The True Conservative

Europe vs. US: Who’s Winning?

People love to cherry-pick statistics to show that the US, or Europe, is winning the growth game. That got me curious: if you look at all the possible growth periods, who's ahead (most)? Short answer: no clear winner.  The results look pretty random. Over the longest periods, Europe is consistently ahead. But some shorter but still lengthy periods give the US the advantage.

It's interesting to note that the two stretches showing US predominance begin in 1982 (Reagan) and 1992 (Clinton). Both seem to result from big two-year leaps—82-84, and 92-94. Go figure.

Change in real GDP per capita (PPP), difference between EU and US
US growth percentage minus EU15 growth percentage (positive numbers=US ahead)
Starting years at left, ending years, top. Gray is >29 years. Outline is >19 years.

Here's the same table expressed as a percentage difference.
(US growth %-EU growth%)/EU growth %

All data is from the OECD. I just did the arithmetic.

Why is the militia clause there at all?

Eugene Volokh continues the legal obfuscation for gun rights.

The question that I've never found an answer to:

If the second amendment's right to bear arms has nothing to do with a well-regulated militia, why is the militia clause there at all?

Sullivan's Surprised??

Link: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

But I have come to believe that large swathes of today's conservative movement truly are hateful.

He calls it a "revelation" for him.

He's surprised. I'm stunned.

Assignment: compare and contrast:

Rush Limbaugh. Sean Hannity. Anne Coulter.

Jon Stewart. Stephen Colbert. Al Franken.

 

Andrew Sullivan on Obama

Here.

This is a candidate who does not merely speak as a Christian. He acts like a Christian.

Pelosi: "It's Over."

Well, she didn't quite say it. But what she said said it.

I've been banging my spoon on the highchair about this for weeks, and I'm happy to say that Nancy Pelosi finally came out and agreed with me.

"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party."

"It's a delegate race," she said. "The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee."

The superfluousdelegates will never override the pledged delegates. And Hillary can't catch up on pledged delegates.

Obama is the presumptive nominee. He's in the general now.

Time to start acting like it.

Hillary: It's Over. Obama: It's McCain, Stupid. Ignore Hillary.

I actually mean no disrespect to my preferred candidate, or to Hillary, neither of whom who is anything like stupid. Just misquoting Carville.

1. As Mark Schmitt points out,  there’s no way Hillary will get a lead in the popular vote. (Andrew Sullivan: "The logic behind this seems inescapable to me.")

2. As I pointed out yesterday, that there's no way she'll get a lead in pledged delegates.

3. Obvious: There’s no way the superdelegates will override both of those popular mandates.

It's over.

So Senator Obama, please just ignore her (politely). McCain’s the man. His unremitting campaign against you (he only mentions Hillary out of habit, grudging respect, and desperate hopes that she might beat you) puts you right where you want to be: as the presumptive nominee.

Use it. Turn all your guns (and charm) his way.

Advantages:

• You position yourself as the Democratic nominee.

• You stop doing damage to Democrats, hence yourself.

• You (rightly) cast yourself as the reasonable person (you wouldn’t speak ill of her...), as against a radical Republican.

• You “change the trajectory” that the press and bloggers follow so sheepishly. They start talking about you and McCain, not you and Hillary.

Once you do that, unless things change radically between now and November (ya never know for sure...), it’s over.

The nightmare, the Reign of Terror, will finally be over.

The Real Delegate Count: Ignoring the Super(fluous) Delegates

It may seem amazing with all the analysis out there, but I had to assemble these basic facts on non-super delegates myself.

Assumptions/sources:

• Pledged delegates will decide it. Superdelegates won't override because it would cause a nuclear meltdown. (Nightmare scenario: Clinton wins some even-vaguely-construable semblance of the popular vote, somehow assembled from some combination of some states’ primary and caucus results.)

• Michigan and Florida are meaningless unless they revote. (See “nuclear meltdown,” above.)

• Data from wikipedia.

• Various outfits seem confused about how many non-super delegates there are in each state. See NYT, for instance, showing different counters giving different numbers for non-super delegates in states that have already voted. They range from 2,243 to 2,622.

• The wiki data is unambiguous on the simple facts of how many non-super delegates there are in each state.

• Wikipedia lists a trivial number of unpledged delegates (16.5: Colorado 9, democrats abroad 2.5, Mississippi 5). I allocated these in each state according to each candidate’s share of pledged delegates in that state.

• There is some small-change disagreement about delegate-allocation details in some states. But they won't make any significant difference in the bottom line of percentages needed by each candidate in the future.

Absent a pop-vote anomaly or an Obama meltdown, it's over.

Obama (and all the rest of us): Time to go after McCain and (sadly) ignore Hillary.

If he wants to look presidential (or at least nominational), that's the ticket. It’s also his best strategy for the primary.

McCain's Economic Advisor: More Taxes?

A CNN Money article on the candidates’ advisors quotes McCain's economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin saying (as I read it) that we're really going to have to raise taxes:

The country's "current fiscal policy is unsustainable, as even draconian restraint in the annual spending on defense and nondefense programs are insufficient to guarantee that the current level of taxation will be sufficient to cover promises to seniors in retirement and health programs."

As my fifteen-year-old daughter would say, “no duh.”

Okay, it’s actually a quote from a policy paper where he recommends that we need to—wait for it—cut taxes. I guess the Straight-Talk Express isn’t really about keeping promises.

 

Does Inequality Result in Prosperity?

Lane Kenworthy lays out yet again the stunning rise in inequality in America since 1950, and especially during the period since the early eighties when supply-side economic thinking took effect. Meanwhile Greg Mankiw is presenting more don’t-worry-be-happy data.

Supply-siders will tell you that we need to embrace or least tolerate this inequality, because it’s necessary if our economy is to grow.

So, how's that theory working out?

Hmmm....

Hillary: The “one-woman solution to the Republican’s problems”

The Economist says it plain and simple, yet again, in their article on McCain:

If Democrats were to deprive Mr McCain of the chance of running against Hillary Clinton, that would be the cruellest blow. Mrs Clinton would be a one-woman solution to the Republicans' problems, a guarantee that money will flow into the party's coffers and that true-red voters will troop to the polls.

They said it months ago, in their article on the Clintons:

If what should be a cakewalk in November turns into a rout, the Democrats will know who to blame.