I have a personal note about the Coke diversity commercial which is embedded below. I didn’t watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, but it was on at the place I was staying, so I saw a bit of it. And part of that was the Coke commercial. It is extremely beautiful and the sound design was just perfect. But I only really got one thing out of it: the Muslim women buying Chinese food from a street vendor. That was totally brilliant!

It bothers me that others look at the ad and think that it divides us. Such people have an incredibly simplistic view of community. People don’t have to share religion or language or anything specifically. What binds us together is not our particular totems. What binds us together is shown in that image of Americans from different places meeting to do business. That is America. And that is what conservatives always claim to be in favor of.

We can disagree about most things. The essence of what we are is commerce. In times long past we were bound together to hunt and gather and farm. Now we bind together because one of us makes delicious Chinese food and one of us wants to eat delicious Chinese food. What is more American than that?

All my life—Five decades!—I have gone to Chinese restaurants. And then as now, they always had menus that looked like the image above. The fact that they had Chinese characters on them did not make the restaurants un-American. Nor did the fact that the waiter often spoke almost no English. That’s why the menu items are numbered! So we can do that most American of things: buy stuff in the most convenient way possible.

But the conservatives complaining about the commercial don’t seem to understand America. What’s more, they seem afraid. They seem to be worrying that America is becoming less American. And by that they mean white and protestant. But it’s time to wake up. That was never what America was. And even if it had been, there’s a great big world out there. America represents less than 4.5% of the world’s population. It’s time to stop thinking that we are the only people who matter in the world.

Coke is certainly aware of that. I don’t think the commercial was aimed at Americans. They are going after that more than 95.5% of the world who might enjoy a refreshing Coke. But Coke is still seen as an American company. So they are selling this notion that America is the world. And in so doing, they’ve created the best advertisement for America ever created, all in the name of selling some product. What’s more American than that?!

Afterword

A lot of conservatives have compared the new commercial with the “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” commercial from 1971. They claim that the old commercial was inclusive whereas the new one is divisive. I wasn’t old enough then, but I have little doubt that conservatives hated that old ad at the time. It’s so very liberal and hippy and feel good. But that is exactly what conservatives always do. Of course they are in favor of whatever happened socially 40 years ago, just as conservatives will be fine with the new ad in 40 years. Same as it ever was and sadly always will be. It’s the song they sing!

Let’s do a little dive into the CBO report (pdf) that is wrongly being reported as, ObamaCare Will Cost America More Than Two Million Jobs. This is not at all what the CBO report actually says. But I do think the CBO screwed up by presenting this convenient factoid for conservatives to spin. And it isn’t the first time they’ve done this. They should be more careful.

What the CBO actually said is that ObamaCare will reduce the number of hours worked by people that is equivalent to 2.3 million jobs. The vast majority of this reduction is workers cutting back because they are now working more hours than they want to in order to keep their health insurance. (I will discuss the others below.) For example, a lot of people work full time when they would rather work part part because they have to work more to get health insurance. The fact that these people will cut back on their hours is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Of course, to modern conservatives, it may be a bad thing. Again and again, we have seen major conservative politicians calling for things like an end to unemployment insurance because they feel that more desperate people will find jobs quicker. A similar argument can be made for forcing people to work more hours than they want. Of course, conservatives are not making this argument. They are instead acting as though ObamaCare will destroy two million jobs. This just isn’t true.

People who cut back on their hours will create more slack in the labor marker. According to the CBO, the first effect will be to put upward pressure on wages as companies try to keep employees by paying them more. To me, this would imply that companies create new jobs to offset the lower hours that current employees want to work. That would be what they would do if businesses acted the way conservatives always claim: rationally. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. The CBO says that any actual job losses or gains will be negligible. Companies will apparently just live with reduced productivity. But the main thing is that ObamaCare is not causing these people to lose their jobs; it is giving them more freedom so they can work as much as they want.

There is another aspect of ObamaCare that is not so good. This is a problem with all means tested programs. Some people will get incentives to work less because the more they work, the less healthcare subsidy they get. Almost two years ago to the day, I wrote about this in, Catch 22 for Poor in America. What happens is that people who get this kind of government assistance experience huge incentives not to work more because of benefit cuts. For example, consider someone who gets $100 in food stamps per month but who is right at the edge of qualifying at all. If he makes $50 more per month, his food stamps will be cut off. So by working more, he comes out with $50 less per month. That’s a huge disincentive. (The actual effect is generally smaller because benefits are cut gradually.)

(Note: this never happens with taxes. I’m sure everyone has heard stories of a guy who got a raise but ended with less money because he was bumped up into a higher tax bracket. This can’t happen because we have marginal tax rates. The new 39.6% top tax rate does not apply to all income of people who make over $400,000 per year. That is the rate on all income above $400,000. See: Of Puppets and Marginal Tax Rates.)

The same thing is going on with ObamaCare. Personally, I think this is a small price to pay for the benefits of the program. But if conservatives were really concerned about this problem, they would do something about the disincentives in other welfare systems. And they would have backed “Medicare for all” instead of this cumbersome “free market” approach in ObamaCare. But of course conservatives don’t do these things because they don’t care. This is just a convenient opportunity to misreport information in the name of clubbing ObamaCare some more.

The bottom line for all of this is the 2.3 million full time equivalent hours that ObamaCare will cost is mostly a good thing—a very good thing. But I’m sure that this new conservative talking point will be with us for years. Facts don’t matter to the conservative movement. And in a fundamental sense, facts don’t matter to the media. It is just easier for them to do their both sides now routine, “Republicans say ObamaCare will cost over two million jobs but Democrats counter that this isn’t true. Who can say what’s true?!” Well, now you can.

Update (6 February 2014 8:27 pm)

The CBO says that Obamacare overall will create jobs:

I have long known that Dave Weigel is one of those “bleeding heart” libertarian. These are the kind of libertarians I was when I was a libertarian: very concerned with social justice—left leaning, you might say. But such libertarians are still (1) libertarians and (2) wrong. Weigel showed this today by making a bit of fun at Alex Sink, Democratic Congressional Candidate Has Big Questions About Libertarianism. He notes, “It is not actually inconsistent to believe in small government as it pertains to economics and also believe in small government as it pertains to social issues.” Ha! That’s a good one!

One of the biggest myths about libertarianism is that it is for small government. This is no more true of them than it is for Republicans. Think about what kind of government institutions libertarians are in favor of. They believe in the military. They believe in copyrights and patents and other kinds of property rights enforcement.[1] And most of all, they believe in courts. This last one is the killer. In exchange for normal regulations, libertarians are for a legal system in which everyone is suing everyone else all the time. As a result of this, the true libertarian utopia would turn out to be one with a huge government doing things in the most inefficient way possible. It’s either that or system so unjust that the poor just give up trying to have their rights enforced. But that second kind of libertarianism wouldn’t be acceptable to the heart bleeders. So you’re only left with: big government.

Weigel wonders that anyone could still be unclear about what libertarians believe. He writes, “You think, what with all the attention paid to the Paul dynasty and to Edward Snowden and to the Koch family, that people basically understand what ‘libertarianism’ means.” Let’s look at that list. Snowden’s anarchist thinking has hardly been big news. I’ve been following him closely and it is only because I pretty much used to be an Edward Snowden that I understood where he was coming from.

What do the Pauls believe in? They are both anti-choice. So on the biggest social issue in modern America, they come down very clearly on the state intervention side of things. I’m more than willing to accept that a libertarian case against late term abortions can be made. Even middle term abortion. But first term abortions? No. And “citizenship begins at conception?” That idea is absurd.

But it goes further than that. At least Ron Paul believes in drug legalization. Rand Paul has only ever been willing to accept cannabis legalization. That’s not a libertarian argument: “You can do whatever drugs you want as long as it is one that I think is okay for you to use.” That’s the same old philosophy of liberal democracy, which is great. But it ain’t anything like libertarianism.

And the Koch brothers? Really?! I’ll admit, in a fundamental sense, they are libertarian: they care only and forever about keeping their taxes low and government regulation impotent. Regardless, they may talk libertarian, but when it comes to social policy, they are (Again!) anti-choice. As for the rest of their agenda, they might be for some libertarian social policy, but it doesn’t matter to them. They’re willing to allow gay people to marry, but if that gets in the way of their tax cuts, its true importance becomes clear. As Robert Greenwald wrote:

So I think we should cut Alex Sink a little slack. What libertarianism means in modern America is not the “pure” system that I’m sure Dave Weigel has constructed in his mind. Instead, it is what conservatives have been my entire life. Proponents talk about broad freedom, but they push economic libertarianism with social conservatism thrown in to get the votes necessary to get elected. My advise: Weigel should find a new name for what he believes, because it won’t be found in a major American political party, most especially the Republican Party.

Afterword

I am generally sympathetic to libertarianism. The fundamental problem with it is that it attempts to define an end point. One of the big ideas of liberal democracy is to work toward maximizing freedom. When I was a libertarian, I found that my work for the cause only led to more libertarian economic policy. So the rich got richer, but the poor, if anything, got less free. That’s not a bargain that I’m willing to make. I don’t see how a libertarian could look at Obama and Romney and think, “Romney will better maximize my freedom!” That’s just nonsense. That’s the thinking of someone who believes that freedom only applies to marginal tax rates.

[1] Some might take exception to this. It’s true that “serious” libertarians are very much against our intellectual property laws. But this is a minority, based upon my experience over the last thirty years. And notice how it leaves the door open to creeping government control. Suddenly, hunting down kids who are ripping DVDs isn’t an intrusion; it is just the government doing what a government properly does: protecting property rights! Once you start making those kind of arguments, you might as well be arguing for droit du seigneur.

I haven’t had anything to say about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) up until now. The truth is that there isn’t a lot to say. It is yet another trade agreement and that is pretty much always a bad idea in an economy that is as unequal as the one we have in America today.

The issue is quite simple. Under ideal circumstances, such a deal would allow more trade so that both sides would get richer. And in an economy with relative income equality, those extra riches would be broadly shared. But in an economy such as ours, almost all of the extra money would go to the owners of capital. Of course, these people are already doing as well as they ever have. So why are we even bothering with such a deal? Surely we could better use our resources.

We know why there is a big push for the TPP, of course. The rich want it. Now I’m not saying that just because the rich want something that means it is bad. But it is most clearly the case that we are not discussing the TPP because a bunch of politicians got together and decided that it would be broadly beneficial for the nation. And it turns out that—Get ready for a surprise!—the TPP is not broadly beneficial for the nation. In fact, it is estimated that within 10 years, the TPP will increase GDP by 0.13%. In other words, a negligible amount that will be so far in the noise as to not even be measurable.

As Dean Baker has discussed, we already have relatively few barriers to trade with the countries involved. So if the deal isn’t about reducing barriers to trade, what is it about? “Rather the point of the deal is to put in place a structure of regulations that will be more friendly to the large corporations who are in many cases directly part of the negotiating process.” Mostly this is exactly the opposite of free trade. It is an effort to make pharmaceutical companies and Hollywood studios even more wealthy.

The big thing about all of the “free” trade deals that we’ve signed over the last few decades is how targeted they are. It is always middle and lower income workers who are put in direct competition with cheap labor over seas. It is never doctors and lawyers. So while the wages of the poorer classes go down, the cost of living stays high because these politically connected rich folk can’t ever be forced to compete globally. Add to that increased prices on drugs and entertainment and you’ve got an outrage that isn’t discussed in the mainstream media. It is outside the Overton Window. It is just assumed as God given that trade agreements should only affect the middle class and never the upper class, except in so much as it enriches them.

Of course, if the TPP passes, it won’t be a big deal. It will be a huge windfall for certain industries and companies. But for the economy generally, it will just be another step in our long journey to neo-feudalism. But it is interesting that at the same time that Obama is supposedly focused on income inequality, his administration is working—largely in secret—to negotiate a trade deal that will push more money to the wealthy at the expense of the rest.

The whole thing highlights what I am most focused on in the area of politics. When it comes to economic issues, we don’t have anything like liberalism in the United States. The Democrats are conservative and the Republicans (in as much as they make any sense at all) are revolutionary. The sad thing is that it looks like our only chance to stop the TPP is via the revolutionaries. The Democratic Party is so used to thumbing its nose at the liberal base, I don’t think it matters how much we yell and scream about this.

Afterword

This does not mean that we shouldn’t yell and scream about the TPP as well the administration’s efforts to fast-track it. Do yell and scream! Raise your voice. Write your Congress members. This is important. Above all, it is important the Democratic Party understand these economic issues are the things that really matter to us as well as the rest of America. If they want us to show up and vote for them, they have to offer more than a handful of liberal social issues. And last time I checked, same-sex marriage isn’t a liberal issue. It’s an everyone issue. (Freaks aside.)

I do wish all the world would shut the fuck up about the “heroin epidemic” that is underway in the United States. Is there a heroin epidemic? No. Heroin use seems to have been on the rise for the last decade or so, but there isn’t anything especially dramatic about its rise. Drug use waxes and wanes over time, just as do all human behaviors that are not physical necessities. But all day long, I’ve been treated to scare articles about how many people are using heroin and how many people are dying from heroin and this new super potent heroin. I want to rip my fucking hair out.

It is sad that Philip Seymour Hoffman has died of what looks like a heroin overdose. He has a long history with the drug. I don’t doubt that there is some amount of psychic pain that is involved with all of this. I also don’t doubt that this had something to do with his skill as an actor. When I recently saw A Late Quartet, I thought that Hoffman’s highly emotional performance seemed pretty close to the surface, as though there wasn’t a great deal of difference between actor and character. But I gather that is true for a lot of actors. Regardless, audiences always seem to want great artists but are intolerant of what they see as their non-productive habits.

Can’t we leave this man in peace? He was a fine actor. But now he is being turned into an unwilling spokesman for the “ain’t heroin awful” campaign. This is, of course, the campaign that seems only interested in “helping” addicts by throwing them in jail. And it is only sad when a junkie dies if he’s famous. The truth is that junkies die all the time and no one gives half a fuck about them. In fact, as I’ve argued at length elsewhere, most people just want junkies to crawl away and die so the society doesn’t have to deal with them. And the legal status of the drug and the treatment of its users bears this out.

What’s going on with Philip Seymour Hoffman is the same thing that goes on with heroin users all over the nation. He is losing his individuality in order to paint him as the face of heroin addiction. But he’s a lucky one. I suspect that in 20 years, he will be remembered for a handful of movies he made. That is as it should be. This media blitz will not last. But that doesn’t make it any less disrespectful. And here I’m not just talking about Hoffman. I’m even more focused on all the heroin users who just don’t matter to anyone in the nation except in so far as it can vote for another “three strikes” law or another “get tough on crime” politician.

I would much rather people just admitted that they didn’t care. After all, would it be any less sad if Philip Seymour Hoffman had died of cancer or in a rock climbing accident? And in my experience, when people start talking about “heroin epidemics,” their solutions are most likely bigger penalties for drug crimes. When I see someone riffing off Hoffman’s death for the purpose of providing greater access to methadone treatment, I’ll be on board. But that’s not what I’ve seen. And I’ve been following this stuff for over two decades.

Dave Weigel wrote a very good article over at Slate today, Bill O’Reilly, Asking the Wrong #Benghazi Questions. In it, he goes over why conservatives are so focused on exactly what the administration said about the attack. Bottom line: they have a very simplistic take on the attack. In reality, a number of things led to the attack, and the very first thing was anger about the video. But in the right wing media, there is no room for nuance. It was either entirely about the video, or there was an administration cover up. This is indicative of a level of intellectual immaturity that ought to shock the nation. But instead, it is business as usual.

O’Reilly went into the interview thinking he was going to blow the lid off the conspiracy by getting to the bottom of what the very first thing Secretary Panetta told him. It’s just pathetic. But no one bats an eye. It’s just to be expected even though it was just slightly less ridiculous than Alex Jones asking the president when he’s going to send in the black helicopters. Of course, O’Reilly had similarly “clever” traps set regarding Obamacare and the IRS non-scandal, where he pressed the long debunked talking point about the IRS chief bing “cleared into the White House 157 times.” Somehow, this is all acceptable.

Bill O’Reilly is often called out for his bad journalism. This is because he wants to be accepted in polite company. He wants to be allowed on The Daily Show. So his argument is that he’s just an entertainer—just a clown. And that he’s not a hard news guy; he’s an opinion guy. The rules are different for him and Hannity. But when it is the turn of Fox News to do the pre-Super Bowl interview with the president, no “hard news guy” is available and so they send in the clown. Funny that.

I should be clear: I think we as a nation show far too much deference to the president. So I don’t have a problem with a reporter being direct and asking tough and tenacious questions. I was, for example, thrilled with Carole Coleman’s interview with Bush the Younger. I would argue that what O’Reilly has now done twice is not that. The whole point of his interviews seems to be to signal to his audience his disdain for the president. But regardless what he’s trying to do, O’Reilly would certainly be against it if anyone were doing the same thing to a Republican president. (And yes, I am well aware that O’Reilly claims to be independent. He also claims to be pro-choice. He flatters himself that he is something other than a right wing ideologue. He isn’t.)

But what I really don’t understand is why President Obama agreed to do the interview. It isn’t like pre-Super Bowl interviews are required in the Constitution. I understand that Obama has nothing to worry about being interviewed by a mediocrity like Bill O’Reilly. And Obama did indeed destroy the angry pundit. But it soils the office to have someone like O’Reilly get to do his interruption and innuendo infused interview. There is no way that the president can be that close to the intellectual filth that is at the center of Fox News without being soiled himself. An interview with Bret Baier or Chris Wallace would be okay, I suppose. But Fox News has said what they think of the president by allowing a joke pundit to interview him. I don’t see why the White House is okay with that.