This morning’s New York Times column by Paul Krugman discussed a J.P. Morgan research note that said that the release of the new iPhone could stimulate the economy over the next quarter by up to a half of a percent of GDP. Krugman then went on to explain that if you accept this concept that a bunch of people buying iPhones can stimulate the economy, then you are a Keynesian.

On the meta-level, Krugman is really punching below his weight. I think his readers are at the level that this should be obvious, but maybe I am over estimating his audience.

I have a question about the article, however, which I think is important and something we should all think about. I understand that our recession is mostly due to private debt. People are paying down their debts rather than buying stuff, and so fewer people are employed. Further, I understand that the launch of an exciting new product (Not that I really think the fifth version of anything meets this definition.) can get people to spend money that would normally go to their student loans. But I’m not sure how effective this form of stimulus will be.

The main problem is where exactly the money will go. I assume that most of the money for an iPhone gets passed straight through to Apple. This makes me think that most of the money spent on these iPhones will not go to higher wages or more employees. Instead, it will go to the wealthy owners of Apple. Sure, some of this extra wealth will be spent. But most of it will go to increasing the huge pile of money currently looking (mostly in vain) for something good to invest in.

Economics makes my brain hurt. I never know if I’m making sense or not. But it seems to me that the $399 would be better spent (as far as the economy is concerned) by throwing a party.

Afterword

I have read the J. P. Morgan research note and it doesn’t tell me anything that helps. It is possible that what I’m talking about is included in the model. Regardless, I would love it is some economist would straighten me out, but I doubt many of them come around here. Economists are known Don Quixote haters.

Update (16 September 2012 10:21 pm)

Set by a friend:

You can always tell when someone doesn’t believe his own bullshit: his story keeps changing. And that is the case with Mitt Romney and this nonsense about Libya. Romney’s line about his premature and untrue attacks on the president is now pathetically trivial. First, according to Romney, Obama should be held responsible for every act of every government worker no matter how minor. Second, the embassy personnel should have taken the statement down after the attack.

Both these claims are ridiculous. Yes, Obama is ultimately responsible for the behavior of the State Department. But this is a small matter, and Romney’s claim reeks of desperation to find fault. Much worse, however, is his claim that in the aftermath of four murders, the number one priority of the embassy staff should have been to take that statement down from their web server. Jonathan Chait gets to the heart of this absurdity:

If Romney really believed this, it would be terrible. It would indicate that he is a man without empathy—a pedant of the worst kind. Of course, Romney doesn’t believe this. But that’s still pretty bad. It indicates he is a man who is so power hungry that he will use any excuse to attack the president. Of course, we already knew that.

[1] I look forward to reading Chait every day because of his humor. He is also a pretty insightful guy, although there are times when he’s a total idiot.

Apropos of nothing except that I like Don Cheadle. This is nice:

I am no fan of so called welfare reform. On the large scale, it sucks because we make it very hard for the poor to get welfare even as we make it easy for the rich to get it. For example, there is the trivial paperwork required to get billions under TARP. And on the small scale, there are countless cases of evil nonsense. For example, there is this whole idea that rich stay-at-home moms are doing real work, but poor ones aren’t. As Nicole Colson puts it, “So, poor women with children need to know the ‘dignity of work’—but rich women like Ann Romney should be respected for their ‘career choice’ to never hold a paying job.”

Dylan Matthews, who is annoying the hell out of me most days, has a great catch. The Congressional Research Service looked at Obama’s changes to the welfare-to-work requirement and found—What a surprise!—that it is legal. What’s great is that the CRS also found that a recent Republican bill that would block grant a bunch of state funding would remove the welfare-to-work requirement. I like this because it isn’t surprising at all. The Republican push for “states’ rights” does come along with relinquishing the power to control how those states spend their money.

While I’m on the subject of states’ rights, I have a question: why is government oppression on the federal level “Tyranny!” but on the state level, “Democracy!”? It’s like we didn’t live through Jim Crow or something. Oppression is oppression, whether it is your husband or the federal government who keeps you locked inside your house. So I find these “states’ rights” and “block grant” arguments—and I hear them often—very perplexing.

Of course, I know all these claims that we should let the states decide are just a first step in their ideological march to fascism. They are only interested in the states being able to decide on the legality of abortion while none of them can. Once they overturn Roe v. Wade, they will want to take the choice away from states and force every state to make abortion illegal.

I suppose what most bugs me about the conservative “states’ rights” push (among many, many other things) is that it is dishonest. They will turn against the states the moment it is politically convenient. Their arguments have nothing to do with states or rights.

When I was down in Los Angeles last week, my brother-in-law introduced me to KCRW, which has an all-music channel Eclectic 24. It is rather good. They play a lot of music that I don’t find that compelling, but they played very little that I was familiar with, and that’s always a good thing.

One song that came up was Greatest Hits by Mystery Jets. They are not a great band. In particular, they always seem to sound like some other band—more exasperatingly, The Cure. The opening guitar on Greatest Hits sounds maddeningly like Stealers Wheel’s Stuck In The Middle With You. Mostly, they sound like a New Wave band that doesn’t suck, which is saying something.

Here is the song:

While Mystery Jets might be worth checking out, KCRW Eclectic 24 most definitely is.

Yes, I know what you want:

According to Reuters, hundreds of protesters stormed the American embassy in Yemen. I have a slightly different take on this than most people.

The United States kills innocent civilians all the time. In fact, our government has now defined the enemy so that anyone within shouting distance of a bearded man can be killed. This is upsetting to anyone who hasn’t dehumanized these people. You know: it’s upsetting to non-conservatives.

But why are our embassies being protested?[1] Murder and rape? No. The conservative religious freaks have got their feeling hurt.

I don’t have much to say about any religion other than Christianity, because I don’t know about these other religions. But I know Christians to be very thinned skinned about God and all that. This seems to be the case with most other religions, especially the Abrahamic religions.

I watched some of the trailer of the controversial film. I couldn’t watch it far enough to get to the anti-Islamic stuff—it was just too painful. What I saw seemed like pretty typical conservative fear mongering about dangerous Arab terrorists. I don’t doubt that there is material in the film that is deeply offensive to these protesters. But the word is that very few of them have seen the film anyway.

This all reminds me of the brouhaha over the absence of the word “god” in the Democratic platform. Why are religious people so insecure? Do they really think that God is so fragile that he can’t deal with the fact that some people don’t worship or even believe in him? Or is it that their faith is so fragile that that they can’t deal with these challenges? I tend to think the latter.

I’ve had Christians cut off religious conversations with me because I was harming their faith. It has never worked the other way around. I have no fear that someone is going rock my world into seeing that Jesus really did die for my sins. Instead, I would welcome such an unlikely occurrence.

It is wrong to belittle another person’s faith. Respect is very important. But religious zealots suffer from the same problems as those who live in the conservative media echo chamber. They come to believe that all reasonable people believe as they do and thus anyone who disagrees must be something horrible. This is how we dehumanize outsiders and why it is important to maintain a broad social circle.

My advice to those of fragile faith is the same as my advice to children who are similarly hurt: just ignore them. The Rodney “I Don’t Get No Respect” Dangerfield[2] antics just make them sound like they are following a very shallow religious or political ideology.

[1] I’m not discussing the attack in Libya, because I’m not sure it is actually related to the protesters.

[2] Too bad they aren’t as funny as he was:

I was the more deceived.

I recently gave the Patrick Stewart modern Macbeth a view, and was delighted. So when I saw a modern rendering of Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, I allowed my expectations to rise and rented it. I should have known better.

Macbeth is a good play. Hamlet is not. There are so many problems with Hamlet that even under the surest of guidance, it is a mixed bag. I can’t remember ever liking a performance of it. Strangely, the New York Shakespeare Festival version with Kevin Kline works the best. It succeeds in providing what the play itself does not: consistent motivation of the title character.

The Ethan Hawke production is a mess. In order to make this morally ambiguous play more dramatic, writer/director Michael Almereyda over simplifies most the characters. Claudius is almost unrecognizable; apart from a few brief scenes of self accusation, it seems his main crime is making out with Gertrude in public. (Old love is disgusting!) Despite some fine acting on the part of Liev Schreiber, Laertes has a very one-note fifth act. Perhaps most annoying, all context is removed from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who become nothing buy lowlife thungs of Claudius.[1]

The film has much else against it. The production design is cluttered without being interesting, and there is far too much use made of video screens. It kept bugging me that this movie was about the royal family of Denmark, even though it all took place in New York. (Maybe I’m being petty.) And some of the acting was what, struggling to be nice, I will call bad. In particular, Bill Murray as Polonius was all wrong. Karl Geary also seemed bad, but it is hard to say because Horatio is a bitch of a part; I pity any actor who must do it.

Don’t get me wrong, the film is not all bad. In fact, the film shows every sign of being a very creative endeavor. I don’t think it works, but the producers were trying to do something new and I applaud that. It has a number of moments that made me rethink scenes. When Hamlet’s father is about to leave, the film does not do the usual ghost fading away saying, “Remember me…” Instead, the ghost embraces Hamlet and tenderly whispers in Hamlet’s ear, “Remember me.” That was great. And there were more, although not many and not as good.

I cannot see how Hamlet can ever really work. Increasingly, I think that theater people like it because it is undramatic. It is a story that could easily work as a novel. That would allow the writer to really question Hamlet’s sanity. This alone would be a great advantage, because if Hamlet’s father’s ghost is real, what’s the play about? Why doesn’t Hamlet just kill Claudius and get it over with? A novel would also allow for a more vague ending. We can’t know for certain that Claudius is guilty, because that makes the whole story a sham. Or it could go in a different direction. For example, Hamlet could know that Claudius is guilty but not certain if Gertrude was. As a play, the only hope is to make Hamlet crazy and instead of the fifth act match, have Hamlet kill himself without resolving the culpability of the others. (Then he could haunt Horatio in Hamlet II: Return of the Prince.)

[1] This is a very personal thing to me. By my reading of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are trying to be helpful to their friend. And note that Hamlet never says anything to make them think but that he is crazy. His claims that he is not are phrased as riddles. He never expresses his belief that Claudius murdered his father. He never even says that he’s bummed out that his mother married so quickly. In short, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dealing with a bad situation with their asshole friend.

One need not be a follower of Nostradamus or Pat “Crazy Bastard” Robertson to know that we are heading toward, not a mere 1,000 years of darkness, but the very end of civilization itself. Some will argue that Western society began it’s decline in the psychodelic 1960s, while others mark the hedonism of the 1920s Jazz Age as the point where the scales tipped away from decency to descent into hell. I suspect Madonna’s 1984 MTV Awards performance was the death knell for tasteful entertainment.

Today, thanks to television, radio, and social media, the world can giggle its ass off while society swirls down the toilet. I could go into further detail by pointing at our brilliant 24-hour spew cycle, or cable television diversions such as Call of the Wildman and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child, or even Extreme Narcissism: It’s ALL About Me! Not today. Today I want to point my disapproving glare at television commercials. I hate them all – with the exception of the 1 out of 500 that make me laugh. Those I can tolerate. Here are a couple of examples of commercials that I find insulting, crass, and even worse, typical.

Let’s start with Liquid-Plumr Double Impact.

I shudder to think of the commercial concepts that were rejected in favor of this retarded attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor. First of all, let’s address the issue of the unkempt, harried, and apparently delusional housewife. Have I ever used Liquid-Plumr? Yes. I have, on rare occasions, used this vile, environmentally toxic goo rather than cope with removing slimy, nasty filth from a pea trap. Have I ever gone to the grocery store looking like someone who needed to shop one last time before killing myself? You bet. Have I ever read the words “Double Impact” and then fantasized about two brawny gay men showing up at my door offering to “snake my drain” and “flush my pipe”? Never.

The logical conclusion is that the commercial was written by a gay man with the subtle humor of a 13-year-old boy. Does he really think that there are a sad gaggle of neglected, undersexed housewives trolling the aisles of shopping stores and whose every thought is a double entrendre? How many women, outside of Kentucky, find drain snaking and pipe cleaning are sexually titillating?

In conclusion, I found this piece of portfolio-filling crap to be stupid and insulting at the same time. Even if Liquid-Plumr makes a product that is as useful as a plunger and as gentle as baby tears, I won’t buy it.

My second commercial complaint is with an Axe dropping entitled, “Office Love”. While I have yet to see any commercial for ANY Axe product in which the tagline, Made by and for douche bags, would be inappropriate, this one is particularly puerile.

The soundtrack doesn’t help. No offense to Daniel Johnston, but his song “Love Will Find You In The End”, while charming in a grating way, sounds like something Droopy Dog would have on his iPod.

What brilliant advertising genius said, “You know what would be awesome? To have Cousin It’s dwarf cousin pining for a pair of boobs with feet! It might be a little oblique until the romantic ending and we’ll ad the tagline, ‘HAIR. IT’S WHAT GIRLS SEE FIRST’ so the dumb asses will get it.” From that we can draw the already well-established conclusion that “Boobs. They’re what guys notice first”. Unless they’re ass men, but that would make for a really gross ad.

The soundtrack doesn’t help. No offense to Daniel Johnston, but his song “Love Will Find You In The End”, while sweet in a grating way, sounds like something Droopy Dog would have on his iPod. Had the characters been complete human beings throughout the commercial, it could have been a rather charming ad.

So forget sense of humor, intelligence, thoughtfulness, and a nice smile. For guys who were gypped in the genetic lottery, no worries! Slather yourself in lounge lizard slime and the girls won’t even notice.

These are just a couple of examples of the low-brow humor, profligate commercialism, and unabashed assaults on self-esteem that cause me to despair for the remnants of our pathetic civilization.