A slight problem with the "new poverty measure"

It doesn't actually measure poverty.

Did Obama's State of the Union abandon his focus on income inequality?

I didn't watch President Obama's speech last night, so I have no comments of my own. But I recommend reading what Mickey Kaus, Matthew Yglesias, and Andrew Sullivan have to say about it.

Here's one of Kaus's points:

In his allegedly table-setting, voice-finding December Kansas manifesto, Obama made a big deal about rising money inequality, citing statistics on the relative growth of the ”average income of the top 1%,” referencing the Occupy movement, etc. There was none of that in Tuesday’s speech. Obama only wants “an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” He didn’t say everyone “gets their fair share.” That’s not money-equalizing populism[.] It’s moderate Republicanism. Looks like Walter Russell Mead was right – [the Kansas speech] was just a ploy to stroke Obama’s left base, quickly abandoned when more Americans were paying attention. Or else it polled as badly as he suspected it would. Sorry, E.J. … (Don’t tell me about the Buffet Rule: Obama pitched his higher top tax rate for “millionaires” as a way to ensure equal sacrifice (as anticipated by W. Galston) not as a way to help reverse the growing income inequality trend.)

Yglesias writes:

Obama pledged to support “every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs,” perhaps making him the only person in America who didn’t read the New York Times story over the weekend about how Apple’s products are all built in Asia.

The right lesson to take from Apple might be that an economic agenda whose “blueprint begins with American manufacturing” is misguided. South Korea, Taiwan, and China all have us beat as builders of electronics. But the world’s leading mobile electronics maker is headquartered in the United States of America and it’s insanely popular. That’s because the greatest value in the electronics business is in the industrial design, the software engineering, the marketing, and the combination of research and intuition that help you figure out what products people will want. Manufacturing, as a statistical category, is more arbitrary than people realize. There’s no inherently greater virtue in putting tuna into a can . . . than in preparing a seared tuna appetizer . . . . If people aspire to remodel kitchens or teach yoga or treat illness or be hair stylists or be chefs or, God forbid, Internet columnists . . . there’s nothing wrong with that.

How Mitt Romney could lose the nomination

Mickey Kaus explains:

Mickey Kaus picks apart President Obama's call for "American business leaders to understand that their obligations don’t just end with their shareholders."

Here's what Obama said in his recent speech in Kansas:

[R]ebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will require all of us to see the stake we have in each other’s success. And it will require all of us to take some responsibility to that success. . . .

[I]t will require American business leaders to understand that their obligations don’t just end with their shareholders. Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel put it best: “There’s another obligation I feel personally,” he said, “given that everything I’ve achieved in my career and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate provided by…the United States.”

This broader obligation can take different forms. At a time when the cost of hiring workers in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it’s time to bring jobs back to the United States – not just because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for the country that made their business and their personal success possible.

Kaus's whole post on that section of Obama's speech is worth reading. He makes several points, but here's the main one:

How likely is this to happen on the scale that is necessary? Something close to zero. It’s one thing to rely on the generosity of rich people when it comes to funding new hospital wings and small magazines. It’s another when it comes to the basic success of the American economy—which (reminder) has been reliably achieved over the centuries because we have relied on sturdy, universal drive of self interest.

Kaus's "(reminder)" is a devastating rebuttal to Obama's economic worldview. Obama doesn't seem to understand how markets can do good through lots of people acting in their self interest, so he feels it must be the obligation either of charitable individuals or benevolent government to make sure the system is "fair." Of course, as Kaus says, charity can be very effective. But the president isn't going to inspire people to be more charitable than they already are. The only way any president can increase the level of charity is through economic policies that cause people to have more money to give away.

Mickey Kaus debunks the New York Times article on the "near poor."

The New York Times ran a prominent article last week on "near poverty":

They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.

Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called “near poor” and sometimes simply overlooked — and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.

As a commenter on Kaus's blog points out, it's amazing that driving a non-new car is now considered a sign of poverty or anything close to it.

Here are my favorite points by Kaus (with all emphasis in the original):

– “Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 28 percent work full-time, year round.” The Times thinks this 28 percent figure is surprisingly high. (“These estimates defy the stereotypes of low-income families,” says the Census official). Does 28% seem high to you? To me it seems low.

– “Bruce Meyer, an economist at the University of Chicago, warned that the numbers are likely to mask considerable diversity. Some households, especially the elderly, may have considerable savings.” The “near poor” category also includes unemployed 23 year old college graduates from wealthy families, stockbrokers who had a really bad year, moderately paid workers who live in Silicon Valley (where, thanks to the cost-of-living correction, you can make $51,000 and still be “near poor”). Indeed, the vast diversity of the “near poor” category makes it virtually useless. It is a granfalloon, Kurt Vonnegut’s term for a false class of people.

– . . . [A]s society grows richer, you’d think more people would be able to take a year off and live off their assets. Yet they show up as poor—because the poverty numbers measure income, not wealth. (I qualified for the low-income Earned Income Tax Credit once when I owned a house in Georgetown. There was no asset test.) I’m not saying these people are a significant portion of the statistically poor. But they’re probably a growing portion (maybe even the “fastest growing portion,” to use the standard journalistic con that makes the growth of a small population seem significant). . . .

– I’m also suspicious of the way the fancy new poverty measure takes into account regional variations in the cost of living and medical expenses. I live in an expensive part of an expensive region because it is worth it to me. I could live in North Dakota. Does that make me “poor” or have I chosen to consume in one way (nice town) rather than another?

IN THE COMMENTS: Remembering how American "poverty" looked in the Soviet Union.

Why are journalists wildly inconsistent in whether they're willing to report on sex/harassment scandals?

Mickey Kaus has a unifying theory: Journalists are moderately liberal patriots.

Why does the New York Times say the chances of a "highly competitive" general election are "increasing"?

Mickey Kaus has a good catch about this New York Times article. The NYT says:

Democrats are expressing growing alarm about President Obama’s re-election prospects and, in interviews, are openly acknowledging anxiety about the White House’s ability to strengthen the president’s standing over the next 14 months.

Elected officials and party leaders at all levels said their worries have intensified as the economy has displayed new signs of weakness. They said the likelihood of a highly competitive 2012 race is increasing as the Republican field . . . has started narrowing to two leading candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, who have executive experience and messages built around job creation.

Does the Times' use of "increasing" there make sense? Would the sentence be any less true if the Times had said "decreasing" instead? Think about it . . .

Is Obama willing to question his own assumptions?

Mickey Kaus poses the question (all links and emphasis are from Kaus's blog post, not added here):

The president is in a situation in which virtually none of his considered beliefs – in Keynesian economics, in the power of redistributive populism, in coalition politics, in his own oratorical skill – is being affirmed by the real world. It’s like the period Thomas Kuhn talks about in his famous Structure of Scientific Revolutions, when scientists are working along within the old “paradigm” but the data start coming back funny. Most scientists just ignore the discordant data and keep plodding along. A few start to question the “paradigm.” You’d want a President in tough times to be one of the latter, no? You’d expect someone like Obama to undertake some reevaluation. As Bret Stephens noted recently, genuinely smart people know what they don’t know – or in this case they know what they used to know but now aren’t so sure about anymore. 

Take Keynesianism. I’ve always assumed that Keynesian remedies – e.g. government deficit spending–worked. Certainly deficit spending seemed to work for Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. And Paul Krugman may well be right that the only problem with Obama’s stimulus is that it wasn’t big enough. But you can’t say that anymore with certainty, can you? The data – big stimulus, weak recovery – hardly reinforce the paradigm with anything like inarguable clarity. And there are some respected economists – Kenneth Rogoff, and Greg Mankiw, to name two – who question whether the classic Keynesian paradigm still holds in the current slump. Has Obama read them? Consulted them? No need to make a show of it like Carter. He can do it quietly. But has he? 

Or is it possible that Obama is … what did they call his predecessor … intellectually incurious?

So many of our seemingly rational beliefs are a matter of faith. The word is often used synonymously with "religion," but it also describes people's beliefs on economics, government, society — almost everything. If you know someone has a belief today, it's extremely likely they'll have the same belief next week, no matter what happens tomorrow. I haven't gotten any sense that President Obama is an exception to this general rule.

He isn't entirely to blame for this; our whole political culture is also to blame. We insist on politicians having "convictions," which means never changing their minds — the opposite of "flip-flopping," which is always bad. Imagine if Obama came out and said:

Look, the stimulus was an experiment in Keynesianism. The point of an experiment is that you don't know in advance exactly what the results are going to be. We can now see that results of this experiment were pretty poor. So it's time to try a different approach.

But he could never say this, because it would reveal weakness, which is supposed to be worse than being consistently wrong.

Mickey Kaus calls out Nicholas Kristof's "faux mot" about Republicans supporting contraception for horses but not for humans.

Kristof posted this to Twitter:

You can’t make this up: Republicans back contraception for wild horses, cut it for humans.

He explained the point at the end of his most recent New York Times column.

Kaus points out that Kristof's refusal to appreciate the views of people who disagree with him is actually unhelpful in advancing Kristof's own position:

The conservative Republican response is presumably that life begins at conception and human life is sacred, while horse life is not. Duh! Also that we worry considerably less about the moral and social effects of promiscuity and eugenics on equine society. . . .

The chances that it will actually win over anyone are nil–but it will get him applause from a large audience (at least 1,079,881 [the number of people who follow Kristof on Twitter]) of the already convinced. It’s as much entertainment as argument. Not that there’s anything wrong with it! Unless you want Kristof’s side to win.

This is not just an issue about contraception for humans and horses. There's a much broader problem with people failing to understand their political/ideological opponents' actual views (particularly the left failing to understand the right). When people do this, it's a giveaway that what they care about most is not whether their position actually prevails; they're more interested in demonizing their opponents and, by contrast, putting halos over themselves.

Who are the real winners in Wisconsin?

Mickey Kaus says:

For now, this looks like a victory for [Governor Scott] Walker. In the very long run, if it allows government to work more efficiently without, say, elaborate rules that often require the retention of the least productive workers (who, even if threatened with layoffs, then get to “bump” lower-seniority employees, who then bump other employees) the winner will be the party that most desperately wants the government to work. That’s the Democrats. . . . I think. … At least in theory. …

"The one lie . . . that no news organization will admit to or expose"

Mickey Kaus says something he claims you'll only hear on Bloggingheads:



"If you're into politics, it's a very good time to go off and raise a family, write a play, paint a painting, do something else for a while."

I'm convinced.

Has affirmative action hurt Barack Obama?

Mickey Kaus and Robert Wright debate the question:



They agree that affirmative action has probably hurt Obama. They seem to agree about how it affected him early in life, while disagreeing about how his experience as president is problematically different. Wright thinks the problem is that Obama wasn't prepared for all the racism he faces now. Kaus thinks Obama wasn't prepared for the lack of racial bias affecting his presidency. (Actually, it's not clear how much they really disagree; Kaus aptly notes that Wright "snatched disagreement from agreement.")

Being a pundit on Election Day

"Election Days are tough. Everyone wants to read at the precise moment when you have nothing to write." — Mickey Kaus (on Twitter)

Kausfiles has found a new home.

Mickey Kaus is now blogging on Newsweek.

And he finally has comments! And he says he'll actually respond to them:

kausfiles on Newsweek won't be quite the same as kausfiles on Slate. My early New Year's resolution is to be a lot more interactive (e.g. responding to comments), a bit less insidery, and a lot more Instapundit-y--emulating the wildly popular Tennessee blogger who posts lots of short links to worthy articles by others. Please let me know how I'm doing.

Here's a news article about it (via),* which includes some background on the odd trajectory of Kaus's career.

This is good news for the blogosphere.

* In the spirit of blog evolution heralded by Kaus's post, I'm going to start using this more minimal "via."

Mickey Kaus gets 5%, ends his California Senate campaign, and concedes.

"I congratulate Senator Boxer on her primary victory. But the results send more than one message.

"I'm a blogger. I spent about $40,000. I had one part-time aide, a recent college grad who was prepping for his LSATs. We had no headquarters, no pollsters, no highly paid strategists and consultants. We had a couple of laptops and an old Volvo. And we still ripped off more than 100,000 votes from a three term incumbent because there is a large group of voters who are dissatisfied with the prevailing dogma of the Democratic party . . . "

UPDATE: Kaus and TNR's Jon Chait have dueling interpretations of the percentages.

Filler: articles on higher education, Jews, "public service," etc.

I might not be posting much this week. For one thing, I have an unusually heavy workload between my job and job applications. And I haven't been feeling very inspired to blog lately. I'll write something up, planning to post it, but then stop and think it's not ready to be posted for one reason or another. In fact, I've been seriously toying (isn't that an oxymoron?) with the idea of going on a longer hiatus. If and when I need to move to a new city and start a new job -- which I hope will be by the end of this summer, though it's impossible to say -- I expect that I'd go on hiatus for who-knows-how-long.

But for the sake of having something current on top, here are several articles and blog posts that are worth thinking about:

1. "Where I'm coming from." — Mickey Kaus (of particular interest to readers in California, as Kaus is on the ballot today, running for the Senate against Barbara Boxer)

2. "Higher education's bubble is about to burst." — Glenn Reynolds

3. Jews aren't particularly smarter than the human race as a whole. — Michael Chabon in the New York Times

4. Why the Jews couldn't "go home" to Europe after World War II. — Richard Cohen

5. Why going into "public service" is a better description of working in the private sector than in the public sector. — Thomas Sowell

Mickey Kaus takes the expectations game to the extreme.

"'To win I just need to get more votes than I'm expected to get. And since I'm expected to get zero, the threshold for success is low.'"

Kaus leaves Slate.

Mickey Kaus is leaving Slate for both legal and tactical reasons.

He has a new website, which is apparently going to be both a blog and a Senate campaign site.

(Background.)

Mickey Kaus to run for Senator from California against Barbara Boxer?

Whoa!

There's still some wiggle room as to whether he's going to be a candidate. But he's quoted as saying he's "taken out the nomination papers, to gather the necessary signatures," and "file[d] a 'candidate registration and qualification form.'"

I've been reading Kaus regularly for 10 years, and listening to him regularly for 4 years. ("Watching" might seem more appropriate since that link goes to his Bloggingheads video conversations, but I usually listen to them as podcasts.) I've often used his material on my blog.

Mickey Kaus is a great voice in American politics. He has a rare ability to convincingly blend moderation and skepticism with decisiveness and clarity.

So, I'm very excited about this possible run. I won't be able to vote, since I live in New York state. But I'll be keeping an eye on this race if Kaus does enter.


UPDATE: Kaus breaks the silence on his blog:

I did go down to the local registrar's office Monday and take out nomination papers to run in the primary for U.S. Senator against Barbara Boxer. If I return them in timely fashion with enough signatures, I should be able to get on the June ballot. We'll see what happens.

This isn't the place to make an electioneering spiel--I don't want to be a test case of campaign finance law if I can help it. But the basic idea would be to argue, as a Democrat, against the party's dogma on several major issues (you can guess which ones). Likeminded Dem voters who assume they will vote for Sen. Boxer The Incumbent in the fall might value a mechanism that lets them register their dissent in the primary.

UPDATE (3/12/10): He says he's gathered enough signatures and filed the necessary papers. Here's his opening statement.

Mickey Kaus gives a trenchant critique of Obama's handling of health-care reform to an exasperated Robert Wright.

(Previously -- also Kaus-inspired: "Is the talk of 'death panels' so crazy?")