Performed Intelligence

Originally Posted by graz

Your ears seem overly sensitive if you did not hear inklings, directives and considered approaches to the tenor and goals of an Obama foreign policy.
The general framework was stated in numerous debates and stump speeches.
Perhaps, like Glenn you are expecting a thesis where an outline is required for political purposes. The outstanding points I heard were: sovereignty and accountability for Iraq; diplomacy and partnership abroad: economic stimulus or investment over sanctions (where applicable).
A framework of sorts, an approach in contrast to the neo-con model which McCain seems all too willing to press further.

You're right. Living outside the country my ears may not be attuned to Obama's nuances. I am inclined to believe that much of what he says is for purely domestic consumption and will be discarded once he is elected.

[nikkibong]

i hope glenn loury doesn't judge his students this harshly!

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/150...4:56&out=25:07

[nikkibong]

Why does Glenn, an alleged Obama supporter, continually preface remarks about McCain's disadvantages in the election with "Unfortunately . . .?"

PUMA alert?

[ledocs]

I am on McWhorter's side here, and I think the thought-experiment about whether Loury would be as critical of Hillary Clinton as he is of Obama is a good one. In the debates, McCain has over and over again asserted that he is the more experienced candidate, but he has never provided this partisan observer with much evidence that the vaunted experience has taught him much. His constant harping on "no negotiations with X without preconditions," for example. Hasn't Obama won that "debate" simply by pointing out that almost everyone with any real experience in foreign policy negotiations agrees with him, Obama, and that the Bush policy has gone off the rails with North Korea and Iran when it took the opposite approach? Time and again, Loury seems overly impressed by "experience," but he is right to warn us about Obama's relative lack of experience. In conclusion, I think Loury is right to think that Obama might not be such a great president, and that part of the reason for this might be inadequate preparation. On the other hand, to think that either McCain or Hillary would have been better because they have more seasoning, that I think is a much more difficult case to make, and I don't think Loury has ever come close to making it in either case. I think it is clear that McCain is not as smart as Obama, not now, not in his youth. I don't think this is an advantage for McCain. At best, it is not a crippling disadvantage. Is McCain really more prudent about anything than Obama? What's the evidence for this? He chose Palin, Obama chose Biden.

So, basically, Loury is wise to remind us that Obama is probably not the next coming, but so what? McWhorter has been on the right side of this ongoing discussion from day one. Nor do I think that Loury's point about deregulation and demagoguery was particularly telling. He simply rehearsed points made by Jonah Goldberg in his recent diavlog with Beinart. As a substantive matter, one has to know what part of the aggregate problem that is now the financial criss was played by badly underwritten loans made by Fannie and Freddie in a misguided effort to extend home ownership to the poor but unqualified. I don't get the impression that this is even close to being a major factor in the crisis, but maybe I'm wrong on that point. Didn't we have to have a massive failure in valuing the poorly underwritten Fannie/Freddie loans by private and unregulated or underregulated economic actors in order to get even the Fannie/Freddie part of the crisis?

[grits-n-gravy]

Originally Posted by DoctorMoney

Glenn, for all his self-professed even handedness, really came off badly this time around because he tried to paint John as some kind of angry partisan when John was only saying the obvious.

I disagree. I saw Glenn pushing back against John's misplaced air of intellectual superiority. John likes to attribute it to the sound of his voice but I think it's more than that. And quite frankly, I hope Glenn pushes back much harder the next time John pontificates about the IQ of this or that person or engages in armchair psycho-analysis of this or that person.

[nyc123]

Glenn is right on with this one. His thoughtful refutation of the anti-market demagoguery was something that, if said by McCain, could have swayed much favor towards McCain during the debate - and it would have been the right thing to say.

This would have been a lousy diavlog if two huge Obama fans had talked about how the debate was a "slam-dunk".

John's statements remind me how the only things that we have to judge Obama on are his words in a few speeches (as pointed out by HRC) and I hope (because he will, as of now, most likely be president) that he will not turn out to let absolute power (an Executive with a friendly Congress) destroy the good parts of deregulation in an effort to make sure that people who are entrusted to run the financial sector act wisely.

I also hope that Obama's reactions to world events will not squander the good will that people have towards him as the "anti-Bush". In other words, that they will still like him in Europe as he bombs Pakistan. If all we have to go on are his words...We can hope for the best.

[tarajane]

Again it's a pleasure to listen to these two. As ever, Glenn expresses thoughts and feelings I share -- more eloquently than I could.

[harkin]

Originally Posted by DoctorMoney

Glenn, for all his self-professed even handedness, really came off badly this time around because he tried to paint John as some kind of angry partisan when John was only saying the obvious.

Feel free to critique this past week's collective msm blitz being pushed on the American people that everyone supporting McCain is a mean, hateful racist. Anyone criticizing the Obama record, the Obama plan, the Obama mistake for what they are is deemed 'hateful' and dismissed. When the hate was downright dishonest and venomnous towards Palin? That's when it was 'stating the obvious'.

The saddest thing about the market meltdown isn't that it's happening but that we probably won't learn anything from it. We will be handing the checkbook and the ledger over to the fools who did the most to create it.

And the funniest thing lately are all the 'is capitalism dead?' and 'the free-market needs a re-think' columns flooding the news services. No one (except maybe Glenn and some conservatives) seems to be saying that it was socialism 101 practiced as the CRA and sub-prime loans that started this gigantic ponzi that the latecomers (usually referred to as 'suckers' in a pyramid scheme) are now asking the ponzi rulemakers to bail them out of. The rulemakers smile benvolently, give them a quota of voter registrations to reach, and pat their heads.

[lowellfield]

I thought Glenn's characterization of John's critique of McCain as ad hominem was bizarre. He was saying that McCain wasn't making very convincing arguments! Is that below the belt now, or inextricable from accusations of senility?

[grits-n-gravy]

Originally Posted by lowellfield

I thought Glenn's characterization of John's critique of McCain as ad hominem was bizarre. He was saying that McCain wasn't making very convincing arguments! Is that below the belt now, or inextricable from accusations of senility?

No, John wasn't simply saying that. He was strongly intimating that McCain was incapable of making convincing arguments. Big difference.

What I find bizarre or peculiar is John's penchant for making these kinds of statements.

[DoctorMoney]

Originally Posted by harkin

Feel free to critique this past week's collective msm blitz being pushed on the American people that everyone supporting McCain is a mean, hateful racist. Anyone criticizing the Obama record, the Obama plan, the Obama mistake for what they are is deemed 'hateful' and dismissed. When the hate was downright dishonest and venomnous towards Palin? That's when it was 'stating the obvious'.

The saddest thing about the market meltdown isn't that it's happening but that we probably won't learn anything from it. We will be handing the checkbook and the ledger over to the fools who did the most to create it.

And the funniest thing lately are all the 'is capitalism dead?' and 'the free-market needs a re-think' columns flooding the news services. No one (except maybe Glenn and some conservatives) seems to be saying that it was socialism 101 practiced as the CRA and sub-prime loans that started this gigantic ponzi that the latecomers (usually referred to as 'suckers' in a pyramid scheme) are now asking the ponzi rulemakers to bail them out of. The rulemakers smile benvolently, give them a quota of voter registrations to reach, and pat their heads.

Did you really mean to reply to my post? I don't see anything that refutes or supports anything I wrote -- just a bunch of unrelated complaints about the MSM.

[Dee Sharp]

We are about to hand the presidency, along with a strong congressional majority, to a guy who sounds intelligent without saying smart things. Glenn, and others, understand that there is risk involved. The majority is not worried. Anyone know of a hedge strategy for this situation?

[Wonderment]

Anyone know of a hedge strategy for this situation?

Yes, keep at least 5% of the Senate Republican and 7% of the House. Make sure President Obama only names 7 new justices to the Supreme Court. Encourage start-up parties like the Green Party and the Libertarians. Take a 2% stake in each.

Increase overall portfolio strength by closing down losing business overseas. We have military bases in 100 countries that need to be deleveraged and merged into multinationals.

[grits-n-gravy]

Originally Posted by Dee Sharp

Glenn, and others, understand that there is risk involved. The majority is not worried.

I'm not sure Glenn, or you for that matter, appreciate there is a higher risk involved with sending an erratic 72 year old man with a history of health problems to the White House.

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by AemJeff

This is just the language version of "arugula."

Excellent point. The sad/funny part is how many people like Tara seem to be genuinely pissed off by how Obama pronounces the word.

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by DoctorMoney

Last I checked, there is no standardized pronunciation of the English language.

You're right. I once read a detailed article on the Merriam-Webster web site about this, but after a couple minutes looking for it just now, I can't find it. But the jist is exactly as you said: There is no "right" way to pronounce words. At least assuming you can trust the people who wrote the dictionary.

LOL: I once had a debate with a libertarian, and he was repeatedly misusing the word "altruistic." When I pointed out his error, we looked it up in the dictionary. The dictionary backed me up, and the libertarian explained that the authors of the dictionary have a liberal bias.

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by DoctorMoney

Last I checked, there is no standardized pronunciation of the English language.

You're right.

Originally Posted by Merriam-Webster

Variant Pronunciations
Readers often turn to the dictionary wanting to learn the exact pronunciation of a word, only to discover that the word may have several pronunciations, as is the case for deity, economic, envelope, and greasy, among many others. The inclusion of variant pronunciations disappoints those who want their dictionary to list one "correct" pronunciation. In truth, though, there can be no objective standard for correct pronunciation other than the usage of thoughtful and, in particular, educated speakers of English. Among such speakers one hears much variation in pronunciation.

Somewhere, Webster has a much more detailed article devoted to this topic, but the bottom line is that pronunciation is something which varies significantly over time, between regions and between individuals.

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by Wonderment

Yes, keep at least 5% of the Senate Republican and 7% of the House. Make sure President Obama only names 7 new justices to the Supreme Court. Encourage start-up parties like the Green Party and the Libertarians. Take a 2% stake in each.

ROFL. I fully endorse this plan!

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by TwinSwords

You're right.

Somewhere, Webster has a much more detailed article devoted to this topic, but the bottom line is that pronunciation is something which varies significantly over time, between regions and between individuals.

Does this officially make my interesting accent legitimate?

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by Ocean

Does this officially make my interesting accent legitimate?

Yes!

What kind of accent do you have?

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by TwinSwords

Yes!

What kind of accent do you have?

An interesting one...

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by Ocean

An interesting one...

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by TwinSwords

When people have tried to guess my accent they have come up with a wide variety of possible origins. I've been told my accent sounds Italian, Albanian, Romanian, French (?), Norwegian, and many more. A couple of times people accurately identified my accent as South American. Unfortunately they have mistaken it for Argentinian, when in fact I'm Uruguayan.

Satisfied your curiosity?

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by Ocean

When people have tried to guess my accent they have come up with a wide variety of possible origins. I've been told my accent sounds Italian, Albanian, Romanian, French (?), Norwegian, and many more. A couple of times people accurately identified my accent as South American. Unfortunately they have mistaken it for Argentinian, when in fact I'm Uruguayan.

Satisfied your curiosity?

Yes, thank you for sharing. Hope I didn't sound like I was prying. I saw in the Science Saturday thread that you once lived under a dictatorship, and I was wondering what country -- so I guess you've answered both questions! I have a number of colleagues in Brazil, actually. But none that I'm aware of in Uruguay.

[wovenstrap]

I'm rather curious about Glenn's demand that every contender for the presidency have a "Doctrine" commensurate with the sorts of speeches Washington and Lincoln gave after they had served in office for a while. Is Glenn prepared to explain what Gore or Bush's "Doctrine" was during the campaign of 2000, and if not, how can he explain having cast a vote for either of those two fine (but, alas, Doctrine-less) candidates?

[travis68]

Glenn is wrong about one thing. Although the Fannie and Freddie debacle as it relates to those two firms alone can be fully blamed on their strange gov't-private nature, the current financial crisis that we have can't really be blamed on them.

All of those complex financial securities that Glenn mentioned are securities that are based on subprime mortgages that *were not* securitized nor guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie. They were securitized by the private market through institutions such as Nationwide and Bear Stearns, among many, many others. Fannie and Feddie did guarantee *some* subprime securities, but those securities now have the full backing of the US gov't. It is the securities that *don't* have the full backing of the US gov't that are falling in value and blowing holes through the balance sheets of banks, insurance companies and other financial companies.

Now, this is not to say that it would be better for the US gov't to guarantee all the subprime securities that were created. The US taxpayer is already on the hook for billions of worthless securities that we will be paying for years and years in the future. It is far better in my mind that private capital in the form of stock and bond holders suffer the losses rather than US taxpayers. We already have far too much socialization of loss and privatization of profit. There is no need for more.

[HarryLime]

Regarding the correct pronounciation of Pakistan, I don't think there is one. According to Wikipedia, the name was invented by a Muslim nationalist student at Cambridge in the 1930s as an acronym of "P=Punjab, A=Afghania [i.e. Northwest frontier], K=Kashmir, I=Iran, S=Sindh, T=Turkharistan (roughly the modern central-Asian states), A=Afghanistan and N=BalochistaN. The Persian word pak, which means "pure", adds another shade of meaning, with the full name thus meaning "land of the pure". " Is there really a right or wrong way to pronounce an acronym? Personally, I doubt it. Interestingly, the country's name suggests that Pakistan is inherently expansionist and fundamentalist, at least if you believe Wikipedia. Anyway, here's a link to the country names etymology page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...me_etymologies

[graz]

John wasn't wearing his linguist hat when he mocked his own pronunciation of Pock ee stun. He has well documented the process of adaptive enunciation in living languages. I think he was simply posing against putting on airs (not to be confused with Ayers, William).
As a very judgmental being, I can remember thinking less of people who would otherwise speak in flat midwestern dialect, except when pronouncing as example: Nicaragua as Nick a rah waa. What's up with that?

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by graz

: Nicaragua as Nick a rah waa.

Nick ah rah gwaa, more or less.

[graz]

From your lips... mellifluous. Yes?

From Sarah Palin's... pretentious. Maybe?

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by graz

From your lips... mellifluous. Yes?

Thanks...

From Sarah Palin's... pretentious. Maybe?

Tysonesque?

[thouartgob]

Originally Posted by uncle ebeneezer

Well said Graz. It's getting downright painful to watch Glenn bend over backwards to defend McCain and concurrently to criticize Obama. In an alternate universe, i would love to see whether Glenn would be so finely focused on criticizing the Dem candidate if her name was Hillary. I'm still waiting for him to say anything substantive about the policies of John McCain. He has said some things about the race that McCain has run, but he has yet to take McCain to task for any of the number of policies that McCain holds that don't exactly jive with the progressive/liberal outlook.

I wonder if Glenn believes that "That One" ( or That Thing ) wrote his own books or if Ayers helped him write it:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...DFjMDE4YzRjMjg

Is Glenn going to be walking back from his assaults on Justice Thomas or some other conservatives ??

I think Glenn has to let go of the primary ( Geez he lost EastWest for Gob's sake ) . If HRC were debating we would be seeing a much more combative Glenn. What is Hillary's overarching world view ( as opposed to Bill's ); threatening Iran with nuclear annihilation for pure politcal theater. Was her speech to AIPAC vastly different from Obama ?? What do you think McCain would do about the demographics of the prison population ( Clap I would think ) Would John be more kinder to McCain given the deft "Devil's Advocate" positions they play. I do believe Glenn will pull the lever for Obama but man I can't tell who seems to like "That Thing" less, Glenn or McCain. I can't wait for the RNC to start using Glenn's talking points in their ads :-):

"Who is barack HUSSEIN obama, even this black guy/leftie college professor doesn't know"

What is Glenn's opinion of Palin again ?? Is she an effective spokesperson for all that is good and wise in the market.

[conncarroll]

Glenn is right, and Travis is dead wrong. Travis writes:

All of those complex financial securities that Glenn mentioned are securities that are based on subprime mortgages that *were not* securitized nor guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie. They were securitized by the private market through institutions such as Nationwide and Bear Stearns, among many, many others. Fannie and Feddie did guarantee *some* subprime securities, but those securities now have the full backing of the US gov't. It is the securities that *don't* have the full backing of the US gov't that are falling in value and blowing holes through the balance sheets of banks, insurance companies and other financial companies.

Problem is, Fannie and Freddie were the biggest purchasers of subprime securities made by Nationwide. At the height of the boom they bought 44% of this entire private label subprime security market. Fannie was Countrywide's biggest customer. Every penny that Fannie and Freddie gave to Countrywide et al for their subprime securities is another penny they could write in shitty mortgages.

[Andrew Garland]

Financial Crisis: By Government and For Government

The current housing and financial crisis was produced by the Government, by Rep. Barney Frank (D, MA, Chairman of the Financial Affairs Committee) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D. CT, Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee), and supported by most of Congress.

The Government removed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from market discipline by guaranteeing it implicitly as its own creation, then told it what to do through legislation, pressure, and its own special regulator OFHEO. Fan and Fred were staffed with government elite.

How could two companies ruin the US and the worlds financial markets? With the power and credit to buy up 90% of all prime mortgages and 20% of all subprime. Fannie and Freddie together guaranteed $5.4 trillion of housing debt (that is $5,400 billion, or $5,400 thousand million). Compare that to the previous $5.5 trillion budget debt of the US.

The market value of subprime loans fell in half when Fannie and Freddie collapsed and could not support that market with its increasing borrowing and purchases. That caused massive losses for institutions worldwide holding the other 80% of subprime mortgage bonds.

Congress ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the ground, plucking presents along the way. Congress set up Fannie and Freddie, took full responsibility by effectively (but unofficially) guaranteeing repayment of its debts, removed it from private market discipline, funded it through massive private borrowing outside of Government budget accounts, commanded it to do risky business below usual standards, restricted its regulation to a special office set up by Congress (OFHEO), and then ignored that regulator.

Any opposition came from some Republicans and the Bush administration, who were ineffective.

Blaming Bush is misguided; blaming the free market blames something that was not allowed to operate. Blame the corruption of Congress, mostly the Democrats. They assumed oversight of a huge off-budget operation to grant risky loans, and ignored all corruption and warnings.

This is a failure of IN PLACE regulation, actively suppressed by congressional committees who looked the other way, because it was in their political interest for Fannie and Freddie to do just what they were doing. Their motto was "So far, so good".

See also We Guarantee It

[harkin]

Did you really mean to reply to my post? I don't see anything that refutes or supports anything I wrote -- just a bunch of unrelated complaints about the MSM.

You stated that Glenn, "for all his self-professed even handedness, really came off badly this time around because he tried to paint John as some kind of angry partisan when John was only saying the obvious."

If you can't compare this statement with this weeks publicity blitz characterizing McCain supporters (who are only 'saying the obvious') as angry partisans, then please ignore.

Originally Posted by conncarroll

Problem is, Fannie and Freddie were the biggest purchasers of subprime securities made by Nationwide. At the height of the boom they bought 44% of this entire private label subprime security market. Fannie was Countrywide's biggest customer. Every penny that Fannie and Freddie gave to Countrywide et al for their subprime securities is another penny they could write in shitty mortgages.

I don't think anyone's listening Conn. Travis' disingenuousness is just part of the cw here. Think about this incredibly naive comment said earlier:

Originally Posted by Eastwest

Add in the just plain dumb advocacy of unbridled deregulation when a failure to exert even the most minimal sort of regulation on greed gone wild has ruined not only our own economy, but also the economy of the world, and then going farther yet, even to the point of blaming the dishonesty in home loan apps on populist political-economic policy -- that's just a lie and it's a just plain nutty analysis.

Got that? The proof (as you yourself posted) is conclusive that relaxed (to the point of nonexistance) lending standards is what got us what we are. But no, the socialists name some sort of missing 'regulation on greed' that has no basis in reality. No specifics are cited, just an announcement that they are resigning their membership in the Glenn Loury Fan Club for having the guts to tell the truth.

[graz]

Originally Posted by Ocean

Tysonesque?

Howz about Hitchenesque?:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.co...-endorses.html

[bjkeefe]

Originally Posted by uncle ebeneezer

As far as regulation goes, I also think Glenn is missing a crucial part of the dynamic. McCain (and the GOP) routinely make statements that ALL problems in the economy are the result of the government. Their contentions are usually sweeping. All regulation is bad. McCain has made this one of his biggest selling points. Not "I'm against needless regulations", but "There should be NO regulation."

Indeed. Until he found it expedient to completely change his tune.