The Tiger's Right Paw

I don't know about you, but I'm bummed.

The news lately has been anything but positive. Terrorist attacks in Mumbai.  American auto companies on the verge of collapse. And you could name numerous other sad, scary, ongoing events.

So I'm not going to write about any of those topics today. Instead, I've got a list — a "12 Days of Christmas"-type list — to help us cope. And, maybe, smile.

Got a piece of positive news? Please share it with our readers below, and be sure to include a link.

12. The artistic talent of cats has never been better appreciated. (and check out photos —  — and video)

11. Kids these days. Defending themselves from coyotes and all. Gotta love it.

10. Farmers with camels have jobs. In fact, they're a hot commodity.

9. Anyone forget Coldplay? Good, 'cause the band just got seven Grammy nominations. There's still hope for quality music: 

8. We know who Missouri voted for in the presidential election, meaning the recount is over.

7. The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit questioning Barack Obama's right to be president based on where he was born, and numerous news agencies labeled the story breaking news, splashing it across their Web sites. It wasn't. The Supreme Court rejects far more cases than it hears. Means I might just have a job, putting things in perspective and all, when I graduate.

6. Wall Street was looking a bit brighter, at least today.

 

5. Tina Fey, playing Sarah Palin, can still make us laugh, regardless of party affiliation.

4. Conservatives might be happy that public opinion of President George W. Bush in the media has taken a backseat to a far different and probably more vilified Republican — Richard Nixon.

3. Chuck Norris is still an American hero. 

2. At least one state in the U.S. has affordable higher education.

1. Barney, the Bush family's dog, is likely far calmer now than he was at the time of this now-famous video.

—Nate

Let's pretend that we all come from different backgrounds. Let's pretend that our hobbies, preferences and tastes vary. Let's pretend that we accept this to be true and from there let everyone do what they want. If an American citizen is living without hurting the safety of someone else, let's pretend it's totally fine. Let us not turn away; instead, let's look at each other and say, "Yeah, that's OK by me."

The unwillingness to accept differences is a timeless mold on the fruit of conservatism. Proposition 8 brought intolerance back out this time. The Mormon Church spearheaded a movement to reverse social progress and take away rights from homosexuals. Whoa. Wait: What? We have segments of our population actually putting in work to take away rights?

I'm not even sure what to call that. Maybe no label is best. Certainly, taking away — or limiting — tax-paying citizens' ability to marry isn't libertarian. It's not conservative, because this forces the courts into the lives of Americans. It's not liberal because its a social retardant. It's the opposite of progressive.

If homosexuality is wrong in the Bible, OK. That is fine. I don't need anyone with a personal or religious distaste for homosexuality to change his/her mind. We all have the right to hate or love in our own way. The problem — huge problem — is when any segment of our society thinks it's alright to legislate based on morals. Prop 8 had widespread support; not just the Mormons. One out of two Americans feel "homosexual behavior" is "morally wrong," according to a Pew poll. I'm not even sure what that means. To me, morally wrong means screwing someone over. Not screwing someone consensually. Overeating, that sin of sins, came in at 32 percent. One out of three said overeating!!! is morally wrong.

So, what does this mean? First, morals are very shifty and personal. See "Christmas with the Kranks." Second, any citizen who works to take away marriage rights disgraces conservative and libertarian principles of government. Last place is the first person to take away someone else's rights.

— GREG

There's a term from ancient Greek and Roman playwriting called "deus ex machina."  It literally means "god from a machine."  In ancient plays, when the plot seemed like it couldn't be resolved, writers would have gods descend from above (the device that lowered them was the "machine") and take care of all the plot entanglements.  Can't solve how to end a play?  Just have the gods come in and fix everything!  It was kind of viewed as a cop out.  

The past few months, the U.S. government has been called on by corporations to swoop in and bail them out in a modern day deus ex machina.  The solution to financial failure has become asking the government for money to save the company.  

Today the CEOs from the Big Three auto companies are in Washington asking Congress for up to $34 billion in emergency aid and loans.  They are contrite, humble, kind of begging.

However, I think Congress should help them.  Sure, they got themselves in this mess.  But many people could lose their jobs if these corporations go under.  More importantly, the CEOs are giving plans for how to fix their corporations.

Just handing out money is not a lasting solution.  It's a cop out.  But learning from mistakes and fixing the business model (more feul-efficient and alternative-fuel vehicles, for one thing) will help in the long run.  These CEOs have plans to do this, so it is acceptable for the government to help them out.

Just don't pass out cash to anyone with an apology and a hand stuck out, though.  Make corporations show how they will do things different and better.

Deus ex machina is usually an unsatisfactory end to a play, and it doesn't make for a good long-term economic policy.

-Ben

Recently, the United States reached an agreement to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by next June and the rest of the country by the end of 2011.  The end is in sight, and the Obama administration better not mess this up.

According to President Bush, these dates are not fixed in stone, but rather goals that we must pursue. Part of the reason America is in an economic crisis is because we lost sight of our own country and tried to police the rest of the world. During his time in office, Obama must focus on America’s economy and leave this new Iraqi resolution alone.

The end is in sight. For years, Americans questioned when the country was going to pull out of Iraq. The new plans are working, and now we can leave when the job is completed. To come this far and then pull out of Iraq even earlier would be devastating. Not only would it show America’s lack of commitment, but also it would leave U.S. citizens questioning why we entered Iraq in the first place if we were not going to finish the job. Obama must let this war run its course and leave our troops in Iraq until the job is complete.

Obama has made it clear that he wants the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. I get it. Less time in Iraq means less lives lost. President-elect Obama wants to have troops out in June of 2010. It is too early and we will lose the progress we have made. I know it was part of the reason you were elected Mr. Obama, but we are just too close.

Since this country’s beginning, Americans have sacrificed their lives for the country they love. We tend to forget about the loss of life in wars past because those men died for a noble cause. Today, these men are dying for a noble cause even if it looks like we should not have entered Iraq. Unfortunately, more will die before we leave Iraq in 2011, but I am sure these men did not sacrifice their lives for a job they did not think we could complete. Mr. Obama, I beg of you, please let us finish the job and just worry about getting our country out of this recession.

-Phil

Republicans are probably feeling queasy this morning after hearing Hillary Clinton accept President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state nomination. 

On the one hand, they pretty well knew it was coming. Rumors had swirled for over a week. It's perhaps comforting to know that a woman can, in fact, attain a high office even though Gov. Sarah Palin didn't. And one of Palin's gubernatorial counterparts, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, will head Homeland Security, putting yet another female at the top of an important political office.

On the other hand, Clinton is just one more addition to an Obama team increasingly composed of people with ties to President Bill Clinton.

RollCall.com, for example, on Oct. 30 described a meeting of Obama's economic team before the election as looking like "a Clinton administration reunion". 

Obama said today that Hillary Clinton has a strong work ethic that will serve the U.S. well, that she will "demand respect in every capital" of the world.

That she has a strong work ethic would be hard to dispute. She's transitioned from former first lady to New York senator, and now a prominent defense position.

But though she may be a skilled politician, it's not completely clear how the world, much less the American people, will view Clinton. This, after all, is the person who erroneously said she narrowly escaped sniper fire in Bosnia. An Obama spokesman was later quoted by CNN as saying the account could be tacked onto "a growing list of instances in which Sen. Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking." 

Clinton said she misspoke about that. She was in the middle of a heated primary campaign. She could have easily slipped up, as could any other politician.

The broader question, though, is whether the public will give Obama's foreign policy agenda — as funneled through Hillary — the time of day it needs to make positive change in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan.

We at TigersRightPaw want to know what you think. Will Hillary Clinton help or hurt the Obama administration's stated foreign policy goals? Will she help or hurt American foreign policy in general?

—Nate

When I hear people speak about human systems in terms of science or nature, I think “no.” The “social sciences” took their name as an homage to the real deal, a quaint way for, say, sociology to sneak in there next to the branches that de-code chromosomes and build rocket ships. Economics is the most aggressive social science. Capitalists claim the system is as natural as evolution and that the free-market is an intricate, self-perfecting coral reef. Hands off.

Evan Newmark of the Wall Street Journal sums up the dominant free-market language: “The laws of capitalism … are unyielding. The strongest companies survive. The weak and infirm die. And the economy moves forward.” Or, sections of the economy are already dead but pretend to be virile and flourishing. It’s like a possum in reverse. Good trick!

Economics is not science; it’s people and money, and the laws are flexible and theoretical. Science is what’s spanning the Rocky Mountains right now. Pine beetles are killing off millions of acres of lodgepoles. They bore through the tree’s bark, scratch a spot for their larvae and lay eggs. Young beetles eat the lodgepole’s nutrients and, to defend themselves from life-threatening sap flows, inject a fungus that stops the movement of liquid and kills the tree. The lodgepole’s lifesaving ally — cold winters — is gone, so eventually the brittle red trees will be swept away by conflagration. Then, LodgePole 2.0 will evolve with its competition in mind, outperform the pine beetle, take back its market share and send the beetles back to the boardroom with weak excuses for investors. 

Economic competition is competition, not Darwinism — which doesn’t factor in human emotions, errors and speculation, Fed statements, holidays and last night’s binge. The notion that the market corrects itself is another mistaken ecological comparison that, as we just found out, applies only to certain sections of the market. Where the market connects with buyers, it is self-correcting. Constant consumer engagement allows products to thrive (iPod) or die (Reebok Pumps), and no matter how attractive the advertisements (Zune) and publicity (XFL), the buyers decide what they want. But, there are no innate guarantees to success — "American Idol" was not genetically engineered to flourish. No one is recommending federal intervention to prop up TV.

Government oversight is required, though, when economics don’t even act like markets. The “toxic” (“Well, gee, there ya go talkin’ about ecology again, Joe”) lending system has played out entirely disconnected from the Friedmanian trust bestowed on the aggregate of buyers. Technically, it’s up to internal regulators to figure out risk, but as Brian Calame told us during a visit to Mizzou last year, he got flack simply for fulfilling his role as New York Times ombudsman. Objectivity in the land of six-figure bonuses is not possible and shouldn’t be expected. The subprime gambling racked up $625 billion in bad loans by ’05. That’s not natural; it’s Chernobyl. “Credit is the air that financial markets breathe, and when the air is poisoned, there’s no place to hide,” writes Charles Morris.

Government regulators keep watch over retail banks, restaurants, bars, schools, streets, forests and just about anywhere else. Economic institutions don't have natural rights that free them from oversight. They'll adapt to operate successfully with the regulation; we can be confident about that. Right now, shipping companies are insisting a coalition of governments protect their coral. Business sharks can't deal with pirates on the high seas.

— Greg