The Daily Parker

'Nuff said:

Also, as Sullivan pointed out: "All I know at this point is: seven years of torturing = no Osama. Two years without torture = Osama."

I don't know what to say, so I'll let CNN, the AP, the Trib, the Economist, and the Times say it:

• Osama bin Laden, the face of terror, killed in Pakistan
• Obama: Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead
• Obama announces Osama bin Laden killed by U.S.
• Editor's update: President Barack Obama has announced that Osama bin Laden has been killed in an American operation in Pakistan.[1]
• Obama Announces Killing of Osama bin Laden

[1] Look, you know, it's 5 am in London. I suspect they'll have more to say after they've had their morning cuppa.

Gulliver this afternoon examines whether we might want to examine them:

A new academic paper [PDF] from John Mueller (of The Ohio State University) and Mark Stewart (of the University of Newcastle in Australia) attempts to determine whether the return on investment justified those huge expenditures. ... [T]he findings in this paper are truly remarkable. By 2008, according to the authors, America's spending on counterterrorism outpaced all anti-crime spending by some $15 billion. Messrs Mueller and Stewart do not even include things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which they call "certainly terrorism-determined") in their trillion-plus tally.

"[A] most common misjudgment has been to embrace extreme events as harbingers presaging a dire departure from historical patterns. In the months and then years after 9/11, as noted at the outset, it was almost universally assumed that the terrorist event was a harbinger rather than an aberration. There were similar reactions to Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 truck bomb attack in Oklahoma City as concerns about a repetition soared. And in 1996, shortly after the terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo set off deadly gas in a Tokyo subway station, one of terrorism studies' top gurus, Walter Laqueur, assured the world that some terrorist groups 'almost certainly' will use weapons of mass destruction 'in the foreseeable future.' Presumably any future foreseeable in 1996 is now history, and Laqueur’s near 'certainty' has yet to occur."

The paper also found that anti-terror spending has outpaced anti-crime spending by some $15 bn, despite crime costing society significantly more. The paper doesn't go into the politics of why this might be so, but I'll hazard a guess that cutting crime benefits more people a little while spending on anti-terror measures benefits a few people quite a bit. Lowering the likelihood that my car will suffer $300 in damage from a break-in has less immediacy than a $30m contract for a new security gadget would were I in that line of business.

In the mythical Land of Uk this morning, millions fled drunken mobs surrounding the palace as an evil magic spell cast by the House of Saxe-Coburg melted brains across the Uk Empire's former colonies.

Moving on. As much as I like the United Kingdom, and might even live there given the chance, I am a committed, small-r republican, who thinks any monarchy more ostentatious than, say, The Netherlands', seems like an inappropriate use of public funds. Sure, separate the ceremonial functions from the political by having a head of state apart from a head of government, but upwards of £40 million per year plus another £60 million for the wedding (not counting lost productivity from the public holiday) seems like a steep price tag.

Speaking of costs, The New Republic makes the case this morning that Donald Trump's ridiculous candidacy reveals the worst of our traits in a way the Republican Party really ought to condemn:

What Trump actually stands for is an exaggerated sense of victimhood. This is the theme that unites his personal style with the political views he has thus far expressed. Are you tired of being pushed around? Are you tired of our country being pushed around? Trump’s political acuity lies in his ability to take these grievances and turn them into politics. His foreign policy views in essence consist of a pledge to bully other nations.

America is currently engaged in three wars. The country faces major economic challenges. Global warming is continuing apace. There is no chance any of these issues can be solved by yelling at foreign countries, or stirring up anger at Iraqis or Libyans or minority applicants to elite colleges. Donald Trump has appointed himself spokesman for some of the nastiest impulses in American politics, and he seems to have a following. The sooner the Republican mainstream rejects him, the better.

This dovetails with an article in this month's Mother Jones about the psychology of belief and denial:

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

... Sure enough, a large number of psychological studies have shown that people respond to scientific or technical evidence in ways that justify their preexisting beliefs. In a classic 1979 experiment (PDF), pro- and anti-death penalty advocates were exposed to descriptions of two fake scientific studies: one supporting and one undermining the notion that capital punishment deters violent crime and, in particular, murder. They were also shown detailed methodological critiques of the fake studies—and in a scientific sense, neither study was stronger than the other. Yet in each case, advocates more heavily criticized the study whose conclusions disagreed with their own, while describing the study that was more ideologically congenial as more "convincing."

Add to that the profitability of telling people what they want to hear (I'm looking at you, Murdoch) and we are going to Hell in a handbasket. Then again, every generation has thought that, and we haven't seen the handbasket yet. So maybe wishing their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge well is worth a having a party for.

Via Fallows, the President today took a few minutes to remind the press that we have serious issues to look at:

Fallows is pessimistic this will change anything: "if 'actual knowledge' mattered, the number of people who thought Obama was foreign-born would approach zero by next week -- with exceptions for illiterates, the mentally disabled, paranoid schizophrenics, etc. My guess is that the figures will barely change."

With Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke becoming the first in his office ever to hold a press conference, I wonder whether he'll actually say anything. As I mentioned yesterday, and as Krugman has said for years, Very Serious People worry about inflation even though elementary economics shows there isn't anything to worry about.

Fortunately, other reporters are catching on:

One question more than any than other is crying out for an answer: Why has Mr. Bernanke decided to accept widespread unemployment for years on end, even though he believes he has the power to reduce it?

The Fed’s own forecasts suggest that the unemployment rate won’t fall below 5 percent for perhaps another five or six years. Mr. Bernanke believes the Fed “retains considerable power” to reduce unemployment faster, despite the fact that its benchmark interest rate is zero, as he’s said before. Yet he has been hesitant to use that power.

As he has explained many times, the Fed has alternatives. It could announce that it would keep its benchmark rate at zero for a few years, which would probably hold down long-term rates. It could say that it was comfortable with higher inflation for a limited period of time, given how low inflation has been since 2007 and how high unemployment is. Above all, Mr. Bernanke could make clear that he considers years of widespread unemployment to be unacceptable.

He has not done so, and he has yet to offer a satisfying rationale.

So, later today, will he explain?

Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) doesn't seem like a Tea Partier on the surface, but he's started to experiment with right-wing populism. Today his office sent out an email suggesting inflation will destroy us all climb in the near future and hurt Illinois businesses. He even shows a chart from the St. Louis Fed showing how the monetary base spiked during the 2009 recession. Only, the chart doesn't have anything to do with inflation except to show how (but not why) we didn't spiral into deflation during the crisis.

You have to remember three things about inflation: first, we haven't got any right now; second, inflation hurts lenders more than it hurts debtors in the long run; and third, deflation—the danger of which has not yet passed—is a lot worse.

Here's my note to the senator's office in response:

The Senator's office recently sent an email to constituents on the dangers of inflation. Only, the data show that core inflation remains below historical levels, and certainly below the Fed's target. If inflation were really a worry, we'd see the bond markets react, as they usually lead other indications of inflation. However, bond yields are at historically low levels.

What we need right now are jobs. Decreasing the money supply during a period of low inflation and high unemployment will not only hurt our already anemic job supply, but also possibly plunge us into *deflation,* which is far worse. Just ask Japan. Or look back at President Jackson's disastrous policy of paying off the national debt in full.

Senator, it's disingenuous of you to argue in favor of policies that hurt average people while claiming it's in their interest. The current policy of quantitative easing, far from hurting the economy, doesn't go far enough to help it. I'm in favor of weakinging the dollar even further, to help exports, boost jobs, and--here's the part your banker friends hate--reducing the real debt burden on families.

For more on how wrong Kirk is, see Krugman on austerity from a couple weeks ago.

Apparently cluing into my accidental theme this week of things that scare people irrationally, Patrick Smith had a pair of child safety scissors confiscated, even though he's, you know, the one flying the plane. He worries things will never change:

When it came right down to it, the success of the Sept. 11 attacks had nothing—nothing—to do with box cutters. The hijackers could have used anything. They were not exploiting a weakness in luggage screening, but rather a weakness in our mind-set—our understanding and expectations of what a hijacking was and how it would unfold. The hijackers weren't relying on weapons, they were relying on the element of surprise.

All of that is different now. For several reasons, from passenger awareness to armored cockpit doors, the in-flight takeover scheme has long been off the table as a viable M.O. for an attack. It was off the table before the first of the twin towers had crumbled to the ground. Why don't we see this? Although a certain anxious fixation would have been excusable in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks, here it is a decade later and we're still pawing through people's bags in a hunt for what are effectively harmless items.

How depressing is that, to be stuck with this nonsense permanently? Not only the obsession with sharps, but the liquids and gels confiscations, the shoe removals, etc.

These policies aren't just annoying, they're potentially self-destructive. Self-destructive because they draw our security resources away from more useful pursuits.

I remember when people weren't scared all the time. I'd like to go back to that era. I can only handle so much irrationality.

The news shows were hyperventilating earlier this week about a "near miss" involving an Air Force plane carrying the First Lady and Jill Biden. Only, it wasn't a near miss. It wasn't even a loss of IFR separation (though the planes did come too close for strict wake-turbulence safety). The planes were never close enough to warrant even a stern talking-to by the FAA. No, instead, Obama's plane—a military version of a Boeing 737—came within 8 km of a landing C-17 transport, which is close enough that the air traffic controller at Andrews warned the 737's pilot of wake turbulence. I mean, it's one thing if a Cessna takes off behind a 747: that's dangerous. But a 737 landing behind a C-17 might suffer, at worst, a momentary bump.

Then, because the C-17 took its time getting off the runway, Obama's plane had to go around to prevent a loss of separation. (Ideally, you don't want to land when there's something on the runway ahead of you, particularly when that something is large enough to carry your house inside.) Ten-hour student pilots do go-arounds routinely; it's a standard procedure.

Phil Bertorelli, editor of AVWeb, does a facepalm:

I award first place to Lisa Stark, of ABC News, who consistently reports aviation stories, no matter how minor, in urgent, 72-point type. Her report on this incident, while not wildly inaccurate, lacks the balancing perspective a lay viewer could grasp if the story weren't so dumbed down. Her gatekeeping of facts proceeds from the notion that this was a dangerous situation when, in fact, is was just less than optimal. Too tight sequences get fixed every day.

As a journalist, I judge these stories on the reporter's apparent ability to listen, digest and understand technical issues related to aviation. There are exceptions, but most general assignment reporters don't do this very well for aviation stories, although not many mangle it to the extent that Lisa Stark does. She is in a league of her own.

This is just another instance of dispensing fear instead of information. Perhaps I'm cranky because Parker needed to go outside at 4:45 this morning, but this kind of story makes me crankier.

As the extreme right-wing lunatics in the U.S. continue to wring their hands over our debt—completely ignoring how we're the world's reserve currency—it's helpful to examine what happens when a country actually collapses:

The yield on Greece ten year bonds increased to 14.9% today and the two year yield is up to 23%. Sounds like a credit event might happen soon. If so, I wonder if it will be haircut or an extension of maturities?

Here are the ten year yields for Ireland up to a record 10.5%, Portugal up to a record 9.5%, and Spain at 5.5%.

The problem, of course, is that Spain, Portugal, and Greece have to accept Euro-zone financial policies, which are generally anti-inflationary. Of course, if the pesteta, escudo, and drachma still existed, none of these countries would have the problems they face today. They'd have instead rampant inflation, which sucks for creditors but isn't so bad for debtors. They would, as well, face specific and predictable other problems, but as none of those issues has attracted the attention of cable news, few people understand why these countries have any problems at all, or who's responsible for them.

Most relevantly to the U.S., however, is that despite the loony right beating the debt-ceiling drum, and despite all the idiocy about the U.S. budget deficit, our biggest asset right now is that we're the world's reserve currency.

Few people seem to have noticed that if we threaten to default on our debt, or if we fail to pay any of it back—even for a brief moment—we're done.

There was a time, years ago, when the left went all to pieces over ideology. And I expect the right believed that the left were going to ruin Western Civilization if people voted for McGovern. But the key difference between then and now that I see—though in fairness through my leftish proclivities, which probably count for something—is that the left tried to end wars and reduce suffering in their craziness. It seems pretty clear the current right-wingnuts trying to take over the House of Representatives are fine with wars and poverty.

I think we'll get through this extreme swing of the pendulum, and 50 years from now we'll bemoan the ridiculousness of the left.

The frightening counter-example is, of course, Rome, which drifted so far right over three centuries that the citizens invited the Visigoths in to help them get out of Roman oppression. So who should we Americans look to for a similar salvation? I mean, if we're not going to fix things ourselves, which is probably the best long-term solution.