The editors of the New York Times in 2011:

There is no perfect formula for military intervention. It must be used sparingly — not in Bahrain or Yemen, even though we condemn the violence against protesters in both countries. Libya is a specific case: Muammar el-Qaddafi is erratic, widely reviled, armed with mustard gas and has a history of supporting terrorism. If he is allowed to crush the opposition, it would chill pro-democracy movements across the Arab world.

The editors of the New York Times today:

Libyans who have been fighting since the end of the 2011 civil war must take steps to reconcile and start the arduous process of building a functioning state. Western and regional leaders have limited time to put pressure on them by offering incentives and support for those willing to chart a new course. “Libya is falling apart. Politically, financially, the economic situation is disastrous,” Mr. León said. “I don’t think the country can bear a process of months.”

The collapse of civil order in Libya and the rise of Islamist groups and other criminals there was a foregone conclusion when the United States began its bombing campaign there in 2011, a campaign supported, admittedly reluctantly, by the Times’s editors. And today in 2015 if there are any “pro-democracy movements across the Arab world” they’ve gone underground. If the Times’s editors are sincere about their concern for Libya now, they should support whatever means might be required to effect their goals, regardless of the domestic political consequences. Anything else is magical thinking.

My concerns about the alleged “hereditary meritocracy” aren’t the same as Paul Caron’s:

Intellectual capital drives the knowledge economy, so those who have lots of it get a fat slice of the pie. And it is increasingly heritable. Far more than in previous generations, clever, successful men marry clever, successful women. Such “assortative mating” increases inequality by 25%, by one estimate, since two-degree households typically enjoy two large incomes. Power couples conceive bright children and bring them up in stable homes—only 9% of college-educated mothers who give birth each year are unmarried, compared with 61% of high-school dropouts. They stimulate them relentlessly: children of professionals hear 32m more words by the age of four than those of parents on welfare. They move to pricey neighbourhoods with good schools, spend a packet on flute lessons and pull strings to get junior into a top-notch college.

I have a number of problems with that including:

• Not all smart people are well-to-do.
• Not all well-to-do people are smart.
• There is a natural predisposition to want your children to be at least as successful as you’ve been and to take steps to see that happens.
• There’s a rising body of scholarship suggesting that emotional intelligence, social and emotional capabilities, are better predictors of success than cognitive abilities.
• Emotional intelligence tends not to be tested for.
• Emotional intelligence while apparently somewhat heritable is not as heritable as cognitive intelligence see here.
• After two standard deviations there’s not much correlation between Q and financial success. There may even be an inverse correlation.

My SAT scores are the same as Bill Gates’s (but reversed). My income and wealth aren’t a hundredth of his.

In ancient China jobs in the massive civil bureaucracy were predicated on passing the civil service examination. That meant that in theory the smart kid of a peasant could get a guaranteed well-paying job for life. In practice the system was corrupted so that the children of the rich, regardless of innate ability, always passed. IMO that’s the way any “merit” system will inevitably work out.

I’ve mentioned before that my practice is to keep my nose out of the political issues in states other than my own and out of those in countries other than my own for that matter. Judging by the recent editorial in the New York Times opposing Illinois Gov. Rauner’s move to oppose non-union members being forced to pay “fair share” taxes, 7/8s of which go to political contributions to politicians who support public employees’ unions, the Time’s editors are not nearly as discreet:

Allowing nonmembers to get union benefits without paying fair-share fees would tempt dues-paying members to drop out. Union coffers — and bargaining power — would be weakened. Ultimately, all working people would suffer, because collectively bargained pay increases in unionized workplaces tend to lift wages in nonunionized ones, as companies compete for employees. Anti-unionism, which has become increasingly entrenched in recent decades, correlates with stagnating and declining wages. As unions have been harmed, not only by market forces but by policies that deliberately weaken them, income has flowed increasingly to those at the top of the economic ladder rather than to workers.

For now, Governor Rauner has instructed state agencies not to deduct fair-share fees from employees’ paychecks. The unions are expected to challenge the governor’s order in court. The attorney general of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, has not supported the governor’s stance. She will have the opportunity to intervene in any lawsuits to defend state law against the governor’s overreach. The end game, however, is more likely to play out in the Supreme Court.

Nowhere in the Times editorial is there any hint of Illinois’s problems or how the Times’s editors would go about solving them. That is intellectually bankrupt and morally reprehensible. Either butt out or stand up to the plate, NYT.

The New York Times has staked out a unique position for itself as local New York City newspaper, national newspaper, and guardian of left of center shibboleths everywhere. Its editors might become better informed before sticking their noses into other states’ business.

Illinois has one of the lowest levels of state contribution to education in the nation. It has the lowest credit rating of any state. It has one of the worst public pension problems in the nation. Its ROI on federal tax dollars is the second to lowest of any state—lower than New York or California. It has the highest rate of outmigration of any state. When Illinois raised its income tax, revenues did not increase proportionally to the increase but flight from the state increased, suggesting that tax increases were not a solution to Illinois’s problems.

Public employees’ unions present a thorny issue with a number of competing rights including the right of association, the right to representation, the public’s right to fair and honest services, and the right to honest government. Political contributions from public employees’ unions from dues and “fair share” taxes collected through the power of the government effectively recycle tax dollars into political contributions and are inherently corrupt.

Gov. Rauner has thrown himself on the grenade and it will be up to the courts to sort it out. Unless they’re willing to propose a workable solution to Illinois’s public pension problems, the fruit of decades of political mis-, mal-, and nonfeasance in Illinois, the editors of the New York Times should stick to New York.

Of all of the criticisms of President Obama’s 2015 National Security Strategy (and most reviews of it are negative, as I noted yesterday) perhaps the harshest comes from James Jeffrey in an op-ed in the Washington Post, not because of its invective (that prize would go to Larry Johnson which is why I included his remarks in my round-up) but because to my eye it is the most damaging.

There are two reasons for that. First, Mr. Jeffrey was an Obama appointee, the U. S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012. And second because his op-ed argues that the intellectual underpinnings of the NSS are badly mistaken. He summarizes these as the president’s view that

1. “those who use military force are destined for the ash heap of history because force is inherently counterproductive”.
2. “if the United States acts militarily, it inevitably runs a serious risk of overcommitment and disaster”.
3. “there is “no military solution” to anything”.
4. “when required, and absent the most compelling security need, military action should be employed through coalitions and after applying diplomatic, economic and other tools, with legality and legitimacy as the guiding principles.”

Here are his retorts to these four “themes”:

The first theme violates a precept that all diplomats must learn: Don’t project your worldview onto others. Assumptions that military force is self-defeating have tragically been proved wrong time and again the world over.

Equally open to question are the linked themes of “no military solution” and “escalation into a morass.” The United States has used or threatened military force frequently since the 1940s. Only three times did we fail with significant costs: in North Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Those conflicts demonstrated the folly of regime change and social engineering under fire but not the folly of military action per se. Most U.S. military operations during that time were successful, and completed at low cost, from Berlin to the Cuban embargo, the first Gulf War, Kosovo and Bosnia. Obama’s incessant warnings notwithstanding, the United States has generally been able to achieve its military aims without getting bogged down in costly conflicts.

Finally, “no military solution” is simply empty rhetoric. It’s true that any military action ultimately must adhere to political logic. But military action can reinforce political objectives in multiple ways. Its mere threat has political effects on friends and foes, and the impact of combat operations — inflicting pain, seizing territory, threatening to disarm an opponent — also generates political outcomes. This has been made clear recently with Iran on nuclear proliferation and with the Islamic State in Iraq, but the president glosses over the effective use of U.S. military strength even under his own leadership. In this world, the military does solve problems.

I’d like to suggest that the only really permanent solutions in this sad world are military ones. We haven’t heard much about Carthaginian pirates in the Mediterranean lately, have we? Additionally, the German Empire, the Third Reich, and Japan’s Co-Prosperity Sphere might be interested in discussing the effectiveness of military solutions.

The more relevant question is whether we can solve the problems we have today with the force we’re willing to apply and my assessment would be that we can’t. That’s different than force in the abstract.

Then there are the problems that are simply not solvable full stop. Those are the “wicked problems” I’ve written about in the past and most of the thorniest problems we face fall into that category.

There is no need to worry about the decline of the middle class in America, advises Ruchir Sharma in the Wall Street Journal:

In June, the Fed clearly signaled an end to its quantitative-easing program, spelling the end of easy money and with it the forces favoring the rich at the expense of the rest. Since June, the dollar has risen by about 17%, undermining corporate earnings and stock prices.

While there are many reasons behind the decline in the price of oil, one of them is the end of QE, which has reduced speculation in commodities and strengthened the dollar. The price of oil and the dollar have long been known to move in opposite directions. Now, the sharp decline in the price of oil and other commodities like food is putting more money in the pockets of the middle class.

The domestic side of the U.S. economy is showing signs of greater strength: Consumer spending grew at a pace of more than 4% last quarter, even as manufacturing and exports lagged and kept the economy from accelerating beyond a 2.5% rate.

It really doesn’t take long for the myrmidons of the .1% to start sprouting from the dragon’s teeth, does it? A couple of mildly favorable economic reports and it’s off to the races!

However, two can play at that game. The car and light truck sales the author touts as indicators of new middle class prosperity were largely financed with subprime loans. And we’re due for even this phlegmatic economic expansion to end. Do you think that the richest or middle income people will be more squeezed when it does? I’d bet a shiny new dime it won’t be the .1%.

In the comments to an earlier post it was noted by a frequent commenter that the Republican healthcare plan “largely shifts costs onto the consumer”. So does the PPACA, as this article at Bloomberg from Christopher Flavelle points out:

…cost sharing on the exchanges is still typically far higher than for the employer-based coverage that about half of Americans still have. Maybe that’s a necessary price to pay for extending government-subsidized health care. But it also means that when people complain about the high cost of care, they’re not wrong.

That seems to be the consensus view from both sides of the aisle on reducing healthcare costs in the United States. I’m skeptical. I’m unaware of any study that has ever demonstrated that people economize solely on unnecessary healthcare as higher costs fall on them. Quite to the contrary I think they skimp on both unnecessary and necessary healthcare, resulting in higher costs down the road.

On the 70^th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, Spiegel Online interviews British historian Frederick Taylor. Here are a few snippets.

On the mythologization of the bombing by the Germans:

Dresden was undoubtedly a particularly fine city, a tourist center well known to Germans and foreigners alike as a place where the arts flourished amidst architecturally distinguished surroundings. This gave rise to the myth that it was of no military or industrial importance. The high civilian death toll — though current estimates of 25,000 are not as high as once thought — also plays a role. Hamburg could never be seen as being of no military importance. Dresden, plausibly — though not really accurately — could be.

On disruption of the German civil order as a main objective of the bombing:

Raids on Dresden and Chemnitz were delayed by bad weather. And ultimately, only the Dresden raid was successful — horribly so as the 25,000 or more casualties bear witness. This was, in fact, a clear-cut case where maximum destruction was the central aim of the attack. There can be no question that the presence of many refugees was factored into the Allies’ calculations. A Feb. 1, 1945 memorandum specifically noted the huge tide of refugees passing through the eastern German cities as a “plus point,” chillingly adding that attacking these cities would “result in establishing a state of chaos in some or all of these areas.”

On the strategic importance of Dresden:

Dresden was undeniably a beautiful city, a center of the arts and a symbol of all that was great about pre-Nazi German humanism. It was also quite strongly Nazi and a major industrial center. Its light industries, ranging from factories producing typewriters and cigarettes to furniture and candy, had overwhelmingly been converted to war use after 1939. Around 70,000 workers in the city are thought to have been involved in war-related work. Its regional railway directorate was heavily involved in the war effort on the eastern front and also in the transport of prisoners within the concentration camp system. The question therefore is not whether Dresden contained legitimate bombing targets, but whether the method and intensity of the February 1945 bombing was justifiable.

Let me preface my remarks with my view that a) the bombing of Dresden on February 13 through February 15 1945 was a war atrocity and b) was immoral. However, I think the blame for it can be laid squarely on the British.

The British high command made no secret of their support for as many German civilian casualties as possible. The Americans were the champions of precision bombing in the European theater; that interested the British significantly less as anyone who’s ever visited the sectors bombed by the British and the sectors bombed by the Americans during the war can attest. Both American and British bombers took part in the bombing but the declassified air logs of the American bomber makes it clear that they were going after legitimate military targets. Also, keep in mind that “precision bombing” seventy years ago meant something quite different than it does today.

Did Americans take part in deliberate targeting of civilian targets? Probably.

One more little item that I believe is too infrequently remarked on. The famous talks among Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at Yalta took place from February 7 to February 11, 1945. Although the popular mythology of the war is that the three Allied leaders were discussing how to divvy up Europe to the best of my knowledge no transcripts of the talks have ever been made public. I strongly suspect that the air attacks that included the bombing of Dresden were a major topic of discussion and that Stalin made an impassioned plea to Roosevelt and Churchill to draw the Luftwaffe away from the Red Army’s forces which at that point were just 120 miles from Dresden.

At the Wall Street Journal Jason Riley reminds us that Pat Moynihan was right about the social dysfunction that plagued our inner cities:

Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the future senator’s report on the black family, the controversial document issued while he served as an assistant secretary in President Lyndon Johnson’s Labor Department. Moynihan highlighted troubling cultural trends among inner-city blacks, with a special focus on the increasing number of fatherless homes.

“The fundamental problem is that of family structure,” wrote Moynihan, who had a doctorate in sociology. “The evidence—not final but powerfully persuasive—is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.”

[…]

History has proved that Moynihan was onto something. When the report was released, about 25% of black children and 5% of white children lived in a household headed by a single mother. During the next 20 years the black percentage would double and the racial gap would widen. Today more than 70% of all black births are to unmarried women, twice the white percentage.

You can argue about the reasons for this. I think it’s that over a century of racism, Jim Crow, and badly constructed social programs made black men superfluous in the family. They sought social support elsewhere and frequently that was in street gangs. That lead to violence and crime. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I think we should be concerned that inner city African Americans were a harbinger of things to come to the larger society. I don’t relish the prospect of ours becoming a country in which men are seen as burdens to the self-realization of women.

Following steep declines in sales and earnings at McDonalds, a former McDonalds executive takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to explain what he thinks need to be done at the fast food chain to regain its luster:

Another fast turnaround of the McDonald’s brand is possible—and it is essential for the company’s future. If you don’t take care of the short term, there will be no long term. Here are a few immediate actions that would reignite McDonald’s.

Here are his proposals:

• Make sure you retain your current customers.
• Compete with your actual competitors rather than the companies you wish were your competitors.
• Better food.
• Know what business you’re in: fast food.
• Do a few things better than anyone else rather than a lot of things poorly.
• Restore relevance.
• Dedicate the company to “the right actions executed in the right way to achieve the right results.”
• Introduce a small number of winning new products rather than a lot of products that mostly fail.
• Rebuild employee pride.
• Rebuild trust.

Most of those are basic Peter Drucker management It’s seems to me that some of them, e.g. “restore relevance” and customer retention, are actually in direct conflict. It’s a tall order.

Mr. Light undoubtedly has more insider knowledge of McDonalds than I do but that might be a problem. I don’t think he gets to the crux of McDonalds’s difficulties which I would see as two-fold. First, McDonalds grew up during a very peculiar period in American history. A very large number of entry level workers were coming into the job market and would do so for the next quarter century. For many Baby Boomers working at McDonalds as a teen was a right of passage. For the last thirty years the situation has been different. Rather than attracting bright-faced teens today’s McDonalds is largely staffed by immigrant adults with very different needs. Rather than expecting to work a few years, gain experience, and move on to something that paid more they expect to be able to live a decent, independent life, raise families, and maybe even send some money home to mama. That’s in direct conflict with McDonalds’s business model.

Additionally, the United States is a saturated market. New franchisees (again supplied by Baby Boomers) just aren’t coming along at the rate they did a half century ago. I don’t have the figures to back this up but I’d guess that most new franchises these days are overseas. Here in the United States McDonalds is a staple for lower income people, young people, and new families. I strongly suspect it serves a different market overseas. Different business models.

IMO McDonalds has encouraged two generations of Americans to prefer mediocre food. That’s the company’s core customer base and they won’t retain them with better food, different menus, or new products. Which is what they’ll need to get new customers.