Harry, you should'nt assume so much. I happen to agree about a third way but
how would you do it? You just seem to be wildly against any kind of democratic
solution to problems like the regulation of basic services. Perhaps we should
use the California deregulation principle on such things as slots at major airports
as well or the FCC. Such nonsense has already cut off many of the smaller
communities in America from decent transportation and killed many communities
that had traditions and family lives worth saving. Anyway here is an analysis of
the
the kind of thought that most of this hokum comes from. Brad, good to read your
thoughts. Harry I would like a practical way in which your regulation situation
could be implimented.
Frank Rich, Paul Krugman and Frank Parry. Good people to read and see through
the ho, ho hokum. As for those of you outside the US, always distrust people who
come to tell you how to do something. They usually are trying to figure out how to
do it themselves and are just using you for expermentation.
REH
December 13, 2000
RECKONINGS
In the Tank?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Even cynics were a bit startled by the
revelation that Justice Clarence Thomas's
wife has been employed by the Heritage
Foundation to gather r�sum�s for potential
appointments in the next administration. But let
me leave ethical issues to the experts and focus
on a different question suggested by the story:
To what extent will a Bush administration, if
that's what we're about to have, be staffed by people from Heritage
and its
sister institutions? Are we about to enter an era of government by
professional ideologues?
Heritage describes itself as a think tank, a term originally applied
to
nonpolitical institutions like the RAND Corporation. Whether it is
really
appropriate for organizations like Heritage depends on what you mean
by
the word "think." Most of Washington's so-called think tanks don't
have to
ponder the issues � they already know the answers. The Heritage
mission
statement makes no bones about it: the institution's purpose is to
"formulate and promote conservative public policies." Can you
imagine any
circumstances under which Heritage researchers might recommend a tax
increase, or a new environmental regulation? I didn't think so.
Since the policy recommendations that come out of Heritage, or the
Cato
Institute, or even the American Enterprise Institute are so
predictable, what
purpose do these organizations serve? Good question.
The important think tanks are all very much institutions of the
right. Jon
Corzine notwithstanding, left- wing multimillionaires are not
exactly the
norm. So liberal think tanks don't have anything like the resources
or the
influence of their right-wing counterparts. Some might cite the
Brookings
Institution as an exception � but Brookings isn't liberal the way
the
conservative think tanks are conservative. Put it this way: Even
A.E.I., the
most moderate of the big right-wing think tanks, lists Newt Gingrich
among
its "scholars."
The glory years of the think tanks were the 1970's, when they
provided an
alternative to what was perceived � with some justice � as the
liberal bias
of academia. The think tanks were places where neoconservative
intellectuals could think the unthinkable and say the unsayable.
They
provided a new element in the national dialogue, to such an extent
that
Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously declared that "the Republicans have
become the party of ideas." And of course the think tanks provided
the
intellectual shock troops for the Reagan revolution.
But that was a long time ago. Neoconservative ideas are no longer
radical;
they have become trite. And the intellectual need for an alternative
set of
institutions is itself far less apparent than it was. In the field I
know best,
economics, academia no longer has a recognizable liberal bias; free
markets command great respect, and many of the best-known professors
are also committed Republicans. Nonetheless, the think tanks are
bigger
and better financed than ever. What is their purpose?
Mainly they have become waiting rooms for the conservative nomen
klatura
� a class of intellectuals among whom talent is much less important
than
political reliability. The people whose r�sum�s Mrs. Thomas has been
helping put together are professional ideologues, who currently earn
a living
by repeating conservative slogans but hope that they will soon be
under
secretaries and assistant secretaries.
This hope doesn't have to be fulfilled. While a few Friends of Bill
got special
consideration in the early years, the Clinton administration was in
general
staffed by people notable more for their ability than their
ideological fervor. In
the economic area, the administration attracted some very impressive
talent, including at least one likely Nobel laureate (Joseph
Stiglitz, chief
economic adviser from 1995 to '97).
George W. Bush could do the same � staffing his administration with
able
Republicans from the business and academic worlds. But will he?
If Mr. Bush becomes president, the thing to watch is whom he
appoints �
not so much to the glamorous cabinet positions as the less visible
but
crucial second and third tiers. If those slots are filled by people
from Wall
Street and Stanford, people who have made their reputations
independent of
their politics, good. If they are filled from Heritage and Cato and
A.E.I., forget
the rhetoric � he's a divider, not a uniter.
"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote:
> "Ray E. Harrell" wrote:
> >
> > December 10, 2000
> > California Screaming
> > By PAUL KRUGMAN
> >
> > [C] alifornia's deregulated power industry, in which producers can sell
> > electricity for whatever the traffic will bear, was supposed to deliver
> > cheaper, cleaner power. But instead the state faces an electricity shortage so
> > severe that the governor has turned off the lights on the official Christmas
> > tree � a shortage that has proved highly profitable to power companies, and
> > raised suspicions of market manipulation.
> [snip]
>
> Isn't this the usual story?
>
> People have short memories.
>
> Shave a penny today, and cough up a dollar a few months down the road --
> and then wonder what went wrong.
>
> [da capo]
>
> Why isn't our society rich enough to build slack and redundancy into
> the systems which sustain our life? (Yes, I know, we've "displaced"
> all our safety-mindedness onto automobiles,
> which now have incredibly un-cost effective "safety
> devices" to deflect people's anxiety about the
> underlying dangerousness of the basic technology by distraction.)
>
> --
>
> There is the unforgettable story of the DC-9, which, in
> a long essay, The New Yorker explained was an "adequately
> engineered" jumbo-jet. The L-1011 and Boeing 747 had triple
> redundant hydraulic systems; the DC-9 had only dual systems.
> The other jumbo-jets ran their control lines thru the body of the
> wing, where they were better shielded from being severed
> on impact than the DC-9, which ran its hydraulic lines
> along the *forward edge* of the wing!
>
> Buy American: It's adequately engineered!
>
> And the old NASA joke about the secure feeling it gives you
> to lift off in a rocket produced by the lowest-cost bidder
> (Morton Thiokol, e.g.).
>
> [If I had my way, the heroes of today's economy would not
> be the dotcommies (Oops! did I typo something that might ruin
> somebody's career, there?), but: TOOL AND DIE MAKERS!]
>
> +\brad mcormick
>
> --
> Let your light so shine before men,
> that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
> Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
