Tag: Barack Obama

Lead, dammit!

The Economist’s assesment of Barack Obama’s first two months in office. Kudos for good efforts on the global scale, but domestic policy is stumbling:

There are two main reasons for this. The first is Mr Obama’s failure to grapple as fast and as single-mindedly with the economy as he should have done. His stimulus package, though huge, was subcontracted to Congress, which did a mediocre job: too much of the money will arrive too late to be of help in the current crisis. His budget, though in some ways more honest than his predecessor’s, is wildly optimistic. And he has taken too long to produce his plan for dealing with the trillions of dollars of toxic assets which fester on banks’ balance-sheets.

The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift. There are 23 slots at the department that need confirmation by the Senate, and only two have been filled. This is not the Senate’s fault. Mr Obama has made a series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw; and it was only this week that he announced his candidates for two of the department’s four most senior posts. Filling such jobs is always a tortuous business in America, but Mr Obama has made it harder by insisting on a level of scrutiny far beyond anything previously attempted. Getting the Treasury team in place ought to have been his first priority.

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If Mr Obama cannot work with the Republicans, he needs to be certain that he controls his own party. Unfortunately, he seems unable to. Put bluntly, the Democrats are messing him around. They are pushing pro-trade-union legislation (notably a measure to get rid of secret ballots) even though he doesn’t want them to do so; they have been roughing up the bankers even though it makes his task of fixing the economy much harder; they have stuffed his stimulus package and his appropriations bill with pork, even though this damages him and his party in the eyes of the electorate. Worst of all, he is letting them get away with it.

USA I DAG: Pampere eller døddrukne sørøvere?

Et link til Henrik Fogh Rasmussens klumme i går:

Udover ønsket om at skade en mulig konkurrent til Barack Obama i 2012 er der to mulige forklaringer på Demokraternes kampagne imod Sanford. Den første forklaring er, at Demokraterne ærligt og oprigtigt tror på, at 700 millioner til undervisning vil hjælpe South Carolinas økonomi mere end at bruge det samme beløb til at nedbringe delstatens enorme gældsbyrde. I så fald holder det vand at sammenligne deres dømmekraft og økonomiske indsigt med en beruset sømands.

Den anden mulige forklaring er de mange millioner dollar, som Demokraterne hvert år modtager fra lærernes fagforeninger. Og hvis lærernes politiske engagement er forklaringen, hvor stor en del af det enorme statsunderskud i USA er så i virkeligheden drevet af gammeldags pamperi?

The A.I.G. bonuses outrage…

is really just another reason why we shouldn’t nationalize banks. If you can’t stand they way they do business – including the way they make their contracts – don’t give them any money!

That may strike many people as a bit of convenient legalese, but maybe there is something to it. If you think this economy is a mess now, imagine what it would look like if the business community started to worry that the government would start abrogating contracts left and right.

As much as we might want to void those A.I.G. pay contracts, Pearl Meyer, a compensation consultant at Steven Hall & Partners, says it would put American business on a worse slippery slope than it already is. Business agreements of other companies that have taken taxpayer money might fall into question. Even companies that have not turned to Washington might seize the opportunity to break inconvenient contracts.

Obama and Iran

What policy will the Obama administration pursue towards Iran? Will they support freedom or will they try negotiations to get a deal on the nuclear issue? Excellent piece by Mariam Memarsadeghi and Akbar Atri, who I am lucky to call my real-life friends, in The Washington Post. Bottom line: Obama has shown what democracy can do. He should use his immense popularity to boost freedom aborad – let’s bring real change to Teheran as well.

Obama’s popularity gives him the power and credibility to press the Iranian regime, not to mention dictatorships in Russia, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and elsewhere, to respect human rights and democratize. Yet some in Washington have urged Obama to abandon talk and programs in support of the Iranian people in exchange for piecemeal progress on the nuclear issue. With Tehran continuing to make progress on a weapon, it is tempting to look past the Iranian people’s hopes for freedom and instead focus on the seemingly more imperative issue. But this would be a mistake. In fact, the regime would want nothing different.

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Those in power in Iran are responsible for terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East, not to mention in Buenos Aires, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. They are fundamentally opposed to liberal democracy and its ensuing individual rights. They still imprison the young for having parties and listening to music and stone women to death for extramarital sex. In the name of God, they persecute religious minorities and imprison mullahs who speak of freedom. They still chant “death to America” at the official sermon every Friday and force children to do the same as part of the school curriculum. Drug addiction is common among large swaths of society. The regime’s oil-rich apparatus is rotted by extremes of corruption and unaccountability. Like communist totalitarian regimes of the past, it seeks to maintain a facade of revolutionary idealism for the outside — particularly for the liberation-hungry Arab world — while its people endure the bitter realities of life under an ideological state.

The Good Life

Charles Murray’s Irving Kristol lecture on Human Happiness. Life in a social democracy might be pleasant, but it is rarely satisfying, and therefore lacks happiness.

What to do about the Danes and their high happiness? The key to the Danes’ happiness might be their low expectations.

I’m reading Charles Murray’s book What It Means To Be A Libertarian right now. Best – meaning simplest and most personally engaging – defence for classical liberalism I have read in a long time.

Obama som socialdemokrat

Klumme her fra Finn Ziegler.

En del af pengene er øremærket eller afsat til projekter, som skal øge populariteten af demokratiske kongrespolitikere i hjemstaterne. Eksempelvis er 10% af de midler, som er afsat til udvikling af højhastighedstog, øremærket til et projekt, som skal forbinde Las Vegas med L.A. Det er tilfældigvis her, lederen af Demokraterne i senatet, Harry Leid, er valgt (Nevada).

Ikke overraskende er Kongressens budgetkontor nået frem til, at stimuleringspakken vil have en negativ virkning på væksten i økonomien på længere sigt. Pakken øger naturligvis efterspørgslen på kort sigt, men den forbedrer ikke incitamenter og strukturer i økonomien – og på sigt er der risiko for, at private virksomheder får sværere ved at skaffe arbejdskraft, når arbejdskraften er beskæftiget med at vedligeholde skoler, isolere huse, installere digitalbokse eller uddele kondomer.

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Det er ikke meget mere end 1 måned siden præsident Obama under sin tiltrædelse efterlyste mådehold og lovede omhyggelig granskning af alle udgifter på statsbudgettet. Obama lovede også større gennemsigtighed, når politikerne vedtager nye love. Disse løfter er brudt. Den største udgiftspakke nogensinde i USA er gennemført i hast og forhandlet bag lukkede døre. De politikere, som har stemt for loven, kan umuligt have læst den. De har haft mere travlt med at finde ønsker og projekter, der gavner deres genvalgschancer, frem fra skufferne. Offentligheden er reelt blevet holdt ude, mens præsidenten, Demokratere og lobbyisterne strikkede pakken på 1.400 sider sammen.

Obamas nødvendige reform

Et af USAs største problemer – hvis ikke det største – er de offentlige skolers dårlige tilstand. I modsætning til hvad mange danskere forestiller sig, er skolerne i USA primært offentlige og skolevalget mere ufrit end i Danmark, der har et fleksibelt friskolesystem og gode vilkår for privatskoler. Obama har nu meldt ud om de nødvendige reformer, og igen viser han, hvorfor han ikke bare er en traditionel, fagforeningsorienteret demokrat.

I USA er man tvunget til at gå i skole i sit skoledistrikt (der vistnok overlapper med zip-code, postkode), hvilket opsplitter samfundet unødigt, fordi de ressourcestærke forældre flytter efter skolerne i endnu højere grad, end de ellers ville gøre. Desuden er selve skolesystemet domineret af USAs ubestridt mægtigste fagforeninger, NEA og AFT der har tætte bånd til det demokratiske parti. Ligesom i Danmark modsætter eller besværliggør lærerforeningerne sig reformer, der vil belønne gode lærere, gøre det nemmere at vælge skole og gøre det nemmere at afskedige dårlige lærere. Se eksempelvis her. En større markedsgørelse af skolesystemet er nødvendig – ikke mindst for de mange underpriviligerede elever, der er fanget i dårlige “inner city”-skoler. Svaret er ikke flere penge, men mere personligt ansvar og mere frihed, både for lærere og forældre.

Los Angeles Times skrev:

President Barack Obama strongly condemned the state of public education Tuesday, calling for more charter schools, higher salaries for effective teachers and the faster firing of bad ones, an agenda that could put him at odds with some longtime Democratic stalwarts in teachers unions.

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“Despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we’ve let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us,” Obama said in his first speech on the subject as president. “What’s at stake is nothing less than the American dream.”


His positions on charter schools and merit pay for teachers were the two areas that most broke from orthodox Democratic positions.

“Charter” schools er offentligt betalte, men uafhængige skoler, der har vist sig langt mere fleksible end de bureakratiske, fagforeningskontrollerede public schools.

Opdatering: Obama får støtte fra Cato Institute, der ellers er en arg kritiker af præsidentens økonomiske politik. Mere om den nævnte sørgelige sag, hvor tæt på 1,700 fattige børn fra Washington D.C. var tæt på at miste deres skolegang her. Video her.

USA I DAG: “Tæt på Obama”

Min nyeste klumme i Berlingske Tidende: Tæt på Obama.

Hvis USA er verdens centrum, så er Washington DC omdrejningspunktet i USA. Der var engang, hvor New York brystede sig af titlen »Hele verdens hovedstad«. De tider er forbi. Verdens økonomiske og politiske fremtid bliver afgjort lige her, i et pænt, hvidt hus et par stenkast fra vores lejede lejlighed. Det er lige før, man kan vinke til Obama, når man går forbi: »Held og lykke med 5-års planerne!«

Morning Links on Obama’s speech to Congress

WSJ editorial on Barack Obama’s Address to Congress (which I found both impressive and vague).

Mr. Obama clearly believes the recession has created a political moment when Americans are frightened enough to be open to a new era of expanded government. The question is whether his vast ambitions will allow the private economy to grow enough even to begin to pay for it all.

We watched the speech last night, almost by coincidence. 52 minues on the “state of the nation”, outlining the President’s economic policy. Probably his most important speech since his Inauguration. However, though the speech got wild applause in Congress (did you see the extatic Nancy Pelosi?), and New York Times and Washington Post appreciated the many proposals and five-year plans with some reservations, they didn’t go down well in all quarters.

Op-ed by Holman Jenkins here:

Put away the idea that more government control is the cure for health care. We already bribe, through supremely asinine tax policy, the most affluent, capable consumers on the planet not to use their smarts to make sure the system returns value for money.

Let’s fix this — by eliminating the tax subsidy for employer-provided health insurance. Then it might actually become economically feasible to subsidize health care for the needy.

The Economist asks: A brighter future, but who pays? – Good question indeed. It seems like a lot of people can get something for nothing from Obamas plan. Sounds nice, doesn’t make sense.

At a Monday budget summit with congressional leaders and again on Tuesday Mr Obama rightly noted that the cost of old people’s health care and pensions are the country’s biggest long-term fiscal threats, but on neither occasion did he propose how to deal with them. In fairness it is early and stabilising the economy should be Mr Obama’s priority, not long-term fiscal discipline. Premature fiscal tightening could abort a recovery. The summit on Monday and the speech on Tuesday were part of the process of softening up the public for future pain.

Both events also demonstrated that despite being jilted on his quest for some Republican support during the debate on the fiscal stimulus, he is not giving up on his pursuit of bipartisanship. On Tuesday night, at least, Republicans were co-operative, rising in applause almost as often as Democrats.

An earlier Economist article on Obama’s problematic economic plans. Too much done the wrong way, too little done the right way. Escpecially Geithner’s bank plans gets a lot of criticism – it is vague and inconsequential.

Despite talk of trillion-dollar sums, stockmarkets tumbled. Far from boosting confidence, Mr Obama seems at sea.

Update: Tyler Cowen is worried. Matt Welch on The Two Faces of Barack Obama. More from Politico and Reason:

He has consistently pledged to, you know, stop spending right after well, you know, he and Congress stop spending.

Totally unrelated: Christopher Hitchens blasts Avigdor Lieberman‘s authoritarian politics. Lieberman is a kingmaker in the recent Israeli elections and now he wants an “oath of loyalty” from all Israelis, both Arab and Jews.