Obama's Economic Appointments

A close friend of mine told me this morning that he “wished he had voted for Hillary.” Why Hillary? “At least we would have known what to expect,” was his answer. He was upset at Obama’s recent appointments to high level economic positions within his administration. "Where is Krugman?" my friend wondered. He believes that Bill Clinton bears a portion of the blame for the current economic disaster. After all, his main economic advisor was Alan Greenspan and if we’re going to blame “the last 30 years” of economic policy for our current predicament, we can’t arbitrarily ignore eight of them.

Because Clinton and his faintly neo-liberal economic team bear at least some blame for our current mess, my friend argued, then the last thing we should be doing is putting the same guys back in power to fix the problem that they had a hand in creating.

That’s a fair point, but only if you believe that economic policymakers are the ones who are going to fix the economy by themselves. As my Dad pointed out, one of the primary responsibilities of political leadership in a crisis is to instill confidence, and to banish fear. It was FDR who said in 1933, after all, that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Even if you have a sound economic framework, it’s not going to be ok unless people are willing to spend and invest their money. And they’re not going to do that unless they’re confident that they’ll be protected.

So Obama has two priorities for the next several months: first, to ease people’s fear; second, to appoint people who are capable of fixing the structural problems.

The calm and deliberate manner in which he’s made his economic appointments will go far in easing people’s fears. When Joe Shmoe turns on the TV and sees that several Clinton advisors are back in power, he’ll think “well I didn’t do so badly during the 90s. Maybe things aren’t as bleak as I had feared.” The hope is that at some point in the not-so-distant future, Joe Shmoe and the rest of us will start investing and spending again.

That being said, my friend’s concerns about the structural changes that will be made to the economy in the next six months are well-founded. As my friend put it, if your drunk friend just drove your car into a wall, you wouldn’t let him drive it again just because he promised he was sober. You’d get the DD.

So is it a good idea to bring in the people who helped screw things up to help fix everything? Obama seems to think so, and from what I’ve read in interviews and short biographies, these guys seem to recognize that times have changed and that their economic ideologies need tweaking. Will it be enough? Or will we shortly revert to free-market ideologies that help the rich and screw everyone else? Who knows, but I’m 100% certain that we have a better chance with Obama than we ever would have had with McCain. Or Hillary for that matter.

At the very least, I hope I persuaded my friend to give Obama a chance to be inaugurated and make policy before he jumps ship. Was I successful? And are there other already-disillusioned Obamacons out there? We’ll see on both counts.

Out With the Old...

How sad and frightening is it that the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on the face of the earth, is totally ignored by the other Most Powerful People in the World. Bush was so incompetant, so bullish, so wrong about everything, that the elected leaders of the world can't even bring themselves to shake his hand.

It makes me doubly glad that we elected Obama. I'm sure that, at the very least, he'll be shaking everyone's hand.

Romney vs. Republicans

Mitt Romney has a good piece in the NYT today about the looming bankruptcies of the Big Three American car manufacturers. He argues eloquently that the companies should be allowed to go bankrupt, but that the government should guarantee bankruptcy financing and should also force them to undergo a lot of structural changes that will leave them in better shape to compete down the road.

While reading the article, though, I kept thinking to myself "there is no way that Romney would've said this had he still been running for president." And of course there's no way any Republican candidate could have written that in a political campaign. There's no room left for intelligent discourse in the Republican party, not with people like Palin, Kristol, and Bush running the show.

As a Republican you can't even pretend that you're intelligent, while across the aisle you've got Obama giving his incredible speech on race relations in Philadelphia. It must have been incredibly frustrating for someone like Romney, who's obviously a smart, intellectual guy, to have to hide that and answer questions like "Do you believe in evolution?" It makes you realize how behind the times Republicans are these days. They're eventually going to have to divorce themselves from the Christian Right and look clearly at where America is going: multicultural, educated, intelligent.

Beginning of the Big Fix?

The New York Times reports that Obama claims his campaign promises to big-time investments in new energy technology remains at the top of his agenda. Cool. My only question is: when Obama says that "millions of new jobs will be created," what types of jobs does he mean? I know that back during the New Deal a lot of guys my age signed up for jobs working on roads, parks, bridges, etc.

But what types of clean-energy jobs can I, and people like me, hope for in the coming years? I don't have a research/science background and I can't imagine that my next career move is installing solar panels. I wonder if my primary function will simply be to buy whatever cool new 'green' technologies make their debut over the next decade.

Hillary @ State

It looks like Obama's going to offer H. Clinton the Secretary of State cabinet position. Andrew Sullivan, for one, likes the idea. I'm not so sure. It would be hard for any politician, especially one as self-assured and ambitious as Clinton, to become suddenly obsequious when you've just come off a hard fought and bitter campaign. Especially when you were passed over for VP.

As for Obama, it will be nice to have someone of Clinton's stature negotiating with foreign powers, although Bill Clinton's ties to multinational corporations and shady foreign leaders makes me nervous. Plus, I thought the whole point of Obama winning the primaries was that we wouldn't have to deal with the Clintons in the White House this year. So Obama had better be a really good people-manager if he wants to take advantage of Clinton's leverage without sabotaging his own position.

And in all honesty, I really wanted to see Bill Richardson get State. I think he's a straight up guy, he was an early supporter of Obama after he dropped out of the race in spite of his close ties to the Clintons, and he's a link to the Latino demographic that helped get Obama New Mexico and Colorado.

Maybe the final question for Obama was where he wanted his biggest rival: in the Senate, where he'd have little control over what she did but where her attacking position might be limited; or in the White House, where he could control her more effectively but where she has the potential to do some real damage.

Obama's Victory

Throughout the prolonged primary/presidential contest, Obama’s mantra was that he was going to “change politics.” That message inspired, so it seemed, thousands of new voters, especially young ones and African American ones. Watching Obama’s huge rallies, I was convinced that the political demographics had really changed. I expected a huge turnout on Nov. 4th, and for Obama to be carried to victory on a swell of young/black/new voters.

As it turns out, that’s not quite what happened. Turnout was significantly higher than in 2004, 64% to 55%, but among the young voter demographic turnout wasn’t markedly different than usual. I’ve read reports that even without the overwhelming youth and black vote, Obama would’ve won. What pushed him over the top was that almost no independents voted for McCain, with most of them saying that antipathy towards Palin was what sealed their decision.

That’s disappointing to me in a couple of ways. There was such enthusiasm among my friends and family that I was sure everyone in all parts of the country was feeling. I was sure that people would be drawn to Obama’s decency, intellect, and character and choose to vote for him as opposed to the old fuddy-duddy.

But what really happened was that people hated Palin so much that they decided to vote for Obama. That brings up the scary thought that, had McCain chosen someone else, he might have won. And that’s what disappoints me. To me, Obama had seemed so fresh, new, and perfect for the situation. I wanted the rest of America to believe that along with me. But it turns out that they didn’t, really.

What Obama really succeeded in doing, I guess, was to energize the Democratic base more than we’d been energized before and making sure key constituencies (blacks especially) got out there and voted. I’m not sure how much expanding he did, especially when you consider that he got less votes in Ohio than Kerry did in 2004, and he only won because 300,000 Republican voters who voted for Bush in 2004 stayed home for McCain in 2008. Was that because they just couldn’t quite bring themselves to vote for Obama, and thought that a non-vote for McCain was the same as a vote for Obama, or was it simply because they were uninspired and unorganized this year? Who knows.

Still, Obama’s victory is important because it shows us Democrats that there are a lot of people out there who think like we do, and that the important thing is organizing and building a community. I just hope that the next 4 years justify our faith in him.

Our Relationship with Nature

In my junior high school English class I remember debating with the class and teacher our views concerning man’s relationship with nature. At the time I made the contrarian point that it was equally easy to meditate in a windowless office room as it was under a tree in the Rocky Mountains during the summer. Even back then I didn’t totally agree with the point that I was making and I remember the teacher being pretty explicit in his assertion that there’s something about nature that resonates with people.

You mentioned in your letter that walking along the ocean is so relaxing and so peaceful that it evinces a link between modern humans and our algae ancestors. An interesting comment, but as you said, probably not directly traceable. There’s a lot separating Ian circa 2008 and Grandpa Fish, circa 2 million BC.

In your letters describing various outdoor excursions, you unfailingly use words like “quiet”, “silent”, “peaceful” and “refreshing”. I find that I, too, use those words, as do many other writers more famous than ourselves (I’m thinking, of course, of my literary hero Hemingway). When we go on hikes or on canoe trips we find that we can’t properly describe the look of the place without describing how it makes us feel. Even photos can’t show people how we felt when we were alone in the forest.

So our attitudes toward nature aren’t entirely decided by how things look and our proximity to “natural” stuff. After all, we can go to a garden show or a zoo and be surrounded by various plants and animals but still not get that feeling we do in a canoe on the Delaware River. Even in England, where there are big fields and wild-looking parks, you don’t get the feeling that you’re in a totally natural environment. I’m closer to that feeling in those parks than sitting here in my cubicle, for sure, but I’m not quite there.

In your letter you suggested that our history as wild animals living in a wild world has something to do with it. I totally agree with you. For 2 million years we evolved to be perfectly adapted to a wild world where it was dark when the sun went down, and where it was always quiet except when you spoke to your tiny tribe. The loudest noise was thunder, the brightest light was the sun. Imagine how in tune with the natural world we must have been! For millions of years! No wonder it seems familiar in a very basic, biological way.

We’ve spent the past 10,000 years or so trying to distance ourselves as much as possible from that “barbaric” life. Of course we’ve eliminated a lot of the crappy things about living in caves. Modern medicine is nice, we live longer and healthier than we used to and I guess there’s something to be said about self awareness and intellectual life. We’re becoming increasingly unfamiliar with the physical world we live in. So unfamiliar, really, that we’re gradually killing it.

We’re creating a new world and lifestyle that is not totally suited to our evolutionary heritage. For example, when you turn off the lights in your house at night you’re blind for 10 minutes until your eyes gradually adjust. You might wonder, “Well why don’t our eyes adjust instantaneously?” As Ben suggested the other day, I think it’s because evolutionary our eyes didn’t need to. In the ancient world the lights never went on or off immediately. The sun sets gradually, and it rises gradually, giving our eyes time to gradually adjust. There’s still something fundamental about ourselves that’s used to going to sleep at dusk and rising with the dawn.

So when we walk along the ocean or go on a canoe trip and explain to everyone how quiet and peaceful it was, I think we’re trying to express that part of us that still hasn’t totally left the forest. At the same time that we build concrete cities, our fondest wish is to spend a day alone in the woods.

I guess it all just goes back to the fundamental question that all humans, post and pre-civilization, must have asked themselves at one point or another: what on earth am I doing here?