Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 28, February 9, 2004

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Paul Krugman

I've been remiss in not calling your attention to one of the best, and bravest, public commentators around today.

Paul Krugman, MIT-educated economist, has served on the Council of Economic Advisors, taught, and published several books. He might be best known for his regular columns carried by the New York Times and other papers.

I really admire Krugman, and not just because a column this week echoed what I wrote here last week about the reinvention of history going on over WMD. He is direct, honest, and clear. He attacks the self-justifying illusions of the conservative machine without loosing his temper.

Of course he covers economic topics such as the real reason the Federal deficit is increasing, the nature of the slow economic recovery and the effect of Bush tax policies. But he also covers foreign policy and obscure, but important issues such as the possible fraud in electronic voting. (No small issue that, since the head of the company that makes one popular brand of electronic voting machines has vowed to deliver the state of Ohio to Bush in 2004. Of course, he meant by normal political organizing, not by fraud, but it certainly raises a conflict of interest.)

His writing is reasonable in tone and uses reason, not bluster, threats or personal attacks like so much of conservative punditry.

He is a national treasure, and I encourage you to seek out his books and columns.

Special note: I will be away on vacation next week. Gyroscope will resume in two weeks.

"After a little while, however, I began to notice how policy decisions are really made. The fact is that most senior officials have no idea what they are talking about: discussion at high-level meetings is startlingly primitive. (For example, the distinction between nominal and real interest rates tends to be regarded as a complex and useless bit of academic nitpicking). Furthermore, many powerful people prefer to take advice from those who make them feel comfortable rather than from those who will force them to think hard." From his bio page.

"It is a fact that income inequality in the US soared during the Reagan years, but it is a fact that conservatives are reluctant to admit. ... In particular, I thought up a useful way to dramatize the extent of the inequality: some 70 percent of the increase in average family income from 1977 to 1989 had gone to the top one percent of families." From his bio page.

"Right now America is going through an Orwellian moment. On both the foreign policy and the fiscal fronts, the Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments.

Let's start with the case of the missing W.M.D. Do you remember when the C.I.A. was reviled by hawks because its analysts were reluctant to present a sufficiently alarming picture of the Iraqi threat? Your memories are no longer operative. On or about last Saturday, history was revised: see, it's the C.I.A.'s fault that the threat was overstated. Given its warnings, the administration had no choice but to invade." Column, 'Get me Rewrite', Feb. 9, 2004.

"According to cleverly misleading reports from the Heritage Foundation and other like-minded sources, the deficit is growing because Mr. Bush isn't sufficiently conservative: he's allowing runaway growth in domestic spending. This myth is intended to divert attention from the real culprit: sharply reduced tax collections, mainly from corporations and the wealthy." Column, Red Ink Realities, Jan 27, 2004.

"... imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?

Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic.

First of all, the technology has simply failed in several recent elections. In a special election in Broward County, Fla., 134 voters were disenfranchised because the electronic voting machines showed no votes, and there was no way to determine those voters' intent. (The election was decided by only 12 votes.) In Fairfax County, Va., electronic machines crashed repeatedly and balked at registering votes. In the 2002 primary, machines in several Florida districts reported no votes for governor." Column, Democracy at Risk, Jan 23, 2004

Several organizations attempt to fill the wishes of children with life-threatening illness. The Make-a-Wish foundation is the best known. Those who had gotten involved filling the dreams of terminally ill 7 year old, Christopher James Greicius, decided after his death in 1980 that there must be other children in that situation that also were in this situation and this grew into the Make-a-Wish foundation. They have granted more than 110,000 wishes in 20-plus years.

The Wishing Well foundation in Louisiana also has the same mission as do the Sunshine Foundation, Dream Factory and Give Kids the World Foundation. These latter organizations and others are listed here.