Thursday, September 23, 2004
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Tax Cut Simulation |
As promised earlier, I've begun to explore implications of the current tax cut, which has been variously reported as $150B, $145.9B, and $131.4B over ten years.
Approximating the cut at $15B per year, one's first job is to figure out exactly how to plug this number into the Yale econometric model. At first glance this is no easy matter. The basic federal government exogenous variables Fairmodel allows you to modify are:
COG - Purchases of goods (real)
D1G - Personal income tax parameter
D2G - Profit tax rate
D3G - Indirect business tax rate
D4G - Employee social security tax rate
D5G - Employer social security tax rate
JG - Number of civilian jobs (millions)
JM - Number of military jobs (millions)
TRGH - Transfer payments to households (nominal)
TRGS - Grants in aid to state and local governments (nominal)
SGP - Fed. gov. surplus (+) or deficit (-), NIA basis (nominal)
None is exactly right for the job, so I followed the following procedure to get an approximately correct "setting" for the D1G variable. (1) I increased SGP on an annual rate basis by $15B for each quarter (2) I let the model compute D1G values that would have generated that result, and (3) I re-ran the model using an average of these values for the D1G setting best approximating regulations enforcing current tax cut proposals.
Here are the results of the initial "D1G computation" run:
What this tells us is a deficit increase of $15B per year -- if forced to change nothing but the personal income tax rate -- generates an average change in the D1G parameter over the prediction period of -0.00163. This is is the number I then used in a re-run of the model to simulate the tax cut.
So: to generate the new run I added -0.00163 to each of the preexisting D1G values. (Note: be careful to follow the program's instructions here: "Enter a value above and press the return key to affect the change locally. Click [the 'commit to changes'] button to store the new values to disk". Not noticing the highlighted words in these instructions can cause some confusion.
After pushing the "solve" button the results come thru. First, with regard to the deficit:
This "dynamically scored" tax cut winds up increasing the deficit by an average of $13.5 B over five years. Most, but apparently not all, results from reduced federal revenues:
The revenue loss amounts to an average of -$11.5 over five years -- what accounts for the $2B difference? Employment, corporate profit taxes, investment (despite mild interest rate effects), and everything else I've looked at all seem to move in a positive direction.
The answer turns out to be easy. It appears to be (doh!) federal interest payments, which (of course) go up with higher interest rates and a higher level of debt:
More results, elaborations, qualifications, to come soon. Meanwhile, you can access my dataset by opening the Fairmodel data set "EconoPundit_tax_project" with the password "expim."
And if you do -- please accept my best wishes for a happy simulation!
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:08 PM |
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EconoMetricBlogging Today |
I am going to run the new $145 B tax cut through Fairmodel today, and post the results along with a complete tutorial on how you can repeat the experiment and, perhaps, see how alternate assumptions work out.
This is the age of the blog and the internet. Hey, -- no more must we sit around just scratching ourselves wondering "what do those big important economists think will be the impact of that there tax cut, huh?"
Just pull your old macro textbook off the shelf, read EconoPundit, and (thanks to Professor Fair's lifelong work and the philosophy of the Cowles Commission) you too can run your own forecasts!
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:52 AM |
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
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Hah! This must be a job for.........EconoooPundit!!!! |
We would seem to have our work cut out for us:
Candid admission time. I tried reading Manski's paper, but he's dealing in a level of statistical analysis that's way above my pay grade. And, frankly, I'm having a hard time even parsing Stastny's explanation. (Hey, I went into law precisely because I stunk at numbers. You're looking at a guy who got a C in Calculus and a D+ in Differential Equations.) So can somebody please explain, in simple English, exactly what prediction markets tell us? Try emulating what economic historian Deirdre McCloskey...calls "the lawyerly rhetoric" of Nobel economics laureate Ronald Coase.
(Tip of the EconoPundit hat to Mr. de Boer...stay tuned)
UPDATE: I'm taking special care in this matter, because (as it happens) a few neighbors of Professor Coase -- people who see and converse with him virtually every day -- are regular readers of EconoPundit. It makes one a bit nervous -- a bit like being back in back in graduate school, actually.
Anyway here's a draft of the Econometrica article we've been assigned to read and digest.
UPDATE II: Berend de Boer sends us this link. Others are on the case as well.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:13 AM |
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Part of nature... |
They always circle and take far longer than anyone might predict. They assess, wait, observe -- in no particular hurry. Why? Because their systems are still digesting the last feast.
The prey are nervous but knowing. They seem to somehow accept their encircled status, as if possessed by a dumb understanding not all of them will be taken. Only one or two.
But who? The weakest. The youngest. Those silly enough to stray from the herd. The infirm. The slowest. The most trivial members of the group, unfit to survive, unworthy to pass their genes on to future generations.
These are the ones who will be the predators' next meal.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:10 AM |
Monday, September 20, 2004
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Tell me the story again, daddy... |
Stories like this are new versions of the tale of the New Deal: America -- once the land of the free and home of the prosperous -- enjoyed a prosperity that produced only income disparities. And now, as a result of these disparities, good people are out begging in the street.
The current version of this story ignores two vital details about the population.
First of these population details is the aging of the baby boom generation, only now coming into increased suceptibility to all those expensive diseases of later middle age. At present, baby boomers constitute the most expensive generation to employ in all of world history. Of course they are being laid off in record numbers. What did anyone expect would happen?
The second population detail concerns undocumented immigration. Continued agumentation of the lowest ranks of the labor pool -- doing all those jobs we're constantly being told "we" don't "want to do" -- makes the low end of the income spectrum grow out of proportion to all otherwise genuinely market-produced conditions. Time magazine tells us the number is now 3 million per year. That's an undocumented augmentation of 250,000 souls per month who will fill low-end jobs in effect created for them. And, when Census Bureau shows up to count them and record their income, the numbers produced will continue to "prove" the growing income inequality of (as the story says) that failed dream known as the United States of America.
UPDATE: Please don't misunderstand. I'm an old-fashioned pro-immigration, pro-melting pot kinda guy. What I'm here objecting to is misuse of numbers, not presence of newcomers.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:10 AM |
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Markets and Polls |
EconoPundit has received the following question:
[How do the new Tradesports numbers (around 70)] jive with the myriad of polls that have come out in the last few days stating the president has anywhere from a 1% to 14% lead? Has the campaign reached and passed a tipping point? What are the real chances that Kerry can come back from where he is now?
To answer the last question first: what the market is saying is right now there's a 1-in-3 chance Kerry will win. For the thousands of folks interested in betting on the outcome, the Bush 1-14% lead in the polls translates to this probability, in other words.
How credible is the result? It depends on your confidence in "markets." If you believe the betting public using all available information the market is answering your question for you. All available information predicts a 2/3 probability of a Bush reelection.
The market is responding not just to the magnitude of the Bush advantage in the polls, but also to the credibility and stability of this advantage. Even a 1% advantage in the polls might be translated by the market into (say) a 2/3 to 9/10 probability of Bush victory if all available information suggests this 1% advantage reflects genuine likelihood of reelection. Participants, in other words, are assessing only the election outcome -- not the magnitude of victory.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:49 AM |
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Monday pop quiz... |
Okay all you international finance students out there: is this story consistent with Krugman/Obstfeld Chapter 13? Why or why not? Explain.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:48 AM |
Friday, September 17, 2004
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What's with this "we"? |
Bob Herbert:
Wars are all about chaos and catastrophes, death and suffering, and lifelong grief, which is why you should go to war only when it's absolutely unavoidable. Wars tear families apart as surely as they tear apart the flesh of those killed and wounded. Since we learned nothing from Vietnam, we are doomed to repeat its agony, this time in horrifying slow-motion in Iraq.
I wonder what Bob Herbert thinks I did not learn from Vietnam. (I certainly respect his right to say he learned nothing, but that funny word he uses -- "we" -- implicates the reader as well.)
A minor lesson of Vietnam -- a footnote in the smallest typeface, no doubt -- is the ethical mudpuddle into which the young New Left settled so comfortably. "Hell no, we won't go" we said, because for the most part the war scared the crap out of us, but we tarted this fear up like a Victorian whore and pretended we won't go out of virtue, not fear.
It was not enough to avoid the draft. We had to believe we were better than those killers who went to Vietnam so we spit on them, called them baby-killers, because they had raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, and razed villages.
It is Bob Herbert who learned nothing from Vietnam -- and his self-righteous whining makes me want to vomit.
UPDATE: Oddly and unsettlingly relevant is this snippet from Doug Pratt's new DVD review of the 50's stage play turned movie The Bad Seed:
The dialog attempts to ponder the nature of evil and that sort of thing as McCormack's character goes about her business, and while the point-and-shoot feel of the film suggests that LeRoy did not stretch his creativity, there is also a sense that McCormack is a true hero, undermining the conformity of her surroundings and the values of her times, and that LeRoy is cognizant of this disguised rebellion, as if everything that the Baby Boom generation will do to America is there in the wicked glimmer of her eye.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:28 AM |
Thursday, September 16, 2004
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Who knows the actual effect? |
A reader has sent information on a mass emailing designed to panic recipients into thinking the Bush Cheney cabal is secretly planning to reinstitute a draft under the Selective Service System (which, in case you didn't know, still exists).
Links included in the email are this and this. Maybe I'm missing something, but neither seems to me likely to support any panic.
My wife found my old draft card while cleaning out old files last week (that's right -- I never burned it, nor did I burn someone else's).
I actually was drafted, but while I got further into the system than either Bill Clinton or Dick Cheney, through sheer dumb luck I didn't have to serve.
I have mixed feelings about the draft. I discussed military service with both my kids. One (now thirty) was absolutely opposed to the idea, the other (now seventeen) thinks of it as an option but doesn't want to defer college.
Compulsory military service is a basic way to forge civic feelings in the citizenry. And (as we learned in the 60's) opposition to the draft forges amazing alliances on the left -- from Trotskyites to liberals, from Black Panthers to pacifists, from college frat rats to homeless winos -- alliances that cannot be summoned up by any other issue.
So I ask you -- Why does Charlie Rangel really want a new draft? Does he want to move forward to the new twenty-first century, or, perhaps, back to the 1960's?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:47 AM |
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Now I get it... |
The secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, suggested that someone had seen the documents and tried to reproduce them, "and had changed them enough that he wouldn't get into trouble over it."
That's right, throw them off the trail by, you know, changing abbreviations, regulation numbers, when folks retired, stuff like that. Ha! Clever.
UPDATE: The interview seemed edited and I wondered what was left out. Possibly it had to do with her UFO abduction experiences?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:52 AM |
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Brief review... |
This morning might be a good time to re-read Steve Reardon's "Update on Bill Burkett" from February 2004.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:38 AM |
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
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Get a grip... |
As everyone waits, and waits, and waits for the promised but long delayed CBS announcement, individual commentators begin to break down, their nerves unable to stand the continuing suspense. Take Jonah Goldberg, for example:
Tell an already blood-hungry media that you will come out with a statment and then keep them waiting for hours. This is exactly the sort of crisis management and public relations that looks great on the resume. Maybe they should pee in all the cans of Mountain Dew at the press conference before they let the journalists in. Thaat will really win friends.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:47 PM |
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Is that 6 divided by 2.5 or 2.5 divided by 6? What? |
I am no expert on political polling, but these Quinnipiac (they apparently want you to remember to say: "KWIN-uh-pe-ack") University Polling Results seem like shockingly bad news for the Kerry side. From the Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) report:
President George W. Bush...now trails Democratic challenger John Kerry by 47 - 41 percent among registered voters, with 4 percent for independent candidate Ralph Nader...
This is down from a 53 - 35 percent Kerry lead, with 4 percent for Nader, in an August 13 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.
Among likely voters, including undecided voters leaning toward a candidate, Kerry is ahead 50 - 45 percent, with 3 percent for Nader.
New York registered voters disapprove 53 - 43 percent of the job President Bush is doing, compared to 59 - 37 percent August 13.
Going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do, New York State voters say 52 - 42 percent, compared to 57 - 39 percent four weeks ago.
"New York State is still colored a solid Democratic blue by politicians on both sides, but the color faded in the last month as President Bush came bouncing out of a very successful convention in New York City," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute...
This is such a startling catch-up I hesitate to play with the numbers at all, but let's do some arithmetic anyway. In loyal Democratic New York State Bush has gained (18-6)=12 points in thirty days -- cutting Kerry's lead by roughly 0.4 points every day, which means every day Kerry's lead declines by (1/.4)=2.5 points, means Bush catches up to Kerry (cuts the 6 point lead to zero) in (6/2.5)=2.4 days.
Okay let's check back Friday. Well, maybe we have to adjust for the Post-Convention bounce and allow more days for the catch-up, but still, well...you see my point, no?
UPDATE: Like I say I'm no polling expert, and I sometimes make simple algebra errors when I try problems like these, so email me with any comments you might have.
UPDATE II: Keep your eye on the BUSH.NEWYORK presidential election contract:
As you see it trades down there in the 7.6's, but asks are now as high as 25. Somebody out there thinks there's now a one in four chance Bush could actually win the state.
UPDATE III: While you're at it check out the other "impossible" state, California. Rassmussen reports Kerry's 18 point lead has dropped to only nine points. There's just one problem with these numbers. The poll was taken just before the Republican Convention, so it doesn't include any of the fabled "bounce."
UPDATE IV: Now there's this report from Kerry Spot:
THIS POLL RESULT, IF ACCURATE, IS STUNNING [09/15 08:29 PM]
So, how much is all this media focus on Dan Rather hurting the Bush in the presidential race?
Well, SurveyUSA has Bush head of Kerry, 49 to 45.
In New Jersey.
Is this possible? Well, according to Dales, Quinnipiac had Kerry by ten back on Aug. 23.
But Rasmussen had Kerry by 4 among 400 likely voters in Sept. 3. Rutgers/Eagleton had Kerry by two on Sept. 2. And Strategic Vision, a Republican pollster, had Kerry by three on September 12.
It will take another poll or two to confirm that Bush is ahead. But this last bunch of polls suggests its time to take New Jersey out of the “safe Kerry” pile and into the “toss up” pile.
UPDATE: What could be bigger than Kerry's lead evaporating in New Jersey? How about it crumbling in Illinois?
The turn in this election tide could set up a political stunner. Illinois is a Democratic powerhouse in national elections, and John Kerry does maintain a small lead in our exclusive CBS 2 poll, but President Bush appears to be gaining support among voters.
Illinois no longer looks like a sure thing for Democrat John Kerry. His once 13 percentage point lead is now down to four points. That's exactly our survey's margin of accuracy, meaning the contest could be a dead-heat.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:33 AM |
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Welcome to Utopia. Get in line... |
I know I've argued about the reliability of the health insurance numbers, but now we get this from impeccable sources. The Bureau of Census now reports 15% of the population have no regular medical care and routinely flood emergency rooms with routine problems.
No -- wait I got it wrong! That wasn't the US Census Bureau -- it was Statistics Canada describing problems with Canada's single payer system, where the average waiting time for specialize procedures is about 18 weeks!
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:13 AM |
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
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Must show her... |
I feel the need to prove to my daughter I am not totally without resources. Under certain circumstances I can look up HTML commands on my own, without begging for her help.
Yes, I am capable of looking up HTML on my own!
And now EconoPundit joins the thousand blogs whose knowledge of HTML is sufficient to display the word -- RatherGate !
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:42 PM |
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This is the way the markets work, markets work, markets work, This is the way... |
Yesterday's short, odd, late-morning behavior of the Bush Reelection Contract has now more than corrected itself. As can be see by this graphic of price over the entire lifespan of the contract up to the moment, things are unfolding as we might more or less expect them to.
So what happened yesterday? Why did price suddenly plunge, moving to an effective market prediction of below-50% reelection likelihood in a few minutes? And why, indeed, did price recover and resume its current upward trend?
I thought the sudden internet appearance of the beheading video might have caused a panic. Others suggested the newsman assassination video. While these may have exerted some influence sources tell us a major buyer came into the market matching all available orders for Bush at 63 or below, then 62, then downward and downward in an aggressively fashion down buying every single order up to and including 49.9.
This was a minor George Soros-type speculator trying, we might guess, to induce a selling panic by spending mass quantities to force the price downward.
Markets are just wonderful things. You say potato, they answer "protein." You propose down, they'll always move up. It is the recurring wet dream of the anti-market gang that a market push in one direction may induce a reinforcing push in the same direction. It can and does happen -- but only very, very, very rarely. Most of the time markets move back towards you if you push them away. They move up if you push them down, and down if you push them up. They're built that way. That's why they can determine nice things like "equilibrium" prices and quantities.
The exchange absorbed the downward shock and within 30 minutes it was back to business as usual -- except for the few bucks made by the bargain hunters who came in quickly, knowing a good deal when they saw it!
UPDATE: In connection with this one reader raised questions about the contract itself. We have this material from Tradesports (whom we thank for getting this to us) to clarify the matter:
In the event of any delays (and including due 'legal' process) the exchange rules 12.1.4 are specifically clear, all contracts will remain open until due process has taken place and one or other of the candidates are duly confirmed as elected. The contracts will remain open for trading throughout any 'extension'.
12.1.1
ELECTION CONTRACTS
Contracts Listed
0-100 Candidate/Political Party A wins: The expiry will be 100 if Candidate A wins the specified election and 0 if he does not.
12.1.2
The Result
The Result used to determine the expiry prices is the final result of the election as determined by the authorized Board of elections or similar regulatory body. For Political Party contracts any tie will be broken by the authorized Legislative procedures that are used to break ties.
12.1.4
Postponement
If the election is postponed until another date, then contract expiration date will be moved according. Similarly if the final count is delayed the contracts will remain open until the result from the final count is officially declared.
It is important to state clearly: TradeSports do NOT set the prices for this market (or any other). We are merely facilitators/brokers enabling members to trade against each other.
The definition of our contract on Bush and Kerry is quite clear: that they must be elected President.
We have an additional contract on the Certification of the President by 13th of Dec. This is exclusive of the former contract and will exire at 0 or 100, if the president is or isnt certified by the 13th of Dec. This contract WILL expire on the 13th of December at either 0-100.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:04 PM |
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Inverted moral hazard? |
Here's a disturbing thought: litigious behavior increases (rather than the opposite) medical error:
The current system fails to spur health care providers to "identify, compensate (for) and reduce errors" because they fear lawsuits, according to a study released in 2002 by the Institute of Medicine, a federal advisory group. It estimated that medical errors result in more than 44,000 deaths a year. A new study by HealthGrades, a health care rating organization, said errors caused 195,000 deaths, on average, in 2000, 2001 and 2002. (Emphasis added)
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:26 AM |
Monday, September 13, 2004
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Markets scoop Drudge? |
Something happened at roughly 11:30 AM Central time. What was it?
UPDATE: This?
UPDATE II: Neil Tice sends in this analysis:
Saw your post on this topic-- interestingly, the Kerry contract shows no similar disturbance. First (half-joking) hypothesis: the market-makers (or whatever the TradeSports equivalent is) went for a beer at 5:00p Ireland time. However, I also noticed that the Bush re-election contract expires on November 6. From my cursory examination of the contract specs, I'd say that if the election is challenged in court, with no winner declared, thenboth the Bush and Kerry contracts expire worthless, even if one of them is declared the winner within a couple of weeks. The "Presidential Election Certified by Dec. 13th" contract is trading in the high 90s, but that doesn't mean that it will be certified by Nov. 6. If I'm understanding the contracts properly, there are two conclusions to be drawn from this:
1) The TradeSports contract understates the odds of either candidate winning, because of the risk of Nov. 6 ending with no election winner.
2) Both contracts, particularly the more heavily-traded Bush-to-win contract, are vulnerable to an increase in the chances of a lawsuit. I haven't yet found any event today that would create that situation, but maybe somebody else has. For the sake of having an accurate election barometer, I'd be more thanhappy to be proven wrong.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:35 PM |
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Theorem 14(b) vs. the Principle of Minimum Differentiation |
As loyal EconoPunditistas know, theorem 14(b) is the Law of Increasing Competition -- the proposition no monopoly is "forever," that financial success always sows the seeds of its own destruction by inviting competitors to somewhere, somehow, in some way move in on a good thing.
Thus far CBS, NBC, and ABC have lived by the principle of minimum differentiation -- if you're one of three competitors and you act exactly like the competition, you'll get one-third of the action.
He doesn't say so explicitly but Stanley Kurz seems to suggest minimum network differentiation is rapidly and dramatically giving way to theorem 14(b).
CBS now holds a monopoly on a new, specialized partisan network service. This monopoly position invites a rapid, dramatic rightward shift by either of the two thus-far liberal-but-overtly-nonpartisan networks.
I know this is far fetched, but think for a moment. It is economically rational, and, indeed, might it even explain all the interesting recent very good posts at The Note?
We shall see.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:51 AM |
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I'd date it as starting with Shaft (1971)... |
Matt Rosenberg's got it all tied together: pimp and whore costumes for kids, the blaxploitation film phenomenon (I think he dates it incorrectly, but how important is this?), and John Kerry.
UPDATE: Doesn't it depends on how you classify these things? I don't think Watermelon Man or Puney Swope ("Etherial Cereal!") can be thought of as true blaxploitation. These were, well, quality art films produced for the art film houses of the day.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:56 AM |
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How Kerry could win me over, maybe even get my vote... |
It's really very simple.
The Fake Memos and the 1971 Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony hinge on this: someone somewhere thought it okay to put forward false evidence in support of a good cause.
The American public is very forgiving, especially about things related to Vietnam. To regain the moral high ground Kerry must condemn the Memos and their forgers, apologize for his slander of U.S. servicemen and acknowledge the 1971 testimony was a bad means to what he considered a good end.
If Kerry then called for a truce on all further mention of Vietnam in this election and declared he will, unilaterally, observe this truce, the high ground would indeed be his.
Someone with real character would recognize these Memos as an opportunity. So -- does Kerry have real character?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:15 AM |
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Comments on the Fake Memos... |
Steve,
I'm a psychologist practicing in GA these days, but in the 70s, I was a computer repair man in Charlottesville. We used modified IBM Selectric typewriters as printers, not the Composer, so I can't speak to the credibility of the allegations that a Composer was used. But I can tell you that the August 18th memo really DOES look like an IBM Selectric document.
The main reason is the relative height of the characters - inconsistent. Look carefully at the word "running" - the r is slightly lower than the other letters. Also, in the word "feedback" the feedb is lower than the ack. This is classic IBM sloppiness that occured when a Selectric ball was tilted to another row of characters mid-word. Yep - it could be faked, too, with word-processing typesetting altering lineheight or spacing up and down. But so shrewd a forger would also have"bumbled" the superscript, no?
Rees Chapman, Ph.D.
EconoPundit's two cents: I think the "feedb" and "ack" discrepancy has to do with someone's anti-skewing software somewhere.
I'll tell you what, professor, almost all operational units at the time that letter/memo was composed and typed were limited to, maybe, one IBM Selectric to be used by the squadron clerk. Anything else, usually, was either some other type of earlier electric typewriter or a manual job. IBM Selectrics just were not commonly available then, let alone a word processor. Also, by tradition, the ANG units were forever taking hand-me-downs and castoffs from the active duty Air Force.
The first word processor I ever saw was in a Pentagon office that generated lots and lots of documents and correspondence; that was in 1982. A few years later a wing level division I was in charge of inherited an IBM word processor; it was slow and as big as a desk, but the business end, i.e., the typing part, was the same type ball used by the older IBM Selectrics.
Gerald P. Hanner
EconoPundit's two cents: I remember the typewriters and their capabilities. Anyone trying to get an economics Ph.D. thesis typed during the years 1970-1975 knows what kinds of superscripts and subscripts IBM Selectrics could do. And proportional spacing? Puhleeze !!!!
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:05 AM |
Saturday, September 11, 2004
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Has a ring to it, no? |
Jim Pinkerton on Saturday afternoon's Fox News Watch:
This was on CBS Wednesday night, all day Thursday the bloggers -- led by one called Powerline-dot-blog -- were going crazy on this, they went to the fonts, they went to the typeset, they looked at everything, almost, it's like Linux, the way the Linux software program...
Stop. I like that. "Dot-blog" would work just fine, don't you think? EconoPundit.blog, for example. Shortening it to .blg would also be quite acceptable.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:01 PM |
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Bad Craziness |
Via Lynn Huber and Philip D. Bouffard InDC has received a "smoking gun" memo showing the Air Force was considering purchase of expensive typesetting apparatus capable of producing superscript "th" characters and, perhaps, proportionally-spaced, kerned printout.
Here is a link to the memo; right-click and download it if you wish.
You may notice a bit of a credibility problem, however. Purporting to show what the Air Force was doing in the early 1970's, it is a Microsoft Word document. In the words (no pun intended I think) of InDC:
This is definitive proof? An unverified Word document sent to Dr. Bouffard that was purported to be proof of Air Force product testing in 1969? Without any confirmation of purchase? Once again, in MS Word? It's possible that it's real, but let's see the originals from Ms. Huber, or her source.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:49 AM |
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Just plain silly... |
The only word I can think to describe any continuing claim the Fake Memos aren't modern in origin is: silly.
Think about it. There are tons of original typewritten documents from the 1970's still turning yellow in file cabinets, basements, archives, attics, university libraries, your house, and mine.
Why hasn't anyone produce a single original typewritten document from the 1970's -- on any subject whatsoever, no relationship to George W. Bush required -- that is formatted like the CBS Memos?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:17 AM |
Friday, September 10, 2004
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For those who still doubt... |
I've taken a single word from the CBS Memo and (1) placed it over the same word from the IBM Selectric proportional space graphic, (2) beefed up the gamma on the latter to make it roughly as dark as its equivalent above, (3) adjusted the size (but not -- repeat, not -- the aspect ratio) of the snippet so the two words can be compared, and finally (4) situated them so the "D" and "i" are as aligned as possible:
There you have it. The fonts are not the same, and the memo couldn't have come from an IBM Selectric with a proportionally spaced type ball installed.
UPDATE: In connection with ongoing events Glenn Reynolds asks:
EVEN WITHOUT THE DOCUMENT-FORGERY BUSINESS, what in the world were the Democrats thinking when they trotted out already-exposed fake Vietnam war hero Tom Harkin to attack Bush's National Guard service?
Glenn, the answer is simple. Clearly they thought it was timely and appropriate to assign an attack based on forged documents to a senior, experienced, proved liar.
UPDATE II: In the sprit of full disclosure, I have to report I don't agree the documents are garden variety Times New Roman -- at least not as this font works on my machine's build of Microsoft Word.
The problems are several. First, the celebrated "th" characters in the CBS Memos are too high to have been generated by MS Word, unless defaults regulating the height of superscripts relative to normal characters have been changed. Second, l's (lower case L's) seem to have "straighter hats" in the Memos than their Times New Roman versions.
And there is a problem with a mixture of lower case letter L's and number 1's. In Microsoft Word's Times New Roman ones are slightly shorter than l's. The sequence el-th will produce this: lth, while the sequence numeral one-th will produce one-superscript "th."
The May 04 memo seems to have a mixture of 1's and l's, but (oddly and counter to intuition) the slightly higher lower case L's seem associated with the modern-looking superscript "th" characters.
Anyway I now leave all this to forensic experts. EconoPundit is done playing amateur font detective. For now.
UPDATE III: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (to whom much credit is due) corrects us. The superscript "th" pops up the the "proper" CBS Fake-Memo-position. As reader Gene Rooney points out, this is a matter of screen font/printer font discrepancy.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:50 AM |
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Fake Memos and IBM Proportional Font |
It has been really engaging for anyone raised with typewriters to read some of the commentary (on both sides!) by all those young whippersnappers raised only after desktop computers and printers took hold. Anyone who remembers typewriters knows the documents are fakes, pure and simple.
But this gave us pause: there was, apparently, a proportional-font IBM Selectric ball. Could this have produced the memos?
Here, courtesy of selectric.org, is a specimen printout of just such a machine:
Proportional spacing notwithstanding, the font is different. The result is not much like the CBS documents at all, and it is hard to believe this typewriter produced the memos.
For me this (and the "th", which apparently was never included in the Selectric superscript portion of the symbols ball) clinches it. There's absolutely no doubt the memos are fake.
UPDATE: Oh yes, one last thing. I know it took the blogosphere just a few hours to uncover this fraud yesterday -- can it really be possible CBS had this material for six weeks without noticing it was fake?
UPDATE II: Powerline gives credit where credit is due:
Tomorrow morning, dinosaur media across the country will be headlining the 60 Minutes "scoop" as a blow to the Bush campaign. Before their newspapers are even printed, not only is the story obsolete, but CBS is in full retreat. As Stephen Hayes reported earlier today, Power Line "led the charge" against the 60 Minutes hoax today. But the credit really goes to the incredible power of the internet. We knew nothing; all of our information came from our readers. Many thousands of smart, well-informed people who only a few years ago would have had no recourse but perhaps to write a letter to their local newspaper, now can communicate and share their expertise in real time, through sites like this one. The power of the medium is incredible, as we've seen over the last fourteen hours.
UPDATE III: And, via Instapundit, Donald Sensing shows the forger was likely one of those blue-state guys who knows little to nothing about the military and those within.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:25 AM |
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Oh yes, and by the way... |
In a story headlined "Bush Piloted Guard Trainers Before He Quit ," between this smarmy little smear:
The records also show Bush required two passes to land an F-102A fighter on March 12 and April 10, 1972. His last flight as an Air National Guard pilot was on April 16.
and this one:
The Defense Department released Bush's pilot logs this week under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press. The logs do not explain why Bush was flying T-33s or why he twice needed multiple approaches to make landings.
the Associated Press' Matt Kelly works in this, uh, shall we say, incidental or background material:
Meanwhile, questions were raised Thursday about the authenticity of newly unearthed memos purporting to have been written by one of Bush's commanders in 1972 and 1973. The memos, which were publicized by CBS News on its "60 Minutes" program, say Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer and lost his status as a Guard pilot because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.
The network defended the memos, saying its experts who examined the memos concluded they were authentic documents produced by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.
But Killian's son, one of Killian's fellow officers and an independent document examiner questioned the memos Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said he doubted his father would have written an unsigned memo which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review.
"It just wouldn't happen," he said. "No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."
The personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake.
"They looked to me like forgeries," said Rufus Martin. "I don't think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years." Killian died in 1984.
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript -- a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" -- as evidence indicating forgery.
Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.
"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:04 AM |
Thursday, September 09, 2004
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Now -- optimal time to hedge? |
Here is the Bush re-election contract:
and here is the Kerry election contract: 
My economic instincts say now is the time to hedge. Throw some dollars -- I don't know how many, but don't spend more than you can afford -- at the candidate you do not want to win.
Because of this, on election night you're bound to feel okay.
If your candidate wins, well, you'll feel great because of the victory. This will compensate you for having placed a bad bet.
And if your candidate loses -- well heck, at least you won that money!
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:15 AM |
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Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again? |
For years the Democratic Party and its supporters have poured millions not only into voter registration, but also into initiatives making registration easier ("motor-voter" laws and so on).
They, and everyone else, assumed more registration of otherwise non-voters would mean more votes for Democratic candidates.
Isn't it a surprise, then -- possibly indicating a massive backfire of the overall Dem voter registration strategy -- that George W. Bush is everywhere running better among "likely" than among "registered" voters?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:09 AM |
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
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The father-son gap and the internet... |
My son Abram's 30th birthday is today.
He and I have never been as close as I would have wished. While our politics could not be more different, for the past year we've had regular, sometimes heated, but always enjoyable political and economic dialogue through the medium of the internet and within a tender coaxing EconoPundit itself seems somehow to exert.
So it is appropriate to wish my son a very happy 30th birthday right here and right now. Abram, today I hope the ten thousand colors of life look as exciting to you and your beautiful wife as they looked to me on that day, thirty years ago, when you were born.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:28 PM |
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The Other Outsourcing |
Offshore outsourcing is only part of a larger picture. BEA data show what's been widely commented on by economists but unnoticed in the press -- manufacturing sector oursourcing of jobs formerly done in-house (cleaning and payroll for example) make the numbers look like we're substituting hamburger-flipping "bad job" services for "good-job" auto manufacturing, wheras to a large degree all that's happened is our work is getting more specialized -- meaning our productivity is higher!
Here I've subtracted business services from total service sector employment, and plotted its annual changes along with changes in business services.
As you can see, growth in the service sector minus business services has been, since 1987, sporadic and rather underwhelming. Business services, on the other hand, shows steady and dramatic growth. As a percent of total service sector employment business services has nearly doubled since 1987. Not all of these are business services outsourced by manufacturers, certainly, but the numbers certainly suggest some of the widely-touted 3 million "lost" manufacturing jobs were not lost but rather relocated to business services.
UPDATE: Indeed -- if you force trend lines between these data points you find with business services excluded, growth in the service sector is zero or slightly negative.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:42 AM |
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Who edits this stuff? |
I found the following excerpt from today's Kerry stump speech at The Corner.
This thing is a scandal. It reads like a high school assignment where the word count has been beefed up to meet the teacher's demands -- "you have to turn in a 175 word essay."
See for yourself. In the excerpt below I've taken the liberty of changing the color of words that aren't needed:
George W. Bush made the wrong choices. He himself now admits he miscalculated in Iraq. In truth, his miscalculation was ignoring the advice that was given to him, including the best advice of America's own military. When he didn't like what he was hearing, he even fired the Army Chief of Staff. His miscalculation was going to war without taking every precaution and without giving the inspectors time. His miscalculation was going to war without planning carefully and without the allies we should have had. As a result, America has paid nearly 90% of the bill in Iraq. Contrast that with the Gulf War, where our allies paid 95% of the costs.
I would not have made the wrong choices that are forcing us to pay nearly the entire cost of this war -- more than $200 billion that we're not investing in education, health care, and job creation here at home.
$200 billion for going-it-alone in Iraq. That's the wrong choice; that's the wrong direction; and that's the wrong leadership for America. Time to make it right.
So, what can we say about the quality of Kerry's speechwriting? There are 177 words in this excerpt, and I've found 43 that aren't needed. (Frankly, I could tighten this up even more with just a little surgery and word change.) This is padding, pure and simple.
24% of the document is padding. If we extrapolate, we can say roughly one out of every four words in Kerry's stump speech represents either unneccessary repetition or qualification diluting his main argument. So during a forty minute Kerry stump speech, ten minutes are boring. Can't you just see this on peoples' faces every day on the news?
Have we discovered the reason he is losing?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:05 AM |
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
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You heard it here first... |
From the latest Yale Model Forecast Memo (which we linked to roughly one month ago):
The federal government budget deficit is predicted to be a little over $400 billion in the next four quarters (on a NIPA basis). (See the predicted values for SGP.) This is smaller than many others expect. This is where experimenting may be useful. In particular, it may be that the above assumptions have underestimated future federal government spending. It could also mean, however, that people are too pessimistic about the deficit.
From today's Forbes.com:
In the headlines this afternoon, the Congressional Budget Office will project that this year's U.S. budget deficit will be smaller than expected. The nonpartisan CBO is expected to say that the deficit will reach $422 billion. While that is a record, it is down from the $477 billion estimated for the year in January. (Emphasis added)
Meanwhile here's the JEC report itself.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:38 PM |
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Sad but true: you hire someone because you think it will increase your profits. |
Astute EconoPunditista Mike Lion (who sees an encrypted version of Say's Law about halfway thru) has sent a link to a great NYT Magazine discussion:
The third, and most serious, flaw is that focusing on the number of jobs fosters a simplistic and illusory sense of what a president can do. It misdirects policy toward "creating" jobs, which are, if anything, an outcome of good policy rather than an end. As Randy Kroszner, a former member of the Bush White House Council of Economic Advisers, puts it, "To think we have a magic lever, blue for jobs, red for growth, that's mistaken." His real point is that the levers are not, in the long term, distinguishable. Jobs result from growth -- from employers' desire to increase profits, not from their desire to increase payrolls. Countries that have tried to target jobs specifically -- say in Europe, by restricting the freedom of businesses to lay off workers -- have discovered an unpleasant paradox. Lessened flexibility in the labor market leads to more tentative hiring and fewer jobs.
We've been talking about this for some time. Here's the latest version -- a new printout including the most recent data -- of a spectre that's haunted EconoPundit from the first words we posted.
Each new recession presents us with a longer employment recovery span. Employment is not merely a lagging indicator -- it is an increasingly lagging indicator. Its economics, which should be the basis for dispassionate discussion, are increasingly susceptible as well as subject to political misuse.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:12 PM |
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So who says Drudge is biased? |
In the face of widely-reported Senatorial inactivity of John Kerry, Drudge has discovered currently relevant legislation Kerry co-sponsored.
UPDATE: More here. Gotta get a grip. (Not meant literally.)
UPDATE: See also these comments by Glenn Reynolds, who knows from guns.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:42 AM |
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Health insurance numbers... |
Here, via Milt Rosenberg, is the latest big-media discovery there are really fewer than 45 million uninsured Americans.
Putting the numbers in percentage terms, the ratio of uninsured employees to total employment is something like 1%-2%, the exact number depending on whether you include government workers in the denominator, how you handle undocumented immigration and the underground economy, and your assumed ratio of uninsured people to uninsured employees.
Widespread touting of the "45 million uninsured" number at this point can do nothing but erode whatever small public confidence that's left in economic reportage. Consider this: politicians regularly treat the "45 million" number as if it means uninsured workers (rather than persons), generating the impression of national emergency by saying, in effect, one in three workers lacks health insurance. How is the public's confidence in economic numbers changed when it discovers the actual number is not one in three, but one in one-hundred?
Some time ago on Milt's radio show I argued these numbers (rather inarticulately I'm afraid) with Robert Reich. It seemed clear at the time Reich knew the 45 million was just propaganda but -- well, frankly my dear he just didn't give a damn. "45 million uninsured" makes the argument for you, and automatically says your opponent wants all those homeless people to just starve in the streets.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:07 AM |
Monday, September 06, 2004
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Personal politics versus impartial markets... |
A reader asks me to Fisk this Bob Herbert column.
Bob Herbert's sad crankiness defies Fisking. You can't parody caricature.
I'd like to comment on his closing paragraphs however:
American workers are in an increasingly defensive position. In a tight labor market, when jobs are plentiful, workers have leverage and can demand increased wages and benefits. But today's workers have lost power in many different ways - through the slack labor market, government policies that favor corporate interests, the weakening of unions, the growth of lower-paying service industries, global trade, capital mobility, the declining real value of the minimum wage, immigration and so on.
The end result of all this is a portrait of American families struggling just to hang on, rather than to get ahead. The benefits of productivity gains and economic growth are flowing to profits, not worker compensation. The fat cats are getting fatter, while workers, at least for the time being, are watching the curtain come down on the heralded American dream.
These words betray an increasingly rightward movement in popular liberal economic thinking. You can see this movement virtually everywhere.
Part of the story told by the two paragraphs is the "purist 60's stance": income distribution (as between workers and bosses) is best imagined as a political or extra-market process. "Labor markets," says this approach, aren't like shopping malls with stores among which buyers pick and choose. Rather, the labor process is like a strike -- a purely political tug of war between two sides with inherently opposing interests.
Read the two paragraphs carefully to see how Herbert imagines the US labor market. "Government policies that favor corporate interests" stands out as all-inclusive proof -- the basic story you've heard so often -- Republicans are on the bosses' side, so Democrats are needed in the White House to redistribute income back from owners to workers. This and the ever-fixed minimum wage are the two "non-market" stories told by the paragraphs.
But look at everything else that's mentioned: slack labor markets, weakened unions, growth of the service sector, global trade, capital mobility, immigration. Without noticing the significance Herbert places himself right in the middle of the labor-market-as-shopping-mall world.
In bewildered fashion, in other words, Bob Herbert is coming into dim awareness of a rather depressing truth -- that impersonal and rather complicated market forces, rather than simple, fun, and oh-so-personal political struggles, are running the labor market events over which he laments. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:51 AM |
Sunday, September 05, 2004
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Similar to partial pregnancy? |
Find this at Drudge right now:
For three or four days, as he campaigned across the country, Kerry ripped into Cahill, furious that the mostly baseless attacks on his valor were driving his numbers down.
Mostly baseless attacks? Mostly? |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:42 AM |
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EconoPundit Fisks the New York Times |
Here you have it...what they said versus what they meant:
As they so often do, economic reality and political expediency parted ways with the release of August's employment report on Friday. The reality is that unless President Bush pulls nearly one million jobs out of a hat in the next four months, he will indeed become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a decline in employment in a single term in the White House.
Okay, we understand. The economy is very much like a big magic trick. The President is like a magician (who pulls jobs out of his hat).
But Mr. Bush is determined to act as if nothing bad is happening on, as he likes to put it, "my watch." And so in his first appearance after the Republican National Convention - in a corner of the sliver of undecided America - he declared that the numbers showed that the economy is "spreading prosperity and opportunity and nothing will hold us back."
Our understanding is now widening. The President is in denial. He refuses to accept his job as magician, instead he thinks he's the captain of some kind of a ship.
Nothing, perhaps, except the actual state of the job market. The United States gained 144,000 jobs last month, which is just barely enough to keep up with the number of people entering the work force.
The constant, steady growth of the work force is an economic absolute with which the economy must constantly contend. If job creation does not keep up with work force growth, the magician President is not doing his job.
True, the job numbers for June and July were revised upward, but they were still weak, and much lower than August's. There was a tiny reduction in the unemployment rate - because the work force became smaller, not because of job creation. Eight million people were unemployed in August, all told, the same as in the month before.
Oh wait -- sometimes the work force is not an economic absolute with which the economy must constantly contend. Look -- just don't worry about any changes in the work force unless these changes make the magician president look bad, okay?
Dig beyond the numbers, and the situation is even worse.
Like I say, don't worry about the numbers unless they make the magician president look bad.
Even with a slight acceleration in August, average hourly wages for the month are not likely to keep up with inflation (that number comes out in mid-September).
We believe that when numbers start not supporting our case you should look beyond the numbers and instead look at other numbers (like inflation) that we happen to know about.
As has been the case throughout the current economic recovery, wages are held down by the slow pace of job creation and, to a lesser extent, by the mainly service-oriented jobs available.
You know the story of the "Lost Paradise of the Good Jobs," which both we and Al Gore have told you many times. This is that story. Not the numbers. The "Lost Paradise" story. Remember, we told you to look beyond the numbers, right?
With ordinary Americans' wages eaten up by inflation and their debt at nosebleed heights, consumer spending - which accounts for two-thirds of economic activity - will not be able to get the economy humming. July's summer sales on cars accounted for virtually all of that month's big-ticket spending - most of it on credit. Already, economic growth in the second quarter has been revised downward a bit and consumer confidence registered an unexpectedly steep decline in August.
Ha! The story is really about some other numbers we know about but since we told you not to worry about the numbers and instead understand this was the Lost Paradise story you won't notice we've now brought consumer spending, car sales, growth rates, and consumer confidence into the picture. And you didn't notice! BOY ARE YOU DUMB!
All of this makes Mr. Bush's assertion in his acceptance speech at the convention last week that what workers and the economy really need most is some new tax-sheltered savings accounts seem seriously beside the point.
Okay, get it now? Because of all those new numbers we talked about, you're now confused and intimidated enough to agree the economy is going down the toilet if we just say something that implies it is -- like, for example, that dumb guy Bush wants to institute those inconsequential tax sheltered savings plans instead of really DEALING with the economy! Right. He's not DEALING with all this stuff like consumer spending, car sales -- you know, all those numbers we told you not to worry about.
Mr. Bush's preferred explanation is that workers' problems are just part of the normal business cycle, in which employment typically rises after corporations get enough money to make investments, and wages rise after corporations are satisfied with their profits. That means the problem will be self-correcting, justifying Mr. Bush's lack of economic policy prescriptions.
What you don't know -- and what we're sure as heck not going to tell you -- is most economists agree the numbers we're talking about are just part of the normal business cycle.
But this recovery is now nearly three years old, and employment and wages are not so much trailing business success as diverging from it. A new study of recent Commerce Department data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities confirms that wage and salary growth has been exceptionally poor, while profits have been unusually robust.
And employment, benefit, and regulatory costs are at record levels. A little less than Europe though, where unemployment hovers at decade-long levels over 10%.
Mr. Bush tends to attribute the unevenness of the economic recovery to the shocks that were already developing before his election (the stock market meltdown and corporate scandals) and those beyond his control (the 9/11 terrorist attacks). But this is the first time in more than 50 years that workers have for so long and so deeply failed to share in the benefits of growth.
The president's responsibility is to control the division of national income between business and labor, and those fat cat businessmen are getting too much. We need an economy more like Europe. Forget economics. Forget the business cycle. Think Europe.
Mr. Bush owes it to voters to look beyond the business cycle and his tax cuts and offer a way out of this economic sluggishness.
Forget economics. Forget the business cycle. Think Europe.
Senator John Kerry would likewise do voters a favor by focusing the contest on ideas that might alter the status quo.
We need an economy more like Europe.
No one is served by the current low level of the economic debate.
Frankly, we embarrass ourselves with this statement. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:55 AM |
Saturday, September 04, 2004
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EconoPundit's two questions... |
Former senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) took the defense a step further by comparing the Republicans' misleading statements to those of Nazi Germany. "You've just got to separate out fact from fiction. . . . Too often, too often, in this country, if you hear something repeated, it's the old Hitler business -- if you hear something repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated, you start to believe it," he said.
So we ask the following:
1. Do good people ever repeat themselves?
2. If you say something over and over again, does that mean it has to be false?
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:26 PM |
Friday, September 03, 2004
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And the rest of us? How are we supposed to feel? |
I've promised to go more economic and less political this upcoming season, but I can't help bring this up. (It's got statistical overtones anyway, so it remains a fair subject for this blog even if it is political.)
What I'm wondering is how I'm supposed to understand statements like these:
I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have...I guess I'll leave it up to the voters whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty.
So what I'm asking myself is not what this guy thinks of Dick Cheney, but what he thinks of me and all the others like me -- roughly 93% of the male population my age. I dredged this up from the internet after about three minutes of looking, and I'm sure there's lots more out there:
Utah sent more than its share of young men to Vietnam. Statistics from the 1970 census indicate that 27,910 served in Vietnam out of a potential 326,029 males age sixteen and over. The 8.6 percent placed Utah in fifth place behind Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and Nevada, and well ahead of the national average of 6.9 percent. This high percentage was especially noteworthy because of several factors which tended to bring down the number of men serving in the military through the deferments that were available for them. These included: LDS missions for which deferments were available; a higher percentage of Utah males attending college with Utah leading the nation in young males attending college; and the tendency for Utahns to start families earlier than in most parts of the country. By 1976, the estimated number of Vietnam War Veterans living in Utah and who served between 1964 and 1975 was over 47,000. Among those who served in Vietnam were members of the Utah National Guard who volunteered individually for service. No Utah National Guard units were activated during the war; however, some volunteer crews from the Utah Air National Guard spent weeks and months on active duty in Vietnam. (Emphasis added)
It seems fair to ask Kerry who else besides Dick Cheney has no right to question Kerry's commitment to defend the US? Who among the hundreds of thousands of Vietnam-era voters who received deferments is also included?
Let's rephrase the question -- Why should I not understand this snobby sheep-faced, self-righteous Massachussets politician-turd to be sneering at me when he talks about Cheney that way?
UPDATE: William Safire:
The gibes from his own side caused Kerry to overreact. Instead of moving away from the Vietnam issue, which has been a real toothache for his campaign, he bit down on it. Uncharacteristically, he took the low road, overtly contrasting his war duty with Dick Cheney's draft deferments.
That flailing-out was done more in anger than in calculation. Millions of Americans of draft age in the 1960's who are voters today were deferred from service by virtue of student status or fatherhood. They do not appreciate having their deferment attributed to lack of patriotism. Now Kerry has unnecessarily upset a lot of non-veteran swing voters.
UPDATE II: Jim Geraghty:
If Kerry doesn't recover in the coming weeks, the late night rally in Springfield will be remembered as his "Dean scream" moment.
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| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:06 AM |
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From the Brief History of Marketing Science |
Daniel Henninger:
The protests and countercultural aesthetic of the late '60s gave us many things, not least the discovery that you could market the idea of a personal, self-conscious style--in clothes, accessories, self-care products, | |