I am not pro-Russian but I am anti-anti-Russian.

I’m not anti-Ukrainian. I support the Ukrainian people in their conflict against the Russians. I don’t support the Russian invasion of Ukraine and weep for the Ukrainian people.

I am pro-American. I don’t think the mindless anti-Russian views or the unqualified, effusive pro-Ukrainian stances presently being expressed serve the interests of the United States.

While the Russians and the Ukrainians have differences in their outlooks and cultures, I think that most Americans would be surprised at how much they have in common with each other—more unites them than divides them. Both are very nationalistic. Neither are liberal democrats. Both of their governments are incredibly corrupt. Coming from someone who lives in Illinois, that’s a lot.

At the Foreign Policy Research Institute Frank G. Hoffman has an article calling for a policy of “comprehensive compellence”. Here is its opening:

The Biden administration has formulated a unprecedented response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The coordination of transatlantic diplomacy, including the condemnation of Russia at the United Nations and the implementation of a massive sanctions package, is truly impressive. The president’s recent request for an additional $33 billion from Congress in security, economic, and humanitarian aid for Ukraine demonstrates the seriousness of America’s commitment to European security.

While the White House should be applauded for its response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, this only tells part of the story. Indeed, none of these diplomatic initiatives would have been necessary had the United States and its allies successfully deterred Russia from attacking Ukraine in the first place. Deterrence failed because the United States and its allies signaled, in advance, that it was not prepared to apply direct military force in Ukraine. It did so because it was afraid of Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats. America’s risk calculus was framed by the fear of nuclear escalation and Washington’s overestimation of Russian military power.

While initial efforts to deter Russia have failed, the West should now pursue a different approach. Rather than deterrence, the United States should focus on compellence. A comprehensive compellence strategy toward Russia would entail the focused integration of covert and overt military power, as well as a greater efforts to conduct information operations inside Russia to weaken Putin’s fragile political control.

The goal of such a strategy could be to force Putin to stop the war, not merely help Ukraine stave off defeat. It strives to achieve this by raising costs to Moscow beyond sanctions and political isolation. The strategy would help the West coalesce around the objective of ending the war in the near term, but also forcing a negotiated conclusion to hostilities that would be more advantageous to Ukrainian and Western interests. The West’s aim should be to ensure Putin suffers an operational failure, not accede to Russia’s subjugation of Ukraine or some tortured negotiated compromise.

He goes on to characterize the scope of what such a regime:

• Diplomatic and political
• Informational
• Military
• Economic
• Legal

I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Hoffmann:

1. Can he provide an example of how such a program has been used successfully used to deter a major power from anything? Of particular interest would be how such a program could be used to deter the U. S. from, say, invading Iraq or bombing Serbia or Libya.
2. How likely is such a program to succeed with in effect only the G7 participating? And with Germany refusing to do anything that might hurt Germany?

Finally, what is Russia response to such a program likely to be?

In this post at RealClearMarkets physician William Strimel makes a plea for more “stakeholder capitalism” in the healthcare sector:

From 2013-2017, 51 hospitals closed across the United States and 11 closed in 2020 alone. During that same time period however, insurance companies made record-breaking profits.

United Healthcare recorded an annual profit of $17.3 billion for 2021 and in their Q1 results for 2022, they celebrated double digit year over year revenue growth and raised their full year earnings outlook. This result, which was representative of the performance of the other major health insurance carriers, is illustrative of the disconnect that currently exists between insurers that are flush with cash and providers that are struggling to stay afloat.

I’m afraid that Dr. Strimel is confused. To explain how I’m going to need to explain insurance, healthcare “insurance”, and our present system.

First, insurance. When a company offers insurance, they are making a bet with the purchaser. They’re betting you will not need to collect on the insurance while you’re betting that you will. You pay a premium consisting of an average (preferably an average weighted by risk) of payouts on the insurance plus a small amount to cover operating expenses and profit margin). That is how insurance works. Insurers bear risks.

Nowadays very little healthcare insurance operates that way. Two-thirds of American workers are covered by their employers who self-fund or self-insure, i.e. they pay the bills. The “insurers” are actually processing companies who bear no risk. They are generally compensated based on a percentage of what they process, i.e. they have very little incentive to lower costs. The higher the better.

It’s a bit of an aside but I don’t believe that Americans have much interest in true health insurance. What they want is more akin to a fully-paid maintenance plan.

Back to Dr. Strimel’s poster child of a “greedy company”. As this post from Wendell Potter makes clear, UnitedHealthCare’s profits aren’t from the insurance business which is actually declining. It’s from the healthcare administration business described above and an astonishing amount of the growth in its revenues are from various government programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid.

What we’ve got is a system in which everybody follows the incentives they have. Patients want more care. Physicians want to provide more care. Healthcare insurance administrators like UnitedHealthCare want healthcare costs to rise. And politicians want the voters to be happy so they’re okay with spending more. So healthcare costs more. It’s a positive feedback loop.

I’m not hopeful. I think our system will do pretty much the same thing any positive feedback loop does—it will keep building up speed until it breaks.

BTW, if you’re wondering how out-of-pocket healthcare spending in the U. S. relates to other countries, we pay a little more than the French, about the same as the Germans, and considerably less than the Brits and the Brits are the only one of the four with a national health system.

So, how does all of this relate to Dr. Strimel’s diagnosis that we need more “stakeholder capitalism”? If anything we have too much stakeholder capitalism, the stakeholders are pursuing their interests as should be expected, and the system is out of whack.

I found Daniel A. Connelly and Joseph B. Piroch’s post at RealClearPolicy on the narrow range of alternatives being considered in our policy with respect to Ukraine refreshing. I thought that this was a fair summary of present thinking:

The dominant narrative in political circles today views Russia’s actions as an attempt by an imperialist power to reestablish the Soviet Union. It refuses to consider Russia’s national security concerns about a West-leaning Ukraine, rejects diplomatic compromise, and presents a basket of similar policy options, all of which entail a strong and unyielding resistance to Russia. This narrative vilifies Vladimir Putin as the “ultimate bad actor” and seeks the total incapacitation of a hated enemy—a characterization that, true or not, can lead only to greater conflict. More concerning, its polarizing mindset often reduces arguments to emotional salvos that eclipse sound judgment with cries for decisive action. The result is a one-sided discourse rendering moderate proposals unacceptable before they even gain consideration.

After analyzing and tracing the historical background of the present dialectic in our foreign policy thinking they observe:

The two predominant philosophies of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Soviet era — neoconservatism and neoliberalism — embrace the themes of fatalism and total war. Despite their divergent premises and objectives, they both see international relations as an endless struggle and use a self-created moral compass to validate the persistent use of force. The first views the world as an antagonistic battleground where nations grapple for power and believes aggressive, unconstrained action in world affairs is necessary to prevail. The second sees a world in dire need of democratic governance and liberal values and judges that a forced transformation of governments and institutions is required to instill Western ideals everywhere. Both see interventionism and war as permissible, if not laudable, tools of foreign policy. Neither one, therefore, is predisposed to de-escalate a crisis, such as the one in Ukraine today.

concluding:

The United States is heading down a risky path of escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed power that does not like to be pushed into a corner. This strategy, driven by a mindset of fatalism and total war, is taking policy options off the table and constraining us to conclude that war is the only choice apart from appeasement. Our statesmen must stay on their guard and refuse to take the bait. It is certainly possible that a hardline approach to Russia is the best option for the United States, but to draw such a conclusion without considering a wider range of policy options is both impulsive and imprudent. Perhaps we need a Russian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, to remind us that “vile means defeat the ends they seek to bring about.” If we are not careful, in combatting Russia we could destroy the values we profess to hold in highest esteem. To paraphrase philosopher Josef Pieper, now is the time for the excellent statesman to exhibit courage in policy and in deed — a courage aimed at securing the common good for all.

Under the present conditions of politics of sound bites, social media radicalism, and the extreme difficulty in distinguishing between information, information operations, and disinformation, I doubt that the foreign policy of moderation and restraint they call for will be adopted.

I disagree with parts of the Wall Street Journal’s editors’ reaction to talk of increasing taxes. As should not be surprising, they object to raising taxes:

The same policy wizards who brought you soaring inflation are now offering what they claim is a solution to inflation: Raise taxes. Our advice is to consider the source and the economic record their previous advice produced.

Democrats are desperate to salvage something from their Build Back Better agenda after Joe Manchin killed the original version last year. Sen. Manchin’s complaint then was that trillions of dollars in new spending would stoke inflation. Voila, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now pitching a tax increase as a cure for price increases.

What do they think should happen? If you think, as the Congressional Democrats do, that there is an urgent need for additional government spending, there are really only three alternatives: cut spending somewhere else, borrow more money, or raise taxes. While I think that any inability to cut spending exhibits an alarming lack of imagination, the Congressional Democrats clearly don’t see it that way.

Borrowing more money is the way we got into the present fix. We have been borrowing at a prodigious rate, at an unconscionable rate for the last 15 years under Obama, Trump, and now Biden. That leaves raising taxes.

I think that they’re unfair to Modern Monetary Theorists:

“Coordinating higher government spending with higher taxes so that the rest of us are forced to cut back a little to create room for additional government spending,” as MMT evangelist Stephanie Kelton puts it. She says the trick is to “remove spending power from the rest of us” via taxes so the government can fund things like solar panels in California.

This is the same theory that told us the government can spend whatever it wants and not worry about rising prices. The Federal Reserve can simply keep suppressing interest rates and finance whatever politicians spend. Well, Congress and the Fed took Ms. Kelton’s advice, and here we are with the highest inflation in 40 years.

They left out the fine print of MMT: printing money for additional government spending won’t cause inflation as long as it is limited to the increase in aggregate product. What they’re describing is what I have called “folk MMT” and I doubt that Dr. Kelton has ever espoused that.

Where I’m in agreement with the editors is in their disapproval of increasing corporate income taxes:

But tax increases would make inflation worse by further suppressing the supply side of the economy. That’s especially true of the corporate tax increases that Mr. Schumer is pitching. They’d suppress productive investment precisely when the economy needs it to offset the Fed’s tighter money. This is what happened in the 1960s and ’70s when higher taxes on corporate profits and individual incomes contributed to inflation by depressing investment and productivity growth.

The economically most efficient rate at which to tax business is zero. Congressional Democrats’ relish for corporate income taxes is prima facie evidence that they care less for economic efficiency than for beating up on “greedy corporations”. But there’s fine print there, too. Not all business income is used to increase business investment. Indeed, I have claiming for decades that we need more business investment. American businesses should be producing more and taking less in the form of profits. If you’re determined to increase taxes on businesses, what we really need is much more narrowly crafted legislation which incentivizes businesses to invest more in things other than financial assets like factories while taxing away some of the rest.

And why not increase personal income tax rates on the top 5% or so of income earners? Taxing the top 5% would be a lot easier than taxing the top .5%. I mean and actually derive revenue from the increase. I’m sure that linguistic sleight-of-hand could frame it as satisfying Joe Biden’s campaign pledge.

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

From “Dane-Geld” (1911) by Rudyard Kipling

Today the editors of the Wall Street Journal react to the announcement that Russia was cutting off the delivery of gas to Poland and Bulgaria in retaliation for their participation in economic sanctions against Russia. After declaiming that Russia’s action should be considered “an attack on all” of NATO, they remark:

European companies have been ordered to set up two accounts at Gazprombank to enable the currency conversion. Countries that refuse, as Bulgaria and Poland have, risk a gas cutoff.

“The request from the Russian side to pay in rubles is a unilateral decision and not according to the contracts,” says European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Companies with such contracts should not accede to the Russian demands. This would be a breach of the Russian sanctions.” Mr. Putin hopes to erode Western sanctions, boost the ruble and divide Europe.

The move can hardly have come as a surprise. No one forced Poland or Bulgaria or, more importantly, Germany to buy gas from Russia. Now circumstances have changed and all of Russia’s present and erstwhile European customers are scrambling to find alternatives. Think of being economically dependent on a strategic adversary as the 21st century equivalent of dane-geld.

It should also be a shot across the bow for the Biden Administration. We can’t allow ourselves to be dependent for strategic materials or commodities on countries that are present or prospective strategic adversaries.

For those of you who are not Chicagoans, we call the central downtown area “the Loop”. For years the late Mayor Daley had a simple strategy for ensuring that the same fate that had befallen other Midwestern cities, e.g. Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, with decaying city centers, did not happen in Chicago. He made sure that the city of Chicago and, particularly, the Loop remained the indispensable center of the metropolitan area. Every expressway went through downtown and the downtown area was kept safe and a magnet for suburbanites and tourists.

In the years following Boss Daley that has been less successful and under Lori Lightfoot’s tenure has mayor that has largely evaporated. For the first time the “Magnificent Mile” was actually sacked by rioters and there have been repeated break-ins and looting of high-end stores in Chicago’s downtown to the point where many Chicagoans and those who live in the metropolitan area are wary of coming downtown at all.

In the Washington Post Micheline Maynard presents her ideas on getting the “luster” back to the Magnificent Mile:

The biggest magnet in the late 20th century was Water Tower Place, which glistened on the stretch of North Michigan Avenue known as the Magnificent Mile. Boasting a collection of condos and a Ritz-Carlton hotel, this was Chicago’s first skyscraper mall, anchored on one end by a Lord & Taylor and by Chicago’s own Marshall Field’s (later supplanted by Macy’s).

But on a swing down Michigan during Easter Week, I observed a much less magnificent sight than in decades past. “For Lease” signs screamed from empty stores on nearly every block. The Water Tower corner that had previously housed Macy’s stood ominously vacant, eight stories of disused space.

This is a retail abandonment pattern that’s echoed in downtowns across North America: In Detroit, such retailing pioneers as designer John Varvatos, Under Armour and Madewell, who set up shop there after the city’s bankruptcy, have all vanished, while in Toronto, a branch of the Hudson’s Bay department store is closing.

The pandemic, which sent many downtown office workers home, is partly to blame. After declining from a previous mark set in 2021, Chicago office vacancies jumped again at the end of March to a record of 21.2 percent, as more businesses decide not to renew their leases.

And when no one is there, the shops are bare. Tourists alone can’t make up for the locals who pop in on their lunch hours or after work. It’s not that Chicago lacks for pedestrian traffic. Plenty of casually dressed people in sneakers and athleisurewear were out on the sunny spring afternoon of my visit. Many appeared more interested in physical exercise than in exercising their credit cards, however. Instead of venturing inside Water Tower Place, they walked right past to paths along Lake Michigan, which appeared as crowded as the sidewalks.

It takes her several more paragraphs to mention the critical point:

Even before covid-19, online shopping was stealing business from these storefronts. Meanwhile, Chicago continues to wrestle with random crime that appears to have hit everywhere, including carjackings and attacks on public transit despite multiple efforts to halt them.

Visitors must feel safe. The way to ensure that is to remember that we have a law enforcement system. It’s not just the police. It does no good for police officers to arrest people only to have their cases rejected by the Cook County States Attorney or dismissed by judges. It’s not a problem of resources. The Cook County States Attorney’s office employs 1,100 people, 700 of whom are lawyers. The problem is productivity and, frankly, a disinclination under Kim Foxx to prosecute. Right now we don’t have a system. We have a bunch of people at cross-purposes pointing fingers at each other.

I strongly recommend that you read Daniel L. Davis’s assessment at 1945 of the risks in the Western strategy for the Russia-Ukraine War. Here’s a snippet:

There will be the temptation to treat this like a fire brigade: if the house is on fire, you marshal everything you can, throw it all at the fire as it becomes available, and hope you can extinguish the blaze. Many will want to rush every tank, artillery tube, rocket launcher, or anti-air missile to the front as soon as it’s available, to bolster the fighting capacity of the troops right now. While that will be an understandable temptation, such a course would have little chance of success.

War simply doesn’t work that way. It’s not merely about having a number of tanks or rocket launchers, but about having trained, disciplined troops that know what they’re doing, working as a team of teams, in various combat units working towards a single goal. It’s not unlike a sports team. It is possible to assemble a group of bone fide all-star athletes on a team, but if they don’t train together so that each works together as a team, even all-stars can get thrashed by an opponent that has less talent but works better together.

The challenges include not just having enough weapons but having weapons that you know or to use or being able to train your army while committing your entire army to fighting a war. I suspect there will be strong temptations to have NATO forces train the Ukrainian military. That will present risks all its own.

Here’s George Friedman’s observation about recent events in Ukraine:

The visit by two senior cabinet officials, and the very open listing of at least part of the arms shipments, is clearly intended to signal to Moscow that not only will it not defeat the Ukrainians but Ukraine might force Russia from the battlefield altogether. Obviously, a Russian preemptive attack is now a possibility, but an obvious strategy for Ukraine is to hold, retreat and rearm. Perhaps the Americans are also hoping that this will force the Russians to the negotiating table. That would be the lesser risk. Certainly, the Russians, whose intelligence likely knew this was coming, will have to recalibrate a war that was never really calibrated.

which I find interesting but not completely convincing. For one thing it assumes a degree of calculation on our part which I doubt is actually the case.

It’s not the only possible interpretation. For example, the war in Ukraine may be unfolding much as the Russians planned except that it’s taking longer and costing more both in “blood and treasure” as John Adams put it than they had anticipated.