I’ve just published a foreign policy-related post at Outside the Beltway:

Clark Opposes Libyan No-Fly Zone

In a sort of rebuttal to John Kerry’s argument yesterday Gen. Wesley Clark argues that imposing a Libyan no-fly zone does not meet the standards for U. S. military intervention. I agree.

I think there are some practical problems with his attempt in this op-ed to conjoin the success of a mission with its meeting the standards he sets out. The success or failure of some of the actions he lists remains in doubt. Was Iraq successful? Was the intervention in Bosnia? Kosovo? If you define the objectives narrowly enough, e.g. “removing Saddam Hussein”, the answer is clearly yes. However, if a broader definition, e.g. producing a politically stable aftermath, is applied you can’t know until after troops have been withdrawn, whether in Kosovo or Iraq.

The Watcher’s Council has announced its winners for last week. First place in the Council category was Joshuapundit’s Eyes Wide Shut – Dealing With ‘Anti-Zionism’ On Campus.

First place in the non-Council category was Iowahawk’s with Longhorns 17, Badgers 1, a telling critique of one of Paul Krugman’s columns, which I nominated.

You can see the full results here.

I’ve just published a couple of foreign policy-related posts at Outside the Beltway:

Evacuations Ordered in Hawaii

Not really a foreign policy story but an international one. The tsunami produced by the massive earthquake that struck Japan last night is making its way across the Pacific. If the energy models are correct the brunt of the force will miss the mainland U. S. but Chile may be in for some rough times.

Kerry Supports Libyan No-Fly Zone

John Kerry has an op-ed in the Washington Post supporting the U. S. take a leadership position in establishing a no-fly zone in Libya. I continue to be skeptical of such a move. The EU’s are stakeholders in Libya to a much greater degree than are we. Shouldn’t they be growing a pair and taking on more responsibility?

I’m finally confident enough in it that I’m thinking seriously of upgrading the workstation I use most frequently from Windows XP to Windows 7. Yes, yes, I know. Most of the software I use won’t run under Linux or Macs and there either are no alternatives or the alternatives aren’t ready for prime time.

Here’s what I plan to do:

• Remove unused programs.
• Apply all minor upgrades to the programs I’m using.
• Wait about a week to resolve any problems doing that may induce.
• Identify and replace unsupported hardware.
• Download drivers for supported hardware.
• Clone my hard drive.
• Upgrade from XP to Vista.
• Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7.
• Install device drivers.
• Work out the kinks.

Thoughts?

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the programs I use on a regular basis will either need to have new major revisions installed or substitutes identified.

You may ask why go through all of this hassle? Why not just do as Microsoft suggests, do a clean install, and re-install all of the software? I’ve calculated that is likely to cost me something in the low five figures—basically, weeks of work. Finding the installation media or hundreds of meg in downloads. Finding the licenses. Replacing the things I can’t find or download. Doing the installations. A quick software inventory identified 15 or 20 programs with original costs ranging from $100 to over a $1,000. If that’s the only alternative it’s not worth it.

If I could I’d install a new motherboard while I’m at it but Microsoft typically doesn’t like that and it would add another layer of complexity to the process.

Tyler Durden is reporting that PIMCO, the world’s largest bond fund, has taken its holdings of bonds to zero. It’s now holding cash. If this, indeed, proves to be the case it would suggest several things. First, that Bill Gross, PIMCO CEO, doesn’t believe that the Fed will enter into a third phase of quantitative easing (i. e. buying Treasuries) despite the Dance of the Seven Veils that Ben Bernanke and various board presidents have been doing on the subject for the last couple of weeks.

Second, he must believe that when QE2 ends in June it will suck the life out of bonds and equities. That’s a pretty good supposition. Remember the graph I pointed to the other day?

Third, he must not believe that hyperinflation will occur in the near term. It would be very bad to be holding cash if that were the case.

Sounds like practically everything is very, very uncertain right about now.

Tyler Cowen has published a pair of posts on the common mistakes of left-wing economists and right-wing economists. A sample mistake he attributes to left-wing economists:

A willingness to think that one has “done one’s best” in the realm of policy, and to blame subsequent policy failures on Republican implementation, rather than admitting that a policy which cannot be implemented by both political parties is perhaps not a good policy in the first place.

and one he attributes to right-wing economists:

I’m all for Health Savings Accounts, but unless done on a Singaporean scale, and with lots of forced savings, they’re not a health care plan to significantly benefit most Americans. There is less of a coherent health care plan, coming from this side, than one might like to think.

To the list I’d add something I think is a common mistake of economists, generally: commenting on various industries in ignorance of their structure. Too frequently this results of prescriptions that in theory are right but in practice are either wrong or unreachable. In that sense we live in a Bayesian world rather than one of the sort envisioned by the classical economists. The universe of choices at hand is limited by prior choices.

Update

Arnold Kling adds his own parallel observations of the ideological blinders of left-wing and right-wing economists in a terse, unexcerptable post.

If you only read one business or economics post today, make it Simon Johnson’s summary of his testimony submitted to the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP.

Here’s my question. If the only alternatives we have are an unhealthy financial system on the one hand and the promise of bailouts on the other, which should we choose? IMO this is another case like the situations in education, healthcare, and government in which minor tweaking around the edges doesn’t get the job done.

While I’m on the subject of patricians and plebeians I wonder how long it will take before egalitarians realize that the Harvard and Yale admissions departments are “public accommodations” as surely as men-only and white-only clubs were forty years ago? My guess is never since so many of these egalitarians (particularly in high positions) are Harvard and Yale graduates.

In comments there’s a discussion going on of the possibility of American society being bifurcated into one of patricians and plebeians. As suggested in my previous post I don’t think that’s inevitable but what concerns me is that I believe that for some people that’s the preferred outcome. I can’t help but wonder if the business, political, and other leaders of today, people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s and, in many cases, the children of farmers, factory workers, and pushcart vendors realize that their choices are making our society increasingly hostile to the grandchildren of farmers, factory workers, and pushcart vendors?

This seems to me part and parcel of the “I’ll be gone; you’ll be gone” mentality. Decisions have consequences and those consequences may ripple outwards for decades or even centuries.