I have long had major problems with Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Listening to him now, he really comes off like a real liberal. But I remember back when MSNBC was conservative and Matthews was right there with it. In addition, he seems to have been the major push behind MSNBC firing Phil Donahue in 2003.

There’s no doubt that Matthews is a hypocrite. Digby has written before about Matthews’ changing position on Bush. In 2003, he was very impressed with President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” photo opportunity. He said, “This week the president landed the best photo op in a very long time. Other great visuals: Ronald Reagan at the D-Day cemetery in Normandy, Bill Clinton on horseback in Wyoming. Nothing compared to this, I’ve got to say.” (Fareed Zakaria was similarly impressed.)

But in 2010, Matthews was all turned around. He said, “The incompetence became downright staggering when the Commander In Chief pranced onto an aircraft carrier with a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner flying overhead. The bozos couldn’t even get the PR right.”

We are perhaps best off assuming that people on the television are just actors. They just play a part. Put Rachel Maddow on Fox News, and she’ll mold herself into the part. I’m not saying here that Maddow or even Matthews aren’t liberal. But like anyone, they can highlight some views and suppress others. And for a million bucks (or more) per year, they can highlight anything you want.

This year, Chris Matthews is being paid to highlight this:

Krugman posted an article that I quite agree with, A Double Shot of Misunderstanding. Basically, he says that there are two kinds of deficit scolds: stupid and evil. He doesn’t put it that way, of course; he writes for the New York Times, after all. But I feel sure that late at night he turns to Robin and says, “Those deficit scolds are a bunch of fucktards!”

The evil group (the FUCKtards) are people like Pete Peterson. They are people who claim to care about the debt, but who really only use the debt to accomplish other goals. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, Quakers running around screaming that we had to fix the debt by cutting military spending would not really be interested in the deficit. Similarly, Fix the Debt (one of Peterson’s many front groups) claims to care about the debt and yet it calls for cutting income tax rates.

Let me be clear: I understand that someone genuinely interested in the deficit might say we shouldn’t raise rates because it would hurt the economy. But to call for lowering them? That’s madness. What’s more, raising taxes on the rich will not harm the economy nearly as much as cutting spending on the poor. It is clear that the primary goal of Fix the Debt and the many other groups just like it is to cut spending on the poor. They do this because they simply don’t like these programs, not because there is anything about these programs that is destroying our budget. The following graph from Kent Conrad (who is in the stupid category discussed below) presents the following graph that ought to put our budget picture in focus:

Republicans are fond of saying, “Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.” I’ve heard John Boehner say this many times. (Note: in the video he presents extremely misleading data that depends almost entirely on the increased cost of healthcare; he is an evil man.) But the graph shows that Washington does indeed have a revenue problem. Yet the Very Serious People don’t want to deal with this. They want to “lower rates and broaden the base.” This is code for lowering rates and cutting deductions. It is a simple matter to cut taxes later. It is trivial to bring back deductions. The Very Serious People are not serious about the deficit; they are serious about inflicting pain on the poor.

The stupid group (the fuckTARDS) are composed of people like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. As I reported yesterday, he seems to think that the Fiscal Cliff is some kind of debt explosion, when it is exactly the opposite. As Krugman says, people like Schultz are still very dangerous because they are part of Fix the Debt and allied groups. In his letter to employees, Schultz provided a link to the Fix the Debt website. (The website is a mess of platitudes; it is very hard to get to what policies they actually recommend; this is because they aren’t policies most people would agree with.)

The stupid group provides a patina of reasonableness to the whole endeavor. Sadly, this group is overflowing with Democrats. They are useful fools in what is inevitably a bait and switch. As long as one doesn’t look too closely at the evil deficit scolds’ ideas, one can assume they are good intentioned. But once it comes down to a deal, it will turn out that it is very conservative.

This is what happened with welfare “reform.” By accepting the framing that welfare somehow caused poverty, the liberals ended up destroying the program. The truth is that there is no debt problem in the United States. There is a healthcare problem: we pay twice what we should for our healthcare. But this isn’t even in the discussion of the budget. And so what the deficit discussion is really all about is cutting liberal programs that conservatives hate.

Don’t be stupid or evil.

It is always a problem when I watch Ezra Klein host The Rachel Maddow Show. This is because I read Wonk Blog every day—just look at the list on the right. But every once in a while, he will put together some really great television that goes beyond what he’s already written online. He did that last night when he discussed the Starbucks call to “move together” that I discussed in a different context yesterday. This is a really great segment:

A lot of people have died during the last week who I would like to write about. There was Jack Klugman, of course. People remember him most from The Odd Couple. As I recall, he replaced Walter Matthau in the Broadway play after just one performance. (Don’t quote me on that, but I think so.) But when I think of Klugman, I think of him playing Juror #5 in 12 Angry Men. It is a very delicate performance and it has really stayed with me over the years.

The same day, Charles Durning died. I was never that big a fan of his, probably because of the kinds of characters that he played. I certainly thought he was good, just not someone I would actively seek out. But then he played two roles that made me love him—both in Coen Brothers films. The first was Waring Hudsucker in The Hudsucker Proxy. And the second was Pappy O’Daniel in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Both those roles take something special to perform without making a total fool of yourself.

Two days later, Gerry Anderson died. You’ve probably never heard of him. I know him because he created a number of great children’s shows that used marionettes. But in later years he was quite involved in computer animation. He was also the creator of a show my friend Will used to really like, Space: 1999. Here is the opening of his show Thunderbirds. I suspect that it will look very familiar to you:

All three men added a great deal of joy to my life as well as those of countless others. I can’t think of a better way to spend a life. Thanks guys.

Ray Collins of the two really great Mothers of Invention albums died on 24 December 2012 at Pomona Valley Hospital in Claremont, California. He left the band because of its increasing commitment to comedy over music. Zappa did have that problem. Unfortunately, the comedy wasn’t that good. And certainly the albums from We’re Only in it for the Money onward are weaker than the first two.

Collins had been living in his van off Social Security and songwriting royalties the last few years. The Associated Press reports that he was a “well-known character and conversationalist on the streets of Claremont.” He was 74.

Here is Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder, a song that Collins co-wrote with Zappa on the first album, Freak Out!

The other great album (the best of The Mothers, and Collins’ favorite) is Absolutely Free.

Wonk Blog put together the favorite graphs from the last year of various policy wonks. It has some great graphs. Most I’ve seen, but some were quite new to me—especially about the environment, because frankly, I don’t keep up on it enough.

They did, however, not ask Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. And I think I know what his favorite graph would have been. Not only has he used it many times, but so have I. It compares how changing demographics (people retiring) will affect our standard of living versus how productivity growth will do so. Bottom line: productivity growth (even assuming an unrealistically low rate) swamps demographic changes:

One of the most striking graphs is from Chrystia Freeland who offers The Great Gatsby Curve. It shows what I talk about often: a society cannot have great inequality and great opportunity. The more equal a society is, the easier it is for the poor to advance. As the United States gets more unequal, it turns more and more into a caste system where people are stuck wherever they start:

The following graph is from MIT economics professor Michael Greenstone. It deals with the true economic costs of various energy sources. Note that when they are all taken into account, coal becomes an extremely expensive fuel. But as I wrote earlier today, we have a system that cares only about short-term profits. All of these costs should be taken into account:

And there is this great chart from XKCD, offered by Princeton neuroscience professor Sam Wang:

Check out the whole article. There are a lot of interesting graphs. There is also a really not interesting graph offered by fucktard Glenn Hubbard to show that we shouldn’t worry about taxing the rich. I would have thought that by now he would be too embarrassed to even leave the house. Wait! I forgot: he’s a conservative. They can’t feel things like embarrassment and shame.

Afterword

If you don’t know Glenn Hubbard, check out this two and a half minute clip from the great documentary Inside Job:

He was also Mitt Romney’s economic adviser.

Update (27 December 2012 3:15 pm)

Here is Thom Hartmann interviewing Glenn Hubbard. The man can’t even justify his own beliefs. He just talks rubbish.

Are you worried about the Fiscal Cliff? I am! I’m worried that I will have to read another hysterical article about how we are going to go into recession if we don’t reach a deal this week. And I’ll tell you this: I won’t even go into a Starbucks until this is over. I don’t want to see “come together” written on coffee cups. In fact, I’ve decided to boycot Starbucks for the rest of my life. They have a terrible tea selection anyway. But more to the point, the whole “come together” campaign is just a way to push Democrats to yield when they have the upper hand. After all, the Starbucks CEO is part of Fix the Debt.

It appears, as usual, that the only ones who are really worried about the Fiscal Cliff are the elites. Dean Baker reports on the most recent Conference Board Index of consumer confidence. They report two indexes. One is a very reliable measure: current conditions index. This measures how much stuff (seasonally adjusted and all that) people are actually buying. This is way up: 62.8 this month, up from 57.4 last month.

And then there is a kind of black magic measure: future expectations index. It is way down: 66.5 this month, down from 80.9 last month. But this is just an indication that most of the people in the media are screaming about the Fiscal Cliff. Armageddon! Be afraid! Be very afraid!

So when you see news stories that say that consumer confidence is down, you will know it is wrong. The base index is more or less the average of these two numbers. What people are hearing is that the future looks bleak. What people are doing indicates what they think the future is bright. And it is, as long as the politicians and other powerful people don’t screw it up.

Update (27 December 2012 11:16)

Suzy Khimm over at Wonk Blog quotes Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s open letter to his employees:

This indicates that Schultz doesn’t even understand what the Fiscal Cliff is. That’s the bizarre thing about all this hysteria: it is mostly by people who are normally hysterical about the budget deficit. This is exactly the opposite. If they really cared about the deficit, they would welcome the Fiscal Cliff. I’ve argued before that what they really care about is killing entitlement programs. That’s why the first step in the Simpson-Bowles proposal was a big tax cut. But it also seems that these people just want to be upset about something. Too much debt? Horror! Too little debt? Horror! Whatever? Horror!

Last night I watched Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Generally, it is your usual kind of 1960s style science fiction romp. It has dorky over-lit sets, silly science, and way too much plucky American can-do attitude. But there are fundamental problems with the story that it tells.

The biggest problem is its full-throttled support of American Exceptionalism. Admiral Harriman Nelson goes to the United Nation to discuss what to do about the Van Allen belts having caught on fire. (This, by the way, makes no sense.) He tells them about a plan to fire a nuclear missile at the belts, thus extinguishing the fire. A scientist from Vienna has calculated that the fire will burn itself out. The other scientists accept his calculations and dismiss Nelson’s idea as too dangerous. Nelson tells them that he will only listen to the President of the United States.

This is pretty bad, but it is entirely American. “The only reason I came to the UN was to look good. Now rubber stamp my idea and let me go do what I’m going to do anyway!” And Nelson does. He rushes back to his sub and takes off, very likely drowning some cops who were trying to stop him. When it comes time to shoot the nuke, he cannot contact the president and so just goes ahead without the okay. (Note: he didn’t try to contact the president right away when he left New York.) But what’s the big deal with exploding a nuclear bomb in the magnetosphere? What could possibly go wrong?

Generally, a character like Nelson is a villain or an object of pity. He shows all the signs of being crazy, and that is clearly where the plot indicates it is going. I figured that eventually Nelson would determine that the scientists at the UN were correct—that the fire would burn itself out—and he would abort. He seemed a little crazy, but I figured he was a positive enough character for the film to ease him back from the abyss. That is not the way it went.

Instead, there was a saboteur on board. And, of course, it turned out to be the female scientist (Joan Fontaine who was surprisingly good and who is still alive at 95). She was trying to stop Nelson because (1) she agreed with the scientist from Vienna and (2) Nelson did show all the signs of being crazy. But he wasn’t! Instead, he was just a plucky American who knew what was best for the world. In the end he shoots his wad and saves the day.

And the la-hand of the Freeeeee!
And the hoooome, of thhhhhe, braaaave!

I am as fond of the romantic hero archetype as anyone. But if Achilles was wrong, Hector would kill him and the Trojans would have won the war. In this case, if Nelson is wrong, everyone dies. But note: there is no indication that the fire would not have burned itself out. So even in the context of the film, Nelson is not necessarily right. And the science is such that roughly half of the radiation would have come back down to earth. So unless Nelson was right that the fire would not burn itself out, his solution was indeed bad even though it succeeded in its primary purpose.

The film is a good example of American hubris. In certain ways it is the Zero Dark Thirty of its day. And just like it, it doesn’t shape public opinion; it is shaped by public opinion. Because the base idea in both films is what Americans always think: we are always right and thus the means are always justified.

I think death is, gratefully, final. It’s no different from the state that we were in before we were conceived. Even though life is very short—I’m fond of pointing out to people that the average human life is less than 1,000 months long, which is a good reason for not wasting time if one can help it—that fact provides a definite and useful terminus ad quem. It means that the things that you want to achieve must be achieved here. You must work: “work while you have light,” as the nineteenth-century Swiss philosopher Henri-Frederic Amiel said. But it also means that in the end there will be a wonderful rest from it all. You will survive in the way science tells us, which is that our constituents return to the elements, and become part of nature, and remain permanently part of nature, because that, after all, is what the conservation-of-energy law tells us. We’re not going to disappear entirely—in the form of the bits that we’re made of.

—A. C. Grayling
Interview in Philosophy Bites