Choices in Economic Policy (USA...)

The IMF's Chief Economist and head of fiscal affairs argue in today's FT that 'measures that improve the long-term fiscal outlook in those countries with high deficits and debt' should receive top priority, and they suggest that reforms of pensions and health are among the politically feasible options. The only economist who has not jumped in to the debate on Stimulus vs. Austerity must be Karl Marx, and he is indisposed. I would like to see a requirement that all writers of Op-Ed pieces on this subject be required to suggest just how their proposals could actually become reality in the current dysfunctional US political system? What sort of crisis that cannot be foreseen (a 'Black Swan Event' ?) will it take to bring about the needed political consensus? A grandes males, grandes remedios?

Power and Policy Team update (English)

Iraq’s neighbors
This Los Angeles Times article describes the struggle between some of Iraq’s neighbors to fill the void that the United States might leave. “Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey are all pursuing their agendas and taking sides along a Sunni-Shiite divide. That could become dangerous as U.S. troops withdraw.”

Pakistan
Raza Haider, the leader of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), was assassinated on Monday. His death set off a wave of violence that has left at least 47 people dead the southern port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. (See NYT report.)

BP Oil Spill
According to the White House 75% percent of the oil spill has been “captured, burned off, evaporated or broken down”. (Source: The Guardian.)

U.S. Supreme Court
Debate on Elena Kagan’s nomination started in the Senate. She has the support of all Democrats and some Republicans, and is expected to be confirmed by the end of the week. (More in NYT.)

Health care reform setback
Voters in Missouri approved a measure “intended to invalidate a crucial element of President Obama's health care law — namely, that most people be required to get health insurance or pay a tax penalty.” The effect of the vote remains uncertain, since the insurance requirement does not take effect until 2014 and since by then the courts “are likely to weigh in on the provision”. (See NYT report.)

Israel and Lebanon
Israeli and Lebanese forces exchanged fire among the border. At least four people were killed, the deadliest incident in the border since 2006. Lebanon and Israel traded accusations, but neither seemed interested in escalating the conflict. (Seen in FT$.)

Patrick Signoret and Isabel Gil

Gore for President?

Senior Democrats mull Al Gore's nomination.

(Hat tip: RealClearPolitics.)

Obama's book

Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech, which I commented on briefly last week, led me to his book, The Audacity of Hope.

I recommend it to anyone interested in politics--either as an observer or an actor--and to anyone seeking inspiration as a leader, for its:

• Engrossing nitty-gritty on how American senators get elected and do their jobs ;
• Nuanced thinking about global and U.S. problems;
• Refreshing honesty and humor (these derive from the author's healthy ironic distance from life--he watches himself, and sees his own vanity and the absurdity of things);
• Inspirational look into the mind of a leader who struggles every day with his exacting conscience.
  

I yearn for your comments.

**********

El discurso que dio Barack Obama en Filadelfia, que comenté brevemente la semana pasada, me condujo a su libro, The Audacity of Hope.

Lo recomiendo a todo aquel que tenga interés en la política--sea como observador, sea como actor--o que busque inspiración como líder, por:

• Sus fascinantes detalles sobre cómo se elige y trabaja un senador en Estados Unidos;
• Su análisis sutil sobre problemas globales y estadounidenses;
• Su honestidad y humor refrescante (se derivan de una irónica distancia que tiene Barack de la vida --él se observa a sí mismo y reconoce su propia vanidad y lo absurdo de muchas cosas);
  
• Una mirada inspiracional a la mente de un líder que lucha diario con su exigente consciencia.
  

Anhelo sus comentarios.

Obama's Philadelphia speech

This Slate version of Obama's March 18 Philadelphia speech contains the full text.

He has the courage and self-confidence to ask Americans to be nuanced.

Month-old video on campaign still timely

This video of a discussion among four New Yorker writers about the Democratic Party race for the nomination is over a month old, but it's still timely, and it contains both funny moments and eloquent moments.

Panelists are Hendrick Hertzberg, Elizabeth Kolbert, Ryan Lizza, and Jeffrey Toobin. The moderator is The New Yorker editor David Remnick (a hero of mine since I read his 1998 Resurrection on post-Soviet Russia).

The video is long. For readers short of time, here are some highlights:

• Hertzberg: There is very little programmatic or ideological difference between Hillary and Obama. "So, it's really not about the words in this campaign; it's about the music."
• Hertzberg: "There's a soap opera here--there's a Clinton Family drama--that I think the country would just as soon--or at least I would just as soon--not be on the front of the national agenda for the next eight years."
  
• Kolbert, comparing Obama and Hillary: "She's the class grind; he's the cool kid in the class."
  
• Lizza: Hillary's campaign is freer, more open, messier than Obama's. Hillary staffers can speak to Toobin about the campain anonymously without fear of being sniffed out and muzzled later by "leak hunters." The tight discipline in the Obama camp is Bush-like.
• Remnick: It's also Nixon-like.
  
• Toobin: "This election is shaping up as a Democratic landslide."
• Toobin: Whoever wins the Democratic nomination, the Democrats will have tens of millions of dollars more than John McCain. McCain's campaign raised $10 million in all of January; Obama and Hillary raised $10 million each in the first week after Super Tuesday.
  
• Remnick: The press adores McCain, because of all the access that he gives them and his sense of humor.
  
• Toobin: Evangelical Christian Republicans will not work for John McCain. They did work for Bush, and only because of their help did Bush win. Ergo, McCain will probably lose.
  
• Kolbert: "'I'm the guy who can keep you safe.'That's what John McCain is running on." Hence a foreign policy crisis would be a boon to him.
  
• Kolbert and Lizza: Obama's weakness is public doubt as to whether he's ready to be commander-in-chief. So a foreign policy crisis such as a terror attack, with its potential to underscore Obama's foreign policy inexperience, is the Obama camp's worst nightmare.
• Kolbert: If Hillary becomes the nominee, that would be great for McCain ... "because then all the anti-Hillary people who are now trashing McCain can go back to their first love, which is trashing Hillary."
  
• Lizza: "I think that the McCain camp fears Obama more than they fear Hillary. They think that Hillary is the known quantity; they understand how to run against her; they understand her strengths and weaknesses. And I think that they fear that in a race against Obama, the press and the country will get swept up in a sense of history, and that they never really get a fair hearing. That the Obama phenomenon, it doesn't end with the primaries, but that his victory in the primaries will just be the beginning of a sort of launch. And that he could have so much upside potential that, even though the polls show a very close race now, it's never a real race."