Economists on the Budget Freeze

Here’s how one economist responded to President Obama’s idea of a spending freeze, which is likely to be a major topic of his State of the Union speech.

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

That economist is Princeton professor Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics.
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Federal Debt is Not Analagous to Household Debt!

It’s late and I’m tired, but another TV pundit once again used the example of the family budget to assert that the federal government ought to have to live within its means in exactly the same way that the American family does.  This time it was David Gergen on some PBS or ABC show.  I can’t remember, because I wasn’t really watching.  Someone else had turned it on, and I just heard it.

I am so sick of this analogy.  It simply doesn’t work for a number of reasons:

1) It’s based on a false premise.  Most American households carry debt, be it a mortgage, student loans, car payment, credit card debt or something else.  Ideally this is planned and the family can keep up with payments, but far too often that is not the case.  So many people live paycheck to paycheck.
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OK, I changed my mind!

Before I get back to work, I feel I need to take a moment and state openly that I was wrong about the health care reform bill. It is bad, evil and scary. Had I been watching wall to wall coverage of Congress like all good Americans should, I would have know that. Fortunately, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report caught me up to speed last night.

First there was this clip:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black – Stickle Me Elmo
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Health Care Crisis

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NITLE Programs This Week and Next

NITLE

NITLE

This is the NITLE Professional Development News that went out today. It focuses on my programs for the coming two weeks. They are going to be be keeping me busy. But they are interesting programs, so they should be fun.

Dear Colleagues,
As campuses continue to respond to the challenges of globalization as well as on-going economic restraints, I wanted to take a moment to call your attention to three upcoming NITLE programs relevant to both situations.

Using media elements with an international perspective to introduce complex issues such as research ethics can offer a new dimension to the lab-based science class, stimulating and enriching discussion. Faculty members in the natural and social sciences who want to integrate an international perspective into lab-based curricula in this way are encouraged to sign up for “Science and International Perspectives.” Continue reading

Cable News Has Massive Information Resources, William Kamkwamba Has a Few Library Books. Who Makes Better Use?

I’m not one of those who get’s all his news from The Daily Show, I swear, but as Jon Stewart points out in this segment, it’s hard to get it anywhere else.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

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But at least they are making sure Saturday Night Live gets the facts straight.

And then there’s this guy. Look what he did with some scraps that, quite frankly, a junkyard owner wouldn’t have bothered to save.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
William Kamkwamba
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

He did all that based on images in a library book? It took me hours to set up the surround sound in my family room, and I had diagrams and specific color coded cables! I’m calling William Kamkwamba next time. You know all those leaks in the Big Dig Tunnels Here in Boston where I live, they should have just told William Kamkwamba what they wanted done. Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter that NASA lost because they confused Metric and Imperial measurements? Maybe William Kamkwamba should have taken charge. I’m exaggerating, of course, but this kid’s story does make you wonder, if he can do that with what he had, what would he do with all the benefits I have. As he says in the interview, what if he had Google?

Man Arrested for Reporting Police Movements via Twitter

Somehow it seems a violation of free speech to lock a man up for simply reporting something he observes, yet that is what happened in Pittsburgh according to this article in the Huffington Post.

A self-described New York City anarchist has been accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law enforcement actions at last month’s summit.

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The charge is hindering prosecution. But is it hindering prosecution simply to report, which is ultimately all that was done?

Project 10^100: Vote for the idea you believe will help the most people

Google says:

Project 10^100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.
You submitted more than 150,000 ideas.
We chose a handful of finalists.
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The Need to Make Your Voice Heard is Urgent

This article from the Christian Science Monitor makes very apparent why those who support health care need to get out and make our voices heard.  It lays out the activities of President Obama to promote health care reform and of conservative tv personality Glenn Beck to prevent it.

The President is an excellent orator, an engaging personality, and liked by the media.  He is a good person to have on your side, there is no doubt about it.  But ultimately the White House does not control the media.  Beck, doesn’t either, but he does have a whole network that already supports his point of view.  Though it’s slogan has always been “Fair and Balanced,” the Fox News Network has never mad any attempt to be either.  So they have been quite helpful to an anti-reform cause.

Meanwhile, back in Washington Beck was broadcasting live on the Fox News Channel as part of something he’s dubbed “The 9-12 Project.” The occasion was a “tea party” march and rally organized by “FreedomWorks” to protest the “irresponsible government takeover of our nation’s healthcare, devastating new energy taxes, and trillions of dollars in red ink.”

Some 450 tour buses were expected to bring protesters from around the country. FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon predicted that it would be “the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives that we’ve ever had in the nation’s capital.” Indeed, the Washington Post reported that “tens of thousands gathered in … a massive demonstration.”

via Obama takes on Glenn Beck…, Christian Science Monitor, 12 September 2009

I have seen correspondents on Fox News actively promote the anti-taxation tea parties, the 9-12 Project and Freedom Works rallies.  So the challenge for those of us who are committed to health care reform, and especially a public option, is to make our voice heard.  How, I’m not so sure.  But I can think of a few things.  Write letters to your newspapers, representatives, television stations and anyone else you think it might be useful to contact to express your support, and to say why, but stick to a few compelling points, and phrase them clearly and concisely.
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Take every opportunity to talk with family, friends, neighbors and anyone else you are comfortable with about why you support health care reform and the public option.

Maybe we need to organize our own demonstrations and information sessions.

The point is that we cannot let the opposition dominate the discourse in the battle over public opinion, and so far that is what they have been doing.

For talking points on why a public option is a good idea, I suggest the following link to the key points of a December 2008 report Institute for America’s Future and the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center on Health, Economic & Family Security.  Any other suggestions?

Respect that is due the President

It is not a secret that I supported the candidacy of Barack Obama for President, nor that I was overjoyed he won.  Overall, I am also happy with his presidency.  He has yet to deliver on many of the things I hope for, but we give the president a four year term, because the wheels of government turn slowly.  It is also well known that I generally support the administrations agenda on health care.

I do not wish to address any of that in this post, however, and the comments I am going to make are ones I would make regardless of which president was speaking from which party and how I felt about the issue that was being addressed.  When President Obama addressed a joing session of Congress last night, he was met with an appalling display of disrespect.  The most egregious example of this was the outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson (Rep. S. Carolina.  But that was only one example.  Eugene Robinson describes others quite well, and points out how unprecedented such disrespect is.

Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas waved hand-lettered signs at the president, as if he thought he were attending one of those made-for-television town-hall meetings rather than a solemn gathering of the nation’s highest elected officials.

Throughout the speech, there was grumbling, mugging and eye-rolling on the Republican side that was not only undignified but frankly un-American…

Congress didn’t heckle Lyndon Johnson like that during the Vietnam War or Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Congress didn’t even show that kind of bitterness and aggression toward George W. Bush, who did lie—specifically, about the intelligence that his administration relied on to justify an unnecessary war that has cost 4,300 American lives and enough money to fund Obama’s health care proposals for a decade.

via Truthdig – Reports – No Way to Treat a President.

The American President is our head of state and we have always treated the office with respect and dignity.  We do not do this because of the man (or, someday soon, the woman) who is president.  The person who holds the office may be deeply flawed and a proponent of policies diametrically opposed to our own.  We may even work hard to block his policies and against his re-election.
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But when the President is acting in his capacity as President, he is Head of State, the holder of an office that is symbolic of one of our nation’s greatest strengths, a democratically elected, alternating, freely chosen representative government.  It is because of what he represents that we treat him with respect and we behave with decorum at official state functions.  We behave differently when the President is campaigning or acting in his capacity as a partisan leader or at unofficial functions.

Soldiers salute the President.  Ambassadors and dignataries stand when he walks in the room.  Congress gathers in joint session and greets him with ceremony.  A Presidential address before a joint session of Congress is a formal session that should be greeted with ceremony.  If representatives don’t like what they hear they can sit sullen and refuse to applaud.  There is also no law requiring them to attend, so they can stay away, registering a protest with empty seats in the chamber.

But it is NOT acceptable to disrupt a speech.  It is bad manners and not behavior most of us want our children to learn.  But more than that, it is un-American.  When the President of the United States walks into the room, be he President Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon or any other president past or yet to come, we treat the President with respect!

International Admissions Fall – Inside Higher Ed

For the first time since 2004, admission of international students to U.S. graduate schools has declined, and students from India and South Korea are applying in significantly fewer numbers as well, according to a report (pdf) released today by the Council of Graduate Schools.

Admissions from prospective international students declined by 3 percent from 2008 to 2009, and applications from India and South Korea fell by 12 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

“The entire global economy has got to have played a part in what’s happening for fall of ’09,” said Nathan Bell, the council’s research director.

Virginia Tech in Blacksburg is still doing well, in spite of the negative publicity generated by the terrible mass shootings there in 2007.  The university
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saw increases or less significant declines in applications from areas of the world that have declined overall in application numbers. The university had an 8 percent increase in South Korean applications, for instance, besting the average by 17 percentage points.

via News: International Admissions Fall – Inside Higher Ed.

The breakdown of the statistics is particularly interesting.  Applications were up by 4% for the 2008-09 Academic Year, whereas offers where down by 3%.  Moreover, he applications are broken down regionally and in no region did the percentage change in number of applications correspond with the percentage change in the number of offers.   For example, for the 2008/09 academic year, applications from China were up by 14%, but applications from S. Korea the were down by 9%.  On the other hand, offers to Chinese students were up by 13%, and to Indian students they were down by 16%.

The really The biggest discrepency is between applications and offers to scholars from the Middle East and Turkey.  In 2008/09, applications were up by 22%, but admissions only by 10%.  I have no explanation.