The Daily Parker

Krugman yesterday reminded us that people are so desperate for the security that investing in the U.S. brings them, they're paying us to take their money, at alarming rates of negative interest:

That’s right: for every maturity of bonds under 20 years, investors are paying the feds to take their money — and in the case of maturities of 10 years and under, paying a lot.

What’s going on? Investor pessimism about prospects for the real economy, which makes the perceived safe haven of US debt attractive even at very low yields. And pretty obviously investors do consider US debt safe — there is no hint here of worries about the level of debt and deficits.

Now, you might think that there would be a consensus that, even leaving Keynesian things aside, this is a really good time for the government to invest in infrastructure and stuff: money is free, the workers would otherwise be unemployed.

But no: the Very Serious People have decided that the big problem is that Washington is borrowing too much, and that addressing this problem is the key to … something.

Conservatives here and in the UK (another country with unprecedented low government interest rates) have either a delusion or a willfully dishonest belief in the dangers of deficits. Yes, both countries have long-term deficit problems that need resolution, and both countries will need lower defense and entitlement spending to close their gaps. But that's in 20 years.

Right now, we need to take this free money (five-year Treasuries are at -1.18%; ten year notes are at -0.68%) and abundant labor (nationally still around 9% unemployment) and rebuild. We need to repair our roads, upgrade our trains, fix our sewers and electric grids, and restore our countries to the economic strengths they have had in decades past.

Those on the right, however, want to continue bloodletting, draining us of our strength when we're weakest. Or, put another way, if someone is starving, withholding food won't help him. Lending him some food might just get him feeling better again.

Ten years from now we're going to look back on this period of Republican and Tory intransigence, laugh nervously, and change the subject. If we're supremely lucky, we'll be out of the economic traps that their misguided policies have created for us.

Two examples of how Europeans handle things differently than we do. First, Norway's refusal to be terrorized by lunatics with guns:

The car-bomb in Oslo designed to kill the leadership of the country, and the shootings on the island of Utoeya designed to destroy the next generation of Labour party politicians, left 77 people dead, the majority of them teenagers.

But even in the first days of shock after the attacks, it was clear the response of the Norwegian people and their government to this act of terrorism would be unique.

"The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation," [Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg] said.

A year later it seems the prime minister has kept his word.

There have been no changes to the law to increase the powers of the police and security services, terrorism legislation remains the same and there have been no special provisions made for the trial of suspected terrorists.

On the streets of Oslo, CCTV cameras are still a comparatively rare sight and the police can only carry weapons after getting special permission.

Even the gate leading to the parliament building in the heart of Oslo remains open and unguarded.

Meanwhile, just across the Baltic, Germany and the ECB seem frighteningly nonchalant about the possibility of Greece exiting the euro:

I’m not saying that Greece should be kept in the euro; ultimately, it’s hard to see how that can work. But if anyone in Europe is imagining that a Greek exit can be easily contained, they’re dreaming. Once a country, any country, has demonstrated that the euro isn’t necessarily forever, investors — and ordinary bank depositors — in other countries are bound to take note. I’d be shocked if Greek exit isn’t followed by large bank withdrawals all around the European periphery.

To contain this, the ECB would have to provide huge amounts of bank financing — and it would probably have to buy sovereign debt too, especially given the spiking yields on Spanish and Italian debt that are taking place as you read this. Are the Germans ready to see that?

My advice here is to be afraid, be very afraid.

Don't even get me started on anthropogenic climate change theory, which predicted just about everything we're experiencing in North American weather this year.

Today marks the 31st time this year Chicago's temperature has exceeded 32°C as another record falls:

The July 17 record high of 38°C for this date has stood 70 years, having been set in 1942 during World War II. Tuesday's heat gives the city a shot at replacing this record. [It was 36°C just before noon.—DB]

New USDA crop report paints bleak picture across much of the Midwest; more than half of Illinois' corn crop is "poor" or "very poor"!

Crops are struggling in many Midwest fields this year. USDA's weekly report on crop conditions released Monday indicates the condition of the corn crop continues to deteriorate. 56 percent of corn in Illinois is rated "poor"or "very poor". That percentage stands at 43 percent in Wisconsin; 27 percent in Iowa; 56 percent in Michigan; and grows to 69 percent in Missouri; and a whopping 71% in Indiana.

The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert points out we made this happen 30 years ago:

One of the most salient—but also, unfortunately, most counterintuitive—aspects of global warming is that it operates on what amounts to a time delay. Behind this summer’s heat are greenhouse gases emitted decades ago. Before many effects of today’s emissions are felt, it will be time for the Summer Olympics of 2048. (Scientists refer to this as the “commitment to warming.”) What’s at stake is where things go from there. It is quite possible that by the end of the century we could, without even really trying, engineer the return of the sort of climate that hasn’t been seen on earth since the Eocene, some fifty million years ago.

Along with the heat and the drought and the super derecho, the country this summer is also enduring a Presidential campaign. So far, the words “climate change” have barely been uttered. This is not an oversight. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.

And so, while farmers wait for rain and this season’s corn crop withers on the stalk, the familiar disconnect continues. There’s no discussion of what could be done to avert the worst effects of climate change, even as the insanity of doing nothing becomes increasingly obvious.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

Via Krugman, Ezra Klein reminds us of the differences between the President's and Romney's tax plans:

Note that the Tax Policy Center could only conduct a partial analysis of Romney’s tax plan. That’s because Romney’s proposal itself is incomplete. He’s said that he wants to scrap various deductions in the tax code, particularly for high earners, in order to broaden the tax base. But he hasn’t offered any details about which deductions he’d scrap or how, so there wasn’t anything for the Tax Policy Center to analyze.

As Krugman says, "[T]he next time someone tut-tuts about 'class warfare,' remember that the class war is already happening, in real policy—with the top .01 percent on offense."

The south-side Chicago politician has been on "medical leave" and unavailable for a month:

[U.S. Rep. Jesse] Jackson, 47, took a medical leave for "exhaustion" June 10, but his spokesman waited until June 25 to announce it. A new statement Thursday said Jackson long had grappled with "physical and emotional ailments" and needed extended in-patient treatment. But his office declined to specify his illness, where he is being treated or when he is expected to return. Jackson is running for re-election Nov. 6.

[Illinois U.S. Senator Richard] Durbin praised Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., for releasing a video showing him in rehabilitation after a January stroke, saying Kirk told Illinoisans "what his hopes are about recovering." Kirk has not made a public appearance since his stroke, nor has he said when he may return to Washington.

Jackson's father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., was on local TV today to discuss the 41st Annual Rainbow Coalition Conference. He said only that his son "is under medical supervision and is taking time to recover."

Whatever is going on with Jackson, I hope he recovers quickly. He has a duty, however, to reveal whether or not he's fit to hold his office, and if not, to resign. NBC reports that if he does,

Since the Nov. 6 election is less than 180 days away, it’s too late to hold a special election, said Ken Menzel, deputy general counsel of the Illinois Board of Elections. However, if Jackson resigns as a candidate as late as 15 days before the election, he can be replaced on the ballot.

A new candidate would be chosen at a meeting of the 2nd District’s Democratic Party county chairmen. Each chairman would have a number of votes equal to the votes cast by his county in the primary. Since Cook County cast 88.6 percent of the votes in the 2nd District primary, Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios would have complete control of the process.

Last week the California senate voted 21-16 vote to approve $8 bn in funding for a high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Naturally there will be some privateering and incompetence, because this is America:

Until the end of last year, SNCF, the developer of one of the world's most successful high-speed rail systems, proposed that the state use competitive bidding to partner with it or another foreign operator rather than rely on construction engineers to design a sophisticated network for 200-mph trains.

The approach, the French company said, would help the California High-Speed Rail Authority identify a profitable route, hold down building costs, develop realistic ridership forecasts and attract private investors — a requirement of a $9-billion bond measure approved by voters in 2008.

But SNCF couldn't get its ideas — including considering a more direct north-south route along the Central Valley's Interstate 5 corridor — out of the station.

Instead, the rail authority continued to concentrate planning in the hands of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a giant New York City-based engineering and construction management firm. Although they have occasionally consulted with high-speed railways, officials decided that hiring an experienced operator and seeking private investors would have to wait until after the $68-billion system was partially built.

But whenever it gets going, the data seem pretty clear: it will hurt the airlines even while getting more Californians traveling:

Earlier this year a pair of Dutch researchers analyzed the passenger market between London and Paris in recent years and found that high-speed rail has been far and away the dominant travel choice in the corridor. Using these findings, they extrapolated that if California's train can make the full trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco in about 3 hours, it will capture roughly a third of business travelers and about 40 percent of the leisure market.

A more recent study, set for publication in the September issue of the journal Transport Policy, suggests that high-speed rail will not only cut into the air market but actually create its own travel demand. The researchers found that more total travelers — air and rail together — existed in various corridors after high-speed rail service began in the country. That means either people saw the service and decided to take trips they otherwise wouldn't have or they shifted from driving to train-riding. The former would be great for California's economy; the latter, a relief to its congested highways.

The change was particularly pronounced in the Barcelona-Madrid corridor. Here the researchers estimate an additional 394,000 travelers in the post-bullet train era — an 8 percent rise from earlier times. That's a good sign for California. The Barcelona-Madrid trip is relatively equidistant to Los Angeles-San Francisco: 314 miles to 348 miles as the crow flies, respectively. The travel time by rail is also comparable, in the neighborhood of 3 hours in each case.

The study also found that opening the Chunnel has shifted travel patterns between the UK and the Continent, getting more people traveling even as fewer people fly.

So who's really behind the opposition to HSR? Can't guess.

The Texas Republicans published their 2012 platform this week, vowing to stop teaching children critical reasoning skills in the next four years. I was curious about other GOP platforms, to see if Texas was an aberration, and I found this one:

Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituent and our country, unite in the following declarations:

...

8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no "person should be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.

12. That while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.

14. That the Republican Party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.

The rest of it is pretty interesting, and also short. Obviously I'm quoting their first presidential-election-year platform, from 1860, so much of it applies to the situation that existed right before the Civil War.

Today's Illinois GOP platform, while saner (only just) than the Texas platform, still has these planks:

• A call to "meet the contractual obligations of our state by properly funding the various state pension systems" without raising revenue to do it;
• An assertion that kids are better off "within a two-parent family based on the principle of marriage between one man and one woman;" and
• The anti-science position that "The Illinois Republican Party opposes the fostering of utilitarian experiments which sacrifice human embryos in what appears to be a futile search for medical cures."

On the other hand, some of their planks really surprised me:

• "We call on the Federal Government to streamline the task of citizenship for legal immigrants to assimilate and complete the process of becoming Americans."
• "We call for the granting of full citizenship rights to be granted to any immigrant upon the completion of service to the armed forces of the United States."
• "[W]e endorse...[t]he use of criminal and mental background checks by licensed firearms dealers...."

Finding three planks to support out of the entire platform took some effort, though. A lot of it repeats the right-wing policies of the national GOP, like opposition to taxes in general, support for a concealed-carry firearms law, and one of my favorites, "We call on the United States Senate to reject treaties which cede the powers and rights of the American people to the United Nations and other international agencies." (Because of the black helicopters following some of the more, ah, committed party members, you see.)

I'm sure a careful reading of my party's platform (which, unfortunately, is spread across 14 pages of the party website rather than being written down in any one document) would uncover a few planks I don't support. I expect, though, I've chosen the right bunch for now. When the Republicans shed themselves of the right-wing nutters currently running things for them, maybe I'll take another look.

The Texas Republican Party has published their platform after their recent convention, and...well:

We decry the appointment of unelected bureaucrats, and we urge Congress to use their constitutional authority to defund and abolish these positions and return authority to duly elected officials, accountable to the electorate.

We strongly support the immediate repeal of the Endangered Species Act. We strongly oppose the listing of the dune sage brush lizard either as a threatened or an endangered species. We believe the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished.

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

We urge that the Voter Rights Act [sic] of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed and not reauthorized.

We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.

If you're happy and you know it, clap your eyes.

This makes me curious, actually. I might check out the platforms of other states' Republican parties, particularly Illinois'. And the Democratic Party platform here. Updates as warranted.

In my first pass through National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, I am alternately stunned, fascinated, confused, and relieved. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that big business was the big winner today.

Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, upholding nearly all the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamneycare"). Justice Kennedy, usually the swing vote, joined on the right-wing dissent.

In a nutshell, the court ruled:

• The Anti-Injunction Act didn't bar the suit;
• The individual mandate can stand; but
• Congress can't cut off Medicaid funds to states if the states fail to expand Medicare coverage.

The Court decided the first two points on mutually-contradictory grounds. The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits people from filing suit "for the purposeof restraining the assessment or collection of any tax." So if the individual mandate is a tax, then no one can sue to stop it until after it actually takes effect. Under the individual mandate part of the ACA, the law says if you don't buy insurance as mandated starting in 2014, you have to pay a "penalty" to the IRS. Well, said Roberts, if Congress says it's a penalty, then it's not a tax, and so the Anti-Injunction Act doesn't apply. In other words, if Congress says something is a horse, then you can't sue it to keep it from flying.

In law school, we learn a Jedi mind trick called "permissibly advancing mutually-exclusive arguments." That is, a lawyer is not only permitted but expected to offer all reasonable theories of a case when making an appeal, even if they don't make any sense when viewed all together.

Say a lawyer is appealing a murder conviction. She may, with the Court's blessing, argue: "First, the judge used the wrong set of jury instructions. Second, the jury was tainted by the prosecutor. Third, the judge improperly let my client's confession into evidence. Fourth, the eyewitnesses who testified they saw my client kill the guy were tainted by the prosecutor. Fifth, the judge should have allowed my client's rabbi to testify. Sixth..."

Obviously, they can't all be true. And a reasonable person (other than a lawyer) might surmise from the arguments that, really, the client's a murderer. This is the sort of thing that (a) makes people hate lawyers and (b) provides us with safeguards against the legal process running amok. It's not obvious to most people, but the ability to make all possible arguments on appeal, even if some are self-contradictory, is much fairer to everyone than trying to guess which one argument will prevail.

After that explanation, it should come as no surprise that the Court found the individual mandate constitutional because it's a tax. Yes, Congress called it a horse; but it's a duck after all, and ducks gotta fly. "[I]t is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning thatdoes not do so," Roberts said in the Court's opinion today:

As we have explained, "every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality." Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read....

I should underscore here that the Court said the individual mandate is not constitutional as a regulation of interstate commerce or as a "necessary and proper" act of Congress. This, I believe, is how the four moderate Justices got Roberts on board. Roberts seems like a true conservative. He generally doesn't want to overturn acts of Congress, but at the same time he generally doesn't to expand Federal power. He writes: "The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command. The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax."

Similarly, he overturns the Medicaid expansion program, with its penalty of withholding substantial Medicaid funding if states don't comply, as:

much more than "relatively mild encouragement"—it is a gun to the head. Section 1396c of the Medicaid Act provides that if a State’s Medicaid plan doesnot comply with the Act’s requirements, the Secretary ofHealth and Human Services may declare that "further payments will not be made to the State." 42 U. S. C. §1396c. A State that opts out of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion in health care coverage thus stands to lose not merely “a relatively small percentage” of its existing Medicaid funding, but all of it.

(Emphasis in the original.) He goes on, rebutting a point Justice Ginsburg makes in her concurrence:

The Medicaid expansion, however, accomplishes a shift in kind, not merely degree. The original program was designed to cover medical services for four particular categories of the needy: the disabled, the blind, the elderly, and needy families with dependent children. See 42 U. S. C. §1396a(a)(10). Previous amendments to Medicaid eligibility merely altered and expanded the boundaries of these categories. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid is transformed into a program to meet the health careneeds of the entire nonelderly population with income below 133 percent of the poverty level. It is no longer aprogram to care for the neediest among us, but rather anelement of a comprehensive national plan to provide universal health insurance coverage.

Ah, there it is. The bugbear. The Policy that Will Not Pass: National health insurance coverage.

Roberts' opinion is a grudging concession to the 21st century, not a victory for progressives. His rationales for overturning Medicaid expansion, and for rejecting two good reasons for the individual mandate are designed to prevent a future Congress from moving to a single-payer system in the future. The opinion holds the line on keeping wealth in private hands, which, after all, is the right's principal goal. Private interests—insurance companies—will continue to profit from what ought to be a public service. (Don't forget: big insurance companies wanted the mandate, because it solves a huge business problem for them.)

Today is a win for the American people, and for President Obama; but Roberts, no idiot he, made sure it was a win for the big-business right as well.

(If I have the stomach for it, I'll read the Alito dissent later today.)

The New York Times just sent me a bulletin saying the Supreme Court has ruled on the Affordable Care Act, so I rushed to the Court's website to find...U.S. v. Alvarez.

In this case, a man falsely claimed to have won the Medal of Honor, and was convicted under 18 USC 704 (the "Stolen Valor Act"), which makes it a crime to lie about receiving military honors. In a 5-3 decision, the court said the act is unconstitutional under the first amendment. Justice Kennedy wrote the court's opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg; Justice Breyer concurred (joined by Justice Kagan); and Justices (and Republican party operatives) Alito, Scalia, and Thomas dissented.

I'll come back to that—because the Court just announced National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. Let me read this and follow up. Gimme a second.