Read : 2018-11-30
Today’s selection of articles:
- “Amazon is hiding a big surprise“, by Bluesea Research (Seeking Alpha, 2018-11-29).
Today’s selection of articles:
Today’s selection of articles:
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A great article:
Today’s selection of (other) articles:
I wish you a peaceful Armistice Day.
Today’s selection of articles:
This post is motivated by two op-ed political pieces in the NY Times:
Dr. Krugman opens his article by freely admitting he is attempting to “explain those Senate losses”. He never does this — perhaps I misunderstand what he means by “post-mortem”? In any event, from the end of his second paragraph onward, Dr. Krugman rails against the inequities of representation in the Senate. His animus appears to be rooted in the belief that proportional representation is undebatably the best. In this respect, Dr. Krugman is in good company: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, two influential political thinkers (and active politicians) in the early U.S., apparently felt the same way (see references below). Messrs. Hamilton and Madison presented some arguments for their belief (see The Federalist Papers, e.g. “The Federalist No. 22“); Dr. Krugman says nothing here to justify this implicit belief. I have not read anything from any of these men considering (or refuting) arguments in favor of the present system of representation in the U.S. Senate, though in fairness, I have not looked hard. Dr. Krugman also remains silent on the fact that this system of representation has been in place since the Constitution first went into effect in 1789. This is not to say that the system is a good one; I only wish to point out that more political-theory oriented (and perhaps level-headed) minds have had ample time to consider the issue. Their thought might be a better use of our time.
It’s also worth noting that, as per Article V of the U.S. Constitution, “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate”. Again, this is not to say that the system is a good one; I only wish to point out that the politicians at the time must have considered the system of representation in the U.S. Congress an issue of paramount importance, and they must have had reasons (good or bad, fair or selfish) for insisting for such special treatment of this provision. It would be interesting to consider how, absent accidents of history, one would design one’s ideal political system today.
David Brooks writes a more open-minded article. He seems less intent on forcing an outcome into his own predetermined, politically motivated paradigm. Mr. Brooks draws on (and concretely cites) the insight of others, who may have more-developed and more-informed ideas on certain issues. For many pundits, elections are a process by which tens of thousands of ballots are reduced into a binary outcome: Democrat or Republican. Mr. Brooks attempts to trace back from that binary outcome to the issues the voters are trying to voice. This reverse engineering is messy, and almost surely wrong at places. But to respect everyone in a democracy, it seems a useful approach.
In the end, both authors (and the author of this post) are surely influenced and perhaps carried away by their personal biases. It’s helpful for all of us to remain aware of our biases, carefully consider when others point out possible biases to us, and do our best to truly listen to and consider others’ points of views, not pretend that we know everything.
Additional articles include the following:
Today’s selection of articles:
