Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Tom. I am glad you wrote "I kid you not" twice. Because otherwise I would have thought you to be pulling my leg.

Incidentally, watched you give a great presentation of PNM via TED. You have the gift of the gab and some brilliant ideas. One question though: what do you make of mini-gaps beginning to appear in some parts of the old core? Eg. Paris riots; London bombings by home-growns; self-contained Shar'ia based ghettos in places like Berlin?

Thing of it is, you can't trust any of the campaign statements any of the candidates make, 'cause they're just trying to score points. Once the horse race is over, who knows how many of these issues will stay hot. Is it really possible that Obama, a man with personal experience of living in 3rd world countries does not comprehend the interdependence of the global economy?

Future pandering is a most real problem. Protectionism and increased taxation during a downturn, terrifying. My guess, the Dems (either one) would start the search for the next 4 years - almost at once. But, the Dems have a disturbing pattern of "eating their own" in a election cycle. It should play out that way again.

McCain is disturbing, but I think he will generally do as advertised, as opposed to being completely unpredictable. In this case, I'd rather see the shot coming at my face and have the opportunity to block it than be uncontrollably sucker punched over and over.

very uncertain time right now. i'm hoping the Goolsbee gaffe in Ohio was intentional-there are things that must be said in order to win, and populism is golden when it's $54 to fill-up. we need global cooperation and friends more than anything, and Obama can become Mr Soft Power almost overnight. the national conversation is root canal bad.

I work for a company that embraced NAFTA whole heartedly. We have terminals in Canada and Mexico. We are also have terminals in China. Our company calendar is written in three languages, English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. We were founded 50 years ago by a Nebraska Sandhills rancher; if he "gets it" on the importance of trade and globalization, why can't the "educated" politicians. It is as if Pelosi wants a war in South America, if we don't connect Columbia to the grid (while it's cheap), we will just end up there in an MRAP.

Manny: one nice thing about Tom: he at least considers voting Repub (though he never has, iirc)

ms: i think CitSAR is probably right that McCain will probably be pretty much WYSIWYG. still doubt i'd vote for him though. i think tone is really important and that time and i think his is too strident and combative, especially internationally. but i might just be rationalizing my Dem-leanings.

Hugh: because it's not about getting it, it's about what the electorate wants to hear.

The thing is that there is a nuanced argument on trade that ought to be made. How much "free trade" is there really in a lot of these so-called "free trade" agreements? These agreements are about as thick as a NYC telephone book, they are the products of heavy lobbying, and they are chock full of loopholes that do nothing except protect special interests, mostly American. How many supporters of free trade have actually read these agreements [Tom: Have you?] In many cases, these agreements do as much to hinder free trade as to promote it. This is an argument Goolsbee has presented, and it is an argument very strongly articulated by Joseph Stiglitz, who I see has now endorsed Obama. You are correct that we don't hear these nuanced arguments from the Democrats, we are just getting pandering. I am still hopeful that once he is set free from the constraints imposed by the need to pander to "populists" in the Democratic Party, Obama can move away from Lou Dobbsism and begin to open up a more intelligent debate on trade.

Sean;
I know that is what the electorate wants to hear, but the leadership has to show them the way, explain why things they don't want to hear are important. Its like letting the kids run the school. I think we are in a vacuum of leadership. People will vote for someone with a spine and a vision.

Rather than wax hysterical about protectionism, you should look to the failures of your policies wrt American workers.

The only western workers who are positive today about globalization reside in Nordic economies. They experience a level of benefits and support from the govt that is unimaginable here. As long as that is the case, American workers will support protectionism.

A-flippin'-men.

The best way to cut your own throat is to get into a trade war.

Smoot-Hawley made a downturn into a global disaster.

It is always easy, per Mancur Olson, to talk to the specific union local that saw the gates get padlocked, and ignore the millions of people who benefit from the competiton and lower prices and opportunities that open trade creates. Focused risks and losses, diffused benefits. It takes politcal courage and historical knowledge (and the icy fear that knowledge should cause) to fly against those headwinds.

Hillary and Barack went way farther than they had to on this. There were teaching moments, and opportunities to be "presidential" in Ohio and other places. They both screwed the pooch.

This is the one thing about a D presidency, not my idea of a happy thing anyway, that actually scares me.

Tom,

It's posts like this that really help me take my hat off to you. Your previous Obama-for-pres posts had me worried but then you clearly demonstrate your impartiality by adjusting your position based on the reality of the day.

I'm pretty sure you'd still be in the Obama camp if his anti-trade, labor-union pandering did show up, and perhaps you would have go reaason to be.

So kudos on you for demonstrating your allegiance to your principles and not a blind ideology. You're +100 points in my trust account.

i wonder to myself: where did all the rabid Dem comments (relatively speaking) come from (including two i didn't publish)? it rings a bell...

oh yeah, Kevin Drum dissed this post: SIX MORE MONTHS OF THIS?

wow. the signal:noise ratio on comments over there is really low. something that won't happen here on my watch, Dem, Repub, or other.

Tom
I agree with the fear and think your read on Deems looking to "do something" right out of the gate in January may turn out to be chillingly accurate. Of course all three candidates are making a lot of silly promises (the Dems "read my lips" tax pledge and their stuff on Iraq; McCain mostly on taxes) that they're going to have to weasel away from pretty quickly on Jan 21st.

That being said, do you have any thoughts on domestic policies that might smooth the friction that is often associated with globalization? How do we build a resilient workforce for the 21st century?

That does provide an interesting thought experiment.

Was Bush's steel tariff more disastrous than the invasion of Iraq? I doubt it!

Dr Barnett,
Thank you for clearly and concisely articulating the key dynamic in this election. Any thoughtful independent-minded voter (as most of your blog readers are) must share your angst over this decision. Obama represents a clean break with the past and a breath of fresh air for American foreign policy. Were that the only issue I would find him preferable to McCain, who represents “more of the same”. However, Obama's stated domestic and economic policy positions are very problematic. The protectionist rhetoric is by far the most worrisome but his statement the other night reference the capital gains tax (he would increase it in spite of the fact that most empirical evidence shows that such an increase would curtail investment and thereby economic growth, job creation, etc.) chilled me to the bone. That is either pandering of the worst sort or galactic ignorance of economics and I'm not sure which bothers me more. I want to believe that once the general election campaign begins (I'm reasonable certain it will be Obama v. McCain) he will dial back that rhetoric and show some sense but if not...

Sean, Tom has always struck me as open minded, give or take a few issues (eg. Iran). But on those issues, he gives a pretty good argument (although I disagree on Iran).

Brent: off the top of my head, one of the things Tom talks about is re-training. good post on this issue: The rising sense of individual risk from globalization

Manny: i agree: Tom is open-minded (enough) and thoughtful on most every thing

Well, in fairness to Obama, I do recall there was a story about an advisor of his heading to Canada and telling their gov't something like "Obama doesn't really mean all his NAFTA talk. No worries, guys."

Still, a bit two-faced for a guy who trys to portray himself as unusually straightforward and honest, even if his true face is the better one.

Yeah, I was about to write Doc off until after the elections after the McCain and fascism thing (hey, lots of people succumb to silly season, smart people too), but this is keeping me from doing it. He's not drunk the cool-aid of anyone. The Plan remains non-partisan.

Obama I think is a shrewder politician than a lot of his liberal friends are aware of. We all know he will break our hearts some how and I would prefer if it was on some of his economic plans but not all of them. Green jobs are good to me in almost the exact ways you pointed out about the uncontrollability of global warming but the economic predictability of a large civil service sector.

Do you know about and or have any idea how Barack plans to expand on his Google government bill and ethics reform as a president? Watching his, speech and interview for candidates@google provided a vivid plan he described as the answer for a classic problem. How do you convince the members of a system to fix it when the members of the system are benefiting from its corruption?

His answer was shame. He said he wanted to make the congress wired so people could get online and track bills in real time and comment on them as citizens. I think youtube.gov would be a good analogy for this 21st century C-span he is talking about. This tells me that he has bigger plans for the culture at Washington than simply being a big fat liberal.

I was intriqued by Obama early on, even donated to his campaign. Then I read he wanted to index the minimum wage to the inflation rate every year. I might be wrong, but doesn't that insure that the inflation rate will always go up as business owners pass their increased salary burdens onto their consumers via increased prices, which in turn cause the inflation rate to go up. Repeat yearly to go along with the ever increasing cost of oil, healthcare costs, food costs etc; wouldn't you have a recipe ripe for a depression?
For me my vote doesn't depend on if Hillary or Obama get the Democratic nod...it's about who McCain gets stuck with as a running mate/successor (Let's face it, he might not make it through one term.) If he picks a Moderate I'll vote Republican for President for the first time in my life. If he gets a jack-boot Right Winger...then I'll vote for Dem and hope the Congress get's split to keep the worst of some of the Left Wing Jack-boots ideas at bay for a while.

It seems whenever Obama uses words such as "readdress," "consider," or "inquire," the chattering classes in the States cry foul as if he's wiped the board clean. Maybe I'm missing all the relevant information, but I'm holding in my hand three newspaper articles about Obama and the capital gains tax. He hasn't even proposed a raise, he has only "considered" it according to these articles. He asked Berkshire-Hathaway for advice on the issue, and they confirmed to him that a 5% increase would not dramatically reduce investment. That's not even a substantial enough increase to raise the capital gains tax to Reagen levels. And RE: NAFTA, this only became an issue when the primary process marched into the old manufacturing centres of America. Hasn't Obama's terminology been consistent? I.E., NAFTA (obviously) led to many manufacturing jobs departing from the US, and he's going to "reevaluate" NAFTA. He hasn't called for it being scrapped, and instead of blaming trade wholesale, as he is being accused of, Mr Obama has called for "free and fair trade." Does any of this sound as radical and dangerous as "bomb bomb bomb Iran" and "I don't think the American people would mind if we were in Iraq for 100, 1000, 10000 years"?

BeansnRice,

re: "congress wired so people could get online and track bills in real time and comment on them as citizens."

Want to futher that notion, via email crittj@gmail.com?

Does it bother any of the Obama enthusiasts that their enthusiasm seems to be premised on the hope that he is lying?

"Does it bother any of the Obama enthusiasts that their enthusiasm seems to be premised on the hope that he is lying?"

Unfortunately that describes my entire Obama experience this election. He has gone from a very exciting candidate for me to a big disappointment. I do think he has already done amazing things for healing racial issues in America, in hindsight we will look back and notice that all those places where conventional wisdom tells us racism still exists as a majority in America went Obama in the primaries. In that sense he has done what many hoped he would, too bad he couldn't deliver anywhere else.

I too am troubled by the possibility that Obama really means what he says. Maybe it is all campaign smoke-and-mirrors. But what if it's not? That's the scary part. Obama's ideas have the potential to do long term damage to the American economy....and the world economy as a result.

I saw his campaign commercials in the run up to PA. He resurrected the prospect of a Windfall Profits Tax on oil companies (or as I heard it referred to; the "Lets Sell All Our Oil To China Act"). I think Tom is right....McCain is the more knowable commodity. Why take the chance that Obama means what he says?

Dr. Barnett has stated his view that the "weight of the office" will change Obama's mind about the promised unconditional withdrawal from Iraq but Barnett expresses doubt here that the same responsibility of the office will convert Obama's thinking about protectionism on trade.

Why would a losing strategy be abandoned on the first issue but not the second, when the presidential legacy is most important to these egomaniacs and Americans are more concerned about the economy than even military defeat?

So the deciding factor is which candidate is most qualified and, more importantly perhaps, most trust worthy to stand upon principle and campaign promises?