I've been looking at the Obama transition website, change.gov, particularly at the American Moment tab, under which is the Share Your Vision tab.  This is where you can share ideas with the Obama transition team.  Since I'm quite impressed with the tpmcafe community I was thinking about ways that the two could possibly interact, and came up with an idea.  People could write posts that are intended to be submitted to change.gov, have the community evaluate and polish them, then submit good ones to change.gov with a link showing all the recommendations and comments.  That way, ideas could be submitted with the backing of a community instead of just being recommendations of individuals.   These ideas, in order to be new to Obama's people, would probably tend to address the smaller nooks and crannies of public policy, and would need a good level of detail, which the comments and discussion could help provide.  My suggestion for a title format for such posts is what I'm using here: Ideas for Change.gov: (fill in the blank).  Following this format would let readers know that the post is a proposed submission to that website. 

One suggestion I would make to change.gov is that they should have a discussion café just we have here at tpmcafe to evaluate, polish, and recommend ideas to Obama's transition team.  This would be an obvious benefit to the website.  Somebody who's been here longer and is more web-savvy would be better able than me to make such a proposal in the necessary detail, so I hope somebody tries.  Here's my first offering:

Ridematch.com

When I commute to work (alone) in my car, I'm always struck by the fact that most of the other cars also have only one person in them.  Clearly, a whole lot of gas is being used pretty inefficiently in transporting people this way, and a whole lot of unused transportation capacity is just whizzing around (or crawling along) on the highways every day.   

The obvious way to save some of this gas and use some of this extra capacity would be to have more carpools.  This would be great if it could be arranged.  Less oil dependence, less traffic congestion, no increased crowding on mass traffic, easier parking, it's a win-win-win-win. 

So why doesn't it happen?  Well, I sure wouldn't do it.  Set aside for a minute the fact that it's hard to find people who make the same commute that I do.  Even if I found some, what would it be like?  Maybe they smoke.  Maybe they're chatty (I'm not).  Maybe they like music I don't, or talk radio.  Maybe their car smells.  Maybe they're bad drivers. Maybe they're secretly driving without a license, or insurance.  Maybe one is a serial killer.  Maybe they're just really annoying.  All in all, there are so many ways that I could dislike carpooling that I'm just not interested.  And I've got lots of company, driving alongside of me every day. 

Some transportation planners advocate a coercive approach to deter driving alone.  They want to make it a lot more expensive, make it impossible to park, force you to put up with more congestion, in general they want to make driving alone so unpleasant that it's even worse than mass transit or carpooling.  Gee, I wonder why this is politically unpopular?

Here's a different approach.  Take steps to make carpooling more likely to be a good experience.  I've checked out a few carpooling websites.  They're lame.  Basically they try to match you up with someone who has a similar commute and that's it.  Actually that's all they really can do because the number of people participating is to small to serve preferences more detailed than that. 

What's needed is the carpooling equivalent of the dating site Match.com.  In Match.com you post an anonymous profile detailing who you are and what you are looking for in a dating partner.  Carpoolers need the same thing.  On my proposed site, Ridematch.com (the name would have to be bought from a current owner) you would post an anonymous profile.  It would have detailed information about who you are, your route and times, what kind of driving experience you prefer, what kind of car you drive, whether you want to contribute by driving or paying, how many people you would be comfortable with, and so on.  People would contact each other in the same way as on Match.com, by clicking on another profile to indicate interest, emailing if the interest is reciprocal, then speaking by phone, then meeting.  The website would also take drivers license and car info and check to see that license, registration and insurance are all up-to-date, and could also check driving records and conduct criminal background checks if any drivers expressed that as a preference and the potential carpoolers for them consented. 

Think about it, lonesome drivers.  Wouldn't you be a lot more receptive to carpooling if you felt that all your important preferences would be honored and the others were checked out for safety?  I would.  This is design-your-own-carpooling, not I-hope-I-don't -hate-this carpooling.  

Now come the policy issues, starting with free-market thinking, which would contend that if this was really what people want, then markets would have provided it.  Incorrect.  The service being discussed here is a network linking different customers.  It only has value to potential customers if it has other customers to connect to, and it needs a very large base of customers to serve the needs of people so precisely.  So it can't get started unless it is already very large.  That means it never gets started by market mechanisms alone.

The obvious policy recommendation that flows from this is that the government should set up this website, or provide funding and subcontract the implementation to a private concern (perhaps Google?).   The government should also advertise the website, and also give business strong incentives when the site is first launched to have their employees put up profiles.  Obviously, participation should be free.  If a large fraction of the commuting population could be signed up, then more and more people would find good matches, and word of mouth would cause more and more signups, creating a virtuous cycle.  At this point the site would have high traffic and so would probably actually be profitable simply from advertising revenue, which could be used to pay back the up-front costs. 

It's also useful to think about how this idea might interact with other social and economic changes and with other policy options.  First, since a recession is now occurring and people are tightening their belts, this would probably be more attractive now as a way for people to cut their expenses.  Also, high oil prices are very likely to return eventually, and this would become more attractive to people in that scenario also.  A lot of people bought expensive SUVs and now are regretting it, and this could be a way for them to actually use those vehicles in a socially conscious way (now that's an amazing thought). 

Another thing that interacts well with this idea is congestion pricing, which means increasing tolls during rush hours to reduce driving at those times and thereby cut down on traffic congestion.  Of course this a good idea on many economic grounds, but it always meets huge resistance because people can't really turn to mass transit at those times, since mass transit is already badly overloaded in many areas during rush hours.  Ridematch.com would allow congestion pricing to be much less onerous because it would give people a reasonably comfortable option to avoid the extra costs.  Also, some commuters now using mass transit would start to carpool, offsetting those drivers who would choose to turn to mass transit if congestion pricing was implemented. 

Fewer cars on the road, less energy use, less traffic, and more available parking.  People could read, snooze, work, chat, or listen to music comfortably while someone else drives them to work in a nice SUV, secure in the knowledge that what they are doing has been accepted beforehand, and that others have agreed to respect their desires.   And all it would take is for the Obama administration to commit some seed money.  No big transportation infrastructure required.  What's not to like?  

With the Democrats holding the presidency and solid majorities in both houses in Congress, Republican filibusters are now the only thing preventing truly progressive legislation.  Should the Democrats therefore try to change or get rid of filibusters?  We should keep in mind that the Democrats could do this if they wished, possibly turning the Senate into a majority-rule chamber like every other legislative body. 

How could this be done?  There are two possible ways to change the rules.  Rule changes in the Senate currently require a two-thirds majority of Senators present and voting.  So theoretically this is possible, but the Republicans of course would never allow it.  The other way is to use what is called the nuclear option (by its opponents), or the constitutional option (by its advocates).  

This is a complicated use of parliamentary procedure that ultimately results in a majority vote that ends a filibuster.  Essentially a Senator wishing to end the filibuster makes a point of order calling for an immediate vote and the presiding officer of the Senate upholds this, citing the Constitution rather than Senate precedent as a guide (hence the name Constitutional option).  When this happens the only recourse in parliamentary procedure is to appeal the decision of the chair.  If one of the filibustering Senators does this, then an anti-filibuster Senator immediately moves to table that appeal.  Since motions to table are non-debatable in parliamentary procedure, a vote to table the appeal is held immediately, and if it is passed by a simple majority then the chair's ruling that a vote must take place is upheld, and so a vote is taken.  The filibuster is broken by a simple majority.

The Republicans threatened to use this option when the Democrats were filibustering some of George Bush's judicial nominees, but a compromise was eventually reached and it was not employed. 

It has been used in the past, however, and it definitely does work.  If the Democrats wanted to use it they could, and once this option is employed it becomes precedent-setting, so the Senate would then become a majority-rule body.  There is no question, really, about whether this would work.  It does work if a majority votes for it.  The only real question is political: does the majority want to do it? 

A bit of history is in order here.  The Senate had unlimited debate, and no cloture rule,  until 1917, when a rule was adopted requiring a supermajority of two-thirds of Senators present and voting in order to cut off debate and end a filibuster.  This rule remained in force until 1975, and filibustering was used most importantly by Democratic Senators from the south in order to block civil rights legislation.  The longevity of this rule despite the fact that it can be overridden demonstrates the political considerations, as does the next step in the evolution of the rule. 

In 1975 a version of the nuclear option was used to change the filibuster rule by a simple majority vote of 51-42.  However, the filibuster was not eliminated, rather the supermajority that was required to end a filibuster was changed from two-thirds of Senators present and voting to three-fifths of the Senate's full membership.  This shows the political caution that Senators feel they must exercise regarding the filibuster rule.  Polls have shown support for the filibuster rule, so Senators have two reasons not to use the nuclear option.  First, they might want to use filibusters themselves at some point, second, they might not get re-elected if voters disapprove.  The result is that Senators are very reluctant to get rid of the rule completely. 

The 1975 change was supposed to reduce the use of filibusters by lowering the cloture requirement from two-thirds to three-fifths, but it hasn't worked out that way.  In the past, the requirement of two-thirds of those present and voting meant that the filibustering minority had to keep its Senators constantly present in order to maintain a one-third blocking minority anytime a vote to cut off debate might be held.  This required a lot of personal commitment and discomfort f the majority decided to keep the Senate in session around the clock.  This also produced high drama at times, as was depicted in the classic Jimmy Stewart movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. 

The 1975 change made the required supermajority to cut off debate three-fifths of the Senate's full membership, or sixty Senators if there are no vacancies.  This means that the filibustering minority really only needs to mobilize one Senator at a time to conduct a filibuster, just the one doing the talking.  If they rotate people speaking, then even if a cloture vote winds up 59-1 in favor of cutting off debate, it still fails and the filibuster continues. 

The result has been that the minority now just tells the majority that they intend to filibuster, and if the majority can't find sixty votes, it gives up.  This is called a procedural filibuster, because an actual one is no longer necessary.  Due to this, filibusters have proliferated tremendously.  In the old days, filibusters were only employed when the minority felt very strongly about something, because filibusters were really uncomfortable and took a lot of effort and sacrifice.  Now, any time a minority has 41 votes, they just announce a procedural filibuster, and they win. 

Given all this, I think we can expect that in the very near future we will see a huge number of filibusters.  There is a lot of pent-up demand for progressive legislation, and the Democrats control the presidency and both houses of Congress, but the 41 or 42 Republican Senators can still effectively kill all the new legislation that the country needs.  We also should keep in mind that several Democratic Senators are from Republican states, and we are as likely to lose votes at the margin as to gain them.

So, the question soon will be: should the Democrats use the nuclear (oops, I mean Constitutional) option?  I think they should, but in the same cautious way it was used in 1975.  The Democrats will not be willing to just go completely to majority rule, because voters are not in favor of it. 

I feel that the Democrats should use the constitutional option to amend the filibuster rule, changing it from three-fifths of the full membership of the Senate to three-fifths of those present and voting.  That would make it like the old days, but with the magic number being three-fifths instead of two-thirds.  Then the chronic absenteeism of Senators becomes a very big factor.  If only 90 Senators are present for example, then you would only need 54 votes to end a filibuster.  This would require the Republicans to work for it if they really wanted to oppose something.  They would have to do the Jimmy Stewart thing, which would also have the added benefit of making the Senate a lot less boring. 

I think we should expect this issue to be prominent in the coming months and prepare for it.  The slogan should be "the filibuster - amend it, don't end it", and I have some talking points.  The first is "when a vote is 59-1, one shouldn't win, and the second is "90% of life is showing up, except in the US Senate".  Be prepared.

Economics fascinates me.  It's the closest thing we have to a truly explanatory social science, and many of the theories that have been developed are truly useful and have helped many societies to prosper.  I have to say, however, that it is probably the oddest science I have ever seen. 

Economics is odd because it started out as an exercise in deduction, kind of like the Euclidean geometry you took in high school.  Economists, like contemporary philosophers in their day, started out by making assumptions and deducing the consequences that followed from them.  While this served economists well at the time, I think that the continued attachment to this obsolete way of interpreting reality is causing serious problems. 

Most economists, and especially those of the rational expectations school, like to start out by assuming that human beings operate by rationally calculating their self-interest and then acting according to these rational calculations.  As a psychologist, my reaction to that assumption is: Are you kidding? Have you ever MET a human being? Did you grow up on Mars?  As a psychologist, I see people acting irrationally, making miscalculations, and operating against their self-interest so often, that the fundamental assumption of economic theory strikes me as obviously and patently absurd. 

This would be very amusing except for the fact that economists make deductions about public policy based on this approach, and then convince policy makers to follow their recommendations. 

This leads directly to the second problem with economics and its practitioners, which is strongly related to the first problem.  The second problem is that many economists operate according to the rule: if the facts don't fit the theory, ignore the facts.  Some readers may find this harsh, but the history of the debate about financial deregulation clearly shows this. 

Anyone who reads economic history has to be impressed by the frequency of financial crises and resulting economic depressions, in all industrialized capitalist societies until the 1930s.  Every generation or so there would be a pattern of bubble, crash, panic, depression; bubble, crash, panic, depression; over and over, again and again.  Finally modern societies got fed up with this and strictly regulated their financial sectors.  The result was that this pattern was broken, and we went several decades without repeating it. 

Then in the 1990s, after most people who lived through the Great Depression had passed away, a number of economists began to assert that economic theory proved that unregulated financial markets would necessarily function optimally.  This is as if physicists in Isaac Newton's time had asserted that his theory of gravity had proven that flying was impossible, despite the existence of birds.  And so, despite the fact that their assertion was flatly contradicted by all historical experience with unregulated financial markets, economists convinced policy makers that they were right, and the financial markets were deregulated.  Result: bubble, crash, panic, and now a possible depression.  Omigod, who could ever have seen this coming? 

History has clearly shown that a capitalist economy with an unregulated financial sector is like a car with no brakes.  It crashes a lot.  In the 1930s brakes were finally installed, and the car stopped crashing.  In the 1990s some extremely smart people decided that the brakes were keeping the car from going as fast as it could have (Duh! That was the point) and succeeded in having the brakes removed.  Result: the car has crashed again (D'oh!). 

The scary thing is that several of the architects of deregulation are now going to be prominent in the Obama administration.  Larry Summers was Treasury Secretary when much of this deregulation was enacted, and he still refuses to admit that this was a mistake.  And he's the one that the others all look up to, the 'economist's economist'.  Now I admit that Summers and many of his colleagues were very adept at dealing with financial crises in the rest of the world during the Clinton administration, and we do need that expertise right now.  But with regard to preventing this in the future, the new Obama team strikes me as a group of confident, crack firefighters who also go around throwing cigarette butts in wastebaskets and knocking over candles.  

So two related problems with economists have been presented:  that they start their theories with unfounded assumptions and derive conclusions from them that do not accord with facts.  What these two problems have in common is a willful disregard of reality. 

And finally, this leads directly to the third problem with economics as a discipline, which is in my area of specialty: the motivations of the economists themselves.  While I find the assumption of rational pursuit of self-interest to be not usually true for people in general, let us imagine for a minute that it is at least true of economists themselves.  Unfortunately, if economists are constantly pursuing their own economic self-interest, then that means we can't trust what they say.  Policy is constantly influenced by interest groups that are shopping in the marketplace for arguments to justify their agendas.   Economists, meanwhile, are sellers of such arguments.  According to economic theory, economists, if rationally pursuing their self-interest, will then sell their opinions to the highest bidders.  Therefore, an unfortunate corollary of economic theory is that you shouldn't believe economists. 

As a psychologist, it seems clear to me that all three problems are intertwined.  The third problem gives economists incentives to generate and justify wrong ideas, and the first two problems give them methodological ways to do just that.  

Very much related to all of the above is an amazing fact: economics has no code of ethics.  Well of course not.  A code of ethics would make rational pursuit of economic self-interest much more difficult. 

As a psychologist I must be licensed by my state in order to practice, just like almost all other professions.  As with all licensed professions, I have to follow the code of ethics for my profession, and if I violate it I could lose my license to practice.  This system exists to prevent psychological malpractice.  Clearly, the same should be true for economics.  In fact, the lack of a written code of ethics for a profession so important to public policy yet so incredibly subject to conflicts of interest is really a scandal.  It certainly seems to me that practicing economists are just as capable of economic malpractice as psychologists are of psychological malpractice.  Therefore, they should have to have licenses to practice, meet continuing standards to keep them, and adhere to a written code of ethics specific to their profession. 

Now, I am not saying that economists routinely say things that they know are not true.  I actually believe that conscious lying is at most a minor part of the problem.  The human ego has very powerful mechanisms for avoiding psychic pain, and will tend to construct reality in ways that minimize such pain.  People don't enjoy knowing that they are bad, so they often construct reality in whatever ways are necessary for them to appear to be good. 

We can observe this easily in ourselves.  If we take a stance on an issue that we feel strongly about, and someone else offers a counterargument, what do we do?  We instinctively look for arguments to bolster our position, so that we won't have to admit being wrong.  This impulse is not driven by an attempt to see reality as it is, it is driven by a need to protect the ego from pain, in this case the pain of embarrassment. 

Economists are extremely good at this form of self-protection.  In my profession, in addition to a code of ethics, we also have a built-in awareness of this process, and attempt to correct for it.  In psychotherapy we have a concept called countertransference, which refers to the feelings therapists have toward patients that may arise from the therapists own psychological issues.  Therapists are trained and expected to monitor their countertransferences, and to seek supervision from other therapists to deal with them if they should become problematic.  It certainly isn't foolproof, but at least we try. 

I feel that economists, in addition to licenses and a code of ethics, should have a similar mechanism as a part of their training.  Just as psychologists are trained and expected to examine their psychological issues for potential adverse impacts on their judgments, so economists should be trained and expected to examine their economic issues for adverse impacts on their thinking. 

These are just a couple of suggestions, but the basic point should be restated.  We rely a great deal on economists to tell us how to structure our economy, and lately this has not worked out so well.  We need to ask why bad economic advice happens, and then do things to fix the problems.