The Glittering Eye

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Voting has begun for the Weblog Awards for 2008. As I mentioned earlier, this blog is a finalist in the Best Small Blog category. Please vote for The Glittering Eye!

Voting begins the evening of January 5 and concludes on January 13. You will be able to vote in each category, as many or as few categories as you wish, once per day The complete voting area for all categories is here. You can go directly to the voting area for Best Small Blog by clicking on the Weblog logo at the top of this post, by clicking on the Weblog 2008 logo at right, or by clicking here.

Other notable finalists include

The Moderate Voice
Outside the Beltway

in the Best Major Blog category and fellow Watcher’s Council member

The Colossus of Rhodey

in the Best Up and Coming Blog category.

If you’re not familiar with The Glittering Eye, this is my personal blog and it’s, well, the most polite word for it would be “eclectic”, as suits my tastes. On any given day I’ll post about anything that strikes my fancy from cooking to opera to dogs to the addition we’re putting on our house to politics to foreign affairs.

Politically I am a moderate and tend not to be ideological. I do my best to examine any specific issue as analytically as I can, giving all points of view a fair shake, and then draw my conclusions.

I come from a family of vaudeville entertainers, saloon keepers, politicians, and lawyers. A pretty good preparation for blogging, I think.

This post will remain at the top for the duration of voting. New content appears below.

This afternoon I had a small scare. For the last dozen or so years, since we got Qila, I have walked dogs. Three times, five times, or more per day. Since we began the addition to the house back in June and we’ve had no backyard, I’ve walked three dogs between three and five times a day each, a total of between five and eight miles per day over all.

Well, I was walking Nola after a small snowfall, just enough to cover the walks, not really enough to shovel, and I fell.

I have no fear of falling. Decades of judo mean that I have fallen tens of thousands of times. I know how to fall and falling is as natural to me as walking and nearly as unconscious as breathing. Part of my automatic response to falling is to let go of whatever is in my hands.

I dropped the lead.

Samoyeds are notoriously horizon dogs—when released they instinctively head for the horizon and I had visions of a mad chase after her. I quickly rose to my knees and called, firmly, “Nola, come!” in my best obedience trainer’s voice, making the appropriate AKC hand signal.

And she came.

I rewarded her profusely.

I am so proud of my little girl. All of our hard work has paid off.

The greatest gift you can give your dog is instilling a reliable recall. It can save your dog’s life.

Eliot Spitzer is the latest voice in the chorus advocating something other than bridges and roads for the stimulus package the Obama Administration is sure to roll out, advocating “transformative investments” in energy, healthcare, communications infrastructure, and education.

As I’ve said before, a smarter energy grid is probably the best largescale engineering project we could invest in. On the other hand I suspect that electronic record-keeping in healthcare won’t have nearly the impact that its advocates surmise. The reason we don’t already have it isn’t lack of investment in healthcare, it’s resistance from various groups including from within healthcare.

I was surprised at the appointment of former Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta as the Director of Central Intelligence for the incoming Obama Administration

WASHINGTON — Leon E. Panetta, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency. The choice, disclosed Monday by Democratic officials, immediately revealed divisions in the party as two senior lawmakers questioned why Mr. Obama would nominate a candidate with limited experience in intelligence matters.

but not appalled as has apparently been the case among some both in the blogosphere and in the broader world. Specialist expertise isn’t the only qualification for department heads in the federal government nor necessarily the most important one. Attorneys General don’t typically try cases nor as a rule the things that lawyers are trained to do; the Secretary of the Treasury doesn’t do what an investment banker (or an economist) does; as I’ve noted before the Secretary of Energy doesn’t need to be a physicist since he or she doesn’t do science nor even what a lab director does; and the Secretary of State doesn’t necessarily have to be a diplomat.

For most of the country’s history the Postmaster General was traditionally the incoming president’s campaign manager.

The best imaginable candidate for each of those roles would be somebody who has the confidence of the people who work in the department which he or she is to head, the confidence of the American people, and, most importantly, the confidence of the president. That’s a tall order.

In the specific case of Leon Panetta’s appointment if those working for the CIA believe that having somebody as connected as Panetta will ensure they have the president’s ear, I suspect they’ll be disappointed. I sincerely hope that President-Elect Obama hasn’t picked Mr. Panetta thinking that he’ll be able to rein in the agency. Multiple successive presidents have been disappointed with their abilities to control the Central Intelligence Agency.

There’s an interesting pattern emerging in the new administration’s appointments. The new Secretary of the Treasury will be an economist; the new Secretary of Energy will be a physicist; the new Attorney General will be a lawyer; the new National Security Advisor will be a soldier UPDATE:; the new Director of National Intelligence will be a retired admiral. The new Secretary of State, Director of National Central Intelligence, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secretary of HHS are, except for Tom Daschle, lawyers and their primary expertise is political.

As I’ve noted before the incoming administration’s managerial experience is extremely limited and, frankly, I think they’re underestimating its importance. Now it may well be that lawyers and politicians are the best possible picks for these important roles to achieve the confidence of the departments they’ll head, the American people’s, and President Obama’s. If that’s right, we’ll be in for an interesting ride with the new administration. If it’s wrong, the downside risk is probably minimized by the civil bureaucracy.

Note: James Joyner has a round-up of blogospheric reaction to Panetta’s appointment.

Update

Joe Gandelman has a fine round-up of reactions from the worlds of government and the media on the Panetta appointment. Or should that be “the world of government and the media”?

Robert Samuelson echoes the point I made over the weekend—that there are limits to what a stimulus package can accomplish:

We should resist the temptation to see the forthcoming “economic stimulus” package as a panacea. It won’t be. At best, it would represent traditional “pump priming.” This familiar metaphor is worth pondering. To get the pump started, you add water; then the pump operates independently. Similarly, the stimulus will succeed only if the economy resumes spontaneous expansion and job creation.

If the Obama Administration succeeds in cutting taxes:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 billion of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs.

The size of the proposed tax cuts — which would account for about 40% of a stimulus package that could reach $775 billion over two years — is greater than many on both sides of the aisle in Congress had anticipated. It may make it easier to win over Republicans who have stressed that any initiative should rely more heavily on tax cuts rather than spending.

the stimulus could actually be more effective than I’d feared. A payroll tax holiday, enacted quickly, could be particularly helpful but I wonder how possible it would be politically.

He goes on to advocate increasing our exports as our domestic consumption shrinks:

What the United States needs is export-led growth. The rub is that many other countries want that, too. Just as large U.S. trade deficits signified American overspending, large trade surpluses in China, Japan and other Asian countries signified their oversaving. In China, consumption spending is 35 percent of GDP, notes economist Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute. That’s half the American level.

at least I think that’s what he’s advocating. Our domestic consumption is shrinking. For exports to make up the difference the dollar has to be weak. Our shrinking consumption means we won’t be importing as many Chinese goods as we have been, that creates a problem for China where something like 70% of the growth in their economy comes from exports, and China’s authorities won’t let the dollar weaken enough to make U. S. exports attractive.

I’d like to see more U. S. exports and I think the best candidate for that is agricultural exports. For that to be a reality the growing economies, China and India, need to abandon their decades-long policies of food self-sufficiency and, as I’ve said before, I think that negotiating that should be among the highest priorities of U. S. foreign policy.

is that Roland Burris will be seated as the temporary senator for the state of Illinois. It makes a nice matching set with my prediction that Rod Blagojevich won’t be impeached.

If you think that Illinois is a national laughing stock now wait until the Chicago mayoral election when an enormous proportion of the folks who are showing up as supporting players in Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial (which may well still be going on) are vying for the job of Chicago’s mayor.

I find posting on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians completely thankless and frustrating. Nobody is particularly interested in hewing closely to the facts, everyone wants to rake up old scores, and whatever position you take or comment you make, it elicits a torrent of vitriol from people who are utterly convinced of its opposite. I’ve already been insulted in the comments thread of a post on another blog just for sticking to the facts.

If we fail to support Israel, we’re turning our backs on the closest thing to a friend we have in the Middle East (and one of our best intelligence assets there). If we support Israel, we can’t be an honest broker and we’ll have the unquenchable enmity of Israel’s enemies (practically everybody else in the Middle East).

I probably should have included this under my predictions for 2009. I seriously doubt that any politically possible stimulus package that the new Congress and the Obama Administration enacts next year will do a great deal more to stimulate the economy than the mere passage of time will. However, I think that some optimism (and good press) will follow the new administration into office and that should help a bit.

Steve Green is worried about inflation:

If Congress doesn’t close the money floodgates, and in pretty short order, then we will begin to feel better soon. Because as I’ve explained before, the initial kick-in of an inflationary period feels pretty darn good.

But what happens when everybody figures out that the economy isn’t really growing, and that we’re just undergoing a major inflation? Why, Washington and its MSM lapdogs will claim we didn’t spend enough money, and free markets will take the blame once again.

I could be wrong. I hope I am. But if we keep spending on a trillion here, a trillion there basis, then this is exactly what will happen.

Steve may be right but I’m not sure he’s worried about the right thing. There are different ways of looking at the money supply usually called “components”. The first component is currency (M0), the green stuff you have in your wallet. The second is currency plus checking accounts (M1). The third is M1 plus most savings accounts, money market accounts, and certificates of deposit under $100,000 (M2). The last is M2 plus all other certificates of deposit. As you can see from the graph above although the stuff that Steve is worrying about has grown enormously over the years it constitutes a relatively small fraction of the total money supply.

I think that’s why some economists are worried about the possibility of deflation rather than inflation. That other stuff is shrinking fast.

I haven’t looked at the merits of federal grants to state governments:

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.

The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — all Democrats — said the initiative for the two-year aid package was backed by other governors and follows a meeting in December where governors called on President-elect Barack Obama to help them maintain services in the face of slumping revenues.

Gov. David Paterson of New York said 43 states now have budget deficits totaling some $100 billion as tax revenues plunge.

“It’s clear that the federal government needs to step in and jump-start the economy,” said Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

and I don’t think the idea should be dismissed out of hand. Block grants to the states would probably make more effective stimuli than some of the proposals I’ve seen floating around. But why shouldn’t some oversight and preconditions be part of the deal, too?

For one thing I don’t think that the federal block grants should be used to offset shortfalls in state revenues that would be used for normal operating expenses. The purpose of grants should be providing fiscal stimulus rather than political cover for state legislators.

The states need to live within their means and if that requires renegotiating contracts, wage freezes, or tax increases so be it. It would be bizarre if the state governments were giving their employees raises while every private company in the country laid off employees.

If the states want payday loans, shouldn’t they be put through a wringer at least as tough as whatever GM and Chrysler go through? I’d really like to see the states submit business plans under which they achieve solvency by some date certain. Something that takes into account reasonable expectations and recognizeable human behaviors. And the laws of physics. Conforming to established accounting standards would be nice. Or how about a Sarbanes-Oxley for states?

Here in Illinois short of amending the constitution the state government’s figurative hands are pretty well tied. Automatic cost of living pay raises have constitutional force as do pension payments and other forms of state employee compensation.

Tax increases are the state’s only recourse and the state’s legislators have been at an impasse over tax increases. It’s something that Illinois needs to resolve by the processes of representative democracy rather than through a federal handout.