6 July 2011: More Fair Criticism of President Obama (and other topics)

Workout notes 3 mile run (sans stopwatch); ok, it was more than 3 miles but it was terrible. Sure the morning was pretty and I enjoyed being outside. But I could barely catch my breath even though I didn’t run that hard. I detest double red cell blood donation (2.5 weeks ago). I should start to feel better in a couple of weeks.

Afterward, I lifted weights and that went ok:
incline bench: 10 x 115, 10 x 130, 5 x 135
curl: (barbell, EZ-curl bar and pedestal): 3 sets of 10 x 62 pounds (two 10′s on each end)
pull down: 3 sets of 12 x 140 (shoulder friendly grip)
Hammer rows: 3 sets of 10 x 200 pounds (both arms at once)
sit ups: 4 sets of 25 at the highest incline
hip adductors: 2 sets of 10 x 170
hip abductors: 2 sets of 10 x 170
push-backs (machine) 2 sets of 10 x 110 (each leg)
plus: rotator cuff, hip hikes, weightless lunges

I had some slight leg tingles but overall everything went well.

Social: Olivia and I took a trip to the Lincoln Museum and Library in Springfield. I was struck by the destruction of the Civil War and by how much President Lincoln was hated during his time. Overall, I can recommend it.

One of the displays (the Civil War in 4 minutes; there is a map with a running tally of the casualties) can be found here.
I bought my own copy.

Posts
Do you like special effects in movies? Check this out:

Pat Buchanan: argues that prejudice must have some merit since it has persisted for such a long time.

Well, perhaps prejudice might have served us for 50,000 years or so when we were spread out and worried about others taking our water hole. But we are past that and need to adapt to civilization. By Mr. Buchanan’s argument, men having multiple sex partners must also be a good thing.

Fair Criticism of President Obama
I agree that President Obama is hampered by politics, but I sometimes wonder if he is guilty of adapting to “serious” right wing narratives of the economy:

To those defending Obama on the grounds that he’s saying what he has to politically, I have two answers. First, words matter — as people who rallied around Obama in the first place because of his eloquence should know. Yes, he has to make compromises on policy grounds — but that doesn’t mean he has to adopt the right’s rhetoric and arguments. The effect of his intellectual capitulation is that we now have only one side in the national argument.

Second, since Obama keeps talking nonsense about economics, at what point do we stop giving him credit for actually knowing better? Maybe at some point we have to accept that he believes what he’s saying.

The question then is why. As I’ve tried to show many times, the facts overwhelmingly refute the anti-Keynes talking points. Neither the invisible bond vigilantes nor the confidence fairy have made an appearance. So why is Obama talking up those talking points?

OK, here’s an unprofessional speculation: maybe it’s personal. Maybe the president just doesn’t like the kind of people who tell him counterintuitive things, who say that the government is not like a family, that it’s not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployment is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administration or are leaving soon.

Here is a critique of the “right skills” argument:

You can see this in Obama’s Today Show interview where he appeared to suggest that unemployment is primarily attributable to technological change:

There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to be much more efficient with fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller. Or you see it when you go to the airport and you use a kiosk instead of checking at the gate. What we have to do now, and this is what the jobs council is all about, is identifying where the jobs for the future are going to be, how do we make sure that there’s a match between what people are getting trained for and the jobs that exist, how do we make sure that capital is flowing in those places with the greatest opportunity.

Now obviously this is true. One thing that people do is they try to invent machines such that they can then go to businessmen and say, “Buying my machine would be cheaper than paying a worker.” This causes job losses. The invention of the answering machine reduced the need for secretaries. Advances in electronic filing further reduced the need. Cell phones and email have even further reduced the need. ATMs reduce the need for bank tellers. Self-serve checkout machines reduce the need for grocery store clerks. And this is, indeed, one reason why people are unemployed. It’s also the source of progress over the long term. But technological change is a constant. Firms were seeking to adopt labor-saving technology in 1998 and 2006 and 1967 just as much as they are today in 2011. And yet the unemployment rate was much lower in 1998 and 2006 and 1967 than it is today.[...]

True, but I see the President’s remarks as a justification for money for education, which I approve of. But yes, I wish he were more sympathetic to the “demand side” version of economics.

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