Jihad vs McWorld and the Radicalization of American Conservatism

The basic argument of Jihad vs McWorld is very informative regarding the radical shift to the Right of many conservatives and much of the GOP.  In it, Benjamin Barber basically argues that the challenges to tribalism posed by modernization cause the radicalization of traditional sentiments and a backlash against the modern world.

We see this process at work in the US, where modernization has forced societal shifts that challenge America's traditional myths of individuality and self-responsibility.  Consider, for example, how globalization and technological change produced an army of people who no longer had access to good health insurance.  By most accounts, the solution required intervention at the government level, a fact which obviously challenged and threatened, and apparently radicalized, those on the Right.

Of course there are more obvious manifestations of McWorld, including the browning of American society and the fact that our President is of international, inter-racial, and multi-religious origin.  Barber's theory suggests the threat Obama symbolizes to the end of the the white, Christian, "American" way radicalized many members of that particular population.  Of course outright racism played a key role for some people.  But racism is not a necessary component to the theory.  In fact, its resurgence--to the extent it did become more blatant in politics in certain parts of the country--is more of an output than an input in Barber's theory.

Biased Polls

The Right's Caricature of FEMA in Response to Hurricane Sandy

I'm always interested in trends in thinking.  The newest one is on the Right and pertains to FEMA's role in disasters.  There is a sense on the Right that FEMA is this huge organization with extremely large armies of uniformed workers based out of DC and, when disaster strikes, they hop into miles-long convoys and get to work with shovels.  Hence, when people on the Right see locals working together to repair their neighborhoods, many feel this is evidence that FEMA is unnecessary--a waste of taxpayer money--because FEMAs armies of lazy and corrupt shovel-carriers aren't doing any work.

Of course this sense on the Right is a complete caricature of what FEMA does.  In 2011 FEMA only had 7,500 employees covering the entire country.  They do two things primarily: provide coordination expertise to states and localities, and funnel money to states, localities, and individuals from the national level.  The end result is that FEMA relies on volunteers and contracted locals to do the heavy lifting.  There are no armies of uniformed FEMA workers sitting around DC waiting to do manual labor.  And no one wants there to be, not even on the Left.

How Obama Should Answer Romney During Third Debate

How Obama Should Answer Romney During Third Debate

Tonight’s debate is ostensibly going to be about foreign policy (fopo).  Romney's foreign policy attack against Obama seems to be limited to three arguments, and hopefully Obama will have prepared for them:

1) Obama has been weak on China's currency manipulation.  Obama needs to respond that China's currency is about fully valued now, as evidenced by the sharp rise in the real purchasing power of renminbi against the dollar, and the sharp fall in China's export surplus (from 10 to 2 percent in five years).  Obama should claim credit for this phenomenon, even though he has had little to do with it, because that is the nature of this presidential campaign.

2) The ambassador’s assassination in Libya is Obama's fault, and Obama lied about his administration's responsibility.  Obama needs to paint Romney as being inexperienced in foreign policy by arguing there was a great fog of misinformation and unknowns following the attacks, as there always is in complicated fopo issues.  Initial CIA reports indicated the attacks weren't planned, and Obama went with those until he knew otherwise and for certain.  Being President requires dealing with much more complicated issues than that experienced by lowly governors and heads of private companies.  The contrasts are incomparable, and the fact that Romney feels otherwise shows his inexperience.  Importantly, Romney appears geared for fast, knee-jerk fopo decisions.  But George Bush showed us how damaging that personality type can be to our interests.  Obama should note that he will continue to be measured and careful in fopo, to ensure US interests are met. Also, Obama should note that Ryan’s budget calls for $300 million in State Department cuts, and some of that will have to come from embassy security.  If Romney cares so much about the safety of our diplomats, why is he cutting the State Dept's budget?

3) In comparison to Romney, Obama will weaken our military.  Obama needs to reply that Romney’s evident desire to be reckless with our military will end up damaging it.  Moreover, Romney is apparently going to be like Bush in another regard—i.e., Romney is going to build up the military without paying for it with adequate taxation, putting us further in debt.  This is one reason why most analysts note that Romney’s deficits will be worse than Obama’s, especially given Romney's huge tax cuts.  In contrast, Obama will husband our military resources by being careful about where we get involved.  Obama will only commit the US military when it is absolutely in the national interest.  

Friedman gets Iraq invasion's strategic benefits wrong

Shouldn't Friedman know better?  Disappointingly, he is perpetuating some myths in today's column with claims that the Iraq War had "strategic benefits" regarding:

1) "the defeat of Al Qaeda [in Iraq], which diminished its capacity to attack us."  --Certainly not.  Al Qaeda had no or minimal presence in Iraq before the war.  Hussein viewed it as a threat to his regime.  Since Al Qaeda's presence was minimal to non-existent in Iraq before the war, defeating it there should be presented, at most, as a zero-gain/loss event.  Moreover, any claim that the Iraq War sucked in Al Qaeda so the US could defeat it militarily needs to be counterbalanced by the obvious fact that America's ability to focus on Al Qaeda in other theaters would have been much stronger without the distraction of a nation-building occupation.

2) "the intimidation of Libya, which prompted its dictator to surrender his nuclear program."  --Perhaps, but this argument is missing an important context.  As Jacques Hymans (a nuclear proliferation experts) told me, Libyan scientists had no idea what they were doing.  Reportedly, many of the tools they needed to really start their program were still in boxes.  What the Iraq invasion did was give Libya an opportunity to come clean and rejoin the world community on good terms, something it had wanted for quite a while.  Much of what changed with the Iraq invasion was that the Bush administration changed its tune and became willing to give Libya easier terms.

3) By saying there were "strategic benefits" Friedman is missing the main problem with the overall strategy, which is that the invasion greatly improved Iran's strategic position by removing a Sunni dictator and handing most of the ruling authority in Iraq to Shias, who are less likely to view Shia Iran as a natural enemy.

Link to Friedman column: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/opinion/friedman-the-end-for-now.html?ref=global-home

Predictions about North Korea following death of Kim Jong-il.

Predictions on North Korea: 

1) There is little chance of a popular uprising against the Kims. If Kim Jong-un loses power it will almost certainly happen at the hand of a general. 

2) China will work very hard to ensure there is either no coup, or that the generals responsible for it are committed to a future in which NK remains allied with China and at odds with SK. 

3) It will be very hard for the America and its friends to leverage the same kind of pressure that China can bring to bear against NK. We simply don't have the extensive ties to NK that China does. This suggests that the most likely outcome will be a NK ruled by Kim Jong-un or generals with close ties to China. 

4) It is extremely unlikely that Kim Jong-un will be able to enact meaningful social, political, and economic reforms. He inherited all of his legitimacy from his father and grandfather. Any reform he implements implicitly questions their policies--i.e., the very foundation of his own legitimacy. 

5) In the event of the removal of Kim Jong-un, NK will have its first real opportunity to enact reforms. Expect tepid economic reforms along the lines China first tried following the death of Mao, and minimal social and political reforms. NK has been unable to reform because of the family lineage and legitimacy question, and because reform increased the likelihood that average Koreans would realize that an incredible foundation of lies upheld the Kim clan. 

6) A major war between the two Koreas (and involving the US) is an unlikely outcome. However, hawks within NK have incentive to instigate small scale military actions to keep relations tense and therefore bolster the argument that these generals are important.

7) Of the above, the least certain is China'a ability to shape NK outcomes. North Koreans are very serious about their independence, and would accept with only the greatest difficulty the idea of being more dependent on China. Expect NK to lean to China strongly, but also make appeasement moves toward Japan and the US to diminish Chinese influence. Given that the generals in NK know they will end up being hot dog vendors in the event of a reunified Korea, they will be disinclined to reach out to SK. The Korean nation is likely to remain divided for quite some time.

Let's hope the last point is wrong.  How prescient will this post prove over the next 1-10 years?

Medicare Still Cheaper Than Private Sector, Even When Considering Fraud

Conservative bloggers such of Avik Roy and Jeffrey Anderson are criticizing Obamacare by rehashing old arguments about fraud.  Both noted that Medicare lost $48 billion to fraud in 2010 in contrast to $12.7 billion in profits earned by private insurers.  Roy mocks Obamacare Visa-advertisement-style as being “priceless.”

However troubling we might find fraud, the real issue at hand is not fraud but total costs—the bottom line for taxpayers.  That means we must contextualize the $48 billion in terms of Medicare’s total expenditures, as well as the total expenditures and profits of the most equivalent entity in the private sector.

As Jacob Hacker argues, the closest equivalent to Medicare is Medicare Advantage, Medicare’s privately administered cousin.  Since Medicare Advantage has to follow the same regulations as Medicare and must treat the same population, comparing these two entities allows us to avoid a lot of the confusion found in comparisons between Medicare and purely private insurance companies.

Medicare spent $528 billion in 2010.  Fraud therefore accounts for 9.1 percent of total Medicare spending.  Medicare spends another 2 or 3 percent on administrative costs, bringing its total costs to 12.1 percent, at most.  In contrast, in 2006 Medicare Advantage's administrative costs (10.1 percent) and profits (6.6 percent) totaled 16.7 percent.  In short, even after considering fraud, Medicare is 4.6 to 5.6 percent cheaper than its nearest private equivalent.  It is remarkable that this gap would be even greater if we included the presumably lower levels of fraud suffered by Medicare Advantage.


Comparing Medicare and Medicare Advantage allows us to factor out many confusing elements that we would otherwise have to deal with if we compared Medicare to pure-play private insurance companies.  We don’t have to concern ourselves with things like Medicare’s premium collection, which is handled by the IRS, because Medicare Advantage enjoys these same services.  Moreover, unlike Robert Book, we need not consider whether it is best to compare visits per patient or expenditure in dollars.  The very similar nature of Medicare’s and Medicare Advantage’s customer base and rules regarding payments obviates the need to ask these normally important questions.