Monthly Archive for August, 2008

Is behavioural economics such a big deal?

Published
by
Tom Nuttall
on August 27, 2008
in Economics and Inside Prospect
. 26 Comments

The publication of Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s “libertarian paternalism” manifesto, has made real waves on this side of the Atlantic, with the Tories in particular seizing upon the ideas in the book to show how in touch they are with the latest thinking in social science.

Nudge (which I reviewed a couple of issues ago for Prospect) relies for its insights on the relatively new field of behavioural economics, which aims to move beyond the traditional model of “homo economicus,” or economic man—rational, self-interested, independent—to produce an economics that sits more happily with the findings of researchers investigating the economic behaviour of actual human beingss.

Some people, like Pete Lunn, author of the new book Basic Instincts, think that the rise of behavioural economics marks a revolution in the subject; that the very assumptions of the field are tottering. Others, like Tim Harford of Undercover Economist fame, appreciate the contributions of behavioural economics, but are wary of drawing hasty conclusions from a few laboratory experiments. We asked the two of them to duke it out in the pages of Prospect.

Denver dispatches - Erik Tarloff - Tuesday 26th August addendum

Published
by
Erik Tarloff
on August 27, 2008
in United States
. 0 Comments

Okay, here’s the part where I eat crow.  Hillary gave the best speech I’ve ever seen her give, and her support for Obama seemed unequivocal.  She sounded all the notes she needed to sound, and she had total command of the audience.  Whether this will have any effect on her most rabid supporters I don’t know, but if they remain intransigent, no one can say this speech gave them any encouragement.

Denver dispatches - Erik Tarloff - Tuesday 26th August

Published
by
Erik Tarloff
on August 27, 2008
in United States
. 0 Comments

Hillary speaks tonight, Bill tomorrow.  There’s a fair amount of grumbling among Obama’s supporters about this arrangement, viewed as an ill-advised capitulation to an excessive Clinton demand (shamelessness has long been part of their modus operandi, and why not?  It has served them very well over the years).  What’s the point of giving them two nights rather than one? some worried Democrats are demanding.  Why create a patina of party unity, inspired by the noble old figure of Ted Kennedy, and then build up Obama’s personal bona fides courtesy of his elegant wife, all on the first night, and then step all over the message over the course of the following two?  Why hadn’t the convention organizers, wondered one journalist friend of mine who finds the situation almost laughably inappropriate, given the two Clintons a portion of the first night, saluted them for their past contributions and for a race well run, and then said Hasta la vista, have a safe flight home, thereby allowing the remainder of the convention to get on with the business of launching Barack Obama’s fall campaign?  Instead, we not only get two days of potential psychodrama, but also two different, creative, instructive demonstrations of consummate passive-aggression.

My wife and I ran into Congressman George Miller, (D-CA), today, while we were scurrying around town trying to score a variety of credentials (yes, absolutely including my press credentials, and I won’t say anymore about that except that I have to go through this nonsense every morning;  the convention press office is not providing week-long documentation to journalists, and I even saw Tina Brown in the queue ahead of me this morning, forced to go through the same rigamarole as the rest of us ordinary ink-stained mortals).  George is a wonderfully affable man with a solar-powered smile, a big bushy moustache and a great belly-shaking laugh.  In fact, were it not for his California tan and his California casual style sense, you might actually mistake him for Santa Claus.  A Santa Claus who has spent the days since Christmas at the gym;  George is a burly scrapper of a man, but I don’t want to give the false impression he’s portly.  Our conversation rapidly turned to the twinned Clinton speeches, tonight’s and Wednesday’s.  “So, what do you think?” he asked us.  “Blood on the floor?”  I said, “Oh, that’s a given, George.  The only question is which of them will draw the greater quantity:  The guy struggling with his anger issues, or the woman who will profess full support while deftly wielding a surgeon’s scalpel?”  He rolled his eyes at this and said, “Oh God!”  Which I took to be confirmation.

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Denver Dispatches - James Crabtree - The search for an economic message

Published
by
James Crabtree
on August 26, 2008
in United States
. 0 Comments

Up on stage it’s all smiles. But around the edges of the convention, Democratic operatives are clearly worried about their campaign. The last month has seen a gradual coming to terms with the fact of their candidate’s limitations. Early hopes that Barack Obama would race to a double-digit poll lead against a seemingly hapless John McCain were quickly dashed. But no consensus exists as to why the campaign’s rise has been halted. And it is this discussion - why aren’t we winning, and what should we be doing about it - that dominates conversations in Denver’s corridors, hotel lobbies and lavish receptions.

This morning, for instance, i popped into a breakfast briefing, in which all the talk was about the campaign’s inability to land a compelling economic narrative. Where, participants asked, was the mix of big themes and practical policies which would convince wavering, mortgage-minded voters that President Obama would put money back in their pocket? (The New York Times asked a similar question in a long, interesting Sunday magazine front cover this weekend.) More importantly, what now is the campaign’s fundamental message to the American people; the equivalent of Bill Clinton’s “It’s the economy / time for a change / don’t forget about healthcare.” The sense is Obama has so far struggled to put convincing policy meat on the bones of his themes of hope and change, and has found particular problems on economic issues.

Perhaps more problematically, this convention itself is proving a difficult place to deploy these details. Four nights of convention means four chances to get a message across. Yet last night’s well-received Michelle Obama biopic had little in the way of policy. Its job was to introduce her and her husband as ordinary, empathetic, relate-able  people.  This evening’s set of speeches is meant to be about the economy - but the focus will naturally be on whatever it is Hillary Clinton decides to say. Tomorrow the focus is meant to be on security, mixed in with introducing Joe Biden as running mate. The upshot? If the campaign wants to say something about the economy, it may well have to rely on the candidate himself, on the final night. Whether he will be able to do so - in amongst all the other things the speech needs to do, and with huge expectations driven by his previous speechifying - is fast becoming one of the big tests by which to judge the convention’s success.

Along with Erik Tarloff, James Crabtree will be blogging for First Drafts from the Democratic convention in Denver this week

Power’s world: The long insult to Russia

Published
by
Jonathan Power
on August 26, 2008
in Europe and Foreign affairs
. 0 Comments

If Richard Nixon, the erstwhile red baiter, wasn’t safely in his grave, most probably he would be writing op-eds in the New York Times saying that, “we are in danger of losing Russia.” For all the bodies of the liberal left in America dispatched by him on the way to the pinnacle of power, as president he became the originator of détente with the Soviet Union and at the same a respecter of its history and Russia’s massive contribution to arts, culture and religion. In his own words, Nixon was a Russophile. Once communism was defeated, he used to argue, Russia could assume its rightful place as a powerful European nation.

Today it seems that no one, either in the US or Europe, has the courage to stand up and say that we are in danger of falling back on our well-honed, oversimplistic cold war reflexes. The invasion of Georgia didn’t just happen because of some Kremlin malevolence. It happened because of the west’s ill thought-out position on the independence on Kosovo, the self-defeating military support President Bush provided for an unstable Georgian leader and, not least, because the west failed to bring Russia into the fold after the death of the Soviet Leninist system.

This is not to exonerate Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for his macho posturing and his disregard of the importance of building a nation not of men but of laws. Neither is it to exonerate Boris Yeltsin for his erratic presidency, which allowed the deterioration of much of his country, not least the economy, and the rise of the robber barons.

Continue reading ‘Power’s world: The long insult to Russia’

Denver dispatches - Erik Tarloff - Monday 25th August

Published
by
Erik Tarloff
on August 26, 2008
in United States
. 1 Comment

At every political convention I’ve covered, I‘ve begun by promising myself not to write about the miserable hassles involved in securing press credentials.  I’ve never succeeded.  Sooner or later, my good intentions have given way to sustained whining. In print. This time, though, I’m determined to come as close to a British-style stiff upper lip as is within my power, contenting myself with a simple… Don’t get me started.

This morning, my wife and I went to the convention hall early.  She had a rehearsal session scheduled for a little colloquy in which she will be participating this evening, with Sherrod Brown, a rising-star freshman senator from Ohio, and a small number of economic, healthcare, and education experts.  The main purpose of the little colloquy was for the participants to say, in a variety of ways, Obama is good and McCain is bad, and the session director kept reminding them that this was their remit.  Occasionally, if one or the other of them said Obama is good but neglected to add that McCain also happens to be bad, the director was quick to point out this little lapse.  They all quickly got into the groove.  But I don’t mention this rehearsal because it was anything to write home about.  The thing itself was frankly a yawn (please don’t tell Laura I said so).  What I mostly managed to take away from it is: Obama good, McCain bad.

But something interesting happened before the rehearsal began.  Laura and I were sitting in the green room, waiting for the other participants to arrive (a sign of how tight the security is here at the hall: The session ended up being delayed more than half an hour because Senator Brown and his wife were being frisked and examined by the police outside the hall;  I suppose you never can tell which member of the US Senate is a crazed terrorist in Solon’s clothing), minding our own business, when a rather handsome black woman of a certain age with two very attractive little girls entered the green room. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” the woman said with a little laugh.  “I just follow orders.”  And then she introduced herself:  “Hi, I’m Marian Robinson.”  The name rang a bell, but it was the face that clinched it:  she looked absolutely identical to her daughter, Michelle Obama.  This was the potential future first mother-in-law, shepherding her two grandchildren around the Denver convention centre.  For the record, I saw no sign of any special protection around these three precious entities;  they were ushered in by some sort of minder, a pleasant young woman who, believe me, was packing no heat, and they then sat and chatted with us, good-naturedly and unaffectedly.  Mrs Robinson herself was as gracious and unprepossessing as can be—we laughed about the absurd anonymity and apparent arbitrariness of convention rules and directives—and the kids were sweet and well behaved.

Continue reading ‘Denver dispatches - Erik Tarloff - Monday 25th August’

Denver dispatches - Erik Tarloff - Sunday 24th August

Published
by
Erik Tarloff
on August 25, 2008
in United States
. 0 Comments

My wife and I arrived in Denver for the Democratic convention this evening.  The airport was swarming, and security downtown extraordinarily tight.  Cops everywhere.  On bicycles, on foot, in cars.  Our driver told us the city had entirely sealed off several blocks of downtown this afternoon because two unclaimed packages were found on the street.  Their contents, no surprise, proved to be innocuous.

We’re staying in the same hotel Barack Obama will be using, and the security here is especially stringent.  Indeed, we were even prevented from going to our room when we first arrived.  Special credentials are required to use the lifts while the convention is in session, and the office handing out those credentials was closed when we got here.  No one seemed able to locate anyone who might be able to rectify the situation.  This is how Democrats manage conventions.
Eventually, once we established the impossible Catch-22 of being unable to show our credentials because the people who provide the credentials had disappeared off the face of the earth, someone else in authority arranged for us to ascend the lift in uncredentialed glory.  This was a minor inconvenience, a delay of a mere 20 minutes or so, but it augurs ill for the more serious business tomorrow of trying to secure my press passes.  I’ve now been to four political conventions in my life, and the press-pass-securing part of the process has never gone smoothly.  Of course, they’ve all been Democratic conventions.  Republicans, whatever their other flaws, are better at getting trains to run on time.  At conventions, anyway; they haven’t exactly been managing the government of the US with breathtaking efficiency lately.
Such gossip we’ve been able to pick up so far has largely concerned itself with the role Hillary Clinton will play at the convention.  Rightly or wrongly, it’s generally assumed that she will try to sabotage the Obama candidacy.  But it’s further assumed that she must accomplish this with a certain deftness, leaving no fingerprints, or else she will risk being blamed should he lose.  Democrats are not in the mood to lose this election; they arguably are bringing more passion this year than any other election cycle in my lifetime.  If Hillary is blamed for the loss, the party will not overlook it, and will not forgive it. I don’t know if this analysis is right, but if Obama loses, I expect she will be blamed regardless.  She has certainly allowed herself, and her people—yes, I’m talking about the big dog as well as some of her more rabid, cult-like supporters—to behave in a maliciously mischievous fashion.
But I suspect the gossip has the details wrong.  I don’t think she will do anything especially crass.  Yes, she will have her name placed in nomination, already an indulgence that threatens to disrupt the proceedings.  But my guess—and it’s only a guess, based on absolutely no evidence—is that she will go to the podium before the roll-call vote and move that the nomination be made unanimous, by acclamation.  There will be some booing, no doubt, from some of her hardcore supporters (the so-called PUMAs, Party Unity My Ass!), and there may even be scattershot demonstrations against, but the motion will certainly pass.  And the crisis will have passed. I think this whole quadrille was probably negotiated several weeks ago.
But I’m taking a risk here.  If I’m wrong, First Drafts readers will be aware of my mistake virtually in real time.  That’s the risk a blogger takes.
Erik Tarloff is a novelist and writer, and a former occasional speechwriter to Bill Clinton. Along with James Crabtree, he will be blogging for First Drafts from the Democratic convention in Denver this week

Capello’s PR war

Published
by
David Herman
on August 22, 2008
in Sport
. 0 Comments

It started with Beckham. Capello got the hacks so excited about whether Beckham would get to play his 100th game that they lost focus: what kind of job was he doing? Wasn’t he, in fact, showing ominous signs of making no structural changes?

Then came the captaincy nonsense. There was clearly no issue about who should be the captain. Either Terry or Ferdinand, the two obvious candidates, would have been fine. It hardly took a rocket scientist to come up with Terry as captain and Ferdinand as vice-captain. So what was all that about? It just kept the hacks off his back. Once again, he was throwing fish to the sharks t keep them distracted.

If they hadn’t been so busy with Beckham and the captains, they might have stopped to ask, as the away game with Croatia draws ominously near:

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Power’s world: How not to deal with Russia

Published
by
Jonathan Power
on August 18, 2008
in Europe and In the news
. 3 Comments

That bar, the Red Star, on the far side of eastern Europe is closed. So why is the Black Star on this side still open, and even extending its drinking hours?

Once the Warsaw pact closed shop there was no good or honest reason for keeping Nato going. The threat it was created to deter disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed. Let the EU take the strain, by trade, investment, diplomacy and political intimacy, the hallmarks of a successful union that has mastered the art of expansion and influence by clever use of the carrot, while America has led its quest for influence by application of the Bush doctrine of “preventive war.”

As Mark Leonard wrote in Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, his clever little book of three years ago, “the contrast between the two doctrines is stark. The Bush doctrine attempts to justify action to remove a ‘threat’ before it has a chance of being employed against the US. It is consequently focused very closely on physical assets and capabilities, necessarily swift in execution and therefore short term in conception, and unavoidably entirely military in kind. The European doctrine of pre-emption, in contrast, is predicated on long-term involvement, with the military just one strand of activity, along with pre-emptive economic and legal intervention, and is aimed at building the political and institutional basis of stability, rather than simply removing the immediate source of threat.” This is why Nato is no longer needed in Europe.

Continue reading ‘Power’s world: How not to deal with Russia’

…as I say, not as I do

Published
by
William Davies
on August 18, 2008
in British politics
. 0 Comments

This summer has seen the rise of an interesting new political trend: politicians talking about problems they either can’t or won’t do anything about. This has seeped into both social and economic issues, thanks to the perceived crisis in both. The credit crunch, escalating energy prices, the values of young people, eating habits, lads mags and so much else are now fair game for politicians seeking to assert their authority. The Conservative Party has been particularly adventurous in naming the various sources of Britain’s malaise, scarcely any of which are possible objects of policy intervention. This all represents a new spin on ‘libertarian paternalism‘, but rather than nudging people to change their behaviour for the better, this rhetorical version simply points out how nice it would be if they did.

In the past, there would have been two reasons for caution in such areas. Firstly, there would have been a fear of over-promising and under-delivering. By bringing an issue into the bounds of political debate, a politician risks getting saddled with responsibility for it. If it is something that cannot be acted upon, such as Nuts magazine or the cost of food, then it would be best not to comment. Associated with this, as far as moral issues were concerned, was the danger of hypocrisy, should a Party’s own conduct be found wanting as occurred around the time of John Major’s ‘back to basics’ rhetoric. This fear of a disconnect between language and action seems to have abated recently. Perhaps the trick is to find problems that are so far outside of the limits of policy, that nobody could possibly expect a government solution.

Secondly, there would have been the contrasting fear of under-promising and over-delivering. If, for instance, a socialist or French politician murmurred about the inequities of the free market, then this might be the thin end of a statist wedge leading to protectionism and subsidy. Even today, suspending market mechanisms is not quite in the realm of what politicians can’t do, but it is certainly in the realm of what they won’t do. In Britain in 2008, it is only because we have complete faith in the neo-liberal, non-interventionist virtues of our leaders that they are permitted to join in the whinge about Wall Street and prices.

Over the course of 2008, it’s become apparent that we now expect something rather odd from our leaders. We want to know that, a la Clinton, they feel our pain. But were they to initiate real action, we might well start to feel rather uneasy. If Michael Gove were to do something about Nuts and Zoo, this would make us as morally anxious as it would economically were Alastair Darling were to really do something about the credit crunch.

For readers of Michel Foucault, and his British followers in particular, this represents an interesting inversion of what is meant by liberalism. For Foucault, the liberal state speaks the language of freedom, but employs covert disciplinary interventions to make this freedom manageable. Westminster politics currently does the reverse. We allow our leaders to speak the language of discipline and state action, but only because we are safe in the knowledge that they could scarcely begin to deal with our misdemeanours and problems, even if they wanted to.