Author: Glenn Hauman

And here’s #11

New York Post Online Edition: news

August 25, 2004 — WASHINGTON

House Speaker Dennis Hastert is charging in a new book that New York lawmakers’ attempts to win financial aid after the 9/11 attacks amounted to an “unseemly scramble” for money.

Just days before the GOP convention is set to begin in the city � and three years after the catastrophe from which many city businesses have yet to recover � the Illinois Republican’s ugly slap at the Big Apple infuriated New York legislators.

“The only thing unseemly is the three years it has taken us trying to get the president and Congress to fulfill their promise,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

“What’s unseemly is that the $20 billion became the ceiling, not the floor, in help to New York, when so many needs remains,” she added.

The headline on the Post that accompanies this is “Speaker Of The Louse”.

Folks, if you thought Republicans were going to get a hostile reaction before this story came out, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Unseemly? Hastert may not realize that this little attack wiped entire Zip Codes off the map. Acres of real estate. Major transportation hubs. Hundreds of businesses. Hundreds of thousands of lives affected.

Hastert should be out as House Speaker for this crack. And luckily, you can help do that, even if you don’t live in his district– all you have to do is vote against the Republican candidate for your local US Representative seat.

Looking for a source

Andrew Tobias writes: Why We’re Gonna Win

In October of 2000, voters were asked whether they were �unusually excited� about the upcoming election. And now, in 2004, they’ve been asked again: Are they unusually excited about THIS upcoming election?

Among Republicans, the number is up � 51% are �unusually excited� versus 48% last time.

Among Democrats, the number is up from 36% to 68%.

That is not a typo.

Yes, but it’s also not sourced. Does anybody know where he got this from?

Always happy to provide a reason

Via Matthew, we have this:

Marginal Revolution: Why the growth rate is important

The importance of the growth rate increases, the further into the future we look. If a country grows at two percent, as opposed to growing at one percent, the difference in welfare in a single year is relatively small. But over time the difference becomes very large. For instance, had America grown one percentage point less per year, between 1870 and 1990, the America of 1990 would be no richer than the Mexico of 1990. At a growth rate of five percent per annum, it takes just over eighty years for a country to move from a per capita income of $500 to a per capita income of $25,000, defining both in terms of constant real dollars. At a growth rate of one percent, such an improvement takes 393 years.

That’s me quoting me, from a book I am just starting to write. The tentative title is “The Welfare Economics of Human Tragedy: A New Approach to the Theory of Economic Policy.”

If I had to explain, in one sentence, the reason I am not on the political left, I would cite the enormous long-run benefits of economic growth. Of course it still can be argued that various left-wing policies, properly understood, will contribute to long-term growth. But in my view, if you are not supporting growth-maximizing economic policies, you better had a pretty good reason in your pocket.

Luckily for Tyler, I happen to have one. Which is that the Left seems to have better policies for maximizing growth.

Dwight Meredith did the math in late 2002, comparing growth under Democrat vs. Republican administrations over the last 40 years. He concluded:

The economy grew in 19 of the 20 years in which Democratic Presidents submitted a budget and in 16 of the 20 years in which Republican Presidents submitted a budget.

For the twenty years for which Republican presidents submitted budgets, the average rate of GDP growth was 2.94%.

For the twenty years in which Democratic presidents submitted budgets, the average rate of GDP growth was 3.92%.

Almost the full percentage point that Tyler was looking for.

Put another way, if the averages held and we had Democrats instead of Republicans for all 40 years, instead of just 20, we’d have economic growth of at least 465% instead of just 385%.*

*Yes, I’m oversimplifying the last bit. I don’t feel like doing the big calculation, which would be to add .98% to the actual performance of each Republican presidential year. But it’s close enough for illustration.

Somewhere, John Fogerty is smiling

Saul Zaentz is suing New Line Cinema claiming that the studio has reneged on a deal calling for him to be paid a percentage of the adjusted gross profits of the three Lord of the Rings films, Daily Variety reported today. Zaentz, who bought the rights to the Tolkien novels in 1976, claims that he has been paid a percentage of the film’s net receipts instead — and that he is currently owed $20 million.

It occurs to me…

…that the best way to respond to that Swift Boat Vets ad where soldiers who theoretically served with Kerry claim that Kerry lied about his heroism in Vietnam and is unfit to command would be to make a similar ad attacking Bush for his time in the Alabama National Guard.

Of course, that would require finding somebody who actually served with Bush.

Damn, Rove’s clever.

All right, what’s his excuse this time?

Some of you have asked why I haven’t posted in a few days. Actually, they’ve been more along the lines of Why haven’t you written anything for your blog, you bum?

Sadly, as I mentioned, I’m on a bit of a deadline.

So? I hear in reply. What’s to stop you from posting some of those witticisms and bon-mots that are your hallmark?

Well, you see, the editor I’m working for reads the blog too. [Vir Cotto wave] So if he reads this, he’ll rightfully ask why I haven’t delivered the manuscript to him yet.

Isn’t he going to read this, too?

I did wave to him, didn’t I? Waggled fingers and everything.

So what are you going to tell him?

Um– warm-up exercises. Yes, this was all a warm-up so I could write funny stuff for the story.

You need to warm up more. Try some of that left-leaning stuff you post instead.

Fine. [grumblegrumblegrumble] Go read Brad DeLong’s website instead. He has a nice thing on how “the second most important political executive in our country claims to be ignorant of one of the key business decisions his company made during his tenure as CEO”, reprinted from that bastion of liberal pandering, BusinessWeek.

Comics online

A lot of people have asked me over the years, “Why didn’t you do e-comics with BiblioBytes?”

Of course, that never stops the black market.

I’ve been keeping quiet about this for a while, in the hopes that my voice wouldn’t be responsible for making it spread. But ever since Warren Ellis shot his mouth off about downloading the first issue of Astonishing X-Men in the first installment of his new weblog, keeping it quiet is no longer an option.

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