I'm listening to television idiots call today's stock market selloff "the worst in history" when it demonstrably is not.
When news becomes nothing but a form of entertainment and revenue, perhaps we should expect no better.
So, here is the Dow down 777 points, or 6.98%.
The Great Depression included multiple one-day drops of 12% and 14% and the overall slide was 89%.
And here are the talking heads saying today's drop is the worst in history. History as in stuff that happened after the talking head started high school, maybe. History as in actual history, not so much.
This is not to say that everything is over or that all is well. Quite the contrary -- we may yet see much larger market drops. When the market falls 25% I'll start to worry about systemic problems.
What I see right now is a much delayed correction to the over-inflated financial markets. We have a lot to blame the US government for.
Monday, September 29, 2008
A Defense of Free Markets
This has been submitted to the Forest Grove News Times as a column to be published during the week of 29-Sep-2008.
I provide it here as I submitted it, with a link to the published version. (This will be put online only after the News Times comes out, so they'll have first use of the material.)
-----
Your true friends are those people who -- when you're suddenly unpopular -- still stand by you. I'm a long time friend of the Free Market, and I'm willing to rise now publicly to defend my friend, and to set the record a little straighter. The Free Market is being blamed for all that is wrong with America's financial institutions. Alas, a lot of the criticism is off-base, self-serving, or flat wrong.
Free markets are the ones that exclude force and fraud, and rely on purely voluntary exchanges. Every honest exchange between a willing buyer and a willing seller is a free market transaction. When you hire your neighbor's kid to mow the lawn or babysit, the two of you are engaging in a free market transaction. When they function well, free markets channel greed into acceptable forms that bring about social good. Those who take on risk get to keep any rewards and must shoulder their losses.
Free markets are the result of -- are the sum of -- all these voluntary transactions. But greed itself is not good. Greed unrestrained by law, greed unchannelled, can lead to crimes like fraud and coercion.
Fraud is a crime. When an Enron or Worldcom or Fannie Mae lies and commits fraud, that's not "Darwinian capitalism" -- it's a crime and an attack on the market. That's why it's wrong to say that government is at odds with the market -- in reality government's police powers (and private anti-fraud measures) are what enable markets to exist and function.
Fraud is not only the enemy of free markets -- it's the enemy of good government as well.
Not every market is free. Prisons are rife with black markets, characterized by both fraud and violence. Black market drugs contain dodgy and ofttimes poisonous ingredients; black market disputes are settled with fists, knives and guns. The black market for sex -- prostitution -- is a litany of abuse, disease, violence and misery.
Government plays a vital role in keeping free markets free -- through courts, cops, regulations and transparency rules. Unfortunately, government agencies can sometimes be seduced into acts that don't protect but rather distort markets, harming the many to benefit the few.
These seductions include, for example, a government using taxpayer money to fund a pressure group to coerce banks into lending money to borrowers who can't afford to repay the loans. Then either the bank or the taxpayer takes the loss when the borrowers default. Such lending under pressure may be understandable, but it's not a free market transaction -- remember the ban on force and fraud -- and occurs because the government has abandoned its proper role as guardian of the rule of law.
Such is the case today. Since 1995 the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has been used -- along with lawsuits by left-wing pressure groups -- to force banks to lend to low-income, high-risk borrowers. Any bank that resisted was subject to huge fines. That's coercion. If any private person had tried to do this, he'd have been arrested.
To answer concerns by banks that these loans were too risky, the government-sponsored entity called Fannie Mae offered to buy up all riskier loans. By 2007, Fannie Mae and CRA had resulted in an extra $1 Trillion of home loans to people who couldn't pay them back.
Fannie Mae then -- with government approval -- created "securitized" bundles of loans and sold them off to everyone under the sun. Today we're told that nobody, even the creators of these derivatives, really understands them. Selling something you don't understand, and guaranteeing something without the means to guarantee it, are both fraud. Yet the heavily regulated, government-sponsored Fannie Mae did exactly that.
Today the same people who created CRA and were supposed to oversee Fannie Mae -- our US Congress -- are telling us that the financial market's woes are caused by "the market" and by a "lack of regulation". The facts say otherwise.
It's understandable why the architects of today's disaster want to distract public attention from their role. Maybe some of them even believe it. We should not buy it.
The public should look closely at the root causes of the disaster and agree on a fix that makes things better, not worse. The root causes involve massive government meddling in the markets and rampant dishonesty. The cure being proposed involves even more government meddling in the markets and is being sold through dishonesty. The public should demand an independent investigation of Congress' role in creating the current financial disaster.
And those who took on risk with the expectation of keeping any rewards, must shoulder their own losses and not be bailed out by taxpayers.
I provide it here as I submitted it, with a link to the published version. (This will be put online only after the News Times comes out, so they'll have first use of the material.)
-----
Your true friends are those people who -- when you're suddenly unpopular -- still stand by you. I'm a long time friend of the Free Market, and I'm willing to rise now publicly to defend my friend, and to set the record a little straighter. The Free Market is being blamed for all that is wrong with America's financial institutions. Alas, a lot of the criticism is off-base, self-serving, or flat wrong.
Free markets are the ones that exclude force and fraud, and rely on purely voluntary exchanges. Every honest exchange between a willing buyer and a willing seller is a free market transaction. When you hire your neighbor's kid to mow the lawn or babysit, the two of you are engaging in a free market transaction. When they function well, free markets channel greed into acceptable forms that bring about social good. Those who take on risk get to keep any rewards and must shoulder their losses.
Free markets are the result of -- are the sum of -- all these voluntary transactions. But greed itself is not good. Greed unrestrained by law, greed unchannelled, can lead to crimes like fraud and coercion.
Fraud is a crime. When an Enron or Worldcom or Fannie Mae lies and commits fraud, that's not "Darwinian capitalism" -- it's a crime and an attack on the market. That's why it's wrong to say that government is at odds with the market -- in reality government's police powers (and private anti-fraud measures) are what enable markets to exist and function.
Fraud is not only the enemy of free markets -- it's the enemy of good government as well.
Not every market is free. Prisons are rife with black markets, characterized by both fraud and violence. Black market drugs contain dodgy and ofttimes poisonous ingredients; black market disputes are settled with fists, knives and guns. The black market for sex -- prostitution -- is a litany of abuse, disease, violence and misery.
Government plays a vital role in keeping free markets free -- through courts, cops, regulations and transparency rules. Unfortunately, government agencies can sometimes be seduced into acts that don't protect but rather distort markets, harming the many to benefit the few.
These seductions include, for example, a government using taxpayer money to fund a pressure group to coerce banks into lending money to borrowers who can't afford to repay the loans. Then either the bank or the taxpayer takes the loss when the borrowers default. Such lending under pressure may be understandable, but it's not a free market transaction -- remember the ban on force and fraud -- and occurs because the government has abandoned its proper role as guardian of the rule of law.
Such is the case today. Since 1995 the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has been used -- along with lawsuits by left-wing pressure groups -- to force banks to lend to low-income, high-risk borrowers. Any bank that resisted was subject to huge fines. That's coercion. If any private person had tried to do this, he'd have been arrested.
To answer concerns by banks that these loans were too risky, the government-sponsored entity called Fannie Mae offered to buy up all riskier loans. By 2007, Fannie Mae and CRA had resulted in an extra $1 Trillion of home loans to people who couldn't pay them back.
Fannie Mae then -- with government approval -- created "securitized" bundles of loans and sold them off to everyone under the sun. Today we're told that nobody, even the creators of these derivatives, really understands them. Selling something you don't understand, and guaranteeing something without the means to guarantee it, are both fraud. Yet the heavily regulated, government-sponsored Fannie Mae did exactly that.
Today the same people who created CRA and were supposed to oversee Fannie Mae -- our US Congress -- are telling us that the financial market's woes are caused by "the market" and by a "lack of regulation". The facts say otherwise.
It's understandable why the architects of today's disaster want to distract public attention from their role. Maybe some of them even believe it. We should not buy it.
The public should look closely at the root causes of the disaster and agree on a fix that makes things better, not worse. The root causes involve massive government meddling in the markets and rampant dishonesty. The cure being proposed involves even more government meddling in the markets and is being sold through dishonesty. The public should demand an independent investigation of Congress' role in creating the current financial disaster.
And those who took on risk with the expectation of keeping any rewards, must shoulder their own losses and not be bailed out by taxpayers.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Feminism succeeds, and Leftists cop out
I'm watching the left-wing feminists (as opposed to all the other feminists) get wigged out over Sarah Palin. It's sad for feminism when its earliest adopters, definers and defenders now pitch it over the railing in their haste to crush a powerful woman whom they disagree with on policy issues.
Feminism doesn't win by having the early adopters go further and further away from the middle (as happens today with some other socially progressive trends) -- feminism wins when the middle moves toward the formerly progressive position.
As I tell my Republican friends, you don't win the political and policy contest by just getting someone from your party elected -- you could find yourself electing a sellout who really is pushing the other side's agenda. Then your policies get even further away from adoption.
You truly win when the other side starts adopting or stealing your ideas and they become mainstream.
In this case with Palin, we're seeing both of these things: first, evidence of the wholesale adoption by the Republican base of the basic tenets of old style feminism -- that women should have the same opportunities as men, that workers should be judged on results not on their reproductive organs -- and second, the sellout of the far left from anything to do with that sort of feminism.
For example, Ellen Goodman criticizes Palin for being, in essence, a bad feminist -- because she isn't lobbying for government programs to nationalize motherhood (federal child care, federal handouts to mothers, additional federal entitlements, additional federal mandates on employers, etc.)
At this point it's no longer really feminism that Goodman (and so many others, like Katherine Marsh and Judith Warner) are defending -- it's the old Democratic agenda of ever larger government and ever more citizens, in one form or another, on the dole.
The real test of your belief in your stated position is when you have to defend someone you dislike or disagree with. The ACLU proved itself to me when it defended the American Nazi Party's right to free speech -- clearly the ACLU really does (or did) believe in free speech, even for vile speech. Leftist feminists have proved something very different: they don't care about women's rights; they only care about the big-government agenda of the left.
Feminism doesn't win by having the early adopters go further and further away from the middle (as happens today with some other socially progressive trends) -- feminism wins when the middle moves toward the formerly progressive position.
As I tell my Republican friends, you don't win the political and policy contest by just getting someone from your party elected -- you could find yourself electing a sellout who really is pushing the other side's agenda. Then your policies get even further away from adoption.
You truly win when the other side starts adopting or stealing your ideas and they become mainstream.
In this case with Palin, we're seeing both of these things: first, evidence of the wholesale adoption by the Republican base of the basic tenets of old style feminism -- that women should have the same opportunities as men, that workers should be judged on results not on their reproductive organs -- and second, the sellout of the far left from anything to do with that sort of feminism.
For example, Ellen Goodman criticizes Palin for being, in essence, a bad feminist -- because she isn't lobbying for government programs to nationalize motherhood (federal child care, federal handouts to mothers, additional federal entitlements, additional federal mandates on employers, etc.)
At this point it's no longer really feminism that Goodman (and so many others, like Katherine Marsh and Judith Warner) are defending -- it's the old Democratic agenda of ever larger government and ever more citizens, in one form or another, on the dole.
The real test of your belief in your stated position is when you have to defend someone you dislike or disagree with. The ACLU proved itself to me when it defended the American Nazi Party's right to free speech -- clearly the ACLU really does (or did) believe in free speech, even for vile speech. Leftist feminists have proved something very different: they don't care about women's rights; they only care about the big-government agenda of the left.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Privacy - or, Why we need a property right to our data
Looks like police are tracking people on almost no probable cause, and the rest of us are losing our privacy and our 4th Amendment protections in the process.
The fastest and easiest way to fix this -- I believe -- would be to establish that you have a property right in data about your location in time and space, with an exception for direct observations. In other words, if I happen to see you in a store or on a sidewalk, that's normal; if I use a GPS bug to track you without authorization, then I'm stealing data about you.
That property right also means you are free to sell your data -- such as to a traffic monitoring system that would rebate part of your subscription in exchange for you feeding the system with info about your driving experience. And the monitoring firm could be barred from reselling that data without your consent, unless it was rendered anonymous. If your stalker ex-boyfriend hacks their system and uses it to track you, he's stealing from both you and them, in addition to being a stalker -- making it much easier to prosecute him.
Police can still track people provided they get a warrant. Warrantless tracking, however, would be forbidden. (Parolees could be tracked at any time without a warrant, just as today the police can search a parolee's home at any time without a warrant -- that's part of the deal when one is released on parole.)
The fastest and easiest way to fix this -- I believe -- would be to establish that you have a property right in data about your location in time and space, with an exception for direct observations. In other words, if I happen to see you in a store or on a sidewalk, that's normal; if I use a GPS bug to track you without authorization, then I'm stealing data about you.
That property right also means you are free to sell your data -- such as to a traffic monitoring system that would rebate part of your subscription in exchange for you feeding the system with info about your driving experience. And the monitoring firm could be barred from reselling that data without your consent, unless it was rendered anonymous. If your stalker ex-boyfriend hacks their system and uses it to track you, he's stealing from both you and them, in addition to being a stalker -- making it much easier to prosecute him.
Police can still track people provided they get a warrant. Warrantless tracking, however, would be forbidden. (Parolees could be tracked at any time without a warrant, just as today the police can search a parolee's home at any time without a warrant -- that's part of the deal when one is released on parole.)
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Thomas Frank hates Republicans, Conservatives, and workplace democracy
Frank is beginning to improve his game here. I look to him for principled criticisms of my side, and this time he's got one - the indifference (or complicity) of the federal Labor Department towards unsafe and illegal working conditions.
That's a legitimate hit, and I thank Mr. Frank for drawing my attention to it. I'll return the favor by pointing to the multiple ways he weakens his own case:
1. Unions in Mexico are so strong - far stronger than in the US - that they stifle Mexican job creation, fueling illegal immigration. In his one-sided praise of all unions everywhere, Frank doesn't acknowledge this.
2. Iowa has a labor department too, and they are much closer to this problem and have a primary responsibility for addressing it - why are they spared criticism? Is it because Iowa has a Democratic governor, and has been ruled by Democrats since 1999? Frank's silence is profound. Perhaps Frank thinks state labor departments should be abolished or subsumed within the federal organization.
3. "Card check" legislation isn't about freeing workers to unionize, it's about subjecting them to workplace intimidation and union-boss thuggery. Frank's mincing steps around this are shameful in anyone with a commitment to respect for liberty and freedom from coercion.
4. Through artful wording, Frank implies that AgriProcessors has only been fined once before - untrue. The Des Moines Register reports that "In the past, Agriprocessors has had potential fines for workplace safety violations reduced substantially through negotiations with Iowa labor officials." Furthermore, "...those cases were handled as administrative matters, not as criminal cases. Any fines imposed as a result of the alleged child-labor violations will be through a court order, since the matter is now being treated as a criminal matter."
So the supposed lax oversight maybe wasn't so lax, and the reductions in fines that Frank so craftily puts in the passive voice, "The fines levied against AgriProcessors, however, were eventually reduced...", were reduced by the DEMOCRATIC administrations Vilsack and Culver.
All in all, Frank's sweeping language and over-broad conclusions are masks for a weak argument where the facts undercut his case. I think he's right about the federal Labor department needing to be more active around workplace safety and child labor law enforcement. He's not right about very much else, and his conclusion, that "conservatism" is the root of his catalog of ills, is unsupported.
That's a legitimate hit, and I thank Mr. Frank for drawing my attention to it. I'll return the favor by pointing to the multiple ways he weakens his own case:
1. Unions in Mexico are so strong - far stronger than in the US - that they stifle Mexican job creation, fueling illegal immigration. In his one-sided praise of all unions everywhere, Frank doesn't acknowledge this.
2. Iowa has a labor department too, and they are much closer to this problem and have a primary responsibility for addressing it - why are they spared criticism? Is it because Iowa has a Democratic governor, and has been ruled by Democrats since 1999? Frank's silence is profound. Perhaps Frank thinks state labor departments should be abolished or subsumed within the federal organization.
3. "Card check" legislation isn't about freeing workers to unionize, it's about subjecting them to workplace intimidation and union-boss thuggery. Frank's mincing steps around this are shameful in anyone with a commitment to respect for liberty and freedom from coercion.
4. Through artful wording, Frank implies that AgriProcessors has only been fined once before - untrue. The Des Moines Register reports that "In the past, Agriprocessors has had potential fines for workplace safety violations reduced substantially through negotiations with Iowa labor officials." Furthermore, "...those cases were handled as administrative matters, not as criminal cases. Any fines imposed as a result of the alleged child-labor violations will be through a court order, since the matter is now being treated as a criminal matter."
So the supposed lax oversight maybe wasn't so lax, and the reductions in fines that Frank so craftily puts in the passive voice, "The fines levied against AgriProcessors, however, were eventually reduced...", were reduced by the DEMOCRATIC administrations Vilsack and Culver.
All in all, Frank's sweeping language and over-broad conclusions are masks for a weak argument where the facts undercut his case. I think he's right about the federal Labor department needing to be more active around workplace safety and child labor law enforcement. He's not right about very much else, and his conclusion, that "conservatism" is the root of his catalog of ills, is unsupported.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
LNG and the Columbia River Keepers
Last week I was Board Host for a debate-format panel discussion at the City Club of Portland. The topic was a proposed LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) terminal on the Columbia River, a few miles upstream from Astoria.
As Board Host I got to ask the first question, and I asked one that was almost certainly inappropriate coming from the person in that role. A good Board Host question is thoughtful, balanced, and invites the audience into the conversation. It may explore ambiguities in the presentation, or draw attention to an aspect of the topic not covered by the speakers, or press on an apparent contradiction. It really shouldn't be an attack from one side or the other.
My question was partisan enough to be seen as an attack. I told the River Keepers' speaker that as far as I could tell, if LNG was kept out of Oregon, and my family ended up cold and shivering in the dark because of it, his organization would consider that a success.
This question from me, particularly in my role as Board Host, upset several of the more fluttery members of the audience.
One audience member - quivering like a drenched cat with poorly directed outrage - characterized it as "shameful". Yes, it was a lousy board host question, but that's not what got people upset. The upset ones universally were deeply in the tank for (i.e. on the side of) the Riverkeepers. Their upset-ness stemmed from that emotional attachment to one side of the debate, and my obvious disdain for "their" side.
Being in the minority is a test of one's courage. Being in the majority is a test of one's tolerance. So far I'm holding up my end pretty well, and the side of intolerant outrage is the side that could appropriately feel shame.
And my question was essentially unanswerable. The commercial firm that wants to build the LNG plant will happily jump through whatever safety, environmental, or regulatory hoops are put up, because they want to profitably supply energy in LNG form to the region. This is inherently a position of accommodation and compromise.
The eco-fanatics will happily add, move, and change the hoops to ensure that the firm cannot meet them, because they only care about their vision for the river (and restricting commercial uses of it), not about Oregon's energy needs. Theirs is inherently a position of extremism and non-compromise.
And that's as it should be for the River Keepers. They aren't the "balanced energy plan for Oregon" keepers - they are the RIVER keepers. That's their thing. If they backed off of that to be "moderate" they'd be betraying their purpose. (They can't admit that, generally.)
It's for the rest of us to be the ones with moderation and perspective, to listen to both sides and discount at least some of the eco-hysteria and the capitalist puffery and find a workable answer.
And that is a point that many of our more committed leftist City Club members don't want to hear. I made them hear it and they didn't much like it.
Tough.
As Board Host I got to ask the first question, and I asked one that was almost certainly inappropriate coming from the person in that role. A good Board Host question is thoughtful, balanced, and invites the audience into the conversation. It may explore ambiguities in the presentation, or draw attention to an aspect of the topic not covered by the speakers, or press on an apparent contradiction. It really shouldn't be an attack from one side or the other.
My question was partisan enough to be seen as an attack. I told the River Keepers' speaker that as far as I could tell, if LNG was kept out of Oregon, and my family ended up cold and shivering in the dark because of it, his organization would consider that a success.
This question from me, particularly in my role as Board Host, upset several of the more fluttery members of the audience.
One audience member - quivering like a drenched cat with poorly directed outrage - characterized it as "shameful". Yes, it was a lousy board host question, but that's not what got people upset. The upset ones universally were deeply in the tank for (i.e. on the side of) the Riverkeepers. Their upset-ness stemmed from that emotional attachment to one side of the debate, and my obvious disdain for "their" side.
Being in the minority is a test of one's courage. Being in the majority is a test of one's tolerance. So far I'm holding up my end pretty well, and the side of intolerant outrage is the side that could appropriately feel shame.
And my question was essentially unanswerable. The commercial firm that wants to build the LNG plant will happily jump through whatever safety, environmental, or regulatory hoops are put up, because they want to profitably supply energy in LNG form to the region. This is inherently a position of accommodation and compromise.
The eco-fanatics will happily add, move, and change the hoops to ensure that the firm cannot meet them, because they only care about their vision for the river (and restricting commercial uses of it), not about Oregon's energy needs. Theirs is inherently a position of extremism and non-compromise.
And that's as it should be for the River Keepers. They aren't the "balanced energy plan for Oregon" keepers - they are the RIVER keepers. That's their thing. If they backed off of that to be "moderate" they'd be betraying their purpose. (They can't admit that, generally.)
It's for the rest of us to be the ones with moderation and perspective, to listen to both sides and discount at least some of the eco-hysteria and the capitalist puffery and find a workable answer.
And that is a point that many of our more committed leftist City Club members don't want to hear. I made them hear it and they didn't much like it.
Tough.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Control your Inbox
From a trusted source comes this posting and link to an excellent Google Lecture on getting your email inbox to zero, and how it can boost your productivity.
The basic idea is to use your inbox as a starting point only - for each new email, DECIDE what to do with it and get it resolved, so you can get back to work.
There are only five things you can do with an email. These are the VERBS.
Delete (or Archive)
Delegate (Forward and Followup)
Respond (Reply)
Defer (Wait)
Do
I've been doing this for some months now, and it's working well. For each new email, I ask, what action do I need to take with this?
If there isn't an action for me to take, or if I've already taken the action, I delete the email.
If it's something I should delegate, I forward it, I often cc: the original person so they see it getting forwarded, and I move the original to a "@Pending" folder that I browse every so often (2-3 times a week) so I can check in with my delegee and my original requester.
If I can resolve it by responding, I do - as briefly as I can. Then I delete the original, or perhaps move it to "Archive".
If I can't handle it now and I do need to handle it, I move it to "@ActOn".
And if it involves an action other than an email reply - maybe walking a folder over to someone, or putting an appointment on my calendar, or making a brief call - I simply do it, and then delete the email.
When I left the office today my email inbox was empty. It felt VERY good.
The basic idea is to use your inbox as a starting point only - for each new email, DECIDE what to do with it and get it resolved, so you can get back to work.
There are only five things you can do with an email. These are the VERBS.
Delete (or Archive)
Delegate (Forward and Followup)
Respond (Reply)
Defer (Wait)
Do
I've been doing this for some months now, and it's working well. For each new email, I ask, what action do I need to take with this?
If there isn't an action for me to take, or if I've already taken the action, I delete the email.
If it's something I should delegate, I forward it, I often cc: the original person so they see it getting forwarded, and I move the original to a "@Pending" folder that I browse every so often (2-3 times a week) so I can check in with my delegee and my original requester.
If I can resolve it by responding, I do - as briefly as I can. Then I delete the original, or perhaps move it to "Archive".
If I can't handle it now and I do need to handle it, I move it to "@ActOn".
And if it involves an action other than an email reply - maybe walking a folder over to someone, or putting an appointment on my calendar, or making a brief call - I simply do it, and then delete the email.
When I left the office today my email inbox was empty. It felt VERY good.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Style at Work
In a WSJ column on workplace dress and professionalism, we read about a double standard of sorts.
I detect a double standard, or at least a mixed agenda.
Both Jim Holt and Tom Mills got taken to the woodshed for public comments about how they view workplace attire. Yet the same women in the workplace who criticized them so viciously, are complaining that they aren't getting good feedback on what to wear to look professional.
Nobody gets good, candid feedback for long if they regularly shoot their messengers.
The reality is, the opinions of senior (often male) managers matters. You can seek to learn and understand those opinions, or you can seek to shape them. You will have a hard time pursuing both goals at once - listening and browbeating being mutually incompatible activities. And those opinions are opinions - not fact, not solid, very much a product of society and of social and cultural norms, very subject to change over time.
My advice to women is, if you want candid advice, create a safe space for that conversation to happen. Otherwise you'll silence the voices you need to hear.
At the same time, don't stop agitating outside of that safe space for equality, respect, and non-sexism at work. That struggle may be eternal - it's certainly worthy.
Of course, I'm just a guy, so what do I know?
-Tom
I detect a double standard, or at least a mixed agenda.
Both Jim Holt and Tom Mills got taken to the woodshed for public comments about how they view workplace attire. Yet the same women in the workplace who criticized them so viciously, are complaining that they aren't getting good feedback on what to wear to look professional.
Nobody gets good, candid feedback for long if they regularly shoot their messengers.
The reality is, the opinions of senior (often male) managers matters. You can seek to learn and understand those opinions, or you can seek to shape them. You will have a hard time pursuing both goals at once - listening and browbeating being mutually incompatible activities. And those opinions are opinions - not fact, not solid, very much a product of society and of social and cultural norms, very subject to change over time.
My advice to women is, if you want candid advice, create a safe space for that conversation to happen. Otherwise you'll silence the voices you need to hear.
At the same time, don't stop agitating outside of that safe space for equality, respect, and non-sexism at work. That struggle may be eternal - it's certainly worthy.
Of course, I'm just a guy, so what do I know?
-Tom
Thomas Frank: Sad Little Progressive on WSJ
I'm trying to enjoy Thomas Frank's leftist columns in the otherwise right-libertarian Wall Street Journal. This latest one just makes it harder.
Frank starts off with a wonderfully useful premise, that Conservatives really blew it while in power in the Congress over the period 1994-2006, and are now busy failing to learn from it. His quotes of the architect of the Republican sell-out to power, Tom DeLay, are hilarious. (DeLay tries to paint himself a pure conservative who is pained by the Republican fall into corruption, rather than as one of the leaders of the plunge.)
And he's right to skewer those who define "conservatism" as being inherently incorruptible, meaning that all "those" corrupt Republicans are of course "not conservatives" - the sort of cute verbal trick I usually attribute to the Left. Conservatives who so embraced DeLay so long and so strongly need to answer, why they didn't reject him before he got caught.
Unfortunately, Frank's column quickly falls apart.
He tries to tie Republican corruption in Congress to the basis of conservative ideas. He wants us to believe that conservative ideas are "bad ideas" that naturally and inevitably led to "disastrous consequences."
Here he offers nothing but 'proof by blatant assertion' - no analysis, no explanation. He doesn't even bother to list what ideas he means, other than 'true conservatism is opposed to "big government."'
Had Frank offered some real (or imagined) link between corruption and the values of limited government, personal responsibility, individual liberty, and free markets, then he would have done us a favor. Instead he merely asserts that conservatism is somehow inherently bad - a logical fallacy also known as assuming your conclusions.
Here's hoping we get a better column from him next week.
Frank starts off with a wonderfully useful premise, that Conservatives really blew it while in power in the Congress over the period 1994-2006, and are now busy failing to learn from it. His quotes of the architect of the Republican sell-out to power, Tom DeLay, are hilarious. (DeLay tries to paint himself a pure conservative who is pained by the Republican fall into corruption, rather than as one of the leaders of the plunge.)
And he's right to skewer those who define "conservatism" as being inherently incorruptible, meaning that all "those" corrupt Republicans are of course "not conservatives" - the sort of cute verbal trick I usually attribute to the Left. Conservatives who so embraced DeLay so long and so strongly need to answer, why they didn't reject him before he got caught.
Unfortunately, Frank's column quickly falls apart.
He tries to tie Republican corruption in Congress to the basis of conservative ideas. He wants us to believe that conservative ideas are "bad ideas" that naturally and inevitably led to "disastrous consequences."
Here he offers nothing but 'proof by blatant assertion' - no analysis, no explanation. He doesn't even bother to list what ideas he means, other than 'true conservatism is opposed to "big government."'
Had Frank offered some real (or imagined) link between corruption and the values of limited government, personal responsibility, individual liberty, and free markets, then he would have done us a favor. Instead he merely asserts that conservatism is somehow inherently bad - a logical fallacy also known as assuming your conclusions.
Here's hoping we get a better column from him next week.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Two Scenes from Election Night
I got to see two sides of Portland yesterday on Election Night.
The first was a Multnomah County Republican gathering at the Grand Central Bowl, an upscale bowling alley and restaurant. We took over the upstairs and actually filled it with over 100 Republicans. Who knew we had those numbers?
What struck me was the mood - reflective and even up-beat. There was the usual ain't-it-awful complaints that I've heard so often before. Perhaps it's denial. Or maybe it's a corner being turned - maybe we're ready to start doing the things we need to do to start winning. Like stand for something worthwhile.
The second was the tail end of the Sam Adams victory party, in a tent behind a hotel near 9th and E. Burnside. It was the usual mix of donors, volunteers, activists, and interest group reps common at victory parties, and they all reveled in the cheer of a winning race.
I had to wear my "Tom Cox - Republican" name tag on my dark double-breasted suit. You know - fly the flag, smile, see how I got treated.
Alas, not much happened. Everybody was talking with their friends in little groups, the light was low, and few cared to look at name tags. Of those who did, a few opened their eyes wide, one looked at me and asked "Really?" (Yes, I said, and got a nod in return) and one big smile from a spouse who leaned in close to say "I thought I was the only one here."
That alone made it worth while.
The mood there, at least for the little while I was there, was upbeat yet a little odd. I got no sense that there was an agenda or a mandate - it was more personality driven. What does Sam Adams now have a mandate to do? I have no clue. Maybe he does.
Maybe the funniest thing about Sam Adams as mayor is that he's a little less wacky leftist than the average Portland voter. He actually once voted to lower business taxes. It may be the most unpopular thing he's done, in their minds.
The first was a Multnomah County Republican gathering at the Grand Central Bowl, an upscale bowling alley and restaurant. We took over the upstairs and actually filled it with over 100 Republicans. Who knew we had those numbers?
What struck me was the mood - reflective and even up-beat. There was the usual ain't-it-awful complaints that I've heard so often before. Perhaps it's denial. Or maybe it's a corner being turned - maybe we're ready to start doing the things we need to do to start winning. Like stand for something worthwhile.
The second was the tail end of the Sam Adams victory party, in a tent behind a hotel near 9th and E. Burnside. It was the usual mix of donors, volunteers, activists, and interest group reps common at victory parties, and they all reveled in the cheer of a winning race.
I had to wear my "Tom Cox - Republican" name tag on my dark double-breasted suit. You know - fly the flag, smile, see how I got treated.
Alas, not much happened. Everybody was talking with their friends in little groups, the light was low, and few cared to look at name tags. Of those who did, a few opened their eyes wide, one looked at me and asked "Really?" (Yes, I said, and got a nod in return) and one big smile from a spouse who leaned in close to say "I thought I was the only one here."
That alone made it worth while.
The mood there, at least for the little while I was there, was upbeat yet a little odd. I got no sense that there was an agenda or a mandate - it was more personality driven. What does Sam Adams now have a mandate to do? I have no clue. Maybe he does.
Maybe the funniest thing about Sam Adams as mayor is that he's a little less wacky leftist than the average Portland voter. He actually once voted to lower business taxes. It may be the most unpopular thing he's done, in their minds.
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