Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
yeah, I read it a few months ago. somebody - scott, I think - linked it in the Iran thread. you're a talented writer, of course, it's a very fine essay, tho I'm not telling you anything new there.

as to what you're saying I mean, eh. again, it's really a matter of your view of the world, how you'd like to pull emergent patterns out of the current of global events. I think treating it as a war is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as well as simply bad policy. I mean really, what has it gotten us, exactly?

whipping together this monolithic, shadowy jihadi network of state & non-state actors doesn't seem very accurate, just going by the last few years, but hey, I dunno.
 

vimothy

yurp
Craner, have you read this?

51NPiLXUcCL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU02_.jpg


You really, really ought to.
 

vimothy

yurp
I have to say that I'm shocked that you started it and then stopped ten pages in--Bobbit is probably one of the most readable people in IR. But then it is probably one for the neocon crypto-fascists more than anyone else.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
I have to say that I'm shocked that you started it and then stopped ten pages in--Bobbit is probably one of the most readable people in IR. But then it is probably one for the neocon crypto-fascists more than anyone else.

maybe I didn't give it enough of a go, but i find the abstract end of politics a bit of a snooze and really couldn't face 600-odd pages of it
 

vimothy

yurp
Hairy muff. Apparently it was supposed to be two volumes, but the publisher convinced him to cut 500 pages. The Shield of Achilles, his previous work, is about 1000 pages long.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Hey, I was just pulling your leg, Padraig, and indulging in a bit of vanity posting. My dissensus etiquette is appalling. I must say Padraig, I was lot more hipped up on all this back then than now; it probably is a lot more complex now.

I haven't read Bobbit, Vim. Never managed to find the time. Seeing as I'm currently trying to devise a Key Stage 4 scheme of work on fucking Frankenstein, I think that will remain the case for a while.
 

vimothy

yurp
I'm going to use this as the default rolling disillusioned Obamaniacs thread. Ezra Klein on the Taibbi vs. Obama controversy:

The issue here is not that Taibbi should be nicer to the Obama administration, which is how he's framing most of the criticism of his article. Quite the opposite, actually. Taibbi is being much too nice to the Obama administration. He's imbued them with a lot more power than they have.

If the result of the 2010 election is that Obama fires his economics team and moves his administration to the left, but the Republicans pick up 60 seats on the House and move the body to the right, then American public policy outcomes move to the right. Conversely, if Obama brings Bob Rubin back as his vice president, but Kanjorski picks up 65 allies in the next election, then outcomes move to the left.

"At a minimum," Taibbi concludes, "Obama should start on the road back to sanity by making a long-overdue move: firing Geithner." I'm actually among those who think Obama should probably fire Geithner, but I believe that because Geithner's presence is a liability for moving better bills through the Congress. The power resides in the legislative branch, not the executive branch. But so long as the media keeps telling the story of American policy outcomes primarily in terms of the opinions and skills of the executive branch, it's going to be very hard to make anything better.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Really pathetic how Obama's going hat in hand to the banks to "convince them" to lend... Perhaps there should have been strings attached to the hundreds of billions of dollars they were given? Now it's down to scolding? Pathetic! Glad the bankers snubbed O so publicly, might be nice for America to see who's really in charge...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/business/15sorkin.html
 

vimothy

yurp
Really pathetic how Obama's going hat in hand to the banks to "convince them" to lend...

But this is fluff for the cameras, right? The banks are in a liquidity trap, are being paid to hold reserves, are expected to repair their balance sheets, are expected to up lending standards, are expected to suffer asset write downs due to the recession--all of this implies a reduction of credit. On the other hand, there is plenty that Obama could do, not least by leaning on the Fed and getting them to (per Gagnon), "purchase an additional $2 trillion of longer-term debt securities with an average maturity of around seven years" to up nominal GDP and reflate the economy in order to reduce unemployment.
 
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