Musings on the bailout—and baseball
I’d much rather write about the Red Sox.
They’re doing great, up two in the best of five series against the Angels. Watching the game last night reminded me of one of the many things that’s so wonderful about sports: they channel some of the passion of politics while remaining “light” rather than heavy. They are clear rather than murky, visible and knowable rather than inscrutable. They are finite; with a beginning, middle, and end. They unite us geographically—for example, most of New England, young or old, Democrat or Republican, roots for the Sox. They tend to feature good-looking young guys instead of botoxed old ones.
When we care deeply about both endeavors, it’s in very different ways. It’s even possible sometimes for Yankee fans to talk to Red Sox fans without coming to blows.
Politics is very different these days. The bailout, which is both political and financial, is an especially heavy and complex burden for most people to contemplate. I suppose in some ways it does unite us, but those ways are negative: most people, Democrat and Repubican alike, have become distrustful of Congress’s ability to lead us out of the financial desert we found ourselves in, especially since we suspect that Congress is one of the reasons we’re wandering here in the first place.
Examining the bailout details isn’t reassuring, either. The earmarks/tax breaks packed in there to sweeten the pot scream “business as usual, folks,” from our legislators. Yes, it may have been done to get a few more members of Congress on board. But it does nothing to engender trust that this bill is a good one, or that special interests aren’t the real ones being served.
The fact that so many economists seem to have been against the bill does not foster happy warm fuzzy feelings, either. And the additional fact that most of us are not deeply knowledgeable about economics does not make it easier to pick and choose which expert we think might be correct.
It’s something like making medical decisions. The public has been told that, although things aren’t that bad now, if we waited just a little while they would get remarkably worse. It’s the equivalent of being told that because of a small spot on the shin the entire leg must be removed, and now. And this must be done even though all the doctors differ on whether it is necessary or whether some less drastic treatment might be better.
At least with medicine we have statistics on other patients who have had the same disease. We can read up on the different treatments they received, and how they fared. And since we are individuals, we can make our own choices in the end.
The bailout is occurring in a situation with few precedents, most of them involving details that are quite different than we face now. The “doctors” disagree, and others—mostly people we do not trust—are making the decision for us.
Small wonder we’d rather watch baseball, have a beer, and forget the whole thing, while we watch young men at the peak of their game throw, catch, and hit a small ball.
Or take a look at fall in New England (I purposely kept this photo big):
Love those fall leaves photos from my New England homeland.
It’s even possible sometimes for Yankee fans to talk to Red Sox fans without coming to blows.
As former neighbor of mine was from the Bronx, he not surprisingly was a diehard Yankees fan. We agreed to respectfully disagree, as neither of us could choose our place of birth. When he saw me wearing a 2004 World Series shirt, he informed me that would be the last such shirt I would buy. My reply was that given the track record of the previous 87 years, he was most likely right. He moved before the 2007 World Series.
Neo
Your gentle touch re Congress can only be explained by your infatuation with the Red Sox and their current success. Here’s my take on Congress and more. I am a Yankees fan and in a sullen mood but that in no way mitigates the following, at least not by much.
A four page bail out bill fails to pass, then metastasizes to a four hundred page manifestly blatant bribe – which passes. This is greed and corruption of epic proportions — it will become legend. First we lost our Republic, now we’ve lost representative government. No longer a democracy, we are now, de facto, a kleptocracy, the moral and ethical equivalent of Third World governance.
Gaetano Salvemini, a victim and enemy of 1920’s rise of Fascism in Italy (later a Harvard professor — if I remember correctly) said Mussolini’s Fascist economic theory was basically – “profit is private and personal, loss is public and social”.
Il Duce was either prescient or he stumbled onto the future without knowing it. This is the mutated world we are in now: capitalism (open immigration and private, personal profit), socialism (losses, debt, are public, social), fascism (pc codes, mandatory sensitivity and right thinking, Patriot Act, Echelon). I suppose this is what they had in mind when they came up with the most recent iteration of the “Third Way” or the “New World Order” or whatever the hell they’re calling it now. Personally, I’ve always been partial to “Brave New World” but it’s clear we need something new, something fresh, something that “says it”!
New World Order Of Brave Change And Hope?
I tihnk our military should shell the Capitol building like Russia did under Yeltsin. (tank fire at parlimanet)
It’s time for people to look at what happens in the sausage factory.
sausage my ass. This is chitterlings.
Why is it that no one is asking Obama or any of the other members of Congress who got large campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to return the money? Given Obama’s, Dodd’s, etc. opposition to attempts to avert this disaster by regulatory reform of those organizations, don’t those contributions look like nothing more than payment for services rendered?
Even the best political order can degenerate into cleptocracy if public moral declined below certain point. Culture of license and hedonism has destroyed many mighty republics, Roman included.
GeoPal: Actually, I am enraged at Congress.
Barack John
Left and rights of passage
Black and whites of youth
Who can face the knowledge
that the truth is not the truth?
Obsolete Absolute
Ron Ralph
Cruising under your radar
Watching from the satellites
Take a page from the red book
and keep them in your sights
Red alert Red alert
Excellent commentary GeoPal.
“…something that “says it”!”
How about something like:
Our Cultural Evolution is your patriotic duty!
or perhaps?
The Age of Obama…..
Down the road, it may become “The day the people finally locked and loaded”.
Congress approval rating being historical low, alienation of political class from general public endemic, plus looming economic meltdown – a scenario for a major social upheaval. Will present political establishment survive it? A big question.
I beg your indulgence. This is the first two paragraphs in an essay entitled, “Notes on the history of American free enterprise”. by Ayn Rand published, I think in 1957.
If a detailed, factual study were made of all those instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of free enterprise and as an argument in favor of a government-controlled economy, it woul be found that the actions blamed on businessmen were caused, necessitated, and made possible only by government intervention in business. The evils, popularly ascribed to big industrialists, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The vllain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not free enterprise, but government controls.
Businessmen were the victims, yet the victims have taken the blame (and are still taking it), while the guilty parties have used their own guilt as an argument for the extension of their power, for wider and weder opportunities to commit the same crime on a greater and greater scale. Public opinion has been so misinformed about the true facts that we have now reached the stage where, as a cure for the country’s problems, people are asking for more and more of the poison which made them sick in the first place.
Perfected Dem- A “Cultural Evolution”? Um hmn. What we’re seeing is nothing less than the final nails in the coffin of capitalism; the only free, dynamic, creative and moral system ever. And with it the death of individual rights sacrificed at the alter of the state, which will bring the US on par with the faceless void of socialism. The goal as forseen by Miss Rand long ago. Conspiracy theory anyone? “They decide and the shotgun sings the song…”
Neo-I saw an amazing football game last that went into overtime and left everyone emotionally drained. What a wonderful diversion-a Dodger fan
So most americans want to kick out congress and start over? Just when we’ve got the congress and presidential candidate obama we’ve always wanted? Man, we’re gonna clean up when obama appoints 3 or 4 new supreme justices. Can you say stack the courts like FDR? Heavenly.
the post at Volokh was updated with a clarification that it’s not that there’s a consensus that it’s bad, just that there is an overwhelming consensus that it’s good, either. I’d attribute that as much to people not wanting to stick their necks out as anything else. I think one also should not overlook the role of psychology in the markets, either. Right now, if the bill at least makes people feel a little better about things, and frees up some liquidity, that’s an improvement. How much is up for debate, but right now, fear is a big problem too.
People forget that FDR’s famous quote:
““The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
was about the depression, not our enemies in WWII.
Now is a good time to get that quote out and dust it off.
Dear all of the above baseball fans. Quit whining. I was in Chicago this weekend.
I was reading your post and saw your also a fan of the red sox ?
I’m also a big fan of the red sox 🙂