Drive much?

[John Carson]

Oakman wrote:

Not being the expert on Australia you offer yourself up to be on the US, I must ask: over there, do you find that politicians usually tell the truth? I've noticed that very few folks holding office, or running for it, on this side of the big puddle tell us what they are actually planning on doing. For instance, LBJ was elected as the peace candidate, Nixon was the arch conservative totally opposed to dealing with China, etc. Usually, it appears to me, folks in Washington tell us that they are opposed to doing something that no-one thought they were going to do, as a trial balloon before initiating a plan to do exactly that.

Politicians often mislead, but it is rarely gratuitous. It is a way of handling difficult political pressures and/or coping with unforeseen events. The political logic behind this particular proposal is so dubious that the proposal certainly isn't worth the political cost of being seen to have been dishonest. A mileage tax would be technically difficult to implement and the obvious solutions raise politically problematic privacy concerns. While there is some economic logic to a mileage tax (as a reflection of road usage costs), it is politically a much tougher sell than fuel economy initiatives and somewhat confuses the political message with regard to the latter. All this and the White House denial are enough to tell me that the proposal isn't going to happen. The "trial balloon" on this occasion was floated by Ray LaHood, one of the two Republican Secretaries in the Adminstration. I think it is far more likely that he is out of the loop in terms of White House thinking than that he is acting as a scout for a secret White House plan. <edit> It seems to me that we are getting an endless succession of scare mongering stories regarding the Obama administration, few of which, if any, are ever going to amount to anything. </edit>

John Carson

modified on Friday, February 20, 2009 8:10 PM

[John Carson]

Mike Gaskey wrote:

John, do you not understand the concept of a trial balloon?

If that is what this was, then it has been shot down. As I remark elsewhere, LaHood is one of only two Republican Secretaries in the Administration and I think it more likely that he was out of touch with White House thinking than that he is acting as a scout for a secret White House plan.

John Carson

[Oakman]

John Carson wrote:

Politicians often mislead, but it is rarely gratuitous. It is a way of handling difficult political pressures and/or coping with unforeseen events. The political logic behind this particular proposal is so dubious that the proposal certainly isn't worth the political cost of being seen to have been dishonest.

You may be right - since such a change would take ten years, even you might have trouble suggesting that we spend the money needed to make it happen as part of our next stimulus package. And getting everyone steamed up over the idea would allow Congress to impose a 50% increase in the gas tax as a way of avoiding the mileage tax. They could sell themselves as heroes.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

[Oakman]

John Carson wrote:

As I remark elsewhere, LaHood is one of only two Republican Secretaries in the Administration and I think it more likely that he was out of touch with White House thinking

So Obama just put him in there as a placeholder? No real power, responsibility, or input?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

[John Carson]

Oakman wrote:

So Obama just put him in there as a placeholder? No real power, responsibility, or input?

I think he is new in the job. I seem to recall that Obama himself said that he would be setting the agenda. "The change comes from me", not from his cabinet secretaries. Of course LaHood will have power, responsibility and input, but 1. It is not reasonable at this early stage to assume that he speaks for the White House, 2. On any big policy questions, it will ultimately be Obama's call.

John Carson

[Chris Austin]

Not really. I wouldn't expect any state or the federal government to repeal cash-cows like that.

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --?

[BoneSoft]

Actually, I noticed something similar here in town. At an intersection that already has a camera mounted on it. I've only seen one, but I haven't been looking for them. I'm kinda starting to wonder if this is still my country...

---

Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

[Oakman]

John Carson wrote:

1. It is not reasonable at this early stage to assume that he speaks for the White House, 2. On any big policy questions, it will ultimately be Obama's call.

Which probably explain why Geitner showed up in Congress, looking like an idiot. Imagine. People actually expected him to have started to deal with the problems! Obviously, it's "Obama's call" and he hasn't thought about it much yet.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

[John Carson]

Oakman wrote:

Which probably explain why Geitner showed up in Congress, looking like an idiot. Imagine. People actually expected him to have started to deal with the problems! Obviously, it's "Obama's call" and he hasn't thought about it much yet.

I'm sure he has thought about it, but difficult problems can take more than a week or two's thought.

John Carson

[CSS_Shadow]

That seriously will not work and there will be serious opposition to it. You will never see me installing one of these devices in my vehicle and its laughable to think I'm going to pay any type of tax associated with this.

[CSS_Shadow]

Use your brain moron!

[Oakman]

John Carson wrote:

I'm sure he has thought about it, but difficult problems can take more than a week or two's thought.

I was sure someone had told him he was elected almost sixteen weeks ago. Maybe he should have spent some time thinking about this problem instead of vacationing in Hawaii. It is rather important, you know - probably more important than getting the whores off the street in Louisianna - something which he has taken action on.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

[Oakman]

CSS_Shadow(); wrote:

You will never see me installing one of these devices in my vehicle

No of course not. You would have to own a vehicle first.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

[John Carson]

Oakman wrote:

I was sure someone had told him he was elected almost sixteen weeks ago. Maybe he should have spent some time thinking about this problem instead of vacationing in Hawaii. It is rather important, you know - probably more important than getting the whores off the street in Louisianna - something which he has taken action on.

I misunderstood your previous comment. I thought "he" referred to Geitner. Plainly it is up to the professional economists to come up with detailed plans. Obama gets to choose from a menu of plans (or perhaps a menu of future plans that are sketched in outline); Obama doesn't design the plan.

John Carson

[Oakman]

John Carson wrote:

Plainly it is up to the professional economists to come up with detailed plans. Obama gets to choose from a menu of plans (or perhaps a menu of future plans that are sketched in outline); Obama doesn't design the plan.

I assumed that's how it worked, too. Presumably that's why Larry Summers, and perhaps some others who were entitled economic advisors, were talking about what needed to be done as long ago as last summer. I find it curious indeed, that Obama hasn't been offered that menu of choices and even more curious, almost frightening, that Geitner explains that he (who as Chairman of the FR Bank of New York has been intimately involved with all of the attempts to jump start the economy) has only been thinking about the problem "for a couple of weeks." It really was quite clear that the Bush administration leaned over backwards to make the transition as smooth as possible (a little surprising, when you remember that the Clinton administration did everything they could, including sabotaging the keyboards of white house computers, to give Bush a rough start) so I would have assumed that the Obama senior staff might have started working on the problems they faced before the second Monday in November. Apparently I was wrong. :-O btw: I've balanced your unavoter. Your answers are clear, precise and not ad hominem. That I, or someone, doesn't agree with you doesn't mean that your views should be grayed out. (imho)

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

And own a driver's license.

-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit

[Mike Gaskey]

Rob Graham wrote:

Actually, the Federal taxes are largely dedicated

thanks for the link. info is better than I had thought.

Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.

[John Carson]

Oakman wrote:

I assumed that's how it worked, too. Presumably that's why Larry Summers, and perhaps some others who were entitled economic advisors, were talking about what needed to be done as long ago as last summer. I find it curious indeed, that Obama hasn't been offered that menu of choices and even more curious, almost frightening, that Geitner explains that he (who as Chairman of the FR Bank of New York has been intimately involved with all of the attempts to jump start the economy) has only been thinking about the problem "for a couple of weeks."

I remarked that "difficult problems can take more than a week or two's thought" in order to emphasise the relatively short amount of time available relative to the scale of the problem, not to attempt to document exactly how long they have been thinking about it. My understanding is that, in his previous job, Geitner was involved in the first half of the TARP program, so his involvement and thought certainly extends over months at least. One of the defining properties of a capitalist economy is that information is decentralised. Indeed, the ability of the market to coordinate the actions of millions of people in possession of private information is one of its greatest strengths. As the other side of this coin, one of the most powerful arguments against government intervention is that the government lacks much of the information held by private individuals. Applied to the present problem, this means that we should expect that financial institutions will have much more information about their situation than the government will. Thus one reason for delay in coming up with a plan is that the government is only gradually accumulating information about the financial position of the banks and related institutions. The fact that the government is intervening it ways that it normally doesn't intervene means that it must acquire information that it normally doesn't need and hence normally doesn't have. Moreover, it is likely that, as information has been acquired, the need for still further information has gradually become apparent. Think of bankrupcy proceedings for a failed firm. Typically, they aren't completed quickly, partly because of the time taken to investigate the firm's financial position. A second reason for delay is that anything like this sort of situation hasn't been confronted within the US since the Great Depression. Thus the problem has to be thought through from basic principles, rat

[Oakman]

John Carson wrote:

"difficult problems can take more than a week or two's thought" in order to emphasise the relatively short amount of time available relative to the scale of the problem, not to attempt to document exactly how long they have been thinking about it.

I can't help thinking that once Obama realised the Presidency would be won or lost on the economy and not Iraq, he should have directed his advisors to get to work.

John Carson wrote:

My understanding is that, in his previous job, Geitner was involved in the first half of the TARP program, so his involvement and thought certainly extends over months at least.

He held what is arguably the second most important position in the Federal Reserve system. That would have, it seemed to me, made him uniquely qualified to have detailed plans of actions ready to go in a relatively short time.

John Carson wrote:

As the other side of this coin, one of the most powerful arguments against government intervention is that the government lacks much of the information held by private individuals.

But Geitner as the head of the quasi-public, quasi-private bank that headed the FR system in New York, the financial capital of the US, if not the world, should have been more able to know what he knew and more importantly, know what he didn't know and start finding out.

John Carson wrote:

Thus one reason for delay in coming up with a plan is that the government is only gradually accumulating information about the financial position of the banks and related institutions.

And yet Paulson and Geitner got Congress to spend almost a trillion dollars providing cash without that knowledge; then Obama got a stimulus bill passed by a Congress that -- to a man - had not read what was in the bill. If the government lacks the information necessaryu to act - why is there such a rush to act? I get a kick out of the pressure being applied to Japan to come up with its own jumpstart spending. The 90's gave that country more experience in dealing with prolonged deep recessions than anybody else - and more reason to question whether neo-Keynesian economics work. But why, if the US, UK, Australia, etc don't have a foggy clue about what to do and are still gathering information as you suggest they are, are they attempting to spend most of the

[Oakman]

Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:

And own a driver's license

I can't imagine that not having one would stop him; nor would not being insured, either.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.