Tuesday Morning: Daily News Update

Mia Love, a black Republican, fitness instructor, and mayor of a growing town in Utah, stands to become the first black woman in Congress. She stands to compete against six-term Democrat Representative Jim Matheson.

Condoleezza Rice has gone on record to state that she has no interest in running for vice president alongside Mitt Romney.

Greece has appointed Yannis Stournaras, a former economic adviser and economist, as their new Finance Minister today. The position was originally appointed to Vassilis Rapanos, chairman of the National Bank of Greece, but resigned the position before being sworn in due to health problems.

On a lighter note, and great news for those coffee addicts out there, recent studies have shown consistent results that coffee drinkers are found to be living longer than abstainers. Coffee drinkers who started the study relatively healthy were less likely than nondrinkers to die of heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, and infection. So drink up my fellow coffee lovers, it's good for you.

Monday Afternoon Links: Europe is back in the Spotlight

Europe, once again, has taken over the spotlight. This time, it appears that "austerity" measures are extremely unpopular and will not be a pill swallowed by their respective populations. Instead, everyone will hope that the Germans will just man up and support them. Except the Germans most likely will not want to support the Greeks. Despite what many pundits are saying, its not because of fear of WWII/Hitler/Inflation, its because Germans are a nation of savers, and inflation would f*ck that all up. Basically, if they inflate their way out of it, they will be telling everyone its totally cool if they get blasted at the party and puke everywhere, Germany will be the responsible adult who doesn't get too drunk so they can clean up the mess.

However, the current situation in Greece/Europe is probably something we should pay attention to. I've written before why Prof. Krugman's analysis of the situation is slightly off base, and this is just another great reason why we should be watching out debt in the US (vs. the Professor's preferred method of just inflating our way to growth) - debt funded growth only exists as long as the government money keeps flowing; once our wise leaders turn off the tap (or are forced to as the Greeks were), the economy comes tumbling down. If you need more examples, just look to China. But, we also need to make sure we have real government cutbacks, because in Europe, that hasn't really been the case. Their "austerity" has been just higher taxes on the rich, and no new government spending. That probably hurts Prof. Krugman's case a bit more, huh? If higher taxes are adding additional pain to growth? But you don't have to take my word for it, just ask Obama's former Chief Economist, Christina Romer... she writes "Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces output over the next three years by 3 percent. The effect is highly significant" Ouch, maybe those pesky conservatives were on to something...

But hey, maybe this seems like fun and we'd like a try?

Happy Monday, and remember today is one of those days you're working for free (because the government is taking it for all the opportunities you were given, and a whole bunch of welfare)

Does "Anti-Incumbency" Make Any Sense?

In his daily links yesterday (we just can't seem to get off the subject of socialism, can we?), Stephen highlighted the most recent news out of France, where opposition candidate Francois Hollande defeated outgoing French President Nicholas Sarkozy in a runoff election this weekend.  Hollande's victory, in addition to parliamentary elections in Greece that saw the rejection of both major parties, were spun by the media as a sign of a vast, anti-incumbent wave beginning to sweep Europe, and Stephen, citing the latest Gallup Poll results (Obama 47/Romney 45 in a poll of 12 swing states), wondered aloud whether that wave could hit home in time to make Willard Mitt Romney our next president in November.

Of course, the irony to the "anti-incumbency" argument is that the very same austerity policies voters just rejected in Europe are the policies that Romney, together with a House GOP majority that is probably safe, would be compelled to pursue should Barack Obama himself fall prey to anti-incumbent sentiment in November. 

Pages of pixellated and non-pixellated ink alike have been spilled over whether voters always understand the implications of their decisions, especially in America, where our two-party system lends credence to the visceral sense that if things aren't going as well as we would like under one guy, we should give the other guy a chance.  This might make sense on a gut level, but any glance across the pond at Europe tells us it would be a disaster if anti-incumbency wins the day here in America.

OWS: Socialist Anarchy, or Anarchistic Socialism?

RE: Socialism and the state of the Occupy Wall Street movement as of May Day [WaPo], it strikes me (no pun intended) as extremely ironic that the "anti-institutional" core beliefs of a movement, which invokes "V for Vendetta" and Guy Fawkes-inspired images of anarchy at every turn, would suddenly throw its weight behind a socialist message - the most naturally institutional cause of all, as an artificially-induced redistribution of capital. Indeed, besides the effects of winter and getting kicked out of protest spaces by law enforcement, OWS failed to capitalize on any meaningful policy gains despite international media attention because it lacked centralized leadership or central figures around which the movement could coordinate and focus its impact.

http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-political-meaning-for-guy-fawkess.html

The idea of no centralized leadership and the destruction of institutions is so fundamental to anarchy that it stands in complete conflict with any idea of an institutionalized social compact between the state and its people, and history shows that the possibility of an alliance between anarchism and socialism is logically impossible. Yet as Stephen has already alluded in his morning update, political socialism is once again on the march around the world and in the United States, even if many social welfare policies are precisely what have bankrupted Europe and sent America spiraling into debt. It's also what is most politically feasible [WaPo] given the harshness of existing economic conditions and future austerity measures: In a world with zero or negative growth and stagnating employment, capitalism quickly loses its luster. 

Hit the jump to read more on how OWS can revive itself in 2012...

Morning Links: May Day (International Workers’ Day): the Socialist’s Christmas

For those of you were were not history majors or somehow got here and know nothing about socialism (if you got here knowing Matt, this seems highly unlikely) here's some info on May Day (International Workers’ Day). 

Since today is May Day, let’s do a socialist themed morning update.
 

Morning Links: Uniting Monday Haters with the Crazies who Love to Get Back to Work

So in case you started your weekend really early and spent most of it in a blacked out haze with uncomfortable periods of sobriety/hung-overness, I'm sure you are aware that your favorite NFL team just made some pretty big decisions over the weekend at the 2012 NFL Draft. If you're really not happy to be back at work right now, this is probably a pretty excellent thing to review as it can probably get you to at least lunchtime before you have to get into an excel spreadsheet to do some real work. CR is pretty happy with our pick, especially since if it doesn't work the Giants could probably just start a circus.