Obama's Nobel Prize

Obviously, this was the item of the day and we'll probably still be talking about it a week from now. It's going to spawn a debate about Obama's international stance versus Bush's, and its going to get partisan and very, very ugly. The Democrats have already said something insane in response to a cookie-cutter Republican statement, so before it gets any worse (hard to imagine already), just a couple of quick thoughts.

Obama's international stance, diplomacy-wise, is obviously very different from Bush's, and its easy to take the Nobel award as a European referendum on Bush's way of doing things. It's interesting to note here that its unlikely that just any Democrat taking office would have gotten the award. Hillary Clinton has, as Secretary of State and even in her campaign, been more hawkish than Obama and to an extent, more of a unilateralist. Certainly McCain was as well. So Obama's foreign tone is different in important ways from what is normal, even among Democrats.

That said, the Nobel committee made no pretense of saying that Obama had received the award because of concrete things that he managed to do - things that the American Left is angry at him for not doing when he said he would. His tone hasn't gotten Europe significantly more on board with Iraq or Afghanistan, nor has he gotten the US out of either. Then there's Guantanamo, and the rest of the SNL skit.

There's some speculation as to whether his reception of the Nobel will - or is supposed to - influence his decision on Afghanistan. I think there's some slight risk, but the more important factor in that decision is Obama's information bias; on issues that he is less knowledgeable about, he hasn't done much because he favors more information all the time, even when the information he has is sufficient but not perfect. He used to be a law professor, its fair to say he's got a case of this. It's going to be all about content, no matter what decision he makes.

The Nobel is a very public award, and the committee knows it. To a very significant extent, this is directed at the American Public more than it is directed at anyone else. Its a chance for Europe to basically say "more like this" to the American public, with decent odds of being heard very clearly. I don't think there's much question as to why.

Bailout Afterthoughts

So we bailed out GM, and now we're doing it again. This time I guess we've added a jazz beat or something. I didn't have much opinion on the car companies being bailed out before, and only a slight one on the banks, but looking back, I think I have my position: we should have let them burn.

It's ok, I know you're thinking it. "What about the thousands upon thousands of employees that would be out of work you capitalist fatcat?" Well, think about this for a minute.

If a company is so immensely big that our government - that is supposed to be a sovereign entity - has to step in and save them repeatedly, that firm is too big to be safe for us. Its so big that we have no choice but to save it, or so the idea goes. Too big to fail and all that. If it's too big to fail, it's too big.

Having a monoculture of anything, whether its exports or imports or Thai ladyboys - or firms that provide employment and revenue - is very hazardous. Ask any third world country that has one big primary export to sustain itself, and nothing else. You're much more vulnerable to market fluctuations, crashes, and just plain old rule-making. It can wreak havoc on your economy when something falls through, as was illustrated at precisely this time last year.

First Audio Post!

This is my first recording of anything ever, so hopefully it works! It's a brief, basic overview of a deeply boring economic policy called Import Substitution Industrialization. Quick, dirty, and hopefully coherent but I make no guarantees. It might need context, which it lacks pretty severely.

Here's the raw link if you'd rather listen that way.