Shots in the Dark

As Paul Krugman points out, the Harvard economist, who seems like a generally decent and rational man—and a good, if somewhat sporadic, blogger—is now giving advice to Mitt Romney, who often seems economically insane.

Here are some questions for Professor Mankiw:

1) Do you agree with your candidate that Ben Bernanke should be fired?

2) Do you agree that the first thing a President Romney should do is repeal Obamacare? (If he could.)

3) Do you agree that businesses are not investing their cash because of fear of future regulation?

4) Do you agree that there should be no new taxes on any citizen of any income level?

5) Do you believe that Dodd-Frank should be wholly repealed or otherwise eviscerated?

It’s possible, of course, that Professor Mankiw is trying to pound some economic sense into Mr. Romney’s head (and the scary thing is, Romney is the most economically moderate of all the GOP candidates). But if Romney’s going to use you during a debate to bolster his credentials, isn’t it fair to ask where you share common ground?

One other, slightly digressive thought: Mankiw’s current post, “Even Leftists Believe in Property Rights…” is a cheap shot, and beneath him.

Their pitchers are drinking pitchers in the clubhouse. Their beloved manager—oops, former manager—is being portrayed as a down-and-out doper. Old and in the way Tim Wakefield seems more concerned with chasing a win record (that, really, wouldn’t mean much, given that he’s been pitching for about 40 years) rather than the fact that he wins about one in every five tries. After the players bitch and moan about having to play a doubleheader, the ownership bribes them with new cell phones. The captain, Jason Varietk, starts phoning it in. (Can you imagine Derek Jeter being involved with anything like this? Not in a million.) Steroid-addled David Ortiz worries more about not getting credit for an RBI than about the fact that his team is going down the drain. Their best player, Jacoby Ellsbury, seems to be despised by his teammates. The owner hurts himself on his yacht and frets that he might miss watching a soccer game. And management has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on disastrous free agents who will suck money from the team for almost a decade to come.

(Thanks, Bob Kohler Hohler.)

Heaven…I’m in heaven….

Don’t get me wrong; I like having a strong Boston team. It’s good for the Yankees, the AL East and baseball. But for so many years Boston fans have slagged the Yankees as the team for whom everything comes easy, because they’re so rich. And I’ve always pointed out that, playing for a crazy owner like the late George Steinbrenner, with all the pressures of New York, weighs heavy on the other side of the scale.

Now the Sox are starting to learn that for themselves….

Time reports there’s a controversy—or, as Time puts it, a “war over Brazilian womanhood“—over the role of women in Brazil sparked by the television ad below.

Not long after firing manager Terry Francona, the Red Sox are about to lose GM Theo Epstein….

Can you say “rebuilding year”?

I like this interview my colleague Emily DeNitto did with author Michael Lewis. (Maybe you’ve heard of him?)

For example:

You live in Berkeley, Calif. Does that distance from Wall Street inform your worldview?

I don’t know about Berkeley, but New Orleans, where I grew up, does. I tend to regard most of American life like a Martian might because I come from such a different place, a place where your status arose from who your family was rather than anything you did. The franticness with which Americans acquire status through doing things—making money—has always been a little alien to me….

One thing we haven’t discussed here is the Occupy Wall Street movement; I hadn’t realized that it’s sprung up in a bunch of other cities.

As the editor of Worth, which targets wealthy readers, I’ve been asked by some friends what I think of Occupy Wall Street. I’m generally sympathetic. I’m sure there are plenty of things about the protesters I’d disagree with, or feel culturally alienated from. One Saturday a couple weeks ago I was walking down a Brooklyn street when I was approached by a couple of hipsters handing out “free copies of the Journal.” I declined, saying that I already subscribed to the Journal. The guy handing out papers smiled and said, “I’ll bet you don’t get this one,” and handed me a copy of the Occupy Wall Street Journal. What a capitalist tool I felt like.

I think I have a nuanced picture of Wall Street; I know how important financiers’ taxes and spending are to the New York economy, and I’ve met plenty of Wall Street folks who give away more money than I’d make in a dozen lifetimes working as a journalist. New York’s schools, hospitals and cultural centers need Wall Street philanthropy.

But it’s hard to argue with the protesters’ general sentiment that Wall Street has too much power over Washington and that their executives don’t spend enough time thinking about how to run their businesses in ways that are ethical and spread the wealth, rather than concentrate it. I’ve felt this particularly in the speed with which Wall Streeters seem to have forgotten that the bulk of the blame for the financial crisis lies with them. How dare you try to regulate us! they cry to Washington! As if nothing ever happened. Let us just go back to the old ways! It was only three years ago.

I’m not convinced that all the government regulations are a good idea—regulating debit card fees seems like micromanagement—but there’s no question that a lack of regulation contributed to the crisis. (Thanks a lot, Larry Summers.)

At Worth, we try to take an enlightened approach to wealth: How do you make it honestly? How do you manage it wisely? How do you give back effectively? This isn’t ideological; it’s not about being a Democrat or a Republican. It’s about what kind of life you want to lead.

So for all their undoubted flaws and probable silliness or incoherence at times, I’m still with the protesters. Americans are hurting, they’re pissed off, and they feel they’re being hurt by wealthy financiers who didn’t play by the rules and are now trying to make new rules to their advantage. I can’t blame them for feeling that way; they’re not entirely wrong. It’s healthy for insulated Wall Street types to see that people care enough to protest, and it’s healthy for people to protest. Wall Street and its inner workings are an expression of democracy gone wrong; the protests are an expression of democracy.

Apologies for the scarcity of posts recently. I’ve had a pretty dramatic surge in the workload—maybe it’s because of the end of summer, I don’t know—and blogging time has been hard to come by.

Now, some might say that I’ve been absent from the blog for a few days because I was depressed about the Yankees’ loss to the Tigers in the first round of the American league playoffs. Not so! For several reasons:

1) I didn’t have very high expectations for the Yankees at the start of the season, and I didn’t think they were a great team. So from that perspective, they did just fine.

2) Go Detroit! That town could use a little boost. (Happy about the Lions, too.)

3) The Yankees did much, much better than the Red Sox. That alone would satisfy me.

I’m on vacation now—the first real vacation I’ve had all year—and so hope to blog a bit in the days ahead. I know: blogging on vacation? But it’s fun for me…what I get to do when I’m not working.

Among the people whom I consider my heroes, there have long been two losses that most saddened me: John Belushi, who died in 1982, and Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

Make that three losses: Steve Jobs has died at the age of 56.

Apple.com is breaking my heart right now.

They fire one of the best and most decent managers in the game…their players are drinking in the clubhouse…the ownership appears clueless…and they might lose the general manager who restored the Sox to greatness.

As I say: The Sox have completed their transformation into the George Steinbrenner-led 1980s New York Yankees.

My wife and I were walking down Ashland Street in Brooklyn yesterday when we were passed by three young African-American kids who were goofing around. One of them leapt toward the sky and proclaimed, in the voice of the old Superman jingle,”Da-da-da-da-da-da! Super-nigger!”

He seemed like a nice kid, but we both flinched; we’re of the generation for whom that word is taboo in any context, and neither of us put much stock in the attempt to “reclaim” the word.

I thought of that when I read last night about Rick Perry’s hunting camp, “Niggerhead.”

Perry’s version of events differs in many respects from the recollections of seven people, interviewed by The Washington Post, who spoke in detail of their memories of seeing the rock with the name at various points during the years that Perry was associated with the property through his father, partners or his signature on a lease.

What can one say about this? One thing, I think, is that no matter how many times hip-hop artists try to retake the word, white racists are still going to use it. (They probably welcome the reintroduction of the word into pop culture.)

Two, that the word still has the power to—if I may paraphrase another Texas governor—shock and appall.

Three, that Rick Perry isn’t fit to lead this country. (But the Tea Party People will probably embrace him all the more for it.)

I wonder what that young kid on Ashland Street will say when he reads or hears about Rick Perry’s camp. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe taking back the word, as it were, is the only way for a 12-year-old to deal with such hate. And yet I wish the word could be erased—painted over the way the rock at the gate to Rick Perry’s ranch recently was.