Curtis Bowman

The End of Cheap Oil?

Some analysts are predicting the imminent end of cheap oil, arguing that worldwide oil production is about to peak and decline. Other analysts aren't buying this grim scenario at all.

Take a look at this AP article, since we're sure to hear more about this topic.

Howard Fineman on the Collapse of the GOP Big Tent

Howard Fineman of Newsweek has written a good piece on GOP developments — I apologize for the vague phrase — of the past few days. Fineman wonders whether or not we're witnessing the high tide of Bush's brand of conservatism.

Paul Krugman on Voter Concerns over Economic Insecurity

Two days ago I posted an entry about a recent column by E. J. Dionne Jr., in which Mr. Dionne made mention of growing concerns about economic insecurity.

Paul Krugman takes up the same theme in this column, pointing out that on the state level these concerns are resonating with voters:

There's a very good reason voters, when given a chance to make a clear choice, increasingly support a stronger, not a weaker, social safety net: they need that net more than ever. Over the past 25 years the lives of working Americans have become ever less secure. Jobs come without health insurance; 401(k)'s vanish; corporations default on their pension obligations; workers lose their jobs more often, and unemployment lasts much longer than it used to.

If only the Democrats can make this their issue. Maybe that's what will be required to win in 2008.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. Has More Advice for Democrats

E. J. Dionne, Jr. of The Washington Post has written another column filled with good advice for Democrats.

Saying no to bad Republican ideas is one thing, but it's not a long-term strategy. What might the latter look like? Here is what Dionne has to say:

. . . the Social Security debate so far has been a rare triumph for liberals: For the first time in a long while, core liberal principles are actually winning in a public debate. The idea that Social Security is an insurance program and not an investment plan is gaining traction. So is the view, advanced powerfully by Yale University political scientist Jacob Hacker, that more and more financial risk is being thrown onto individual Americans and that collective safety nets (notably for pensions and for health care) are being shredded. Secure, guaranteed private pensions are increasingly a thing of the past. Employer-provided health insurance is in trouble. This is encouraging many Americans to give liberalism another look.

One clear indicator of the transformation of the national discussion was the cover line on the May 16 issue of BusinessWeek, "Safety Net Nation." The article it referred to, by Lee Walczak and Richard S. Dunham, ran under the phrase: "Why so many Americans aren't buying into Bush's Ownership Society." The writers noted that even Republicans who love Bush and revere capitalism are seeking a certain degree of security and safety. When a leading business magazine highlights the importance of government safety nets to a successful capitalist economy, the times are definitely changing.

And that is why it is inescapable that for the long term, those who think of themselves as progressive do need to offer that compelling alternative vision. What's required are not some small-bore tweaks to Bushism, but a set of proposals that change the very nature of what is being debated nationally. What question should frame the national debate?

Eric Wanner, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, suggests that if the U.S. economy remains broadly open and trade broadly free, the result will be "more inequality because there are more winners and more losers."

The challenge, he argues, is to indemnify those who may find themselves on the losing end of the transaction. This points to a number of big policy ideas: wage insurance, to ease the transition from one job to another; broader earned-income tax credits, to push up the wages of the lower paid; pension portability and incentives to help lower- and middle-income Americans put away money. Above all, it means guaranteed health insurance in some form, an idea increasingly appealing to companies in a competitive world market that want to take health care costs out of the prices of their goods.

And in this climate, higher minimum wages and broader unionization are looking more attractive than ever.

The large debate the nation needs, in other words, is how to create enough security so that Americans can embrace a dynamic economy without fear. Paradoxically, throwing more risk onto individuals leads to risk-avoidance. Risk-taking requires a certain amount of risk-sharing.

To everything there is a season. There is a time for the Politics of No. When the time for Yes comes around, it ought to be about affirming bigger ideas and larger purposes.

I've blogged about Jacob Hacker before — "It's the Insecurity, Stupid!" — and in an earlier post — "E. J. Dionne Jr. Explains Why Dems Should Refuse to Get Along" — I looked at Dionne's strategy recommendations for Democrats.

The New Biography of John Kenneth Galbraith

Richard Parker recently published a biography of economist John Kenneth Galbraith entitled, appropriately enough, John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics.

I don't read many biographies — I'm busy enough as it is — but this is one that I'll have to pick up. The first review that I read of Parker's book — "A Mind of His Own" by Jeff Madrick — sent me to the library to start reading Galbraith's books, finally, after all these years.

The second review that I read — "Sisyphus as Social Democrat" by J. Bradford DeLong — contains compelling explanations of why Galbraith's thought is not as influential as it once was. The loss is ours, says DeLong.

Naturally, there have been many other reviews. The website for the book contains many of them. Since I sometimes blog the work of Thomas Frank, I'll link directly to his review, which appeared in The New York Times not quite three months ago.

Survey on Deaths Resulting from Medical Errors

Elizabeth Weise of USA Today reports on a survey claiming that as many as 98,000 Americans die every year on account of medical errors.

Robert Samuelson on Fixing Social Security and Medicare

Robert Samuelson has briefly sketched out a plan for reforming Social Security and Medicare. It's not a painless one, by any means, but it seems to be a fairly reasonable mixture of proposals, e.g., raising the retirement age to 70 (which seems a bit too high to me), charging higher Medicare premiums, and reducing Social Security benefits.

Resistance to President Bush's Push for Democracy in the Middle East

Dan Murphy of The Christian Science Monitor reports on the resistance that President Bush's democracy agenda is encountering in the Middle East.

Robert Kagan on "Managing" China

Robert Kagan, a scholar who knows his history, points out in this column for The Washington Post that the emergence of a new power usually disrupts the international scene, typically through warfare, and that we don't really have any reason to believe that we can bring China in for a soft landing. How China's rise plays out, in other words, will largely be up to the Chinese themselves.

"Bloody Hell! We're All Germans Now!"

This had me laughing: Roland White of The Times fears that he and his fellow Britons are all Germans now.

It was everything we have come to expect from the Germans: a classic pincer attack, launched with characteristic efficiency and without warning. First came the country's ambassador to London, Thomas Matussek, who took the opportunity of VE Day to condemn our obsession with the second world war. Then came a heavier bombardment from a completely unexpected source: Thomas's brother, Matthias.

Writing in the magazine Der Spiegel, for which he is London correspondent, Matussek complained: "The Germans are for the British what a punchball is for boxers. They keep the British killer instinct alive and remind them of great moral and military victories."

If you think that was harsh, there was worse to come. The British have absolutely no cause to be so snooty about the Germans, argued Matthias, because we are uncannily like them. "With their daily diet of car and homebuyer shows on the telly and the entire gamut of Better Cooking, Better Living, Better Shopping, the Brits — after long years of frugality — are now imitating the inane German Mercedes drivers and hung-over boozers of caricaturist infamy from the reconstruction years," he said.

The Germans developed a reputation for obsessive consumerism during the Wirtschaftswunder, the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s. Now we have apparently gone the same way. That's tough talk, but the more you peer into the personalities of our two nations the more you think Matthias might be on to something. Horror of horrors, are we all Germans now?

The entire article is available here. It's all an amusing exercise in mock chauvinism — at least I think that Mr. White is kidding.

More: If you're interested in what Matthias Matussek recently wrote about the British and their attitudes towards Germany and the Second World War, then go to this page of the English language edition of Der Spiegel. Since none of the quotations in White's article are in this piece by Mattusek, I can only assume that Mr. White has quoted something else by Herr Mattusek.