Asymmetrical Information

I don't understand the objection to the timing. Is there some better time than a few weeks before the election to publish profiles of both candidates (or have you forgotten Bai's piece last Sunday). Is the objection that they didn't put both in the same issue? Seems likely that is a great way to make sure to minimize your profits. As for the objectivity, I can't really say, but Suskind was part of the O'Neill book, which to my mind was a pretty honest critique of the policy process, and had essentially no impact on the overall electoral game (I read the excerpt, not the entire book, and could certainly be wrong about the overall tone). He was also the one who wrote the Delulio (sp?) article about the faith-based initiative, which again argued that the policy process in this White House is broken (Mayberry Machiavelli's, IIRC). Anyway, to return to the pt, I don't see how this is different or worse than Bai's piece on Kerry last week. Rich, of course, hasn't exactly been nice to Bush this time around, but he is pretty light fare, and this doesn't seem much different from having Safire come out and say he doesn't trust Kerry; who's surprised by that?

He lauded "Rent", which may have been the most ridiculously PC play ever staged. Rich is an idiot who sees everything through a movie maccher's eye. It's no wonder he teamed with Dowd back when they both made their reps.

Fair enough, Paul. I just wanted to say "I question the timing". Why should everybody else have all the fun?

When you see the evidence Suskind has accumulated you do get the sense It might have benefited from a bit more time, but maybe this is the best he can do. Confirmation bias, I think.

Can't you hear it already, though it won't be spoken for another eighteen days yet? That plaintive whine from 1972 and 1980, with only the name changed to bear the animus of the guilty? Come now, say it along with me -- and try not to giggle:

"I can't believe Bush got elected. Nobody I know voted for him."

If they wanted to out Woodward and Bernstein the intrepid duo, they might look into the bust in at the RNC office in Oregon. Turn about fair play? The unfortunate fact is that both right and left have engaged in trying to affect the out come of the election. Unfortunately both sides are too extreme and it’s more difficult to see the middle ground.

As I recall the last administration wasn’t an open society of free debate, unless you agreed. I often wondered where the black-mail able items would pop up in any of the 500 files found outside the office of one of the Team C members. The cite you posted doesn’t sound like The W. But obviously Nixon put to rest that both parties are capable.

With the Blather, Halprin, and comment on Fox by a Kerry functionary that Sinclair better hope that Kerry’s not elected for showing a show not favorable to his choice, I would have to say that one side definitely more virile than the other, hard to say if it’s just quantity or not. I might be more inclined to believe the NYP and others if they weren’t so obviously biased.

Who can blame the Times for tailoring their coverage for their readership, anyone in the business who sees journalism as the process of reporting the facts, not making them up as you go. Jennings (Brokaw?) may blame you as the blogger jihadists, but the main street media has the crown of thorns to wear for causing people to stop believing their honesty.

In order for the politics to be fixed, the fifth estate better start acting like it and stop acting like the fifth column. To quote a phrase, "just shut up and write" the truth.

"I don't really like what the paper's telling me, even if it resembles reality, so I'm going to rhetorically dance around the point and close up with media bias."

Mindles:

"If I had more confidence that Suskind approached this article objectively, it would be quite troubling to me."

You are killing me, Mindles. Slowly, but surely, you're killing me.

I haven't seen the Suskind article, so I can't speak to it. But what information would change your mind at this point? (Before or even after the election). Anyone who might criticize the Administration might be labeled a partisan, so I'm unclear what source of information you would trust. Any number of your cohort of centrist Pubs (and even from farther right) have either been critical of or deserted this Administration: Galt won't vote for them (on foreign policy grounds, I assume, as she likes their domestic policy), Drezner's a Kerry man now, Phil Carter has been really critical, Snowcroft was critical, Eagleberger was critical, there was recently an open letter from IR scholars that was quite critical of the foreign policy, (IIRC) Buckley thinks the war was a mistake, Tucker Carlson thinks the war was a mistake, and I think Robert George just went soft. (This leaves aside their domestic policy; cf. the Economist poll of economists, the deficit, the drug prescription bill, etc.). In all seriousness, would anything short of capitulation by Fox News, the NY Post, or the WSJ opinion page, change your mind? There has been plenty of bad news that isn't really controverted: holding a citizen in jail without counsel for years, torture, torture memos, the absence of WMD, the absence of clear and close connections (such that it would distinguish Iraq from another country) between Hussein and Al-Qaeda, the lack of candy and flowers, etc. It seems as if you are committed enough to require a sort of Caesar's wife standard of data, and I just don't think that's available in this world (or ever was). What are the data points that you require to change your mind? Is there a central thesis (the WOT is a war between civilizations, or for civilization, or if we don't stop them now, we'll knuckle under to Islam in twenty years' time) that you are unwilling to abandon?

This is EXACTLY the thing that distresses me most. Even if Kerry's elected, half the country will think that GWB is/was doing a bang-up job (or at least was not doing a terrible job). It seems like nothing short of system-wide failure will convince them otherwise. Iraq is too small a thing for it to effect most of us - unless there's a draft (unlikely), we could fail miserably (by whomever's standard you want to apply) for 10 more years, and it wouldn't clearly and directly effect us. No one in the ME was ever in a position to seriously threaten the US (that is, potentially win a war against us, or even hurt us badly enough that our relative position of power would change), so that isn't going to happen (and I'm glad of it).

Which means, if you think (as I do), that this Administration is close to literally mindless on policy grounds (that is, not that there aren't good Pub ideas out there, but that this Administration either doesn't understand them or doesn't care about the policy grounds and will abandon those policies for political gain), we have to await certain system failure (not huge - just 70s style stasis for a decade) before enough people will be convinced that mistakes were made; only then will we be able to start doing something about it. Depressing.

So absent first hand experience of our present foreign policy (which I hope you never have to endure), what data sources would you trust enough to start wondering about this Administration?

What about this other scandal? Oil for food alleges $10 billion over the ten years of the sanctions regime: the other $8.8 is in less than a year. The primary sources for the Oil for Food allegations have been the documents which have been in the hands of Amhed (not the CIA puppet anymore) Chalabi for the last year, and Volcker's team has not been able to reveiw original documents. I wouldn't be in too much of a rush to hang the UN yet.

On the other hand, Rich did spend a lot of time as the theater reviewer for the NYT, so he may have a problem distinguishing between reality and fantasy.

Tim- none of your diatribe goes to Suskind's argument, which is that the administration's public certainty and lack of intrspection is mirrored in private by a lack of analysis. He completely ignores the fact that public admission of mistakes is not exactly a tradition for Presidents. Mistakes have already implicitly been admitted by changes of course (In training Iraqi soldiers, approaches to Fallujah, etc.) Business people in particular are trained to disagree in private but speak with certainty together in public.

One can believe all kinds of things of this administration without buying Suskind's argument.

You seem to conclude the same thing from everything we write. Perhaps you're the one who's stuck in a rut.

Oh, and yes Jason - I'll remember to take a nostalgic arts columnist predicting a yet-to-be committed crime seriously next time. After all, it's what the paper is 'telling' me.

Peter vE: Your "other scandal" sounds to me like at this point its mostly allegations that the paperwork wasn't filled out right - allegations made by UN accountants who just might have a motive for trying to create a distraction from their own depredations. It might turn out to be real (large amounts of money actually diverted), or it might be just that they forgot to file everything in triplicate while trying to get the money passed out to get a whole country's infrastructure running again in a few weeks.

With the Oil for Food program, OTOH, there's no doubt about the diversion of funds - the evidence is there in Saddam's limos and palaces. How the money got there might be harder to trace - the UN bureaucrats had 12 years to make up something to file in triplicate.

Mindles, Mindles, Mindles:

1. You irritation puzzles me. I was really asking the question (that is, not being snarky; I mean, I used "deserted" and "critical," hardly incindiary terms), because I think your support for Bush is the most interesting in the blogosphere. As I've said again and again, I don't think we're that far apart politically. I'd say the same about Drezner and Galt. But there are legitimate and potentially understandable subconscious career reasons (I'm qualifying this to the point of meaninglessness to make clear that this is not an attack on either; the same thing could be said about many Dems) for those two to take an understanding posture towards the Bush Administration. That's not true for you; you've written about the social costs of being a Republican, and I know there aren't career costs in finance in NYC for wondering about this Administration.

I really did just mean to ask what sources of information you trust enough to sway your opinion of Bush. Is it on an author (e.g., Suskind) level, or a organization level (e.g., NYT)? I'll willingly admit that it's certainly not insane for social conservatives to wonder about bias (though I'd argue about the amount) at either level. What confuses me most is how people who are largely like me end up at different judgments; what rules are they using to validate policy or facts? That's what I'm trying to sort out, and that's why I listed sources that (I assume) haven't changed your mind.

2. The companies I've either worked for (admittedly small sample) or been in significant contact with (bigger sample) leak like sieves - everyone always bitches about the guy in the next office and how he's screwing the company up. It happened a lot with the Clinton Administration, and a fair bit with the GHWB Administration, IIRC. I'd be reassured by the same with this Administration. I'd be reassured if, even absent a public explanation, people were getting fired. I'm not seeing either; if you are (b/c you are more connected), let us know - it would be infinitely reassuring to me.

I think one can look at just the actual decisions the Bush administration has made and conclude that their decision-making process cares more about politic ramifications of a policy than its pragmatic results. For example, the tax cut, the steel tariffs, space program proposal, universal broadband proposal, increase in domestic spending, and the expansion of Medicare.

You don't have to listen to the people who have resigned from this administration and confirm this view.

"I think one can look at just the actual decisions the Bush administration has made and conclude that their decision-making process cares more about politic(al) ramifications of a policy than its pragmatic results. For example, the tax cut, the steel tariffs, space program proposal, universal broadband proposal, increase in domestic spending, and the expansion of Medicare."

Perhaps he should have had focus groups and polls to base his decisions on. Clinton's administration was terrified of "bad press" and according to those there at the time, said the bull of the storage closet wouldn't do anything without general head nods.

Source
Interview with Dick Morris - "Because He Could"

Mark M,

Saddam Hussein's misuse of the funds has been known for years. The "Oil for Food" scandal as it currently stands is the alleged complicity of various European governments and UN officials in the diversion of those funds. The main source for those allegations are documents which Chalabi and the INC removed from various ministries, and which were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (founded by a retired Shin Bet Colonel). Do I really have to point out that Chalabi does not have an wonderful track record in this regard?

In regards to the $8.8 billion which cannot be accounted for: Hack's original column certainly implies that the majority of the money went to fund personal accounts. Had the administration planned adequately, the CPA would have been staffed with people who had experience running multi billion dollar agencies, not well intentioned youth who posted their CVs at Heritage. They obviously were not up to the challenge of getting the whole country's infrastructure running again in a few weeks.

Mindles:

I certainly agree that we shouldn't equate constructing a narrative with explaining the facts, but you're also discounting Suskind's claimed fact of the quotation you quote. Either Suskind's lying or you have a more charitable explanation for them than I can come up with.

here are a few - the aide said something stupid/misguided/intentionally obnoxious/to make the administration look bad/ to puff himself up/ mangled his words/ was being sarcastic....

TNT: Perhaps he should have had focus groups and polls to base his decisions on. Clinton's administration was terrified of "bad press" and according to those there at the time, said the bull of the storage closet wouldn't do anything without general head nods.

Er, bash Clinton all you want. I'm not a Democrat, I'm a moderate libertarian who's registered as a Republican. Rather like Jane, only not as smart or articulate.

No focus groups. Just listen to the advice of your own advisors, even when they tell you facts that are politically inconvenient, like when your own economic advisors argue against the steel tariffs because it would harm every American consumer and company who buys steel or steel products.

Apparently it's becomes a matter of when to listen to the advisor (it wasn't a slam dunk). I'm sure that you may have a deeper insight into W than do I, but cherry picking does nothing, I have more than enough "bad choice George" of my own, but I look at the options open, Kerry would be the, "we are the world" Focus group mentality. W has had more than enough messes to clean up listening to his advisors.

Glad to hear that you aren't part of the modern day Kool-aid drinkers, I have been a registered Independent my entire adult life, so what? My comment re: Clinton is and almost always is that Clinton is what Kerry would be, only Kerry would be to the left. Clinton was terrified of bad press, it stopped him from getting Bin Lauden. Kerry on the other had would actually care if the new deGaul had a frowny face. He would care if Annan, trying to get in on our election to put the focus off the oil for food crime against the people of Iraq, also had a frowny face. Frankly the people wouldn't have gotten the money anyway, but the German, French and Russians were arming Sodamn Insane before, during and are still (my opinion), killing our men and women.

I. E. this administrations platform on illegal aliens is lousy, but better than the Dems that want to extend every benefit they can come up with to a new potential voting block. Bad for us, great for them. The Dems have gone so far left, that the southern Dems have to distance themselves from their own party.

The Tax cuts have worked, or at least helped, the economy is better. The rest are fireside promises. The only other major item you gave as a misstep was Medicare, Bush has been over extending logic on trying to "get along" with the Washington Dems. I wonder who advised him to get out in front of Medicare? The Chinese buying up all the scrap has hurt our consumers far more, running up costs on water construction to nuts and bolts to cars to housing material, again my opinion. So the up shot of this appears to be that you disagree with the decisions made. Do you have alternate recommendations? We have choice A or Choice B to vote for, and in some states choice C.

The war in Iraq wasn't caused simply by blind faith in Intell. We have two administration members that were there from the beginning in Clarke and Oneil, that plainly state the plan to go into Iraq existed before 911 occurred. We have extensive writing from neocons Pearle and Wolfy begging to go into Iraq long before 911. We have Rumsfeld writing "wrong answer" on Clarkes memo that stated those responsible for 911 were in Afganistan, not Iraq. We have the Senate report on Intell that all but calls Wolfy a liar. The results speak for themselves, no wmd, and no active wmd programs in Iraq. How can anyone accept the excuse of "bad intell" in Iraq, when the scumbag in the White House already used this excuse for 911, YET FIRED NOBODY AND CHANGED NOTHING.

Beg: The "Bad intell" for Iraq was worldwide. And do you actually think that anyone's getting fired could have "fixed" that intelligence on Iraq?

I don't even care if someone "should have been fired", at this point. But to pretend that doing so would have somehow made a totalitarian police-state amenable to foreign intelligence agents (ie, the CIA) is the height of stupidity. Or, rather, in your case, transparent partisanship.

Imagine that "top men" at the CIA had been fired on 9/12/01. (Nevermind the FBI, which is arguably more responsible for 9/11 screwups, but has nothing much to do with foreign intelligence) ... How does this change the intel on Iraq? Even ignoring the delays and inefficiencies caused by replacing senior staff, how would it have helped the thing you're blaming on Bush?

Feel free to rail about the manifest injustice and stupidity of not firing the DCI immediately after 9/11. But if you're going to claim that doing so would have "fixed" the Iraq intelligence, you'd better have a very convincing story as to how that would actually happen, 'cause I don't see any mechanism.

(PS. The "Plan" for Iraq? Pre-dates the evil Neo-Con Jew Menace. Bill Clinton and his staff seemed to think it was a Good Idea, even if they couldn't manage to actually do it. No active WMD programs? Well, golly! I guess that means Bush is Hitler. So what if sanctions were porous and doubtless would have been removed for "humanitarian" reasons within a few years. So what if the WMD programs were mothballed, with all evidence saying they'd be reactivated the moment it was possible. "No active programs, BUSHITLER!"

Christ. And you call Bush a "scumbag".)

The tax cuts did help, but that wasn't by design. Remember, Bush proposed the exact same tax cuts during his campaign long before anyone thought there was going to be a recession. Bush didn't think there would be one either, or else he wouldn't have assumed the surpluses would keep continuing. And, of course, if they had, the tax cut would mostly surely have been inflationary, but Bush used supply-side arguments to counter that. Of course, once the recession hit (one that was caused by too much supply), he did not modify the tax cut to spur demand more. He just kept it and changed how he marketed it.

So I would say that the tax cut is another example where he clearly didn't care about pragmatic results. It didn't turn out so bad (ignoring the deficit), but I think that was due more to luck than anything else. And I'm not convinced we needed to use fiscal policy in the first place. Keynes has been on the outs for decades, and conservatives dislike the whole idea of using taxes and government spending to manipulate the business cycle anyway.

Given that both seniors and conservatives seem pretty unhappy with the results of Medicare reform, it seems unlikely Bush cared as much about the actual effects of the reform itself as much as being able to say he added prescription drug benefit. Not the strongest example, perhaps, but I've written at length about more examples at my own blog. I don't think I'm cherry picking because I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't like nor dislike Bush. I merely have some serious concerns about his decision-making process, and I arrived at that conclusion without reading that Suskind article.

Sieg I never said firing Tenant would have changed the mistake in Iraq. But a previous President said "the buck stops here". You want to give jr the benefit of the doubt on 911, I'll stipulate to that here. But there is now way you can tell me he gets to cry bad intell twice in 2 years, especially when he never made a move to correct the problem after 911, and still hasnt.

Further, it wasnt just wmd programs didnt exist, most of the components to create wmd werent in "mothballs", they didnt exist either. About the most significant thing they found was a centrifuge that had been buried in a garden for 10 years. And the inspector that gave that up agreed with every other Iraqi scientist interrogated that no wmd program had been operational since 94. And the conclusion the latest report on NO IRAQI WMD that concludes Saddam would pursue wmd when sanctions were lifted is not BASED ON ANY EVIDENCE, only on the speculation of a weapons inspector playing psychologist with transcripts of Saddam.

“The tax cuts did help, but that wasn't by design. Remember, Bush proposed the exact same tax cuts during his campaign long before anyone thought there was going to be a recession. Bush didn't think there would be one either, or else he wouldn't have assumed the surpluses would keep continuing. And, of course, if they had, the tax cut would mostly surely have been inflationary, but Bush used supply-side arguments to counter that. Of course, once the recession hit (one that was caused by too much supply), he did not modify the tax cut to spur demand more. He just kept it and changed how he marketed it.”

By the sad state of my financial empire, it is all too obvious Hi-Fi is not my strong suit. According to the Nobel Prize’r, Bush simply didn’t cut taxes enough (I find this amazing). Frankly I hated Reagan’s “supply-side” crap, but apparently it worked. The mistake I feared with Bush is, and was, that the Bush tax cut was relying on the big pay off like a slot machine junky, that’s the problem with Econ 101 in the real world. You say that the “tax cuts did work, but that wasn't by design”, this is a dichotomy in perception. To me it didn’t matter when it was talked about, I believe we were already in the recession. The 30% drop that happened at the time of 9/11, I believe, was triggered by the events, not caused by it. We knew at about that time that the bubble was about to burst on a 30% over valuation somewhere about ’98. Recently, in hindsight perhaps, we find out that the “Clinton” recession actually did startthen, we do disagree with this point, but I have been personally convinced. With these factors, this useful idiot, thinks we have battled back from the triple crown of financial disasters. Could be coincidental, but I don’t believe in coincidence. The only thing I see that Clinton did right in the 90’s was to not screw it up and not tax it to death, even though he had the highest tax increase in history at the first of his admin. We are finding out, I believe that as the “world wide economy” becomes reality, the old 101 models are worthless. The market is “solid” at a level at or above pre-fall, I believe this is accurate even though the market's soft “today”.

While I abhor the financial shows, I have been watching them, like a moth to light perhaps, Cudlow & Kramer, and others, have posted many, very positive indicators, like earnings up, GDP up, home ownership, job inflow higher than job outflow. The French offered advice when their growth was at 1.3% ours at the time was at 5.7%. Their unemployment is 9-10%, ours at 5.4%, Germany not much better off. The only thing that changed from 9/10 to 9/11 was our perception, our confidenct. I was truly horrified to watch the onslaught of verbiage on our economy by the Dems for purely partisan politics for the last 3 years. Like a gang of Chicken Littles, or worse, accomplished talking down the frail economy. I still burn with anger at that thought. Perhaps what we can agree on is that Supply Side Economics are questionable. What I have been able to surmise is that the economy wants optimism, in truth. I do believe that Bush has learned not to “buy” the Dems favor, second term should be like a good little Republican should be, fiscally conservative.

“I don't think I'm cherry picking because I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't like nor dislike Bush. I merely have some serious concerns about his decision-making process, and I arrived at that conclusion without reading that Suskind article.”

And you may well not be, but part of my process was to compare the last administrations failed approach in doing only what immediately pleases the continuants poled. As I’ve said, I’m not happy with little things, like not going into the stronghold and whipping the murdering “dogs”, there have been many missed chances. But as in the border war, W’s approach stinks the least. This may well be another election of voting for the candidate that is least obnoxious.

The tax cuts have been very bad policy. The "stimulating" effect of the tax cuts are over, and they havent produced anywhere near the jobs the administration claimed they were suppose to. And more than half the jobs created are government jobs, that furthers the case that the tax cuts did next to nothing in stimulating the private sector. So the stimulus barely worked at all, and we are left with huge debt. If the tax cuts were meant to be a temporary economic stimulus, please explain the logic of making them permenant? Tax cuts were on the Bush agenda prior to 911, prior to Homeland Defense, prior to two very expensive wars, etc, please tell me what conditions must arise to make tax cuts bad policy.

TNT, I'm probably going to have my hands full with Winds of Change today, so I'll have to get back to you later.

"Overall, according the Treasury Department, tax receipts increased 5.5 percent in fiscal year 2004, compared to a 3.8 percent decline in fiscal year 2003. Income-tax withholdings gained 2.5 percent versus a loss of 2.2 percent in the prior year. Corporate tax collections exploded 43.7 percent on the shoulders of near-record corporate profits.

What's going on? It's clear: At lower marginal tax rates, the rising economy is throwing off a lot more tax revenues. Score one for the supply-siders...."

VS.

"It's clear from the debates and the campaign trail that neither President Bush nor Sen. Kerry has a comprehensive plan to limit budget spending. Kerry has committed to roughly $2.5 trillion in new spending, which he will be disappointed to learn will not be covered by his $600 billion to $800 billion worth of tax-hike proposals. Moreover, slower economic growth under a higher-tax economic policy will throw off fewer tax revenues. In short, the Kerry plan looks like a super budget-buster."

Let's see Increases in tax revenue, Exports up 11%, Personal income up, up we're in the crapper.

This just in, Republicans promise Tax cuts, Dems want to increase your Taxes.

Not exactly news is it?

If you're waiting for a new blowhard promising changes he doesn't intend to keep, the only change you need is the channel changer.

Have a great day.

Source Link
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larrykudlow/welcome.shtml

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