Wednesday, November 5, 2014

A Republican Congress - Here we go again?

I don't consider myself particularly partisan or ideological, so whoever wins an election I am hoping for the best.  But I must admit having the Republicans take control of Congress (again), in light of the past history of Republican's controlling Congress, doesn't leave much room for optomism about a good result.

In the last 100 years this will be the fourth time Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress.  The first time was 14 years from 1919 to 1933.  The second time was short, one congressional session, from 1953 to 1955 when they rode into power on Ikes coattails.  The third time was the 12 years from 1995 to 2007.

Of course the long periods of time Republicans controlled Congress, 1919 to 1932 and 1995 to 2006 both ended with the US in two of the worst economic crisis in recent history.  The Great Depression and the Great Recession.  As I have noted previously when exploring the striking similarity between those two time periods, Republicans pursued similar policies with similar disasterous results.

However, the two year session from 1953 to 1955 does offer a little bit of hope.  They did manage to pass the 1954 Internal Revenue Code that was the rules of the game for the next 30 years of relative prosperity.  (Of course we did sink into a bad recession a little after the Democrats replaced them).  

But my cautious optomism is tempered by the differences between 2014 and 1953.  In 1953 Ike was the President.  As the hero of WW II Ike was enormously popular.  He was a moderate Republican, which coupled with his popularity and his inclination to compromise tempered the power of Conservatives in Congress.  Today, with Obama the President, the most hardline Republicans seem to control the agenda, and they seem to care more about crushing Obama than doing good things for the country.

I think back to a couple years ago, after the Fed's announcement of QE3, which was followed by a jump in the stock market, Republicans objected to QE3, sparking comments from some stock traders speculating that Republicans really did not want the country to succeed.  

The Republican objections were partly based on economic theory but mostly seem to rest in their current ideological fixation that Government is necessarily always bad and should never tinker in the markets.   My personal take is that Republicans would be offended by the suggestion they don't want the country to succeed, but from where I sit it appears they have a different idea of success for the country, coupled with a real attraction to simple, easy to understand ideology's so they don't have to deal with facts, which tend to be messy and difficult to sort out. 

In general Republicans represent the people who have done well the last couple decades.  A simple truth of psychology is that for most of us, when things are good, we resist change that moves away from the habits to which we have become accustomed.  This makes people tend to ignore facts that are inconvenient, and the older we get the more resistant we are to change. Two years ago a lot of people were noting that when the camera panned across the audience at the Republican Convention that chose Mitt the delegates were overwhelmingly white and older.  What we have been doing for the last 30 years has worked for them, so they don't want to change it, even if it hasn't worked so well for much of the country.

Another factor is a lot of Republicans work in the defense industry, which is partly why they have done so well personally the last 20 to 30 years, because for nearly 30 years we have been incurring debt primarily to fund our huge defense outlays.  It is very convenient for them to pretend that our deficit is a function of food stamps and welfare so they can ignore the fact we incurred most of our deficit by almost dollar for dollar increases in defense spending coupled with simultaneous tax cuts.

(That's not to suggest there aren't Democrats who aren't set in their ways, but the Republican party seems to rely much more on older folk than the Democrats.)

One of the big differences between the Great Depression and the Great Recession was the Great Recession never got near as bad as the Great Depression.  In part that was due to the GW Bush economic team steering him away from classic theories of Republicans that the markets will fix everything, and pushing him into initiating the (hold your nose) bank bailouts.  After the 1929 stock market crash, Herbert Hoover had three years left as President, and Republicans continued to control both houses of Congress for the next three years.  Hoover and the Republicans sat on their hands believing the markets would correct themselves.  By 1932 around 5000 banks had failed, unemployment was near 25%.  Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats swept the Republican's aside and Republicans were really a minority party for the nearly 50 years, Democrats controlling both house of Congress for 24 straight years in the 50's, 60's and 70's.    It was very clear to most voters whose policies caused the Depression so Republican ideological arguments made little headway (there was even such a thing as a moderate Republican during those years). 

Unfortunately for the Democrats (and the country in my view) after the policy mistakes had been made and we were just beginning to slide into the Great Recession the Republicans began losing control when the Democrats won the house in 2006, and then in 2008 won both houses and the Presidency just as the bottom was completely falling out of the economy.  The Democrats in effect stepped in just in time to take the blame for the mess the Republicans created, at least in some voters minds.  That allowed Republicans to do nothing but obstruct for 6 years to make Democrats look bad, and their obstruction has now rewarded them with control of both houses of Congress again.

There may be some Karma at work here.  There are a lot of indicators that the recovery everyone has been expecting momentarily for the last 6 years is not only not arriving, but the US and world economy are probably going to get worse before they get better.  Maybe just in time for the Republicans to step into control of Congress and take some well deserved blame.


Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Global Warming - the Politics of Winners and Losers


Accepting the projected rise in sea levels of 216 feet in the next 100 years as at least a useful working number, here are some elevations for the seat of Government for various political entities.

California:  All but two of the major cities in California are at elevations below 216 feet.  Sacramento will be 150 feet under water.  Move the capitol to San Francisco or Los Angeles?  Both will also be largely inundated, as will Oakland, Stockton, Santa Rosa, Eureka, much of San Diego and Santa Barbara.  The only major cities that will not be underwater will be Fresno and Bakersfield.  California potentially has a big problem with rising sea levels.

The United States.   All the major cities on the Eastern Seaboard are barely above the current sea level.  A rise far less than the projected 216 feet will swallow up much of  Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington DC and Coastal cities all the way down to Florida, a State almost entirely lower than 216 feet.   On the gulf New Orleans is already under threat, most of Louisiana will disappear, Shreveport will need dikes to survive.  Houston is at 50 feet above current sea level,  On the west coast Portland will be 50 feet under the inland bay that runs down the Willamette Valley, much of the greater Seattle area will be underwater.

Internationally:  Of our two greatest rivals in the last half century, Russia and China, Russia's seat of government is in no direct physical danger from rising sea levels.  Moscow is at about 550 feet above sea level.   Beijing on the other hand is about 150 to 200 feet above sea level, below the maximum projected rise of 216 feet.   London is only about 78 feet above the current sea level, Paris about 115 feet.  Berlin 112 feet.

Much of Central and South America will be relatively unaffected, the seats of Government for many countries are far up in the mountains.  Buenas Aires is only 82 feet however, while Brasilia, on the other hand is nearly 4000 feet.

So What?  So what does this suggest about how the world will respond to rising sea levels.  It seems to me that a lot of people are going to be desperate and angry as the sea level starts swallowing up their homes and businesses.  It is going to create enormous political unrest.  It would be a very difficult, potentially explosive time in the best of circumstances, but it will be exacerbated by the disruption of Government institutions being displaced.  It could be a time where what many of us hoped would be the rising tide of democracy will become a rising tide of militaristic despotism.

Ironically, Central and South America, whom the rest of the world has often viewed as one of the most politically unstable areas of the world, could become the worlds most politically stable areas, along with Central Asia.

Next:  Why we won't muster an effective response to global warming.