The cost of the Iraq war
On Monday, I discussed how history illuminates the current fight between the White House and Congress over Iraq War funding. Today, I want to look at some of the long-term prospects for America’s security, both militarily and financially.
The Iraq War has thus far proved to be a costly endeavor. The loss of lives is first among the costs, and the political consequences of the war will burden U.S. foreign policy for many years.
Even if U.S. troops leave Iraq on a rapid schedule, there will not be a large “peace dividend” for the American people. Wounded veterans require generous assistance. Military equipment destroyed or worn out during the war must be replaced. Many aspects of homeland defense have been disregarded or under funded, in part because so much attention and money have been focused on Iraq. Intelligence capabilities, public health services, communications equipment for first responders, and security for ports and transportation infrastructure desperately need to be shored up. Pentagon forces and weapons programs must be strategically retooled for antiterrorism and other new types of threats. And diplomatic and other outreach programs to improve relations with countries alienated by U.S. actions must be well funded.
All of these expenses must be met in the context of a long-term and financially asymmetric security threat. Terrorist acts generally cost the perpetrators only a few hundred thousand dollars, but cost the victim country significantly more. A British diplomat estimated that Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the 9/11 attacks, while the United States lost more than $500 billion—a point that Osama Bin Laden underscored in a highly publicized 2004 videotape. Bin Laden boasted that “the Muhahadeen bled Russia for ten years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat… So we are continuing this policy of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
Sound and sustainable national finances—with fiscal deficits kept at manageable levels over a sustained period of time—are vital to ensuring that the American economy remains resilient and that resources are available to meet such security challenges. A bloated debt could lead to climbing interest rates or force painful increases in taxes. The United States must make all future programs fiscally sustainable to avoid a rapidly rising debt in the next decade and restore flexibility to the federal budget. Our national security, and the health of domestic programs, depend on it.
In addition, the United States is today more dependent on foreign capital than it has been during any period of wartime since the American Revolution. Foreigners buy over half of all Treasury bonds—financing over half of our deficit—and net capital imports amount to roughly $800 billion annually.
Here again history holds useful lessons. During the revolution, the U.S. government had built up a heavy debt because the Continental Congress could not impose taxes. America’s first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, called this “the price of liberty.” It had to be faithfully repaid, to establish the creditworthiness of the new nation. This was not just a financial imperative; it was a national security imperative because it would ensure that the government would be able to borrow again in the event of another war (which was widely anticipated, though some assumed it would be against France and others against Britain).
The revolution had nearly collapsed for want of funds, while Britain borrowed with relative ease. Hamilton understood that unless the United States had a sound financial system, it would be condemned to be a weak and ineffective power. Foreign lenders, whose capital was necessary to support growth in the fledgling American republic, were seen as particularly important. So while many veterans, farmers, and merchants who had been paid by the Continental Congress with debt obligations had been forced to sell them during the war to speculators at a fraction of their face value, Hamilton insisted that all debt certificates be repaid on the same terms and that the young republic needed to be particularly conscientious in paying back more than $11 million to foreigners.
Even after the United States became the world’s greatest financial power in the twentieth century, such concerns continued to surface. . “There is,” said President Eisenhower in arguing in favor of restraining budget deficits, “no defense for any country that busts its own economy.” In his farewell address, Eisenhower warned against “the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.” He believed that a large debt would undermine the nation’s economy and compromise America’s ability to sustain a robust defense capacity during the Cold War. “This country could choke itself to death piling up military expenditures,” he warned, “just as surely as it can defeat itself by not spending enough for protection.” Security could only be attained with long-term budget discipline. Eisenhower would not consider new defense initiatives without detailed cost estimates and an accounting of their budget implications, and insisted on using the post-Korea budget surplus to reduce the deficit rather than allow additional tax cuts.
Mainlining fiscal discipline in the eyes of investors, particularly those abroad on whom the American economy is so heavily dependent, is no less important today. The deficit has fallen steadily in the last few years, a welcome development, but it will rise dramatically over the next decade as a result of an explosion in Medicare and Social Security payments to a steadily climbing number of baby-boomer retirees and the rising interest payments on the mounting federal debt.To meet America’s security needs alongside these two major budget requirements, our leaders must develop a long-term fiscal strategy — and do it soon.
The current Iraq War funding dispute will likely leave bitter feelings, as occurred after the Vietnam War. But the country cannot afford a decade of internal rancor and excessively sharp cuts in the defense budget, as we experienced in the aftermath of that earlier war. The United States will continue to face threats from terrorists. The Middle East, on which the United States and much of the world depend heavily for oil, will continue to be a potentially volatile place. Financial flexibility will be required to cope successfully with extraordinary and hard to predict events, such as another calamitous hurricane or a flu pandemic. And doubtless the United States will be forced to confront security challenges with military deployments elsewhere.
To meet these national priorities, leaders from both parties must:
- Scour the budget—including that of the Pentagon—to eliminate wasteful spending and seek Congressional restraint on the “over the top” use of earmarking for a slew of projects that divert funds from higher national priorities. The House of Representatives has taken the step of increasing transparency in the earmarking process by requiring that each proposal show the names of the legislators who introduced it. And in his State of the Union address, President Bush proposed cutting the number and cost of earmarks at least in half. Five to ten year cost estimates for each earmark proposal should be required, too, in order to assess long-term resource impact.
- Insist on rigorous prioritization of future spending by all government departments.
- Reduce tax benefits that do not clearly boost growth and that diverge from the progressive income tax code that has been the hallmark of the system for nearly a hundred years. The provisions of the 2001 and 2003 “stimulus” tax cuts that are not needed to sustain growth and are scheduled to sunset should be allowed to do so. And there is no reason to hand out financial gifts through corporate or personal tax subsidies to special interest groups, thereby diverting resources from national priorities to pay for them.
- Reform Social Security and Medicare to make them financially sustainable. The Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, and other experts agree that the growth in these legislatively mandated payments will squeeze out discretionary appropriations within the next fifteen years. That includes America’s defense and homeland security expenses. Entitlement programs would have to be reformed even if the defense budget were zero, because they are financially unsustainable given their current trajectories, but the fact that they could cut into the nation’s security budget during a period of threat is but one more reason to do so. In curbing explosive Social Security and Medicare growth, we must apply the principle of equity that has governed the country’s fiscal policies since the Civil War: Those who can pay more for, or whose financial circumstances enable them to rely less on, these programs should be called upon to do so.
- Launch a strong, bipartisan effort to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil and its susceptibility to supply disruptions. Doing so would also reduce the nation’s oil import bill and slow the flow of funds to countries or groups hostile to the United States. During World War I, Americans were asked to display their patriotism by buying what were called Liberty Bonds; the Treasury secretary, William Gibbs McAdoo, called it “capitalizing patriotism.” Today, we should spur a display of “energy patriotism”—by decreasing day-to-day energy consumption and developing domestic oil and alternative energy sources.
Without these shifts to secure America’s financial security, the country’s domestic and foreign debt will increase dramatically, jeopardizing America’s capacity to respond to future emergencies. Bigger deficits will also make the country ever more dependent on foreign capital. In the event of a terrorist attack or another traumatic event, foreign investors may choose to curtail their supplies of funds, out of economic necessity. Interest rates would shoot up and the dollar would plummet, damaging an already injured American economy. That reliance constitutes an enormous vulnerability.
The U.S. government has no higher obligation than to protect the security of its citizens. A concerted effort by the American people and their leaders to ensure that the nation’s finances remain sound and resources are available for critical security needs is the price we must pay to preserve that security.
Comments (50)
Forgive me for what's going to be a pretty angry response but this is nuts. There's no way we should have to reform social security and medicare just because of the money we've spent in Iraq. If we have the money for this war, then we have the money for our entitlement programs.
Indeed, had we just taken what we've already spent in Iraq and put the money in an index fund, we wouldn't have to worry about the solvency of either program.
Your suggestion that we could tax more earnings for Social Security is fine but means testing the benefits turns it into a welfare program and that will undermine its popularity and will eventually kill it.
Your "energy patriotism" idea is quaint and will not be effective.
Scouring the budget for waste won't do much. One senator's waste is another senator's vital project.
The Iraq war was a giant mistake. Let's not compound that mistake by planning our budget around it for decades to come.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 22, 2007 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Biography
Robert D. Hormats is the Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (International) and a Managing Director of Goldman, Sachs & Co.
He has served in numerous presidential administrations and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His articles appear frequently in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He lives in New York City.
History
Member for
1 day 14 hours
May 22, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Argument by innuendo! I seem to remember an Administration that's very good at this...
May 22, 2007 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it's really cool that we have a Goldman exec here. I disagree with the policies he's articulated but it's rare you get to talk back to somebody so influential.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 22, 2007 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much of what is stated is common sense. Unfortunately, some also is either incorrect or misleading. First, the nation will have to increase expenditures to repair the military, to fund homeland security, for wounded vets, ... irrespective of when we leave Iraq. If we do it sooner rather than later, then the total costs are lower, and if we have to wait for the next president for that to occur, then the additional cost would be a very large LOST financial peace dividend.
Second, it is important to get the government's fiscal house in order, and it has not been in order since Bush's first tax cuts. Bush's Iraq War simply exacerbated the problem. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to concede the President Clinton had a fiscally sound policy; President Bush has not. And bipartisanship or lack thereof had nothing to do with the fiscal morass that the Bush administration has led us into since the republicans were in control of both houses of congress when the budget went from solid to sordid.
And third, it is fundamentally dishonest to link Social Security and Medicare and talk about reforming them both for fiscal reasons. Arguably there are minor changes that need to be made to Social Security to keep it fiscally sound, and the privitization proposals have nothing to do what's required. Medicare needs fundamental overhaul - and the Bush-led changes in that program moved us in the wrong direction.
May 22, 2007 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uhh. Let me think about it. No.
Are you freaking crazy? The military industrial complex put us in this war. Let them pay for it.
"For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Matthew 24, 14-30
May 22, 2007 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yet you ignore the question of whether we have much of a choice to at this point or not.
As Mr. Hormats said, even if a full pullout occurred, we'd still have to spend a lot on retraining and reequipping our troops. Even then we'll still have troops in Afghanistan, and would likely have to send troops back into Iraq after the civil war situation there deteriorates further.
And by the way, even if you could "solve" the Social Security and Medicare problems by deficit spending... that doesn't mean it's a good idea to do that and ignore the larger problems of the programs. The longer you let the issues fester, the worse it gets and the harder it becomes to fix them later.
May 22, 2007 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
But is he listening? Does a tree that falls in a forest . . . ?
May 22, 2007 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm confused. I don't see any mention of any argument
1) For staying in Iraq
2) That Bush's fiscal policy has been sound
3) That Bush's plans for Social Security and Medicare have been sound
in the entire post.
May 22, 2007 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many times before I've posted that the guest won't answer or even read the comments. Sometimes, I've been surprised... It's his first post, he might deal with objections raised in future posts. We'll find out if he's listening or not, but it's way too soon to tell.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 22, 2007 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we have choices. While its true that there's not a "peace dividend" on the horizon we can set our own spending priorities, even if that means having a smaller military.
As for fixinf social security, I just don't believe the program is actually in trouble. Any fixes that are necssary don't have to be drastic or that costly. Medicare might be another matter. But, letting the government use its buying power to bring costs under control would help a lot.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 22, 2007 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
All this ruckus about Social Security is complete crap. It is easily fixed; here's how:
1. Last I looked (I retired a year ago) there was a $90,000 cap on salary subject to Social Security tax. Remove it.
2. As an academic, I benefited from two programs, the 403b program, and a later one (I think it was numbered 457, but I don't recall the number) Both programs allowed one to put aside a fairly large amount of his salary and invest it directly as he saw fit. In the last few years before I retired I was putting away something like $30,000 a year, tax deferred. A great benefit, and far more beneficial than the IRA programs. Make these programs available to everyone.
The problem is solved.
If anyone should sacrifice in this country because of the huge deficits, it should be the extremely wealthy, greedy people, like Hormats, who were responsible for running up the deficits in the first place.
May 22, 2007 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
What makes you think we have the money for this war? If I have nothing in the bank, and what I owe is nearly as much as a year's salary, the fact that I can buy things with a credit card doesn't mean I have money to spend, really.
May 22, 2007 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you,Mr. Hormats, for a thoughtful essay. Your specific suggestions are consistent with wall street logic.
My perspective is as a small business owner in Iowa. We pretty much bootstrap our innovation here so I may be naive...but I cannot help but feel Wall Street Hedge Fund Managers and many shareholders of companies with lucrative war contracts have benefited from the Bush Administration inept war. I am not meaning to sound like a class baiter - but the logic of hedge funds is to leverage borrowing capability with the assumption that the bull market will continue along with the war spending. And that productivity will continue to increase along with stagnant wages.
If the same logic was applied to the country as a whole, the people that is, then spending on health, education and general welfare would be a priority - as without a healthy, well educated and mobile workforce there will be no future productivity...
I admire your disciplined approach to identifying and trying to find solutions to the complex problems we face TOGETHER, Mr. Hormats and only wish that we were able to share the same perspective.
May 22, 2007 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure what you disagree with. Hormats is arguing that in order to sustain a war like Iraq, it should be done on a sound financial footing.
Reforming Social Security and Medicare, aren't the same as eliminating them. The former might not that be all that difficult as the shortfall is likely to be very small or non-existent. The latter is a problem because healthcare costs are running so high. If these programs are not reformed, regardless of iraq, they are likely to eat into the discretionary part of the budget. For anyone who would like to see more progressive policies this is crucial. If you expect that Al Qaeda and other crises will require future miltary action then it is even more important.
Unless out of control deficits, as opposed to controlled deficits, then social insurance programs will have to be considered as part of entire overhaul of the budgeting and taxing in this country.
I hope we see more experts like Mr. Hormats and less ideological partisans involved in the Cafe.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
May 22, 2007 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. If reforming Social Security is a good idea (which of course is an open question), then it's a good idea regardless. It doesn't become less necessary because the Oaf President got his so now we get ours. Just because the Republicans spent their years in power ignoring all fiscal sanity to reward their friends doesn't mean it would be good policy for their successors to do the same. If that's unfair, well, that's the consequences to the nation of electing a poorly-qualified President (or even supporting him enough that he could claim to be duly elected).
May 22, 2007 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
RIGHT FOOLS
Social Security needs little change: remove the income cap.
Medicare needs major change: a good first step would allow negotiated drug pricing.
Healthcare in this country is in crisis: nationalize it.
Immigration: liberalize it and get many new FICA payers
Reverse the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of earners.
Return college lending to the Federal government: cut-out the middle man.
Offer aggressive incentives to companies, governments and individuals to go "Green."
Just a start...
May 22, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can anree with Mr. Hormats on one point: big debts are bad.
But the common sense answers to big debts are the ones we all know.
1. Cut spending.
2. Raise taxes.
3. Both.
He seems to have somehow completely overlooked 2. and 3. Weird, huh? Hello!
May 22, 2007 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 22, 2007 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most of this reads like a run-of-the-mill political statement, generally uncontroversial.* Then there's this:
Firstly, I'd question the idea there were "excessively sharp cuts in the defense budget" after Vietnam. From this cbo factsheet, defense spending from 1970-1979 in $bns:
81.9 ; 79.0 ; 79.3 ; 77.1 ; 80.7 ; 87.6 ; 89.9 ; 97.5 ; 104.6 ; 116.8
The factsheet has this is terms of percentage of GDP, and even though there is a clearer drop-off by that measure, I am still not really buying the "excessively sharp cuts" line. Without accounting for inflation, there was a decline in increases in defense spending - actually before we withdrew from Vietnam - but it was brief and does not appear to have been sharp by any reasonable measure.
In fact, more to the point, what the 70's data suggests is that getting bogged down in a senseless war/occupation is what causes defense spending to decline.
As for internal rancor, I am actually all for it. Compared to the "consensus politics" of the last six years or so which got us into a fiscal and foreign policy mess, I am rather pleased to see bare-knuckle partisanship make a return to DC.
And as a further counterpoint, I'd offer up the 1990s - a period of profound internal rancor - as a period of notable fiscal sanity. Admittedly defense spending fell notably in nominal and relative terms during this period, but I don't see how this will prove any more instructive than the post-Vietnam data.
*Updated... the idea that social security needs fundamental reform is not uncontroversial, and I don't agree with Mr Hormats' position.
May 22, 2007 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Social Security funding gap problem was solved years ago. The solution was for the workers from that day forward to pay more FICA taxes than needed to currently fund the program, with the excess being set aside to cover the future shortfalls in taxes. That time for using the set aside FICA taxes is just about here, but thankfully we did set aside that money, so there is still no problem.
The problem we do have is that since the current president was placed in office we have had nothing but tax cuts and budget increases, running up a colossal national debt. The published figures for that debt are vastly understated, since it has been assumed that the excess in FICA was just ordinary spending money for the government, when it wasn't. So, the budget shortfalls we have been hearing about were far worse than we thought.
But, the excess FICA money is still available to keep SS payouts going for many years. That's because we already fixed that problem. Why is it so hard to recognize that fact?
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 22, 2007 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was hoping for more from Mr. Hormats' post.
He writes:
I'd like to know what an economic maven like Hormats thinks the economic cost of the Iraq war will eventually be. Is it in the neighborhood of $501 billion, or closer to $2 Trillion? I mean the title of the post is "The cost of the Iraq war".
-Dave Adams-
May 22, 2007 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting article but I wonder why you ignore the elephant in the room? Namely the stated goal of GOP Party Operatives like Grover Norquist? Who loudly proclaim the only good Social Security program is a Dead Social Security Program...and the the way to reform Social Security is to "Choke the life out of it." Folks on the plus side of the income gap don't have to worry about social programs or governments... and I challenge you to name better policy to take these programs away from the poor and "undeserving middle class" other than exploiting the meme of 9/11...We'll just wrap the poor in a flag, and send them off to War.... While at home the GOP will spend our tax money for social programs on tax give backs to themselves... Elimination of the "death tax"... and bankrupting the treasury through endless deficit spending... funding War(s), "Free Trade", and the like. "The haves and have mores" have done very well this last seven years...I would propose the GOP's agenda is going along just swimmingly, and the fact folks like yourself continue to use smoke and mirrors to hide this behind the "need for reform" belabors the point. The GOP "Reform Social Security Platform" of bankrupting the Treasury through huge deficits, "tax relief", and war is working just fine thank you very much....Dare I say (for of course I am just a citizen who works for a living, and not an economist) this "policy" will do more to reform/destroy Social Programs then any proposed "reforms" offered by a Wall Street Capitalist. Yup... I am afraid for the most part those (rare people) who make things, and break a sweat everyday to earn a living... are still being sucked dry by those who discuss Social Security policy at the local country club. Here's to hoping you can keep this ruse up long enough so that your children can inherit your wealth, and move to some offshore enclave to wait out the resulting blowback and civil war. :)
William Hazen
"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson
May 22, 2007 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Diversity of thought is a good thing, just like diversity of race and diversity of gender and diversity of religious belief.
May 22, 2007 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the energy patriostism idea is a good one, as we get most of our oil from the middle east, and some of that money gets re-routed to funding terrorists of course, as it trickles down at least. The Sierra Club five years ago or so had a "Declaration of Energy Independence" program. However, since consuming fossil fuels has already produced intense weather events such as Katrina, droughts/fires, ice storms, possibly floods, from our "global warming experiment," just from the average air surface temperature going up one degree over the last quarter century, I think we are making a mistake if we invest in domestic fossil fuel drilling rather than investing in domestic sources of energy that do not emit carbon dioxide. We get a lower return on investment in the long run by investing in fossil energy as compared to investing in green energy, because fossil energy costs us additional budgetary funds as a result of the need for larger FEMA budgets. Not to mention sunshine and wind are unlimited resources while fossil fuels are a limited resource. When the temperature goes up another degree over the next 25 years (a conservative estimate,) the severe weather events will be even stronger of course. While I would prefer of course solar, wind, and geothermal, I differ from most environmentalists in that I believe that the risk from nuclear waste is far less than the risk from global warming, and therefore I am a nuclear energy advocate as well, but only if the green sources of electricity are not 100 percent feasible. If we can put robots on Mars, and men on the moon, and probes orbiting pluto, we can virtually end the consumption of fossil fuels. And much sooner than you might think. How long does it take to buy an electric car and install solar panels on your roof?
While I do believe in maintaining American military supremacy, I differ from Mr. Horvats, in that I believe we will have no choice but to make deep cuts in the military budget. Fighting guerrilla armies can be done in a fight fire with fire approach - we can be a big guerrilla force ourselves - perhaps half conventional and half guerrilla (special forces.) Which of course means cutting way back on our conventional warfare capability (it did us no good in Iraq - sure we over ran Iraq in a few weeks, but then our jugernaut has done us no good in guerrilla warfare, just as the same thing happened in Vietnam. The American forces need to be retooled, to be more lean and mean to borrow the phrase right out of the horses mouth. "If I were in charge," I'd convert the entire Marine Corp into special forces. Leaving the Army for conventional warfare ground forces. A lot of Marines, as well as smaller amounts of Sailors and Air Force personnel would lose their jobs, but many of them are probably itching to get out anyways seeing the bad hand of cards they have been dealt with the Iraq War. On their way out, can the Government re-train the troops, to prepare them to make a civilian living and ease the transition? How about in the field of construction, where for one they can be trained in how to convert a house to solar power? And we would certainly save money by not needing as much heavy equipment in the Marine Corps - there would not be as great of a need to "repair and replace" broken Marines equipment. I would think we could cut back on some of the conventional Navy and Air Force forces as well. Although I think we might be able to alleviate some of the ill sentiment towards us by using more aircraft carriers and less land bases in the middle east, and if we are not tooling for conventional war, we probably don't need so many large air strips overseas do we? Can stealth fighters land and take off on aircraft carriers? (Probably not but I wouldn't know.) If the need does arise some day for two conventional ground force armies, it isn't a problem if you have roped China into joining NATO (or an eastern alliance as Zbigniew Brzezinski mentions.) Outsource the troops.
Likewise, submarines can be likened to being out of sight, out of mind missile bases, and I think can be used in the middle east.
It seems like the CIA helped to win the Afghanistan conflict by tapping into the local guerrilla forces who provided a counter jihad against the taliban forces. That is a cheap, "outsourcing" method of waging guerrilla war, and should be the spearhead of our war on terror strategy I would think.
But I agree with all of Mr. Horvats main points and he has illustrated for me the urgency of our financial problem, just as Al Gore has illustrated for me the urgency of our fossil fuel consumption problem.
May 22, 2007 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really can't figure out exactly what Mr. Hormats is up to with these two posts. The argument strikes me as quite opaque and awkward, and I have the distinct impression that Hormats is not putting all his cards of the table. But maybe I'm just too dense to grasp his point.
In both his posts here, and also at Huffington Post, and presumably also in his book, Mr. Hormats has argued against moves to cut defense spending and seek a peace dividend in the wake of a potential end to the war in Iraq. He seems very anxious to nip in the bud this predictable public response to the end of hostilities. However the discussion of national security issues and priorities is extremely broad and flimsy. There is some hand-waving about veterans benefits, and the need to continue to fight the terr'ists, but that's about it. There is really no serious attempt to spell out exactly how much we need, in which areas, and for which purposes. If Hormats has some serious and detailed analysis up his sleeve about the country's defense needs and strategy, and their costs, he is not letting us in on it. Prima facie, one would think that if we end an expensive war, then we are entitled to expect a peace dividend. If Hormats thinks this is a mistaken inference, then surely he owes us more than these cryptic generalities.
Clearly the topic that really floats his boat is fiscal sanity and reform. He wants the country to get its finances in order, right quick, and apparently believes this requires major entitlement reform, cancelling some tax benefits and cuts, reducing our indebtedness and fixing our balance of payments, especially in the energy sector.
Fine. But for some reason he wishes to combine this appeal for reforming the finances with a plea not to cut defense spending. But again, the discussion of our defense needs is half-baked to say the least. It's not as though Hormats comes to us as some sort of defense guru, armed with the latest thinking in national security wonkery. So what gives? One would think that cutting defense spending might be one way to help get the nation's finances in order.
All I can guess is that Hormats wants to keep us away from tax cuts, and keep up the pressure for entitlement reform, particularly in Medicaire and Social Security, and thinks the only way to establish and maintain political momentum in these areas is to keep banging the fear drums about urgent security and defense requirements, and evil terrorists up the ying-yang. Perhaps he thinks keeping the perpetual war going will help encourage the appropriate mood of patriotic austerity and national sacrifice, and allow the financial guys to inflict the necessary pain under the flying war colors. As long as we're all geared up to sacrifice so much for the beleaguered and spectacularly endangered homeland, we can be induced to give up some of our entitlement benefits, for example, and call the sacrifice a "Liberty Donation".
Perhaps the only way to get people to reform Medicaire and Social Security, shift more capital out of the government budget and into the private sector, and please Wall Street and Goldman Sachs, is to scare them into believing that rising federal government obligations in these areas will force us to "cut into the national security budget". And since, as we all know, there are countless terrorists slithering and crawling throughout the national ductwork, and untold armies of sick and starving veterans in the streets, we'd better get to work on fixing those entitlement programs.
Or maybe Hormats likes some of the particular fiscal benefits that flow from defense spending. Maybe one of the benefits of US defense spending is that much of the vast military-industrial complex output in arms and other defense tools and services are sold abroad, helping our balance of payments situation. The US is a major and highly practiced security exporter, I guess, so that's an industry in which we should keep investing in order to maintain our comparative advantage. But it's hard to get Americans to subsidize the business of tanks, fighter jets, missiles and private mercenary armies if they don't believe there is something very dark and very dangerous out there. And if congressional representative and senators get any bright ideas and start cutting from the defense budget, it might encourage dangerously curious Americans to start questioning whether the threats are really so dire as they are presented - in other words it will blow the con.
I also note that although Hormats wants to maintain current levels of defense spending, he is opposed to earmarks and is big on "flexibility". He wants us to spend on defense, but not be too picky about where the money is going. So perhaps the idea is to get Americans to patriotically pump funds into the Get Osama Kitty, and then use some creative bookkeping to shift the funds to other, no doubt highly partriotic, purposes.
Hell, I can barely manage my own personal finances, much less the nation's finances, so most of this Wall Street wizardry is over my head. But if Hormats doesn't want us to think that his argument is nothing more than a cynical effort to recruit us all into the War On Rotten Finances by folding it, like everything else, into the War on Terror, he's going to have to come up with a better effort.
May 22, 2007 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew,
This latest jihad is the umpteenth waxing I have seen of the waxing and waning of "kick the contributor" at TPMCafe.
It's becoming ever clearer to me that you need a mission statement about this website that explains that reality is that TPM/Josh Marshall enterprises has a circle of associates and connections that some might consider "the Washington elite" and "the New York elite." And that you are not ashamed of that, but proud of it, and that if readers don't like that model, they might consider switching over to spending more time on the Daily Kos or some such where the anonymous-pen-name-using masses rule uber alles & experts who use their real names to write analysis and opinion are not to be granted anything but derision and made to grovel and prove their worth. (Not to mention that because they are using their real names and have something invested in reputation, they often cannot return fire in a like manner--I will always give Obama an extra point for dissing the Kos masses back!) That the actual idea of this place is to gather opinion & discussion by those with expertise.
Let me say something that might not have sunk in yet: there's a significant group among blog triumphalists who believe that the beauty of blogs is that "the people" get to talk now, and the experts or anyone else with power should shut up or be verbally abused, because they are the ones who get us into messes. You have to make it clear that this is not the place where they would be happiest. And yes, you are right to conjure up Bush, as there is much irony there...heck I was just reading it:
but I truly don't think the analogy is exactly right, and one needs to bring up not just the danger of vox populi and majority rule, but heck, the theory of mobs ala Gustave LeBon or similar, and the main game: crucify the elite.
I happen to think your model is something that people like me are looking for, looking for elite quality commentary and discussion, tired of reading the base angry rants of every Tom Dick and Harry. This is one main reason why I have been a supporter of a comment rating system or other tough standards for commenting in discussions in your TPMCafe section. I'm not looking for yet another damn democratic (both small d an large D) website.
You really need to get serious about a strong mission statement/ground rules/guidelines for use of rating system (if you keep it) etc. or this sort of thing is going to come up again and again, and you'll lose contributors when they become disillusioned. So those statements should include showing respect for all the contributors you select and treating discussion about them and with them as if it were at a coffee shop and not a bar frequented by brawlers.
The community that is allowed to rate should understand what you are trying to do and help you keep getting new contributors by offering them quality comments and
discussion, not bashing. Hopefully this will eventually turn towards much more demanding standards for commenting here, so much so that your average ranter thinks twice before they post and people are not so encouraging of things written in anger. This will avoid what happened with America Abroad drifting away into nothingness, and contributors writing under their own name will actually desire/want to interact with commenters in coffee round table manner, rather than fearing a wasteful-of-time plunge into a mosh pit that doesn't do them a bit of good.
Sincerely, and taking another break from TPMCafe until waning takes over....
May 22, 2007 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would your views be any different, artappraiser, if you were to conclude that Mr. Hormats is here solely to fulfill the terms of his marketing agreement with his publisher, Times Books, that he had and has no intention of interacting with TPMCafe members, and that, upon due reflection, you decided that aMike's and Dan K's comments, below, were substantially more thoughtful and analytical than the pap* Mr. Hormats has deigned to favor us with?
* As an aside, I doubt Josh would award his imprimatur to the rhetorical scare tactic of combining discussions of the solvency of Social Security and Medicare -- a typically dishonest GOP gambit -- as Mr. Hormats -- perhaps, not dishonestly but only conventionally (if one's a Republican) -- has done.
May 22, 2007 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there is a lot of truth in what you say AA. But it seems to me that you may be encouraging a false dichotomy. I have nothing at all against expertise, and am eager to hear from experts from various fields who really know their stuff. But there really is such a thing as beltway insiderism, and it represents only a rather narrow band of conventional thinking. Perhaps a rough criterion for insider status is this: "Could a major party president get away with giving this person a high-profile job in his administration?" We certainly need to hear from these people, but it is by no means true that every important expert would be considered suitable for a White House job by the usual party bosses and Washington poobahs.
So it's not just a choice between the insiders and the untutored blogospheric masses. There is a huge range of scholarly, activist and other expert opinion which is not merely angry populist grousing and rabble rousing, or resentful sour grapes, but which also doesn't reflect the rather narrow range of think-tank approved opinions which will earn you a fellowship at Brookings or the Council on Foreign Relations. We are not hearing much of that expert opinion here.
Perhaps my main complaint about the fare here is this: too many Americans! It's so damn introverted! The fact that the readers of TPMCafe are mainly Americans like me who are particularly concerned with US issues doesn't mean it is healthy to hear only from Americans. And in addition to the fact that the discussion is almost uniformly conducted by Americans, it has recently eschewed discussion of countries other than America. (In fairness, I note today a guest commentary by a Turkish reporter, which is part of a discussion of the situation in Turkey.) There is a vast global left out there, ranging from neoliberal moderates to green socialists to Bolivaran revolutionaries, and it includes some of the most brilliant and insightful intellectuals in the world. We just don't hear enough from them, or even debate their ideas. Policy-shop wonkery is only one modest component of intellectual activity. If the debate isn't broadened to include more challenging and foreign ideas, the thinking quickly becomes stale, unimaginative and moribund.
I still think there is a bit too much of a tendency for TPM Cafe to play it safe and stay "on message" within mainstream Democratic thought. Maybe the idea is that our enemies are watching, and so we must mind our Ps and Qs, and keep all of the dangerous radicals and critical fur'ners locked in the cellar, so they don't embarrass us by association.
May 22, 2007 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"So what gives?"
I doubt he is promoting his book to pay his bills.
Perhaps Mr. Horvats is more interested in promoting his ends - ringing an alarm bell - than his means. As I'm sure he knows the readers here would disagree with some of his means.
I also think some commenters are still prejudiced and making assumptions of what Mr. Horvats means in areas where we havn't been provided all the details (i.e. social security reform) in the blog.
May 22, 2007 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the elite is talking nonsense, or worse, deliberately not telling the whole truth, it deserves to be crucified.
May 22, 2007 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Hormats says:
The only peace dividend I need is that there be no more dead and wounded veterans. Would that there be no more dead and wounded Iraqis, as well, but we'll have those on our consciences regardless of the schedule for withdrawal.
Regarding the historical interpretation Mr. Hormats injects, a significant number of historians of the revolutionary and constitutional period, perhaps a majority of them, would disagree, especially when it comes to understanding the motivation of Alexander Hamilton.
In 1790, Hamilton estimated the total debt of the new nation at something slightly more than $54,000,000. Which meant that foreign debt holding amounted to something like 20%. The "speculators" of which Hormats writes were mainly citizens of the several states--the rich guys preying on the poor guys. Hamilton knew that the way to strengthen the central authority was to ally the moneyed interests to it. Those guys would be the ones trading in derivatives and taking stocks private today. How little things have changed.
And why was Hamilton concerned about tying the moneyed interests to the central government? Federalist Paper #34 gives a clue.
Tying the government's hands from "offensive war" absurd and novel? Hamilton thought so. He'd sup comfortably with those who control our administration today. He'd also not be uncomfortable with amassing tons of debt--as long as it was owed to the "right" people and paid by the "right" people, and bought goods and services from the "right" people. Hmmm. I've used the word "right" three times in the preceding sentence. Does anyone here think I mean the same group all three times? (nope).
aMike
May 22, 2007 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Ellen
I try. :-) I wrote a bit more about hoping that the voices at TPM would be broadened, and that there were more choices than the spectrum offered here without worrying too much about the "great unwashed". But I lost the thing when my browser crashed (too many windows open at once), and by the time I got back up, Dan had said pretty much everything I wanted to say and better than I had said it.
aMike
May 22, 2007 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
How financially sophisticated was Hamilton?
I assume that if you and I were sitting where he was, we'd be looking for a way to inflate our new country's money supply -- we'd want to tax and spend. But we don't have a history of "federal projects" that we can spend our revenue on in order to get that money circulating in the economy -- no roads and canals, a Navy but we already have one. Other than paying off the Revolutionary War debt (states and federal), what alternative projects would we have had?
Did Hamilton choose the only means available?
May 22, 2007 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Reforming Social Security', = turning it over to Wall Street and let every American play the market, for good or bad, while Goldman Sachs collects a guaranteed annual fee of 1-2% on the account totals.
May 22, 2007 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
In terms of his own age, Hamilton was incredibly sophisticated. In terms of ours, probably not. He was certainly the most cynical of the Founding Fathers, and one wonders who could blame him...he clawed his own way up from a pretty bizarre childhood. In some ways, he reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara (I was out weeding the garden this afternoon--perhaps I got a bit too much sun) in that he acted as if he too had sworn "never to be poor again". He allied himself with the moneyed class, detested hereditary aristocracy (being the illegitimate son of the fourth son of a Scots noble may explain that) almost as much as he hated "The People," the great beast.
In terms of inflating the money supply I don't think he was thinking in Keynesian terms. Money returned to original holders of bonds would have entered the economy just as well, and screwing veterans probably wasn't necessary (hmmm...another echo of the present in the past [sic]).
Were he alive at the end of the 19th century he'd have hated populists of Bryan's ilk and been perfectly happy to crucify mankind on a cross of gold, and I suspect he'd be happy swapping yarns with Sam Walton in the 20th century.
aMike
as a p.s.: There is a school of economic historians (not just old timers like Charles Beard) who think that the depression following the war would have run its course (in fact, probably just about had run its course) and the Confederate States of America would have bounced back just fine...the cycle wasn't different from that following every other war and transition from a war footing to a peace footing.
May 22, 2007 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Money returned to original holders of bonds would have entered the economy just as well . . . .
Practically -- could the original holders have been identified?
Technically -- could the amount of compensation due the current holders have been calculated?
Quaere: Does one have to be a Keynesian to understand the benefits of an increased money supply? Our forebearers understood fractional banking, currency issuance (state bank notes) as well as frequent bank panics.
May 22, 2007 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
ArtA, I agree with a lot of what you say. It really would help if TPM set out its mission forthrightly. I think that Josh hasn't been honest with us, or perhaps with himself. When I asked in the past, say, why America Abroad wasn't about foreign policy but about a plan for liberal hawks, he insisted that we had no biases here. Moreover, your second point, that he need not be ashamed of having a point of view, is valid, too, especially when he contributes so much.
Still, one shouldn't be annoyed if people argue back. The disconnect between the posters and the majority of comments surely reflect on both sides, perhaps not equally and perhaps not the same way, but on both sides. And they also underscore the dishonesty I'm talking about. And I'll say that Dan K.'s comment is better than my own on the contributor's first post, to the effect that there's an incoherence in the position suggesting an agenda not fully stated but surely worth discussing if only the poster could discuss it. Or maybe not worth discussing because he's not sharp enough to discuss it.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
May 22, 2007 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the neo-cons are planning a Cold War, a Cold war with China now. The goal would be to get China to withdraw funds from the US and send the economy into a tailspin. Tough times have always been great for security states. The huge deficits are a step towards a security state for the neo-cons. Of course, this is going to take a lot of planning by the neo-cons but the neo-cons have already set the stage with the huge deficits. The ulimate goal of the neo-cons is the destruction of US democracy, of course, rather than winning wars, securing oil or a dynamic economy. The neo-cons are people who push buttons and a security state presents a virtual utopia for the neo-cons.
May 22, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good questions, all.
Without a lot of library time, I can only give partial answers.
aMike
May 22, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I'm sure he knows the readers here would disagree with some of his means.
Is there something which Mr. Hormats has written, here or maybe, elsewhere, which has lead you to this conclusion or are you engaged in mind reading?
For CtlAltDel: Well; how do you know what Hormats "knows"? Care to share? For that matter, what makes you yourself "sure"?
May 22, 2007 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The way the congress goes about establishing the year to year budget is indicative of how conflicted the process has become. There is little fiscal discipline practiced by any of our legislators. Lobbyists and special interests have gained influence seriously out of proportion relative to the need to curb spending. Similarly, the constant pressure to reduce taxes is a constant drumbeat. In total, there is a serious lack of unity in overall federal expenditures and a pitifully low audit rate for government contracts. Without exception, government pays too much for everything it buys and spends lavishly on nonessential, feelgood projects and plain old pork. Without formal legal accountability for this it will never change.
May 22, 2007 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
As usual, you're pointing something out that I didn't see. I think my take on social security is that it's not as bad a problem as he suggests. But, maybe I'm not as far away from him as I thought on the bigger issue of having a firm financial footing during war time.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 22, 2007 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . pine-tree shillings . . . .
Nice!
And you got me. The characteristics of the banking environment I was thinking of are really closer to the 1840s than to the 1790s (the latter being a financial era I know next to nothing about).
And no matter how Zinnish you may sound on occasion, the complexities you've introduced suggest that Mr. Hormats' bald (simplistic?) assertions should be studied with a skeptical eye.
May 22, 2007 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will address your points in order:
1)"If we have the money for this war, then we have the money for our entitlement programs."
This is a false statement. We already chose the war. While I agree that the Social Security and Medicare programs are important, and the war was a mistake, we already made that choice. Our new choice is between investment with marginally lower interest rates spurring economic growth, and our public spending. These are tough choices.
2)"Your suggestion that we could tax more earnings for Social Security is fine but means testing the benefits turns it into a welfare program and that will undermine its popularity and will eventually kill it." This is the only reasonable way, however, to preserve Social Security without raising taxes, cutting benefits to the poor, or borrowing heavily. And Social Security is wildly popular, so the proposal may or may not pass, but I doubt we could kill Social Security.
3)"Your "energy patriotism" idea is quaint and will not be effective." I don't find it particularly quaint. I agree with you that it may not be effective, but I agree with the premise of it at least. If this were framed correctly by the President, it might actually work, especially if laws, including taxes and rationing, were tightly enforced, it could work.
4)"Scouring the budget for waste won't do much. One senator's waste is another senator's vital project." Here I somewhat agree. Senators won't do much to reduce their own waste, but senators may be willing to pass rules against waste in general. This is not only smart, but necessary to cut spending.
5)"Let's not compound that mistake by planning our budget around it for decades to come." Again, we are where we are. This war will cost a lot of money in the long run. We have to plan according to reality. I wish we hadn't invaded, but we have, so it's a sunk cost. We have to pick up the pieces and go on.
May 22, 2007 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . we get most of our oil from the middle east . . . .
Hmm. Not unless the Middle East has moved to the Western Hemisphere and Africa. As an indicator of where our imported oil comes from, here's the EIA's report for March.
For CtlAltDel: Rather than awarding 0s, you might better use your time doing a bit of reading and research. It will save you from basing your arguments on howlers -- your ridiculously erroneous assertion, above, for example.
Hi Debra Morgan Pardee: Good to see you over here visiting a substantive thread. And all this time I thought you limited your participation to the Deanie Mills - Morgan Pardee support group and mutual admiration society.
May 22, 2007 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hormats's proposals all seem sensible to me, but the devil is always in the details, isn't it? Hormat seems rather timid about reducing the size of the defense budget. If the cuts in defense are small, than the cuts in domestic programs (including Social Security and Medicare) will have to be larger, won't they? I'd also like to know more specifics about which tax benefits are to be cut and which he believes are both progressive and stimulating to growth.
One other suggestion to add to Hormats's list: Many very wealthy people supported this war and this administration. Why not ask them to open their pockets and donate money to the government to help pay for the war? Why not ask the wealthy to show some civic pride and open their pockets voluntarily to help the country they say they love?
May 23, 2007 5:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's the way Ellen goes about her replies. It's as if TPM Cafe is a substitute for roller derby for Ellen.
Most of your replies Ellen amount to nothing but cherry picking trollish behavior.
I wouldn't be surprised if "roller derby" blogger commenters like Ellen aren't really plants from the other side, here to divide our ranks in order to render the new media of left of the fence blogs useless and unused.
Whether we get most of our oil from the middle east or not, has nothing to do with the guest author's call for a patriotic energy independence campaign. If corrections are needed, either to bloggers or blog commentors, you could qualify your reply as not a roller derby elbow but as a helpful, (polite,) correction.
And as artappraiser has commented on in this thread, others seem to be engaging in roller derby at times as well, elbowing or crashing into the guest authors themselves.
Rather than a convenient place for intellectual conversation among concerned citizens of diverse backgrounds, TPM Cafe becomes a online roller derby arena, a form of entertainment for people who havn't grown up yet. You end up with a pool of hungry sharks waiting for the next person to enter into the pool who has a different opinion than they do. You are of course left with GroupThink as if anyone comes into the arena with a different idea than your own, they have probably come here hoping for intellectual conversation, when in fact they leave when they find out it is instead a hangout for cheap shot artists. The feeding frenzy nature of who's left participating in the blog site I am sure, as artappraiser mentions, prevents many experienced and knowledgeable guest authors from joining in on the conversation. And perhaps from responding to comments, who knows.
I understand people say in electronic communication things they would not say in person, due to the fact that it is not face to face but one set of words to another set of words. My point is there are some folks who really ought to understand this fact, because debate can constructive if it's done respectfully. Otherwise it's destructive. And it isn't difficult to phrase a debate comment respectfully.
Shouldn't the rule of thumb be, if you wouldn't say it in person, don't say it electronically?
The anonominity of blogs does have one advantage - you get candid, unadulterated, honest responses, which probably happens less in person. But candid, unadulterated, honest responses do not have to be disrespectul or a contact sport in order to convey their meaning.
I will admit I've been guilty of this sometimes myself. I probably said some things in Mr. McKibbins' blog that I wouldn't have in person. So I'm taking notes too. I recall my parady, something like "But are you an Economist? No, but I slept at a Holiday Inn last night," for instance, in one of my comments on McKibbins blog.
May 23, 2007 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
CtrlAltDel, I've uprated several of Ellen's comments on this thread, because they are not spam. The "0" should be reserved for spam.
Also, if you'll forgive a maundering from someone who's a bit of an oldtimer, I've found it most effective to either reply to or ignore a comment that's directed to me. Ratings are designed to reflect the quality of the argument (NOT agreement or disagreement), and I know I have trouble maintaining objectivity when I'm engaged in a back-and-forth with someone.
I don't want a roller-derby here, but, in my eyes, serially rating someone with a 0 is incredibly disrespectful and also contributes to the "get them first" atmosphere.
May 23, 2007 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hello Viviane:
0 is for a trollish response. Just like it says. A troll is not a spammer. You can look up troll on wikipedia.org under "Internet Troll". Although I'll also post the definition here for your convenience:
"a troll is someone who intentionally posts derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages about sensitive topics in an established online community such as an online discussion forum to bait users into responding"
Contact sport "elbowing" is the same as "baiting."
The reason I didn't respond is that is exactly how you deal with trolls - 1. no response, and 2. rating the troll response as a troll response.
I was indeed rating the quality of Ellen's posts. artappraiser has taken a leave of absense because he felt there was no effective rating system.
Additionally I did not rate every post by Ellen in this thread as troll, nor have I rated ellen a troll on any other thread. If we all rated troll responses when they are made, the troll would learn, adjust their behavior, and the problem would be solved.
And I am not the only person who troll rated a comment in this thread by Ellen either, which tells me that I must not be dreaming.
A troll is essentially a blog or forum commenter who's responses are obviously first and foremost "contact sport" responses. Which accomplish nothing but "i've got the last word" tit for tat self justification and self gratification.
To provide an example, for the benefit of us all, myself included I will admit, when Ellen replied to artapraiser, "Would your views be any different, artappraiser, if you were to conclude that Mr. Hormats is here solely to fulfill the terms of his marketing agreement with his publisher, Times Books, that he had and has no intention of interacting with TPMCafe members" -- this clearly should be rated (on quality) a troll rating. Even if there is no intention of baiting, in my opinion if the disrespect shown to the author results in provoking a response because of the iflammatory comment, it is essentially the same as baiting.
In retrospect I agree that the troll rating I gave for her correction to me about America not getting most of it's oil from the middle east was off, but I don't think my troll rating the comment with the elbow to the author that the reason he is posting here is to fulfill an obligation with his publisher was off by any means. Nor do I think my troll rating the comment that I was "mind reading," particularly when she is also mind reading with the publisher comment.
Furthermore, just as a case in point, her comment about my troll rating the oil correction post deserves a troll rating in and of itself, "you might better use your time doing a bit of reading and research. It will save you from basing your arguments on howlers -- your ridiculously erroneous assertion, above, for example."
I myself would not consider not knowing that America didn't get most of it's oil from the middle east - (not that it would matter, as oil is a commodity and a large reduction in demand from the world's number one oil consumer would obviously lower the income in the middle east anyways since a larger supply of oil on the market makes for a lower price of oil, even after taking into account the OPEC oligopoly if I'm not mistaken) - to be a "ridiculous" assertion or a "howler." "Ridiculous" and "Howler" are what I am referring to as "elbows."
I doubt Ellen is a Republican troll in disguise. But the point is, she could be. Since artappraiser prooves that viewers are leaving as a result of the contact sport nature of many of the threads here. And that goes for any of us, myself included. If our behavior causes viewers and/or guests to leave, who's side are we "working" for?
May 23, 2007 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink