Usually I am content to just post my star rating for the books I read and the movies I see, but I feel compelled to make some additional commentary on this one.
I think the rating I gave this book (3 Stars) is probably the lowest one I've given any book since I started posting ratings on here. While some (i.e. Weir) would argue that it means my rating system is too generous, I would argue that it's because I really try to limit myself to books that are really good (or at least ones that I'm really likely to enjoy). I don't mind occasionally throwing away 2 hours on a crappy movie, but giving 10-12 hours of your life to a book that sucks is not something I enjoy doing. And while I wouldn't go so far as to say that this book sucked, it was extraordinarily disappointing.
This is the 5th Woodward book I've read, although 2 of them I haven't read all the way through (I'm still in the middle of The Agenda and I only read about half of All the President's Men while researching for a paper on Watergate in high school). Until now, I'd always enjoyed them thoroughly. But he took a big step backwards here. To me I think it seems obvious that he really wanted to put out the first "big" book about the Obama presidency and it seems really rushed as a result. It seems like he thought "hmm, I've still got lots of military contacts from writing the Bush books and it'll take me too long to get new ones in the Fed and with various economic advisors so I'm just going to completely ignore that aspect." That's fair enough, but the problem is that there's just not enough there to fill up a 400 page book. You get a very good first 50 pages where he discusses the transition from Bush to Obama and a very good last 50 pages when they kind of open things up and talk about how Obama reacted to various situations as they occurred (e.g. the underwear bomber, the McChrystal Rolling Stones interview). But in between you get 300 pages of what is essentially recaps of minutes from various strategy meetings where Obama, the cabinet, and the generals try to agree on whether or not to send more troops into Afghanistan. Was that an important decision that is worthy of being put into print? Of course; but it can easily be accomplished in 50 or (at most) 100 pages. To say that it's padded is the understatement of the year. The central question that everyone is deciding on is "are we doing a full counter-insurgency, just a pure counter-terrorism, or trying some combination?" That question, in some form, is asked and answered no less than 30 times in the book. Instead of just saying "W,X, Y, and Z believed this while A,B, C, and D believed this" he gets detailed quotes from all of them. So even though there's just 2 different answers he gives it to you 8 times. It just makes for some painful reading.
Which is not to say that there's not some good information in here. You definitely get a sense of the inner workings of the administration (semi-dysfunctional, not moreso than the past couple administrations but certainly no better) and you also realize how quickly a lot of the "official statements" that are realeased to the press are thrown together, often without a lot of consensus within the administation. And I think that overall Woodward is relatively unbiased in his reporting, which is extremely valuable. But the bottom line is that if you're looking for a good overview of the first 18 months inside the Obama Presidency, you need to look elsewhere.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Some Thoughts on Unemployment
I just finished reading This Time is Different, it's a great but very dry read about the history of financial crises. The authors put together what is probably the largest amount of data ever compiled on economic statistics over the last 1000 years in an attempt to perform some analytics and draw some conclusions about what economies look like in the run up to a crises (useful in helping to avoid them) and what kind of severity and duration can be expected after they occur.
I lack the time and, quite frankly, the ability to relate even a fraction of what the book has to say. I can, however, summarize quite nicely. The power of delusion is so nearly absolute that with almost no exception the general public will deny all the signs pointing to a crises and will be thoroughly convinced that "this time really is different" all the way up until the crises finally hits. At that point the leaders will then usually throw up their hands and remark how it was impossible to predict. Finally, the return to "normalcy" is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than anyone likes to admit, especially when a banking crises is involved.
But my point today is not to review or rehash the book. I just wanted to use one piece of it as a stepping off point for some comments about unemployment. In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so. Interestingly enough, on average the unemployment rates in emerging economies tend to rise less and last shorter than those in developed country. It's speculated (though not proven) that this has a lot to do with far more wage flexibility in the emerging economies.
So I thought that I would use this to see how our current situation stacks up to these historical averages. Here's a graph of unemployment since 2000 (which comes directly from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics):
Unemployment basically started increasing around June of 2007 (when it jumped from 4.4 to 4.6%), although it was actually fairly flat until 2008. The peak to this point (and hopefully THE peak) occurred in October 2009 at 10.1%. So all in all, we've got an increase of 5.7% (about 20% less than the average) in ~29 months (almost exactly half the average).
There's a couple conclusions to draw from this. First, compared to historical average we've actually done quite well. Certainly a double-dip recession is possible, but we've now had a year of decreasing unemployment (albeit a painfully slow decrease) so I don't think I'm jumping the gun too much. Of course, the big question now is whether or not this is because of the stimulus or whether this was going to transpire anyway and the stimulus just represented futile paddling against the current.
Speaking of the stimulus, it was pretty comically inept for Obama and his advisers to ever make the statement that with the stimulus they hoped unemployment would peak at 8%. It's usually not politically smart to ever tie yourself to any one number but if you're going to do it the 8% number was an incredibly bad one to use. Of course, by the same token it's also just as ridiculous to say that the stimulus was a failure because it didn't keep unemployment under 8%. Now the argument about whether or not the stimulus worked is for another time. I'm just saying you can't criticize a car because it can't take you to the moon, even if the car salesman told you it could.
As to where we go from here, prognosticator John says that we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems.
I lack the time and, quite frankly, the ability to relate even a fraction of what the book has to say. I can, however, summarize quite nicely. The power of delusion is so nearly absolute that with almost no exception the general public will deny all the signs pointing to a crises and will be thoroughly convinced that "this time really is different" all the way up until the crises finally hits. At that point the leaders will then usually throw up their hands and remark how it was impossible to predict. Finally, the return to "normalcy" is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than anyone likes to admit, especially when a banking crises is involved.
But my point today is not to review or rehash the book. I just wanted to use one piece of it as a stepping off point for some comments about unemployment. In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so. Interestingly enough, on average the unemployment rates in emerging economies tend to rise less and last shorter than those in developed country. It's speculated (though not proven) that this has a lot to do with far more wage flexibility in the emerging economies.
So I thought that I would use this to see how our current situation stacks up to these historical averages. Here's a graph of unemployment since 2000 (which comes directly from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics):
Unemployment basically started increasing around June of 2007 (when it jumped from 4.4 to 4.6%), although it was actually fairly flat until 2008. The peak to this point (and hopefully THE peak) occurred in October 2009 at 10.1%. So all in all, we've got an increase of 5.7% (about 20% less than the average) in ~29 months (almost exactly half the average).
There's a couple conclusions to draw from this. First, compared to historical average we've actually done quite well. Certainly a double-dip recession is possible, but we've now had a year of decreasing unemployment (albeit a painfully slow decrease) so I don't think I'm jumping the gun too much. Of course, the big question now is whether or not this is because of the stimulus or whether this was going to transpire anyway and the stimulus just represented futile paddling against the current.
Speaking of the stimulus, it was pretty comically inept for Obama and his advisers to ever make the statement that with the stimulus they hoped unemployment would peak at 8%. It's usually not politically smart to ever tie yourself to any one number but if you're going to do it the 8% number was an incredibly bad one to use. Of course, by the same token it's also just as ridiculous to say that the stimulus was a failure because it didn't keep unemployment under 8%. Now the argument about whether or not the stimulus worked is for another time. I'm just saying you can't criticize a car because it can't take you to the moon, even if the car salesman told you it could.
As to where we go from here, prognosticator John says that we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems.
Friday, October 15, 2010
John'sApologeticBlog.Blogspot.Com
I'm contemplating changing this blog's name to the above because I feel like every post in the last 3 months has been me apologizing for not blogging more. And the reason, more than anything, is that I usually prefer to talk about weightier things and shy away from the more frivolous (or at least achieve a 60-40 mix) and I haven't found myself with a whole lot to say about some of the weightier stuff lately.
Actually, to be more precise I haven't really found anything new to say. I still have the same problems with both the Republican and Democratic parties and I just haven't felt compelled to rehash my feelings when the Democrats continue to do next to nothing with the largest majority in decades while the Republicans continue to act like they've basically erased capitalism completely. As a result, I've actually returned to being somewhat apolitical. To be sure, I still keep myself informed and will definitely be voting next month. I just no longer devour my weekly Economist and I tend to skip the podcasts of the Sunday morning political shows in favor of This American Life and Zencast.
I guess this is the so-called "enthusiasm gap", which Obama talked about in a recent Rolling Stone interview. He said it was "inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines" and while I agree with him in the strictest sense that choosing not to vote is a terrible option (as it always is) I don't agree with the larger sentiment. In a way it reminds me of the Windows commercials from a few years ago. Vista had gotten such horrible reviews that they decided to take groups of people and demo for them a supposedly new Windows operating system. At the end of each session they asked for feedback and apparently the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Of course, it wasn't a new operating system, it was Vista. So essentially their marketing campaign consisted of saying "You know this thing you have that you've all told us you don't like? You actually like it." Not surprisingly, Windows Vista has now given way to Windows 7. So, in a similar vein, Obama is now telling all of his 2008 supporters "You know those things we've done in the last 2 years that you're not excited about? You should be." When a candidate, or a company, or anyoneelse trying to market something fails to generate excitement it is their failure, not the failure of the populace.
Of course, I'm not exactly shocked by this outcome. I have a standing bet with my friend Joe (made in mid-2008) that if Obama was elected he would be a 1 term President. Not because I didn't think he would do a good job but because the expectations that were being set (and that he was feeding into) were so high that he couldn't possibly live up to them. While I think I was dead-on with that assessment, to this point I still think I'm probably going to lose that bet. We're only a year away from the full-blown kickoff of primary season and I just don't see any Republican out there who's going to beat him. Republicans like to say that this year will be 1994 all over again. I say be careful what you wish for, because after that it's also just as likely to be 1996 all over again too. Ironically, I think the Republican's best path to the White House in 2012 is for the Democrats to retain both houses, because Congress is almost always extremely unpopular and the Republicans will benefit more from 2 more years of voter angst at a Democratic Congress rather than if it's split between the parties. I don't think that's likely though. The Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the House, and the Senate is likely to wind up close to split (+ or - 2 seats).
In a slight topic change, the one issue I am fairly decisive about as it relates to the state elections is the proposed amendment to the IL State Constitution which would allow for a vote to recall the governor if enough people sign a petition. First I cannot imagine how anyone could have looked at the California recall election circus and thought "boy I wish we could have that here!" And second, I cannot think of a more hideous outcome for governance than to have a governor that is forever in campaign mode. I urge my fellow Illinoisans to vote no on the Governor Recall Amendment.
Actually, to be more precise I haven't really found anything new to say. I still have the same problems with both the Republican and Democratic parties and I just haven't felt compelled to rehash my feelings when the Democrats continue to do next to nothing with the largest majority in decades while the Republicans continue to act like they've basically erased capitalism completely. As a result, I've actually returned to being somewhat apolitical. To be sure, I still keep myself informed and will definitely be voting next month. I just no longer devour my weekly Economist and I tend to skip the podcasts of the Sunday morning political shows in favor of This American Life and Zencast.
I guess this is the so-called "enthusiasm gap", which Obama talked about in a recent Rolling Stone interview. He said it was "inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines" and while I agree with him in the strictest sense that choosing not to vote is a terrible option (as it always is) I don't agree with the larger sentiment. In a way it reminds me of the Windows commercials from a few years ago. Vista had gotten such horrible reviews that they decided to take groups of people and demo for them a supposedly new Windows operating system. At the end of each session they asked for feedback and apparently the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Of course, it wasn't a new operating system, it was Vista. So essentially their marketing campaign consisted of saying "You know this thing you have that you've all told us you don't like? You actually like it." Not surprisingly, Windows Vista has now given way to Windows 7. So, in a similar vein, Obama is now telling all of his 2008 supporters "You know those things we've done in the last 2 years that you're not excited about? You should be." When a candidate, or a company, or anyoneelse trying to market something fails to generate excitement it is their failure, not the failure of the populace.
Of course, I'm not exactly shocked by this outcome. I have a standing bet with my friend Joe (made in mid-2008) that if Obama was elected he would be a 1 term President. Not because I didn't think he would do a good job but because the expectations that were being set (and that he was feeding into) were so high that he couldn't possibly live up to them. While I think I was dead-on with that assessment, to this point I still think I'm probably going to lose that bet. We're only a year away from the full-blown kickoff of primary season and I just don't see any Republican out there who's going to beat him. Republicans like to say that this year will be 1994 all over again. I say be careful what you wish for, because after that it's also just as likely to be 1996 all over again too. Ironically, I think the Republican's best path to the White House in 2012 is for the Democrats to retain both houses, because Congress is almost always extremely unpopular and the Republicans will benefit more from 2 more years of voter angst at a Democratic Congress rather than if it's split between the parties. I don't think that's likely though. The Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the House, and the Senate is likely to wind up close to split (+ or - 2 seats).
In a slight topic change, the one issue I am fairly decisive about as it relates to the state elections is the proposed amendment to the IL State Constitution which would allow for a vote to recall the governor if enough people sign a petition. First I cannot imagine how anyone could have looked at the California recall election circus and thought "boy I wish we could have that here!" And second, I cannot think of a more hideous outcome for governance than to have a governor that is forever in campaign mode. I urge my fellow Illinoisans to vote no on the Governor Recall Amendment.
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