is their financing expense relative to discretionary, disposable income?” Good point.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 13 Sex Secrets Of Married Couples.
Related: Have A Bad Headache? Cure It With Sex. It’s good for menstrual cramps, too.
IS CPAC BECLOWNING ITSELF?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Rise Of Customized Learning.