Who thinks we'll be out of Iraq in 18 months?

No we won't be (0.00 / 0)

Obama stated in Perry that he would take combat troops out of Iraq.  But he would leave residual troops in Iraq.  The Pentagon will just change the name of the 393rd combat battalion to the 393 armored kitchen.

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by: keith nichols @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 18:52:30 PM CST

uniparty (0.00 / 0)

Here's an interesting piece.

would brag about his Washington connections

I thought he was a posting drunk, more or less. Truth be told, the seriously plugged-in are not hanging out on blogs.

you would be screwed to the wall

Ho-hum. I'm not going to pretend to have a long list of insiders at my beck and call, but I do know a few things. I am aware of a prominent name that was on board w/ Clinton from jump but loathe to formally endorse, even early on, due to some pressure of consequences should she not prevail. In short, it was a two-way street. Recall that Obama's poll numbers surged very early on (March-April '07, IIRC) before the summer doldrums -- enough for many to hedge their bets.

Obama owes something to the people who were there for him early on because (they thought) he was a strong opponent of the Iraq War.

Well, there's always the possibility that they got played like fiddles or that people were not listening carefully, or that they were helping in manufacturing a "choice" for the voters. Let there be no confusion, I don't feel that Obama, specifically, is the issue, see below.

voted for Obama so that he could serve out Poppy Bush's second term

or Reagan's first. Let's get elected w/ union help and then show the 'tough love' hand.

I watched some footage of citizens hurling eggs and toilet paper at government edifices in Reykjavik. In the background, some joking from the BBC: What's the capital of Iceland? Oh, about three pound, fifty. I wondered why we aren't angrier. I came to the following conclusion.

Citizens are not empowered to make rational decisions (and thus pressure their govt) in the absence of the tools and information needed for decision-making. We have no basis for authorizing Bailout #1 or for comparative judgment on Bailouts #2, #3, ... Iraq, whatever.

We are probably in some sort of vague agreement on the need for 'retooling' in the automotive sector, and that's about the only certitude. On 'retooling' in the financial sector, we are even more in the dark. All we hear is some mumbling about exotic, complicated instruments, and how those involved are not sure of the extent of the ponzi scheme. We are more or less bearing witness to medieval solutions by bloodletting: out with the bad; in with the good, the cash, and we are the leeches, the owners of 'toxic waste.'

Not to worry, say the 'experts,' the technocrats are here to save the day. Don't worry about the fact that they were around to create the mess, they're reformed, and more importantly, they know where to put the pins! They possess Ginourmous Powerz, the purview of the 'quants:'

The quantitative models typically have their origins in academia and often the physical sciences. In academia, the focus is on problems that can be solved, proved and published - not messy, intractable challenges. In science, the models derive from particle flows in a liquid or a gas, which conform to the neat, crisp laws of physics.

Particle flows? What the ... Jim Leach sez:

"You've got an area of judgment in which members of Congress have nonexistent expertise."

Pfft. Was anyone ringing a bell?

Ms. Born's views incited fierce opposition from Mr. Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market.

Mr. Rubin, now a senior executive at the banking giant Citigroup, says that he favored regulating derivatives - particularly increasing potential loss reserves - but that he saw no way of doing so while he was running the Treasury.

"All of the forces in the system were arrayed against it," he said. "The industry certainly didn't want any increase in these requirements. There was no potential for mobilizing public opinion.

In early 1998, Mr. Rubin's deputy, Lawrence H. Summers, called Ms. Born and chastised her for taking steps he said would lead to a financial crisis, according to Mr. Greenberger.

Greenspan told Brooksley that she essentially didn't know what she was doing and she'd cause a financial crisis," said Michael Greenberger, who was a senior director at the commission. "Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys.

Oh, OK. She didn't 'fit the mold,' as Rev Wright would say. We can leave her out. And with no potential for 'mobilizing public opinion,' certainly these folks should be held harmless. After all, a fiduciary duty to inform the Congress and educate the populace is not part of the job description.

Ten years later, there still is no mandate for educating and informing. We're reduced to mush, quoting the 'experts' on Geithner's prescience as an advocate for stress-testing, long after the barn door was left open. Looks to me as like he was a leader in feel-good patty-cake exercises amongst friends.

One thing you learn as a 'quant' is that what separates the winners from the losers, beyond raw talent, is the ability to paint the big picture in a manner understandable to other researchers, business clients, students, even fifth graders. It is fundamental.

I might not know what a CDO tranche is (yet), but I do know particle flows, stochastic processes, Markov chains ... Since nobody out there is inclined to provide the information so that I, citizen ragbrai08, can make an informed decision, I guess I'm going to have to buy Schonbucher's book to pick up the lingo and take it from there. I suspect the end result is that I'm going to be mad and stocking up on TP and eggs. Mad, because I already have a hunch about model limitations and associated unpredictable behaviors, particularly in an environment with no transparency. These people, in the absence of mobilizing public opinion, had only one other duty as risk managers -- mediating between fear and greed, and I believe they failed spectacularly and only need to prove it to myself instead of swimming along in a sea of buzz adjectives like 'exotic' touted by the 'experts.'

On many issues of the day, we have little or no information, and for the few scraps we get there is a loss of certainty due to prior transgressions. The Fourth Estate is merely an extension of defense/finance/multinational interests that long ago usurped our power to be part of the processes and discussions that shape our lives. At one time, the idea was that the blogosphere would fill in a lot of the blanks as each of us has talents, expertise and perspective to bring to the enterprise.

The problem is not Barack Obama and his choices -- in some sense, he is almost as limited as we are, yet, clearly the 'better' manager of the uniparty. We have two teams, A&B, where A was more or less sent to the showers, IMO, due to Katrina. Katrina exposed too much and led to a lack of certainty in government response, infrastructure durability,  socioeconomic justice, all conspiring to undermine our notions of exceptionalism. The danger is unrest, disruption, perhaps change that's not easily controllable. An 8 yr old in Waukee stepping up to the plate is a clear indication that people are at least thinking. The financial crisis closed the door on Team A -- too much exposure.

This summer, the New Yorker cover w/ symbolism of black nationalism and mooo-slims was deemed threatening to Obama's prospects. Now that he is elected, I will suggest that the response was as intended. For progressive-liberals, the few successes we cite were grounded in the fear of social or economic disruption, whether union strikes, the bus strike in Montgomery, or even the riots. All of these things played a part in prodding for change. OK, a rifle and a 'fro have a bit of an edge in cultural terms, but that's the point. We should consider that perhaps endlessly sending in our extra doubloons may not be enough in pursuing the change we seek -- which may or may not be the same as the change marketed to us.

At the end of the day, we need to decide on what grounds agitation is required and not take instruction from those who continue to present extremely opaque circumstances for our "review" (hah) and deliberation. No, I'm not Spartacus, but definitely am ready to move beyond the permitted level of involvement to something a little more self-empowering, like getting at the root of some of these issues and keeping the TP and eggs on standby.

Crap, did it again -- a rant with enough material for not just one, but perhaps two diaries.

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by: ragbrai08 @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 21:41:02 PM CST

post this as a diary! (0.00 / 0)

Seriously, I would like to get a conversation going on this post.

Invite other Iowa political junkies to join us at Bleeding Heartland.

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by: desmoinesdem @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 07:35:20 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Will do (0.00 / 0)

around Sun-Mon, after the holidays.

Question: is it possible to embed a youtube here?

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by: ragbrai08 @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 15:23:44 PM CST

[ Parent ]