The EU 3's approach of carrots followed by more carrots has failed, miserably. By allowing them to lead the way, we've lost a good two years of precious time.

Ivo,

Given the laughingstock that has been Jack Straw's diplomacy, what do you recommend we do now?

Posted at April 18, 2006 9:29 PM in response to Is War with Iran Inevitable?

I'm sorry, but this is, at least in the case of France, more than a bit disingenuous. Surely Ivo is aware that France's leading anti-terror judge, M. Bruguiere, is effectively a law unto himself, with sweeping powers to order wiretaps, detain suspects for months or years without anything like habeas corpus, and powers of interrogation and sentencing that far exceed anything seen in the anglo-saxon world. This will shock good upstanding Bush-haters, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to defending the integrity of the French state, the patrie and the patrimoine from violent threats, the French are far more ruthless than we are or are prepared to be.

Posted at April 18, 2006 9:21 PM in response to Security, Liberty, and the Rule of Law

Mr Daalder, would you agree that one of the main problems with China's rise is the inability or unwillingness of the Chinese elite to begin stepping up to the kinds of responsibilities that accompany great power status? For instance, blocking progress in halting genocide in Darfur, failing to engage actively with North Korea to break the stalemate regarding their nukes, refusing to participate at all, let alone constructively, in issues of war and peace in the middle east....

Secondly, would you agree that a better way to engage China would entail creating regional collective security institutions, for example, one for Northeast Asia (J-SKor-China-Russia-US), and/or one for Southwest Asia (India-China-Pak-US), that would over time replace the feckless, dead letter that is the UNSC?

Posted at April 18, 2006 9:15 PM in response to China’s Rise in the Global Age

Prof Warren - as it relates to the problems of the property market, this jazz about "liberals" and "conservatives" is worse than irrelevant. It's a huge distraction from the very real problem, and very real solution to that problem, faced by every family with school-age children in this country. Namely, the good school districts are rapidly becoming too expenisve for all but families earning >$200k per year. In other words, by stifling competition in the education market, we are inadvertently creating a two-tiered public education market that's segregated not by race but by income. Fairfax County VA, Palo Alto, Highland Park TX: these school districts might as well be considered private schools because the cost of entry is a mortgage of a million dollars or more.

Why not just dispense with the fiction that our public schools offer equal access to a good education, admit that the system's broken and hideously unfair, and support vouchers for all?

Posted at April 16, 2006 12:33 AM in response to A Liberal is a Conservative Who Got a Foreclosure Notice

Of course we should crack down on predatory lending policies, but that's almost irrelevant to the problem. None of the analysis above addresses the underlying drivers of high property price increases in recent years, which include most importantly cheap money-- not just relaxed lending policies but low interest rates-- and relatively unattractive returns on other asset classes, mainly equities, during the last six years. Given easy access to leverage and favorable tax treatment, of course investors of all varieties and sizes will look to shift assets away from securities and into real estate.

So as long as the interest deduction is in effect, and rates remain low, and returns on blue chip stocks remain anemic, we will continue to see excess liquidity flows into the real estate market generally. In other words, perhaps as much as a third of the mortgage dollar volume is held by investors, or should we say speculators: people who don't reside in the property or else are residing only briefly and looking to flip it within a couple of years.

On a more micro level, there are two other factors at work: 1) public schools' quality, and 2) the degree to which the speculative investment in real estate is coming from abroad. As to #2, this is of course greatest in those traditional havens of flight capital from basket-case or otherwise unstable Latin and Asian countries, ie California (Taiwanese flight capital, some Indian and mainland Chinese capital also), Miami (Brazil, Venezuela, you name it; also European investors) and New York (flight capital and investors from all over the world).

Of course no one wants higher interest rates. And there is nothing that our political class can or should do to prevent inflows of foreign capital into our real esate market. This money is needed here, and most of the families parking their money here are also sending their (in most cases) extremely well-educated and high-striving children into our schools and later into our economy. Bring em on, the more the better.

However, there IS a longer-term remedy that would have a sweeping impact on balancing out real estate market price variations, and that is to equalize the extraordinary disparities in the quality of the local public schools in each metro area. Everywhere you have good public schools, you see extraordinary, above-market price spirals: Palo Alto and Cupertino CA. Highland Park TX. Fairfax County VA. etc etc

This phenomenon feeds itself: as home prices in the elite school districts rise, more and more families conclude that it's stupid to spend money on private schools and live in a cheaper area when they could have excellent public schools for free and pour the savings into mortgages... which only accelerates demand for the expensive and scarce housing in those school districts, and on and on we go. And this is mainly because of the disgracefully bad public schools, the same ones presided over by our party's good friends, the NEA.

One solution to the affordable real estate problem that our party can actually push through, therefore, is to stop coddling the NEA and back vouchers. And do it now. When families need not choose between paying $15,000 per child for private school and paying $1,000 per square foot for a Palo Alto shack-- yes, that's no typo; a 984 sq ft piece-o-s**t goes for $1 million in the Gunn High School district-- then we'll see some sanity return to the housing market.

thibaud

Posted at April 16, 2006 12:26 AM in response to A Liberal is a Conservative Who Got a Foreclosure Notice

For those of us who increasingly think that the balance sheet of the war is almost entirely negative (in my case because of the way it has been fought more than its undertaking in the first place) -- which describes virtually every American queried

Nonsense. First, only someone who has utterly no experience of life in a totalitarian regime could say that the inevitable mayhem following the overthrow of such a regime is "almost entirely negative." Saddam's Iraq was a slaughterhouse. Even full anarchy is preferable to life in a slaughterhouse.

Or perhaps you've forgotten the sanctions regime that, acc to Unicef, was manipulated by Saddam so as to cause the deaths by disease or starvation of more than 5,000 Iraqis every month-- including at least 2,000 children? Have you ever seen a starving child?

Perhaps you forgot about Saddam's charming sons, Uday and Qusay-- the equivalent of Ceausescu or Kim Jong Il on steroids. Without question the Iraq that would have emerged once power passed to the sons would have been even more bloodthirsty, more psychopathic, than under their mad, blood-drenched father.

President Clinton clearly laid out the rationale for regime change eight years ago. President Bush made good on Clinton's promise. This war is a progressives' war. And like most progressive causes, it's famned difficult, and messy.

This is the Stalingrad of our era. The real progressive policy here is to stand side by side with the advocates of Iraqi democracy, and to insist on MORE American troops in Iraq, not fewer. Shame on those smelly little Scowcroftian pseudo-Dems who advocate a repeat of Bush/Baker/Scowcroft's abandonment of the Shi'a and Kurds in 1991.

Since when are cynicism and isolationism the hallmarks of our party? Whatever happened to ensuring the survival and success of liberty in the world?

Posted at April 15, 2006 11:51 PM in response to Was the War Worth It?

I still can't get over the fact that the Democrats succumbed to the fear of claiming Sadaam was a military threat to this country. He was no threat even if the alleged WMD intelligence had been true.

Have you forgotten that our party unanimously supported President Clinton's policy of regime change in Iraq? That Clinton again and again asserted that Saddam was "determined to get WMD, and if he gets them I guarantee you he will use them"? Did you think that this (Democratic) regime change policy would occur without the application of military force?

Are you amnesiac, or just bullshitting us, and yourself? Either way, that so many party activists act like you is a good and sufficient reason for Americans to continue not to trust our party on foreign affairs.

Posted at April 15, 2006 10:55 PM in response to A Neocon on Mindless Unilateralism

By all means punish our enemies. But leave our friends alone

Mr Daalder, do you believe that the Chirac government's behavior toward Saddam during the run-up to the war was friendly to US interests?

Do you believe it was in the interests of the US, and consistent with international law and the expressed will of the Security Council, for France's "national champion" oil company, TotalFinaElf, in Nov 2002 to sign a multi-billion dollar sweetheart deal with Saddam to develop fully one-third of Iraq's entire oil reserves?

regards,
thibaud

Posted at April 15, 2006 10:49 PM in response to A Neocon on Mindless Unilateralism

Posted at November 4, 2005 8:43 PM in response to Aux Armes Citoyens?

• Percentage of non-white students in the entering class of California's most prestigious university: 45.
• Estimated Percentage of non-white students in the entering class of France's most prestigious universities, the Grandes Ecoles: less than 1.

• Est. percentage of non-whites and immigrants among Californians with a net worth of >$500 million: 25-30% (cf Khosla, Omidyar, Yang, Brin, Shriram et al).
• Indians and Chinese as a percentage of CEOs of Californian high tech companies (as per Dun & Bradstreet): 29%.
• Percentage of non-whites among France's most powerful businessmen: zero.

• Estimated percentage of most powerful political posts in California during the last 20 years (Gov., Senators, Supreme Court, Speaker of House, mayors of LA, SF, SD, SJ) held by nonwhites: 5-10 (Hayakawa, Willie Brown, Tom Bradley et al).
• Percentage of most powerful political posts in France during its history that have been held by nowhites: zero.

Posted at November 4, 2005 8:37 PM in response to Aux Armes Citoyens?