In case you missed it, there's a big old fight in the blogosphere between Linda Hirshman and Megan McArdle/Dan Drezner over which gender is the biggest loser in the economic downtown. It looks like Megan and Dan have the last word. They say that the overall recession has hit men the worse even if the last couple of months were worse for women.
I'm less interested in the numbers and more interested in Hirshman's other point. She points out that there are clear gender divisions in the labor force and, as we make some rather large investments in the economy, we should think about shelling out money to professions where women congregate. Investment in auto industry, Wall Street, and energy technology are mostly going to help men.
David Brooks would like money to be given to improve community life. He wants to investment in suburban town centers, instead of just of it all being lost in the auto industry quicksand.
Progressives are frustrated. We have a JFK-esque president, Democrats everywhere, hope, free spending. It should be good times. We should be able to think creatively about reducing inequality, about interesting public policy, about improving people's lives with education and art and town centers. We want a War on Poverty, a New Deal, a Great Society.
Instead, we have to bailout the auto industry. A bunch of polo shirt wearing, country club attending executives who still think that making Oldsmobiles is a good idea. I drive a Toyota. Everyone in my family drives a Toyota. But even I think that letting Michigan go down the toilet is a bad idea.
Do I really want to Merrill Lynch to walk away with billions, after I know what kind of assholes work there? Does anybody really need a $10 million bonus? But letting Wall Street go down the toilet is a bad idea, too.
Sigh. This isn't the end of it. I'm not sure which industry is about to tank next. Major media? Didn't the NYTs just put its own building up for a collateral on a loan? Didn't the Tribune just go bankrupt? Might have heard something about that. It also might be the airlines or entire cities that need a handout.
So, until this whole mess is cleared up, progressive wish lists are going to have to remain on opinion pages. It's disappointing.
Apt. 11d 
Or not. No time like the present!
If you’ve discovered that major elements of your house are rotting away, would you replace them with what was fashionable when the house was built, or would you take advantage of what has been learned in the meantime and replace them with new parts?
When we’re re-fitting our national household, let’s not get a fridge from the 1950s, a dishwasher from the 1970s and a computer from the 1980s.
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We don’t “have to” do this. For one thing, the US doesn’t have the resources to be able to bailout companies equitably, so it’s going to be (in fact already is) an extremely unequitable process. There are going to be many apparent and actual cases of unethical behavior on the part of the officials choosing who to bail out. Don’t we all wonder what was in it for Blagojevich when he was pushing Bank of America to give a loan to Empire Windows and Doors a couple days ago? Probably nothing this time, but who knows? The government needs to be a referee making sure that the rules are being followed, rather than a player out on the field. It can’t do both.
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Ah, yes. I do know a thing or two about owning old houses. A couple of weeks after we moved into our place, the roof started leaking. Did we want to spend money on a new roof? No. We wanted a new kitchen. But the water dripping on the floor was an immediate problem and needed quick attention. We had to wait four years to fix the kitchen.
Same here. We have to deal with the leaky roof first. If we don’t fix Wall Street and the auto industry, the whole house is going to fall down. Though maybe we can put in solar panels in that roof. If we are going to fix the auto industry, let’s make them increase the number of part time jobs in their companies to help women. Let’s make them invest in the communities that they work in. We CAN do some interesting, progressive things, while patching up the old system.
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“We CAN do some interesting, progressive things, while patching up the old system. ”
Yeah, and I think I can live with this, but I can also see how it strikes fear into the hearts of the “conservatives.” That kind of thinking is precisely the road to hell (i.e. socialism) that they’re worried about. I don’t believe in a planned economy, but I do think that if we’re giving money to people we have to have government interference, that is if the choice is money+interference, money+no interference, or no money, I oppose money with no interference.
I do agree that our house is going to fall down, though, and so I don’t agree with those who oppose intervention.
I think one key might be to build in time limits, so that interference doesn’t become a default. That is, if we’re going to appoint an “auto czar” (frankly that idea freaks even me out), we should have an expiration date for the auto czar and his entourage, so that the position has to be re-authorized by congress.
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I’m surprised that we continue to use the term “czar” when discussing government oversight, because the term already has a long history of being given to somebody who is supposed to solve the crisis du jour (drug czar, etc.). As far as I can recall, never in recent American history has a “czar” ever solved the problem they were tasked with.
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“I can also see how it strikes fear into the hearts of the “conservatives.” That kind of thinking is precisely the road to hell (i.e. socialism) that they’re worried about. ”
Someone on my LJ (a total libertarian) just posted about how she TOLD her friends that Obama’s health care plan was going to lead to socialism and see, she was right, look at this Tech Central Station article that proves it, yadda yadda.
And all I can think is “I WISH!” If this half-assed approach to progressive change looks like total socialism to her, we’re totally screwed.
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“never in recent American history has a “czar” ever solved the problem they were tasked with. ”
I hate it too. I’m not sure why anyone thinks it’s a good term. To quote wikipedia: “Like many lofty titles, e.g. Mogul, Tsar or Czar has been used as a metaphor for positions of high authority, in English since 1866 (referring to U.S. President Andrew Johnson), with a connotation of dictatorial powers and style, fitting since “Autocrat” was an official title of the Russian Emperor (informally referred to as ‘the Tsar’).”
Why would we want a “czar” of anything in America, I mean, weren’t we all about “no more kings”?
Practically, I think people use it because they want to give someone authority, but don’t want to use the standard structure of our government (which includes cabinet secretaries, chairmen, commissioners, etc.). I think they should be forced to structure it as something — I think maybe bureaucratically, it is a commission. a temporary commission, charged with overseeing the automobile bailout, with presidential appointed members. I think the person in charge of that commission should be called a “chair” not a czar.
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In order for there to be an economic recovery, there needs to be predictability. At the moment, there is no predictability. Why does one large financial entity get a bailout and another doesn’t? Who knows? Is it in the banks’ interest to auction off houses for market price right now, or should they hold onto them and wait for a better deal from the federal government? Meanwhile, the copper pipes are stripped out, mold blooms, mosquitoes breed in green swimming pools, and squatters move in.
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“In order for there to be an economic recovery, there needs to be predictability.”
Probably true, but it’s not true that absent government intervention, there’s predictability. One of the prime problems in this mess is that people are feeling so insecure (i.e. buffeted by an unpredictable world) that they’re hording in ways that damage the economy. Banks are doing it, not just because they don’t know what the government is going to do next, but because they don’t know what the economy is going to do next.
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Is hoard the right term? How about “not making loans to people and companies that may or may not be able to pay them back”?
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“David Brooks would like money to be given to improve community life. He wants to investment in suburban town centers, instead of just of it all being lost in the auto industry quicksand. ”
I think that we need a timeline check, Laura. I’m posting from timeline 11A-45/345, colloquially known as ‘$350 billion for Wall St, but scr8 the overpaid blued-collar Detroitians’.
You seem to be posting from timeline 11A-45/344, colloquially known as ‘$350 billion for Detroit, but to the guillotine with the Wall Streeters!’.
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Sorry, I should have said that David Brooks needs a time line check, he seems to be posting….
Sigh. A (half-way decent, with a few beers) joke ruined by poor delivery.
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“A major health care initiative ‘has to be intimately woven into our overall economic recovery plan,’ Mr. Obama said, adding: ‘It’s not something that we can put off because we are in an emergency. This is part of the emergency.'”
Looks like Obama thinks it’s part of the roof.
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