Friday, January 12, 2024

The largest volunteer army...

Many, myself included, are concerned that Trump will not hesitate to pervert the powers of the presidency to exact revenge on his political enemies. 

While that threat remains, another more dangerous and insidious possibility exists: that he will have a volunteer army of many millions, devoted acolytes, ready to commit illegal violence at his beck and call. 

He need only suggest indirectly that his enemies should be silenced and many in his personal private army will happily oblige. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest"? and with plausible deniability, his enemies are threatened or killed.

That in turn will have a chilling effect on all but his most determined critics, and will effectively quash any opposition in his party, ending any hope that his excesses will me moderated from within.

Saturday, January 6, 2024

A view from the man on the Clapham omnibus

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment 

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Initially, it seemed clear to me as "a man on the Clapham omnibus" that the 14th amendment barred anyone involved in an insurrection from becoming president.  However, having read several opinion pieces by people more knowledgeable of the law and its interpretation that me, that clarity is becoming a little hazier.    

Doing the easier bits first, as my accounting prof used to say, is the question as to whether the people or the courts should decide whether in insurrectionist may hold the highest office in the country.  First, the courts so far seem to agree that an insurrection did occur, that there was a concerted effort by a group, orchestrated by one individual in particular to subvert the orderly transition of power, and overturn the results of a free and fair election. The courts and the Congressional Inquiry into the events of January 6th 2021 do seem to agree that what happened in the weeks leading up to the formal ratification by Congress of the results of the 2020 general election meets the standard of an insurrection. 

Second, the Supreme Court had already weighed in on issues that determine who will become president in Bush vs. Gore, establishing that to do so is not without precedent. Second, particularly from an originalist and non-interventionists perspective, the societal consequences, while salient, should not take precedent over the interpretation of the law, when the law is clear.  Moreover, it has been pointed out that if the people's representatives consider that an exception need be made to the court's ruling, that is an option explicitly set out in the last sentence which gives Congress the power to do so.  

Next is the issue of the wording with respect to the highest office of all, that of the presidency. It has been suggested that there is a clear hierarchy in terms of importance, starting with senators, members of congress, the electors for the two "top jobs" and ending with "or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State". The implication is that in naming certain offices in order of importance, the presidency cannot reasonably be considered to be subsumed in the catch-all of "or hold any office". Furthermore, one writer maintains that "under the United States" means under the United States government and that since the presidency is the highest office it cannot be said to be "under" anything.  This last argument seems rather week; the might better be seen as in institution under which all elected officials including the president, work. 

My final thought, which is not one that I've seen written about, concerns the question of primary ballots.  The cases making their way through the courts are about whether an insurrectionist can appear on a primary ballot. But being listed as a candidate on a primary does not mean that if the insurrectionist were to win he would be holding any federal or state office. It only means he would be listed, unless barred from running, in the general election. So the 14th Amendment cannot apply to a primary election since these elections are not for "offices", state or federal.  If the case is about the general election, which does determine who holds an office, the question is as yet a hypothetical one, since an insurrectionist has not yet won in any primary.  Surely then, a decision about an insurrectionist being barred from the general election should wait until that hypothetical becomes a reality? 

This year will be an inflection point in many ways: the election itself, the decisions of SCOTUS, artificial intelligence, the wars in Ukraine and Israel's battle with the Palestinian terrorists. We are living in "interesting times".

Monday, October 16, 2023

FTX - another Theranos

Obviously, FTX is (or rather was) in a very different line of business than Theranos. But the crypto currency exchange and the diagnostic company shared several characteristics that led to their very high profile implosion.  

First both were operating on a relatively new technology space that very few people understood. That made it much easier for their founders to spin a wildly over-optimistic yarn without fear of contradiction. Those yarns may well had strayed into falsehoods in both cases too. 

Second, both had young, apparently brilliant founders that may wanted to believe in. America is plagued by the cult of personality and hero-worship, and both Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes, managed to convince a lot of seemingly smart people to buy into their stories.  With a posse of powerful influential but largely uncomprehending bakers, they were able to weather headwinds that would have sunk less well protected firms far earlier.   And that unnatural longevity increase the scale of the damage inflicted when they eventually imploded. 

If is fitting and not entirely surprising that high profile founders ended up failing in such spectacular fashion.. But until people, particular the influential (who by dint of their prior accomplishments, often overestimate their abilities) learn not to be take in by "bright young things" with an appealing story and do a little more due diligence fueled by a good does of skepticism, we'll be here again before too long.  

Sunday, September 3, 2023

Existential Risks

Geoffrey Hinton, the father of Artificial Intelligence, worries about AI as an existential risk for humanity. While he is concerned about the potential societal disruption of mass unemployment, political division driven by social media message targeting, the increase "ease" of going to war when your side only looses "battle-bots" and not people, not to mention the further erosion of trust in messaging and institutions, his principle concern is that unconstrained AI well see no need for human direction and control, and perhaps no need for humans at all. That is the existential thread he and many others worry about. 

The threat from AI has been compared to that we faced sixty years ago from nuclear weapons.  But there are two critical differences. First, nuclear weapons were designed and built by governments while A.I. is being developed in the private sector. Governments therefore only have indirect control over its development and their ability to influence it is somewhat "arms-length".

The second critical difference is incentives. Both nuclear weapons, particularly the H-bomb, have a clear downside - the total destruction of life on earth. But the up-side is quite different. For the bomb, it's the deterrent effect that is thought to have prevented World War III. Importantly, the diminishing marginal return from the number of weapons allowed governments to negotiate a halt to the arms race.

For AI however, the up-side is not only quite different but much more complex. First, AI offers clear benefits to society from better medical diagnoses, safer roads, more targeted teaching and tutoring and faster access to information. And since AI is being developed in the private sector, the potential profits are a strong incentive that weren't directly part of the decision making in developing the bomb. That incentive is exacerbated by the potential network effects common to software and other non-rival goods and services. Companies who fall behind in developing AI are destined to lose; that creates a strong incentive to push forward as fast as possible. And since the software industry has historically been more concerned with speed then safety, the "fail-fast" mentality, when flaws are discovered after the product is launched rather than before, guard-rails are likely to be an after thought at best and a band-aid for a severed artery at worst. 

All of which means that companies are unlikely to self-regulate effectively, leaving that job to governments. But governments have two problems. First, legislators have in the past have had difficulty grasping the some of the basics of new technology, let alone its implications and how they might be mitigated. Second, there is not only inter-firm competition but inter-country competition. The US government for example may be loath to impose too much regulation on AI for fear that China and Chinese firms will gain a competitive advantage which will have consequences for US competitiveness and its economic welfare.  

Finally there is an issue of oversight and enforcement. With nuclear weapons, a physical entity, inspection and intelligence gathering allowed both side in the cold war to know enough about the other was doing.  That's much harder when the development is not being carried out by singular government entities but dispersed throughout the private sector. And when there are no physical tell-tales to monitor, oversight and enforcement of any international agreement limiting the development of AI is going to be much harder.   

None of these issues applied to the development of nuclear weapons. Were one were looking to the history of the cold war for a road map to control the development of AI, the historical analogy would be  quite misleading.  One can only hope that around the world there are enough people with sufficient foresight to design some kind of effective global agreement. But given the political dysfunction in the US, the lack of cohesion in Europe given the tension between a European identity and its composite sovereign states and the lack of democratic accountability in China and Russia, it's hard to be sanguine about the future. 

Friday, August 25, 2023

Russia's regression

Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash along with nine of his deputies on Thursday. No one was particularly surprised. Prigozhin's plan crash looks very much like a carefully planned assassination by the Russian military, in all likelihood ordered by Putin. Prigozhin had risen to prominence as Russia's dictatorial president, Vladimir Putin, came to rely increasingly on the Wagner group mercenaries to do the work the regular Russian army was seemingly unable to.

The more Putin relied on Prigozhin's men in Ukraine, Prigozhin's influence and leverage grew. Prigozhin's increasing frustration with what he saw as the incompetence of the leadership of the regular army led to his demands to replace top Russian military leaders in June and ultimately to his failed coup.

While Prigozhin's demise isn't surprising - after all disposing of political opponents is precisely what autocrats do - what was, at least until yesterday, was the fact that Prigozhin appeared to have reached a deal with Putin. Yet what we now know, assuming the assessment is correct, is that Putin was merely biding his time. The supposed deal was never one on which Prigozhin should have relied.

It has been suggested that Putin liked "revenge as a dish served cold". Yet there seems a more pragmatic reason for his delay in exacting retribution. By lulling Prigozhin into a false sense of security, allowing him to travel back and forth between his self-imposed semi-exile in Bellaruse and Mother Russia, he found an opportunity to eliminate not only Prigozhin but all his top lieutenants at the same time. That not only disposes of the charismatic Prigozhin but neutralizes any potential threat from other Wagner Group leaders who might have shared Prigozhin's aspirations for power.

The other surprising aspect here is that Prigozhin never seemed to have seen this coming. Thinking he could challenge Putin's leadership and get away with it seems the height of hubris. Putin's enemies have been assassinated all over the world. Flying back and forth to Russia was a flagrant challenge to Putin's stature, one that he simply could not tolerate.

Looking forward two things seem clear. The first is that Putin's hold on power, at least for the moment, is more secure. The fate of Prigozhin and his top lieutenants will make others who might have thought to challenge or even disagree with Putin far less likely to do so. The second is that there are only two ways in which Putin's hold on power will end; with a coup or if he dies on the job (although the two are not mutually exclusive).

Causality is not always bidirectional

Causality is often not bidirectional. In many cases causality runs in one direction only with changes in A leading to changes in B but not vice versa.  China appears to be a case in point.  It has been generally assumed by economists that democratic free market economies function more efficiently and therefore generate more wealth than centralized command and control economies.  In the 1990s that reasoning was turned on its head and many political scientists assumed that the corollary would also hold; that greater economic prosperity and freer markets would lead to an inevitable transition from a centralized political system to a decentralized democratic one.  The quarter century since that view came to prominence has shown that in China at least, market liberalization and greater personal wealth do not lead to democratic reform.  When relationships are not simple and dyadic (A->B, B->A) but are the product of many different mechanisms one cannot assume causality runs both ways.      

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Trump vs. the Establishment

A legal pundit on The News Hour yesterday suggested it was never a good idea to antagonize the judge in a case in which you are the defendant. That may be the case for mere mortals but not Trump.  He believes, and with good reason, that the normal rules don't apply to him. If you color inside the lines you are indeed constrained by the rules and norms most of us take as given. But Trump has learned from experience that if you ignore the rules a range of possibilities open up not all of which end in tears.

What the News Hour pundit seemed not to realize is that insulting the judge and disparaging the legal system may hurt Trump's legal case, but helps his political campaign. And since his fate belongs less in the hands of the legal system and more in the hands of the electorate, insulting the judge and not playing by the rules seems like a pretty good strategy.       

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Now it's down to us, the electorate

Donald Trump was indicted for what to a lay person looks like an attempted coup. Nothing in America's political and constitutional history has been more serious. 

Many have argued that the fact that he was charged shows that the judicial system has held even under the most sever stress it may ever had have to endure. That may be so, but despite the compelling evidence and care in selecting how to charge Trump, the outcome for the country still hangs in the balance. 

A decision tree is illuminating here. The first branch deals with whether Trump is able to delay the trail until after the 2024 general election. The next two branches are the same except order depends on whether or not his delaying tactics were successful. The two branches are the outcome of the trial and the outcome of the general election.  

The decision tree can be simplified since the two right sets of branches (election outcome and trial outcome) are the same except that order of their application depends on the outcome of the leftmost branch.  For the moment, assume that the probabilities of winning in court and winning in the general election are the same whether the upper branch or the lower branch obtain. The model is then completely insensitive to the likelihood of the trial being delayed past the election, depending, along both "delay" and "no delay" branches, only on the combined probabilities of an election win (or loss) and a win (or loss) in the courts. Given that the first branch only flips the order of the subsequent branches, the tree can be reduced to:

Interestingly even if the trial were an open and shut case, with 100% certainty of a conviction, Trump's odds are still good, depending solely on the likelihood of his being reelected.  That's why winning the presidential election is so important for him.  In essence, his best route to freedom is by being elected. 

While the simplification depends on the assumption that election outcome is unaffected by the trial outcome on the lower branch ("no delay") it is worth noting that Trump's many indictments and his two impeachments have had no decipherable adverse impact on his electoral changes, nor popularity on the right (or for that matter his unpopularity on the left).  Similarly, one would hope that his trial verdict would be unaffected whether or not her were to be elected.

His fate therefore depends almost entirely on the electorate; they cannot put him in jail but they can certainly keep him out of jail. Even if his conviction were absolutely assured, his accountability rests with the American people.  This, then, is the ultimate test of America democracy. 

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Lunar trajectory

(c) NASA
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out of the Lunar Excursion Module in 1969 I remember a feeling a wonder, awe and hope.  I was eight years old and had followed the Apollo program from Apollo 8, the first manned flight crewed by astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders who were the first men ever to fly around the moon. 

In what seemed an eternity later but was in fact only six months, Armstrong and Aldrin planted the American flag on the lunar surface.  The Apollo program was only three years old, and less than a year since the first Apollo astronauts had left earth*

Five more moon landing were made until the program was terminated after the flight of Apollo 17 in 1972.  It had taken only three years from the first manned flight of the Saturn V to the sixth lunar landings. In hindsight, the speed with which the program moved forward was astonishing. That was fifty one years ago. 

In 1989 the Soviet Union collapsed and the "space race" effectively ended. The Space Shuttle never seemed to fulfill its original promise and didn't capture the public's imagination as the moon landings had. America turned inwards to become increasingly consumed in what we now think of as the culture wars. 

Existential challenges confront the country and the world yet America's increasingly chronic inability to tackle anything consequential, at least with any success, imperils the country and the wider world. Two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, failed to achieve their objectives, the wealth gap has widened and trust in institutions has all but evaporated. 

The feeling I had as I watched man set foot on the moon, the sense that there was almost no limit to what could be accomplished, has given way to the realization that America's sclerotic politic and societal dysfunction has turned the dream of a bright future, brimming with possibilities, into to a bleak and deeply depressing nightmare         

*Tragically Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, the crew of Apollo 1, died in a fire on the launch pad in Feb 21st, 1967.

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Strange priorities

Judge Aileen M. Cannon, in what appears to be a very unjudgmental decision, split the difference between Special Counsel Jack's Smith request for a speedy trial and Donald Trump's attempts to evade justice by delaying his trial until he might be in a position to direct the Justice Department to drop his case.

To a Brit the situation seems utterly bizarre and Kafkaesque. First Trump's argument that the trial might interfere with his political campaign is mind-boggling.  Defendants in criminal cases generally don't get to use the argument that they can't go to trial because they can't get time off work.  So clearly not everyone is equal in the eyes of our justice system. 

Second, that notion that it is possible to campaign for an elected office that could be used to alter the course of ones own criminal case equally baffling. To suggest that this would create a conflict of interest is, even for a Brit, an extraordinary understatement.  It's as if Jeffrey Dahmer stood for election to the governor of Wisconsin in order to stop his case going to trial or to grant himself a pardon were he to be convicted. 

While there may not be constitutional or legislative guard-rails that prevent a presidential candidate from either the delaying of a trial or the possibility of self-pardon or of stopping an ongoing prosecution, the Founding Father's almost certainly would have not approved of such self-dealing.  The constitution does seem to suggest that public service requires people be of "good moral character";  and what that meant may, to the Founding Father's, have seemed completely self-evident. 

However while they may have met or been aware that individuals as unscrupulous as Trump existed, it probably never crossed their minds that the electorate would ever entertain such as absurd notion as electing such a person to the highest office in the land.  Yet the morality that the Founding Father's considered sufficient to keep individuals lacking "good moral character" out of the White House seems to have evaporated. With the increasing polarization of American politics both sides are willing to turn a blind eye to a lack of "good moral character" if their side stands to gain.  What is  particularly ironic is that the GOP, which routinely rails against the decline in societal  morals, is willing to entertain the candidacy of a deeply immoral person ostensibly in order to restore the country's morals. 

Monday, June 26, 2023

Nemesis follows... eventually


On Saturday, the unthinkable happened; although with 20-20 hindsight, not entirely surprising after all.  Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group mercenary army, mounted the first serious challenge to Vladimir Putin's autocratic grip on power. 

Over the last several months Prigozhin had become increasingly and publicly critical of Putin, suggesting he was increasingly confident of his own power and his indispensability to Putin.

The Wagner group, in recruiting from Russia's prisons, turned out to be a more effective fighting force than Putin's regular army. As the war on Ukraine  bogged down, Putin begin to rely increasingly on the Wagner Group to backstop his regular army's failings and in so doing ceded power to Prigozhin.

As Prigozhin's confidence grew, along side his frustration with the Russian bureaucracy that seemed to be starving his mercenary army of military supplies, so did his impatience and his criticism of Putin. The feud between Prigozhin and Putin's Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff came to a head on Friday June 23rd when Russia’s Federal Security Service issued a warrant for Prigozhin’s arrest.  The following day, confident of his own invincibility, Prigozhin ordered his private army to advance on Moscow in what looks very much like an attempted coup. 

Things escalated quickly. Putin appeared on national television branding Prigozhin as a a traitor.  And then almost as quickly as it began it was seemingly over.  A deal brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko allowed Prigozhin to take sanctuary in Belarus in return for Prigozhin ordering his army to return to barracks. 
      
But while the situation seems to have de-escalated, the political landscape in Russia is now very different  from what it was 72 hours ago.    

Although Prigozhin's immediate challenge to Putin has subsided, he has not disappeared. The incident exposes the fragility of Putin's power. It highlights the weakness of the Russian army and the lack of support for the war in Ukraine, particularly among Russia's regular soldiers. 

Politically that gives Putin another headache. The war was in part his way of bolstering public support as the economy faltered and democratic freedoms were eroded. As support for the war evaporates and the bold claims Putin made at its outset ring increasingly hollow, he must rely increasingly on the authoritarian control of a police state.  In making a deal with Prigozhin rather than capturing and trying him for treason, Russians can now see Putin's invincibility for the myth it has now become.   

All of which creates a volatile inflection point. While Russia is preoccupied with an internal struggle for power,  Ukraine may benefit in its effort to expel the invasion. At the same time, Putin may become increasingly desperate in an attempt to hold on to power, leading him to act with increasing unpredictability.  The invasion of Ukraine was seen by many as an act of irrational hubris; that does not auger well for what Putin may do next.

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Academic Freedom?

Many of my colleagues have been lamenting the infringement of academic freedom in red states which are passing laws preventing the teaching of subjects related to race and gender.  

What is striking but not perhaps surprising is that very few made the same augment about infringement of academic freedom when AB1460, a law mandating the teaching of ethnic studies in the CSU was passed three years ago.

Apparently infringement of academic freedom is only problematic when it's a policy that many of my colleagues don't like but is perfectly fine when its one they support.  

It appears that hypocrisy is alive and well on the left as well as on the right.   

Farewell Rat Boy

 
Yesterday I had to say a very sad goodbye to Rat-boy. He was 15 and had been suffering from a thyroid problem for the last four years.
Rat was our second Sonora rescue after Buddy. His early preoccupation was climbing into my waste-paper bin, a pastime he kept well into his second year.
He and Tab-tab were great buds until Tab-tab and Buddy began feuding and we had to find Tab-tab another home (where I understood from Judith he is the center attention and of is very happy).  Rat was a gentle soul, would come when called even when it wasn't meal time. 

Until his middle years, he was also a playful cat...  












The last month he'd lost a lot of weight (yesterday he was down to 7lb 6oz) and was eating almost nothing despite all the varieties of tempting foods we had to offer. At first I thought it was just not wanting to eat with the others, but it became clear that despite being hungry he'd lost his appetite and could not stomach almost any of the cat or human food I tried to tempt him with. 

Quite suddenly yesterday he had a terrible episode of violent convulsions and although he perked up a little and ate two tins of pate, Wes Whitman agreed that it was his time. So sadly he made one last very quite one way trip to Mono Way Veterinary Hospital. Usually he hated travelling but this time he was quiet; I think he knew this was his final journey.

At 5:10pm he was put to sleep with his head in my hand, and went to join Mrs, Mookie, George, Bullwinkle, Buddy, Vic and Judith on the other side.

Sunday, June 11, 2023

Consequential? Not as one might expect

Donald Trump was indicted yesterday on thirty-one counts of Willful Retention of National Defense Information (in layman's terms, 'espionage'), and another six counts of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. For anyone not is a position of national power and influence, this would appear to be an open and shut case. Trump had no right to retain classified information, lied to the authorities investigating the case and tried to cover up his wrong-doing, allegedly.

But Trump is not an ordinary individual in two ways that matter in this case.  First he is a national figure, at present the front runner in the Republican presidential primary. While justice is supposed to be blind, the Justice Department cannot proceed without at least considering the political implications of bringing the case. While Trump's notoriety should not influence the pursuit of justice, it clearly influences the process by which justice might be arrived at. For example, Jack Smith, the Special Council tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with investing the case, is hoping to move the process forward quickly to avoid it dragging on into 2024 and the presidential primaries. It appears too, that he has been meticulous in his collection of evidence and the building of the case to ensure that any claims that this is a shoddy, politically motivated "witch hunt" might be easily laid to rest. 

The other way Trump differs from many other criminal defendants is in his brazen attacks on the legitimacy of the judicial system and the judicial process. Just as may autocrats, when deposed and  brought to trial, claim the the system under which they are being prosecuted has no legitimate right to hold or try them, so Trump is making the same argument. Of course the difference is that when a dictator is deposed, there is often a question about the legitimacy of the judicial system in which they are being tried; but that is certainly not the case in America.  Trump has and will continue to claim he is the victim, that the charges are trumped up and politically motivated, and are only being brought by the "elites" to bring him down. He will raise money for his presidential campaign on the back of the indictment. And he will try every trick in his extensive play-book to delay the proceedings so that he can leverage his court case into his victim-hood narrative as he campaigns for the nomination and likely the presidency. 

While much of the punditry has been focusing on the legal implications of the case, ultimately the outcome may be largely irrelevant. If Trump is not convicted, he will claim it as a victory that demonstrates not only his innocence, but a vindication of his claims to have been persecuted.  If he is convicted, he will claim that his is yet further evidence of his being victimized by his political opponents who have manipulated justice to their own political ends. Politically, Trump makes hay either way.  

Since the verdict may not matter much, his inability to find a legal team experiences in dealing with espionage cases may not matter much either. What he is probably looking for is a team that is prepared to risk everything (think Sydney Powell or Rudy Giuliani) while being adept at brazening things out in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing. Ultimately, while I'm sure he'd like to be acquitted, he is looking for a victory in the court of Republican public opinion, not the legal system, betting that the former matters more than the latter.   Yes, the indictment is consequential, but less in terms if its legal implications than its political ones.

Saturday, May 6, 2023

A Millennium of Tradition and Symbolism

King Charles III of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was crowned today in Westminster Abbey.

Much of the imagery will be of the finery and the trappings of royalty; the crown, the orb and sceptre, the gilded carriage. Much will be made of the pageantry, the four thousand man and women from the armed services, the splendid (if somewhat bizarre to an outsider) uniforms of the Grenadier Guards or the Household Cavalry. 

But two things stuck me particularly today. One was an old man in his undershirt, the other a old wooden chair.  

That old man was the new King, being ceremonially undressed and then anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Charles is the constitutional head of the Anglican Church, established by Henry VIII in 1543.  I was struck by the symbolism of this public display of vulnerability, of the public acknowledgement of his role as the servant of god as well as the people. 

In the second image, we see Charles standing without any finery in front of the 727-year-old Coronation Chair on which 26 monarchs, including Charles' mother, have been crowned since the coronation of Edward II in 1308. And below the seat, the Stone of Scone, on which kings and queens of Scotland have been inaugurated since the middle ages.    
       
While Britain has in large measure come to terms with its diminished role in the world, from the super-power of the 19th century to a middle size country in the north of Europe, it is still steeped in tradition and history.  That history is everywhere from the real Tudor houses with thatched rooves to the Norman churches found in so many English villages. 

It is that history, that sense of heritage, that anchors Brits and allows them to cope with the tumult of the country's changing role, its increasing diversity, its more inclusive and tolerant culture. Tradition may appear to be an obstacle to progress but it can also facilitate change by balancing the uncertainty change brings with the stability of that long heritage.  

A year ago today

Exactly a year ago Judith and I drove to Sacramento. It was dark when we left the house. We had to be there before eight I think. I don't remember exactly, except that we drove half way there before sunrise and stopped for coffee and egg white bites at the Starbucks in Angel's Camp. 

We had some time to wait. Most of what happened is now a bit of a blur, save three memories. The first was saying goodbye as she was taken into the operating room. She was frightened; I held her hand and told her it would be fine. l really believed that. 

I waited in the car park. The operation was scheduled for ten and was supposed to be over by noon; but by 1:30 I'd heard nothing. Then I got the call from Max Horowitz, the surgeon. The operation had run longer than expected but he thought it had been a success, at least as far excising the cancer was concerned. It had progressed to Stage 3, I think he'd said, but the margins were clean.  I was relieved that the operation was over but concerned; Stage 3 was not what I'd wanted to hear.  Now we had the chemo ahead of us, but that was a month away and I was looking forward to Judith coming home.  

The next memory was going into recovery as Judith was waking up. She was under a heating blanket, still very groggy, her hands making little grasping motions. She wanted her special hydrogen infused water  water which we'd brought from home. The nurses let me stay till 6pm when I set off home to feed the cats.  

I would retrace that journey for a week. Judith was supposed to come home after three or four days but because someone had cut into a large vein during surgery (that was why the operation had run so long) and she'd not been re-positioned, she sustained serious motor nerve damage from the sustained compression. That deprived her of any motor function in her left ankle. Foot-drop was the very non-technical-sounding term for the condition. That was why she stayed in hospital several days longer than planned, and had a significant impact on her life for the next six months, confining her to her chair for most of the time. It was the first indication that things weren't going to go smoothly.   

The last memory from that early hospital episode was picking her up to go home. I think she was to be discharged around noon. I went to her room, talked with one of the surgeons about her foot drop (although that may have been a different day) and then went to bring the car round. But there was some confusion and crossed wires about which entrance she'd be coming out from and it took a few phone calls to sort that out. She was pissed and I was annoyed that the episode had soured what should have been a happy occasion.  As things turned out, there would be very few happy occasions after that. 

Friday, May 5, 2023

The appearance of impropriety

Clarence Thomas was treated to gifts and favors from a variety of wealthy conservatives which he didn't disclose.  His house, in which his mother lived, was bought and his mother allowed to continue to live there rent free. He enjoyed vacations and flights on private planes.  Although it all looks very fishy it's not corruption, at least as the law understands it. There is no evidence of a direct "quid-pro-quo".

However the strict legal definition of corruption is really not that important here. What does matter is impropriety and the appearance of impropriety as the Founding Fathers noted. 

It's hard to say if Thomas' rulings were directly influenced by his wealthy friends lavishing him with gifts or whether their friendship arose and was sustained by a shared world view. 

Nevertheless, that fact they became friends only after he was appointed to the Supreme Court, while not in and of itself improper, it could be construed as a conscious attempt by his benefactors to exert some subtle influence in his general thinking even if not directly on his legal opinions.

The second question which Journalists haven't looked at (and which I think they should) is whether his donors sought out and then lavished similar gifts on other like-minded thinkers or whether their "outreach" was only to those who wielded significant power.  If that were to be the case it would look suspiciously like an attempt to influence Thomas' (and other powerful peoples') decision-making and hence his opinions.

Since the Court like many important institutions of democracy relies on public trust (just as banks do, as First Republic has just shown us), the appearance of impropriety undermines that trust and so creates instability in society. 

SCOTUS needs to get its ethical act together for the good of the country and do so without Congress getting involved. Showing it can police itself will be important to restoring trust; having ethical rules imposed on it from outside will only reinforce that idea as an institution it cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

Saturday, February 25, 2023

The demise of the "knowledge worker"

Academia has a lot to answer for; it may have ruined the lives of a generation or more. To understand why, we need to go back to the 1990s.  

Once the Berlin Wall fell, America turned its attention to international trade. Governments (and economists) thought growing international trade would bind nations states more closely economically and that would reduce the likelihood of war. Parenthetically, in 2022 Russia proved that to be an unfortunately illusion. Business and manufacturing companies in particular saw the post-Cold War order as an opportunity to move jobs to lower wage countries and offshoring took off.

As manufacturing jobs in the US (and Europe) disappeared, management scholars began lauding the "knowledge economy" as the answer to offshoring.  In order to meet the demand for "knowledge workers", at least 40% (Tony Blair suggested 50%) of high-school graduates would need to get a four-year degree. In the UK polytechnics became universities with the stroke of a pen.  

Fast forward a quarter century and academia (and much of the US) is either up in arms or enthralled by ChatGPT, a deep learning Artificial Intelligence engine. Tellingly, a member of the Wharton business faculty asked it to answer one of his exam MBA questions and he considered its answer, had it been a student's, would have earned a "C".  So the debate about whether to use ChatGPT in the classroom or ban it is in a sense moot. If ChatGPT gets a a "C" a Wharton, anyone with a Wharton C or lower is effectively unemployable.  Why hire a Wharton MBA at $300k when you can get as good an answer for free? 

What does this all mean? First, ChatGPT provides a universal standard by which to calibrate work across institutions. If a Wharton professor thinks a ChatGPT answer is worth a "C" and a San Jose State prof thinks it's a B, that suggests a Wharton "C" is about the same as a  San Jose State "B".

Second, it creates a performance threshold, an "AI bar"; get less than a Wharton "C" (or a San Jose State "B") and you are no better than ChatGPT.  So to be competitive (with AI) in the labor market, students have to do at least as well as ChatGPT; otherwise they're unemployable. That's why the debate about banning or using ChatGPT is moot.  Students may use it but if they do, they won't clear the AI bar and their degree is effectively worthless.

In the longer run, the employment landscape will change radically.  Knowledge work will be eviscerated. High-school leavers will eschew four year degrees for jobs that require physical presence, service and manual jobs. For a while at least jobs that require individual customization may be immune from automation and offer a temporary respite from the technological tsunami.  For those in early in their careers AI will soon over-take them and they will find themselves looking for work outside the knowledge economy.  

We are at an inflection point, one that OpenAI has created with the launch of ChatGPT. Suddenly everyone has been given a salutary lesson in AI's potential. CEOs who had either not been paying attention or not taken it seriously, will now be asking what is the scale of the threat it poses to their companies if they don't get on board. That will light a fire under AI's adoption and its development.

The better AI becomes (and its progress will be ever more rapid), the less knowledge work the will be. Those most effected will be knowledge workers in their early careers, say one to ten years in.  But that age range will get larger as AI improves. Only those with deep experience will be immune from replacement by "intelligent" machines. And as a consequence of academia's hype and enthusiasm over the knowledge economy we have created a huge group of people in their 30s and 40s who are most at risk from being replaced by AI.  That's a big potential social problem for which academia is responsible.

Moreover, that creates a conundrum; if people early in their careers are replaced by AI, fewer and fewer will get the experience needed to stay ahead of the machines.  The result will be an increasingly divided society with a tiny elite rising above the "AI bar" and commanding insane salaries while everyone else will be jobless or working for minimum wage.  It could even be worse (although I doubt that politically this would be allowed to happen - but that's another story); AI could render even the best and the brightest redundant. 

By the 2030s the political divide won't be between red states and blue states, but between a small insanely wealthy elite who have jobs and the 99% who will be out of work or earning minimum wage. How well the country's leaders prepare for that future will determine whether we navigate it peacefully or have to deal with a tinderbox of volatile social unrest. 

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Bye-bye Buddy Bear

 

Bye-bye Buddy Bear

After several years battling increasingly frequent episodes of severe constipation, we had to let Buddy go in December. He was our first all-American cat, who we adopted shortly after we moved to Sonora. 

A diabetic, he put up with being poked with an insulin needle twice a day for 15 years.  He was a gentle soul. He'd walk up to me on the kitchen counter and if I leaned down, he'd rub his forehead against mine.

As the most senior member of the cat clan he took is job keeping the others in order very seriously. Whenever there was a fracas between any of the other cats, he'd run to break it up.  Like most of our cats, he'd come when called, though he made it clear that it was on his terms. 

Keep on taking charge Buddy. You were a commanding presence in the family and I'll miss you.

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Keeping your powder dry

In The Prince, Machiavelli cautions: "men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge".

The "establishment" comprises largely Democrats and a few courageous Republicans, those who believe in preserving the rules based order, both abroad and at home. Increasingly, and opportunistically catalyzed by Donald Trump, there is a group who want to tear it all down, who feel "the system" is not working for them (and they may be right about "the system"). 

The January 6th committee, the most visible manifestation of "the establishment", has issued a subpoena requiring Donald Trump to provide documents and testify under oath before the committee, a step unprecedented in recent US history. 

But as with two failed impeachments, to paraphrase Nietzsche what doesn't kill him makes him stronger. A wounded animal is more dangerous than one that is unharmed (or dead).  Taking legal potshots at Donald Trump will do nothing to reduce his political influence and will animate his supporters, increasing his immunity from political attacks and making any future legal action against him more divisive.   

The "establishment" would do well to heed Machiavelli's advice and keep it's (mixed-)metaphorical  powder dry until is has a slam-dunk.

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Not a chance

There is a snowballs chance in hell that Donald Trump will appear before the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection; to imagine otherwise is to entirely misunderstand Trump. Yes, he has said he wants to appear to make is case but that's his usual gas-lighting bluster. Such proclamations come without risk to him just as do his trademark lies made in the media. But what had become clear is that when he faces real legal jeopardy, he pleads the 5th. 

Testifying under oath before the January 6th committee would mean facing questions about his role in the insurrection. Given the evidence the committee has unearthed so far, answering truthfully about his involvement and his actions would amount to a confession as to his role in the plot to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Answering untruthfully would likely be less damaging but would none the less represent a legal problem for him.  

His most likely play is to first ignore the subpoena and then to challenge it in court to create delay sufficient to run out the clock past the mid-terms. If that fails he will dare the January 6th committee to try to enforce it, something they may hesitate to do given his ardent supporters passion and their potential for violence.    

The only circumstance in which he would testify would be if he were to adopt the position that the January 6th committee, and by extension the legislative branch of the government, had no legal authority to question him as an ex-president. While that is clearly bonkers, it is the argument routinely used by autocrats when they face judicial proceedings; they consider themselves above the law. While it is possible that Trump is that delusional, his past practice suggests that he hasn't taken leave of his sense to quite that degree. 

Of course, I could be wrong; either way it will be another Trumpian spectacle that will challenge the robustness of our institutions.  

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Insurrection Day : Subpoena


January 6th 2020, when a mob, whipped into a frenzy by Donald Trump, marched on the Capitol, broke in and violently disrupted the certification of the 2019 presidential election, was one of the most shocking events in my lifetime.  

Today was almost as shocking. The January 6th Committee publicly issued a subpoena calling on Donald Trump to provide documents requested by, and to testify under oath before, the committee. The resolution calling for the subpoena was recorded in a unanimous roll-call vote. Not a single member dissented or abstained.

Where things go from here is very unclear. Given his penchant for diversion, distraction and delaying tactics, it seems unlikely that Trump will ever comply. One thing is certain, however; the stakes have been raised. 

Saturday, October 1, 2022

Social categorization

In the UK, arguably the most salient social categories are accents. There are broadly three: no particular accent suggests middle class. Strong regional accent suggests working class. And "posh" public school accent says upper class.  

The US doesn't rely on accents as much as color and language. The three broad categories in the US seem to be white, black and immigrant. Black and immigrant are easily identified by their color and the two are separated by language. 

Language, while not immutable, sometimes leaves speakers with a national accent that suggests the speaker is a "foreigner". But distinguishing accents, which can be eradicated or acquired, color cannot.  Social categorizations in the US, based as they are to such a degree on race, are thus more immutable than in the UK.

Changing culture, one story at a time

No one news story, tweet, or Facebook post will change peoples' minds. For those on the right, each story of a unlawful police killing or unhinged shooter will be just an outlier that doesn't represented a contradiction to their underlying world view that the police a good and guns aren't the problem. For those on the left each story of Democrats involved in shady business enterprises is simply dismissed as right wing political propaganda.  

But sufficient exposure to one kind of narrative or another may begin to lend credibility to its underlying interpretive frame and undermine a previously held contradictory frame. Thus someone who predominantly watches Fox will likely absorb the set of fundamental premises and value ordering that support the interpretive frame of the extreme right while listeners to NPR or MSNBC will be more likely to use the empathetic lens of the far left in interpreting events.  

For this to happen does not require that the farmings are made explicit (though Fox' opinion show do) but simply that the stories chosen tend to support the central political narrative of that source. So Fox will under-report stories of gun violence while over-emphasizing those about crimes committed by immigrants while the NPR or MSNBC will stream stories of the misfortune or abuse of underrepresented minorities or the ease with which guns can be purchased in some states.   

As the two media camps try to differentiated themselves to appeal to their target demographic they also change that demographic. As each loses viewers and subscribers in the middle, their center of gravity shits away from the center and the two narrative drift apart to to the point where the value system that underlies the choice of story (and interpretation if given) of each is almost unrecognizable to the other.  That's the way America has arrived at "one system two countries".   

Saturday, September 3, 2022

Kayser Trump

 "There was a gang of Hungarians who wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power, you didn't need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn't." Kayser Söze, in 'The Usual Suspects'

Donald J. Trump, who sees himself very much in the mold of a kaiser (German for Emperor), might well have been a disciple of Kayser Söze's. For the seven years since he announced he wanted to run for the White House, he has repeatedly shown that he was prepared to do what no one else would.  He told more blatant lies than any president in American history.  He announced that he would not necessarily accept the results of the 2020 election (and it wasn't hard to predict what might lead him assert - without evidence - that the election was improperly conducted). He put family members into key positions who then used those positions to enrich themselves. He implicitly blackmailed a foreign leader for his own political advantage. He condoned violence against his opponents' supporters at his rallies. He undermined trust in critical institutions for his own political gain.  He incited an attack on the Capitol in what can only be described as an attempted coup. He destroyed materiel that were by statute presidential records. And he pilfered top secret materials and then lied to the FBI about it. 

The word unprecedented may seem overused in describing Trumps egregious flouting of norms, rules, and laws, yet it is accurate. He had the will to do what no one else dared to and that is both the source and the manifestation of his power. 

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Will he run in 2024? He has to.

Since Trump was ejected from the White House by the voters nearly two years ago, there has been widespread speculation as to whether he might run again in 2024. On the one hand, his fragile ego probably couldn't handle another defeat, and that prospect might be a sufficient disincentive.  On the other hand, his thirst for the revenge he could reap from the Oval Office is clearly a huge incentive. 

But the clincher is surely the prospect of avoiding prosecution and and jail. As Bibbi Netanyahu showed, getting into the highest office in the land is a great way to stymie investigations into wrongdoing and run out the clock on potential prosecution. As the net tightens around him on his numerous alleged felonies, running again may be his only salvation from serious time.  

Monday, August 8, 2022

A question of interpretation

The former president's Mar-a-Lago residence was raided today by the FBI, looking for papers illegally from removed the White House by the former president, allegedly.  He and his supporters were incensed, claiming this was unprecedented and thus further evidence of left wing deep state vendetta against the him. 

Of course there is another (more plausible) explanation for it being unprecedented; simply put, this was the first president whose conduct had risen to this level of illegality.  

Thursday, August 4, 2022

The boiling frog

Little by little it looks like the United States is sliding into a one party autocracy. The constitution already favors one party, the Republicans, with its over-weighting of sparsely populated states in the Senate. Red states are also making it harder for their opponents to vote through legislation predicated on false claims of voter fraud and the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries. Compounding this, the GOP is installing party loyalists in the election machinery making it possible to sway elections in their favor by throwing out opponents' votes. It has been working for over a decade to politicize the federal judiciary, culminating in its take-over of the Supreme Court.

If re-elected, the MAGAP plans to hollow out the civil service and put in place party loyalists. Law enforcement is generally more sympathetic to the GOP than the Democrats and there are already many more MAGAP members in law enforcement (and the military) than Democrats. The last remaining step will be the trampling of the free press, something Trump would dearly love. If the current trend continues, America will be a one party illiberal democracy (like China or Venezuela). 

Saturday, July 9, 2022

"The spirit of tolerance, you fool"

The right is critical of the left for its tolerance of bad behavior which they contend is what ails society. They seem to want to go back to the zero tolerance, three strikes, broken windows theory approach. Whether it worked is debatable; the left says it leads to discriminatory policing, high incarceration rates, particularly for people of color, broken single parent families and the longer term social problems that creates. 

The right contends that it sends a clear message of what is and is not acceptable, and that laws should be obeyed. [It's almost pointless to note that Trump is that last person on earth to be waxing lyrical about obeying the law, given his track record of lying, pushing the legal envelope, not to mention blackmailing foreign leaders for his own political ends and orchestrating an attempted coup - but that's tangential to the point here].

But there's another aspect to tolerance that seems to have escaped the right (other than its habitual hypocrisy); and that's tolerating lunatics in positions of influence. For example, those who believe in Jewish space lasers, windmills causing cancer, Hugo Chavez (deceased) working with Dominion to alter votes in the 2020 election.  Most people (I hope) would look at any one of these and think that the person proposing them must be completely insane - not just metaphorically, but literally - they must have taken leave of their senses. They would (and should) be gently humored but never allowed to take the wheel. Yet here there are elected to Congress - no wonder the country is in decline.        

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Domestic Terrorists? Not really

The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have been in the news quite a bit lately, with the January 6th Hearings and all.  They have been branded "domestic terrorists" by the Department of Homeland Security. But are they really terrorists? 

They put on a good show, brandishing long guns and parading around in body armor and camo. But have they really committed any acts of terrorism?  Yes, there is lots of chatter and they were deeply involved in the Insurrection, but apart from that, what have they done? Yes there was the Oklahoma City bombing, and there have been hate crimes committed by right wing nutters, but these appear to be uncoordinated "lone-wolf" operations, in the national security parlance.  For the most part, these quasi-militias appear for photo-ops, protest marches and feel-good rallies, but they are probably more of a social club of terrorist wannabes.

I grew up in Britain in the 60s and 70s during The Troubles.  There were at least four real paramilitary organizations who could reasonably be called terrorists: the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Provisional IRA (the "Provos") on the Catholic side; and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) on the Protestant side.  

All were not only well organized, they also acted; they planted bombs, they shot and killed people, either on the other side or members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army which had been sent in to quell the violence, even a member of the Royal Family, Lord Mountbatten. 

These were real terrorists; they didn't parade around in camo or brandish guns; they blended in, planned carefully and committed acts of true terrorism. (Pro tip: you can't commit an act of terrorism and get away with it by drawing attention to yourself). In comparison, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, at least so far, are just performative cos-play social clubs. And long may that distinction continue. 

Insurrection Day : Hearing #6

Today a very brave young woman, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified before the January 6th Committee.  A number of things about the hearing were noteworthy. First was that it happened at all; this was almost certainly because Hutchinson had been threatened by Trump and his MAGA cronies and the Committee was fearful that she might either refuse to testify if the intimidation succeeded; or possibly worse. 

Next were some important revelations. Three stood out for me:

  • Trump wanted to let heavily armed individuals (probably members of the Oath Keeps, the Proud Boys or other similar pseudo-paramilitary clubs) into his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6th. Despite being told they were heavily armed he reasoned (rightly) that they were not there to harm him, and he wanted a really really big crowd for the TV - just like at his inauguration.
  • Trump and his advisors all new that there was a real possibility for the crowd to turn into an ugly violent mob, yet they were either dismissive (Meadows) or in some cases (Trump) hoping for exactly that.
  • Not only is Trump ruthless and utterly unprincipled (something many of us predicted six years ago and for which he has provided ample evidence since), but he is also a sociopath with a tendency for real violence and almost no self-control. His plate throwing was just a taster; his physical assault on his driver and the head of his security detail when they refused to take him to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse was simply jaw-dropping.          

Yet despite all of the evidence assembled and presented at these hearings, the MAGA crowd will be unmoved, either because the weren't listening or if they were, will say (and may even believe) that is is all part of a sinister plot by the Communists, ANTIFA and the Jews to destroy the white Christian society that they think of as "America". 

Monday, June 27, 2022

America: One system, two countries

In foreign policy, it has long been de rigueur to refer to the Taiwan/China question as "One country, two systems" as a way of placating both sides. The two recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court have created the exact opposite: one system, two countries. 

While Americans vote in a single nationwide election for a single nationwide federal government, it is becoming increasingly clear that America is no longer one country; and last week's SCOTUS decision will only deepen the divide. By allowing red states to enact more extreme conservative policies, many will leave them for bluer pastures. And those in blue states who are less liberal will emigrate red-wards, something that is already happening to California. 

The result will be less compromise, more rancor and a worsening of the national political climate. The result will be still more legislative deadlock at the federal level and as a consequences, declines in the country's economic performance and its clout in international affairs. That will leave the way clear for China to become the dominant superpower of this century. 

Unless Americans can find a single cause around which to rally, something that covid clearly demonstrated is unlikely to happen, the US looks increasingly like a country in steep decline. 

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Courting disaster

Leaving aside the particular question on which the US Supreme Court issues its ruling last week, the decision has dire consequences for the United States. 

In overturning Roe vs Wade and Planned Parenthood vs Casey, the Court reversed a 50 year old precedent that had been previously upheld by the Supreme Court on several occasions. Given their assurance at their confirmation headings that they would respected stare decisis, that makes the three most recent appointees look less than honestWhile we now have come to expect our political leaders to lie routinely, something the 45 demonstrated par excellence, to now find that the most powerful and highest ranking members of the judicial branch do too is not simply disappointing; it erodes trust in another critical institution of democracy. Their example will filter down the food chain with the result that anyone seeking to serve in the judiciary will be presumed to be disingenuous until proven otherwise.

Second, given the relentless campaign by the right to appoint politically conservative justices, whatever the research on SCOTUS decision-making suggests, there can now be no question, at least in the public mind, that the Court is simply politics by other means. That opens that door for further politicization, this time from the left to tip the political balance on the Court back to the center (and back to where, at least in the case of abortion, the majority of the public is). A highly political Court, as this one clearly is, undermines trust in the judiciary.

The implications for democracy in the US are profound. When citizens lose trust in the administration, Congress and the judicial branch, there is, in the end, nothing left but protest, violence and the achieving of ends by force. This country is heading down a dark and dangerous road.

Monday, June 13, 2022

Political Asymmetry

It is clear from the evidence presented by the Congressional January 6th commission that Donald Trump was instrumental and central to the effort to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. It is also clear that he was enabled in this by those around him; some like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell were completely unscrupulous actors for whom the end justified the means and truth was immaterial. Others were simply too weak or too afraid to cross Trump who, like every gangster, used fear as a means of control; and as spiteful and vindictive as he is, would exact revenge against any who dared exhibit an iota of disloyalty. 

But to most rational outside observers, the puzzle is why those in his circle apparently took so long to understand what Trump was doing and took no steps beforehand to prevent him from ripping up the constitution in his pursuit of power.  It's astounding because Trump told everyone on prime time TV on multiple occasions what he would do should he lose; and still Republicans and in particular those in his inner circle chose to pretend that he wouldn't carry out his thread to undermine the election. To the rest of us, his lies about the election was shocking but unsurprising. (Indeed, I still don't understand why, when some fact Trump doesn't like, the media insist on reporting that "Trump denies the allegation". Anyone who has been paying attention these last six years knows that Trump lies incessantly; to report his denial is therefore of no legitimate news value - but I digress).    

After the second day of public hearings today, the PBS News Hour invited Ben Ginsberg, a long-time Republican elections attorney, onto the program to comment on the days proceedings. He cautioned that Republicans should be concerned that by not soundly condemning Trump's disregard for the constitutional transfer of power, they set a precedent that Democrats would exploit should a Republican win fair and square in a future election.  Unfortunately he's quite wrong and Republicans need not worry. When push comes to shove, Democrats lack the raw craving for power that Republicans have increasingly exhibited the last quarter century; Democrats are still, to some small degree, restrained by principle and allegiance to the rule of law (rather ironic,  since that used to be the Republican's key selling point). 

Kayser Söze ("The Usual Suspects") was feared because he was prepared to kill members of his family to demonstrate just how ruthless he was. Trump has proven to be the Kayser Söze of the American political system. And in the six years since he entered the political arena, we have not found a way to combat his unprincipled self-interested pursuit of power. The result is a laying waste of values and trust in democracy from which it will take decades for the country to recover - if it ever does. 

Monday, May 30, 2022

The gun debate

Two more terrible mass shootings in the last week, one racially motivated  in Buffalo, New York, the other a suicidal youth in Uvalde, Texas, have brought the debate over guns back to the fore. 

As usual Democrats have called for banning assault rifles and more gun control generally, and the GOP has blamed mental health, lack of armed teachers and the rest of its regular litany of alternative explanations that might divert the conversation away from gun control.  So no surprises there.

What is becoming clear is that the argument is not about guns at all, but about identity. It has morphed into a debate about individualism versus collectivism.  The individualists want the right to bear arms in part because they do not trust the state to provide protection; indeed many do not trust the state at all and think their guns are their last line of defense against what they perceive as state oppression.  The collectivists believe that some curtailing of individual rights (gun control) is needed to reduce the number of gun-related deaths, at the same time trusting, indeed expecting, the state to protect its citizens.  This dichotomization of identity happens to line up with the rural vs. urban divide and the right/left divide.    

On the vertical axis is the rate of gun related homicides, on the horizontal a function of the ratio of democratic to republican votes in the 2020 general election, for all fifty states. There is a clear relationship between high rates of gun related homicides and right-leaning states.  What is so tragic is that in the twenty years since the Sandy Hook shooting, not to mention Columbine and all those since, almost no action has been taken by either party; the Democrats are stymied by the filibuster in Congress and an increasingly right-leaning Supreme Court.  

The GOP on the other hand has no excuse for inaction, and anyone interested in curbing the rate of gun related homicides in America should be asking the GOP two questions. First, from the list of possible causes (mental health, for example) what actions have been taken? Then two follow-up questions; if the answer is nothing, then "why not"? and if the actions have been taken then "to what extent have the worked"? My guess is that in those states favoring solutions other than gun-control, little if anything has been done. But if things have, we need to know if anything worked so that the same measures might be applied elsewhere. 

Thursday, March 24, 2022

A new macroeconomic normal

Two exogenous shocks have disturbed the macroeconomic equilibrium that has existed for several decades. The first in 2020 was the pandemic; the second in 2022 has been Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  Both will alter the global economy in profound ways. 

The pandemic has had both a short and a long run effect. In the short run governments mostly in the developed world sought to less covid's impact with strong economic stimulus. While the intent was to prevent people falling into poverty, a by-product was a fueling of demand as those who continued to be employed found themselves with additional disposable income.  However, the nature of that extra demand shifted from services, which were hard to access due to the pandemic lock-downs, to goods. That led to a spike in prices as demand exceeded supply. The surge in demand also led to supply chain bottlenecks with perversely further restricted supply - containers stacked up on docks meant that the normal functional of logistics operations were disrupted.  

While some thought that the shift from services to goods was temporary there is reason to think that it may be much more long lasting. Even though covid is moving towards endemicity, people's willingness to socialize and make use of services that involve coming into close proximity with potentially infectious others will not recover to pre-pandemic levels for some time if ever. The increases demand for goods may therefore be permanent rather than transitory. 

The second long term change stems from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Political risk calculations are now front and center of firms economic decision making. Factory locations will be reconsidered and new overseas investments, both for production and markets will no longer be viewed though a purely economic lens. In the short to medium term this will results in reconfiguration of supply chains and lead to additional supply chain bottlenecks. In the longer term access to cheap labor will be constrained and that,  together with  re-shoring of manufacturing, will lead to higher prices.  In particular the reduced flexibility of fewer off-shoring options will shift power away from management and back to labor, which will add to inflationary pressure. 

Finally, while not so much a shock as an increasingly urgent pressure, the need to develop energy independence from autocratic regimes combined with the need to move away from fossil fuels will create a medium term increase in energy prices. Energy costs have almost doubled in Europe and will rise further in coming years. 

Over the last thirty years, most of the developed world has enjoyed a stable and predictable economy. That predictability has almost certainly come to an end.

Thursday, March 10, 2022

Sacrifice

It some level, it boils down this. What am I willing to sacrifice in the name or principle and humanity for people I don't know even if "they look like me"? Higher gas prices, while salient and an irritant, is a sacrifice I'm both fortunate enough to be able to afford and willing to make.  But would I be willing to live in a post-nuclear holocaust world? That's much tougher. If continued escalation in Ukraine leads to a nuclear exchange, we might be on course for a strategic strike against the US. 

Cities would be laid waste. People who survived the blast would be dying of radiation sickness. Food would be short and people would starve. There would likely be no electricity and hence for for us no water.  With scarcity might come violence and a breakdown of law and order. My life expectancy might come down from a couple of decades to a couple of years or months depending.  Given that, I'm very reluctant to side with the hawks that escalation is the only way to stop Putin. Ant that's precisely what Putin's counting on. So while I feel terrible for the people of Ukraine, I'm not yet ready to make the kind of sacrifice that would come with a nuclear war. 

Monday, March 7, 2022

A Tipping Point?

Talks to arrange a ceasefire are going nowhere: Russian negotiators have no deal-making authority since to give ground would anger Putin; that would not be good for them.  Whether the war goes on or stops depends entirely on Putin's whim.  He now has no way out. Dividing Ukraine down the middle and leaving him the eastern part of the county is probably not enough from him; he wants it all.  

Given the unexpectedly slow pace of the Russian advance, he is now intense pressure, externally and to some extent internally. As Zanny Minton-Beddoes put it: "Putin cannot win this war and he cannot afford to loose it".  Stress may cloud Putin's judgement, particularly when he lives in an group-think information bubble, so he cannot be depended on to act rationally.   

That leads to a consideration of the possibility of escalation. It now seems well within the realms of possibility that Putin will use chemical or tactical nuclear weapons. Given the West's decision not to respond forcefully when Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, Putin may well be expecting the West to step back again, making him more likely to use them. If it does not, we will be a step or two higher on the escalation ladder. Where that stops without an obvious "off-ramp" for Putin is hard to say and Armageddon is no longer just fantasy.  

Sunday, March 6, 2022

Sanctions

(c) Economist 2022
The sanctions regime deployed by the West and others to persuade Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine is by all accounts the most draconian and consequential ever imposed on a large industrial economy. Nevertheless, there are two reasons to think they will not halt the Russian invasion nor prevent Putin from deposing Ukraine's legitimate government.

The first is and overarching reason is timing. Sanctions, even those just implemented, despite already having profound effects on the Russian economy, are widely thought to require weeks or months to achieve their desired effect. But Ukraine likely has only days not weeks in which it can hold out. 

The second is the mechanism. Sanctions are meant to be persuasive at several levels; on Putin himself, on his oligarchs and on the Russian people as a whole.  They will not deter Putin personally since for him this is no longer about his personal wealth but about power, control, his standing as a world leader, and his grandiose ambitions to reconstruct the old USSR.  If he wins he stays in power and will have access to all the money he wants. For Putin, alternatives to a win are two; he backs down, but remains in office (in the totalitarian state he has built he will never loose another election) although his standing on the world stage will be reduced to pariah. But if he refuses to back down, the end results is the same. So there is no upside for him to back down now. 

Sanctions on the oligarchs will only cause Putin to change course if the oligarchs collectively believe he can be deposed; while Putin remains in power, they are beholden to him for their wealth, at least that not yet frozen by the West, but more importantly for their future earnings. They have no real power themselves unless they can either persuade the Russian parliament to act to curb Putin's power or persuade the Russian military to mount a coup.  Both the military and members of the Duma must in turn weigh the chances of success; should legislative measures to rein Putin or a coup fail, all those involved, directly or indirectly, will likely face long prison or death sentences. Weighing such odds depends on an assessment of outcome probabilities. That in turn depends on a critical mass willing to support such a course of action. Developing that critical mass takes many quiet conversations and time. 

The last mechanism by which sanctions act is through their effect on the Russian people. The there are only two ways in which ordinary Russians get any say. The first is through the ballot box. But not only is an election too far distant to matter, even were an election to be held tomorrow, because Putin controls the press, the media and hence the narrative, he would likely win even without rigging the election. Oddly, sanctions work to Putin's advantage. As the Iran's Ayatollahs have done since sanctions were imposed on their country, Putin will telling the Russian people that their suffering is due to evil regimes in the West who are trying to destroy Mother Russia. 

Where does this leave Ukraine? If sanctions are the only tool the West is prepared to use against Putin, Ukraine will fall; it may take weeks rather than the days Putin had hoped, but in the medium term the end is the same.  A Putin-friendly puppet regime will be installed, freedom of speech will be harshly curbed using the same tactics as Putin is now using in Russia, and Ukrainians will be subjugated into the new Russian empire.  They may fight an insurgency but displacing another pro-Russian leader from their country will be far more difficult than the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych. Putin may even reinstall Yanukovych, someone who was not only loyal to Putin when he was president before, but like so many of those Putin has promoted and richly rewarded, he will owe his position entirely to Putin's largess. Putin was upset by Yanukovych's ouster in 2014 and will make sure not to let that happen again.  

If sanctions are an ineffective tool, what then? If only military action is sufficient to stop Putin's current, not to mention future land-grabs, does the West have the stomach for what could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust?  That, sadly, is a question we will be facing in the weeks ahead.

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Confiscating personal assets

Several countries including the US and the UK announced yesterday that they are moving to confiscate the personal assets of a number of wealthy Russian oligarchs. While the logic is clear and the cause is just, it raises a troubling question about property rights and the rule of law.  

It may set an uncomfortable precedent that property rights are only inviolate when its suits a particular government in whose country those assets reside. It signals that if politically expedient, foreigners' rights may be abrogated. 

There has always been political risk in investing abroad, but it was general accepted that in Western democracies that were upholders of the international rules based order, property rights would be upheld.  But by abandoning this principle, it will be harder for those countries to protest when their citizens' assets are confiscated in other countries; what a "just cause" is that makes such seizures legitimate depends to some degree on ones point of view. 

This increase the uncertainty for companies and individuals investing abroad and that may have negative implications for the global economy.  Of course one might argue that it has always been so; Israel has been stealing land from the Palestinians with impunity for years (although that's the only example that immediately comes to mind).      

Monday, February 28, 2022

Escalation

While much discussion ensured after Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons two days ago, that's only one avenue for escalation. The other and more likely path is the increasing used of indiscriminate shelling and bombing resulting in huge loss of civilian lives. The longer the invasion goes without Putin reaching his goal of regime change, the more desperate he will get and the more extreme and more violent the Russian forces will be told to be. Unless he is stopped, or unless Ukraine capitulates which seems unlikely, Putin will raze the country to the ground. 

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Through a glass darkly

After four days of fighting, Putin's forces have not yet taken the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, nor have they managed to depose its government. Volodymyr Zelensky bravely decided to remain in Kyiv, inspiring many Ukrainians to fight rather than flee, which may have been a factor in slowing the Russian advance.  

In addition to additional sanctions, the West today announced shipments of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine via Poland. It may be too little, too late but since the invasion has not gone to plan, they may still arrive in time to bring fighting to a stalemate.  I am reminded of Israel's stand-off with Hamas and Hezbollah in the Gaza Strip.  Since its highly unlikely that the Ukrainian forces could repel the Russian invasion, a stalemate would be the best likely outcome for Ukraine.  While Putin's offer to negotiate is almost certainly in bad faith, it might afford an opportunity for a temporary cease-fire allowing the West to resupply the Ukrainian armed forces with the weapons they desperately need to keep the Russians carrying out regime change. 

Very worrying is Putin's state of mind. His vituperative rhetoric combined with his miscalculation about both the Ukrainians' and the West's responses to his assault raise questions about his rationality. His decision to ready strategic nuclear weapons looks like an act of desperation; one can only hope that he is bluffing.   If not, we will find out whether the strategists who predicted that the use of battle-field nuclear weapons would be containable and not escalate to the use of long range intercontinental weapons were right. Their argument was predicated on actors on both sides being completely rational; it is unclear weather Putin is.  

While it's comforting to know that now we have serious people with their fingers on the button on this side of the pond, Russia's launch codes are in the hands of just one paranoid, possibly psychotic, individual. Those in West who are paying attention will not sleep well this coming week.