Brooks: Nobody Knows Much About the Economy

David Brooks, who alas is optimistic on the debt ceiling, says if Obama and Boehner were in a room alone, they'd have a deal.

Brooks and Shields June 18

Brooks and Shields June 10

Gates, Newt and Weiner (who needs to put his ego away and resign ASAP so democrats can get back to business). Totally with Brooks and Shields on Weiner.

Brooks and Shields on Israel May 21

The two most rational people from the left and right discuss the GOP 2012, Israel and CIA. Brooks says now is not the time for peace and below, Jane Harman says now is the exact time for peace. Both make good arguments.


Some more intelligent analysis on prospects for Middle East peace from former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former California Democratic Rep. Jane Harman:

Another good discussion:

Brooks and Shields on Libya and Medicare

David Brooks frames the Medicare situation: The average person pays in $145,000 over a lifetime and ends up using $450,000, for an unsustainable gap of $305,000 per person. To close the gap, republicans want to all but end Medicare, Obama wants to lower healthcare expenses.

David Brooks More Suspicious of Free Market

David Brooks is just about the only conservative columnist that I can stomach. Brooks is a thinker. He's reasonable. He never uses hyperbole to make a point and he never engages in name calling. He's got a new book out, The Social Animal, which is queued up on my Kindle.
In an NPR interview, Brooks said his research has made him more suspicious of the free market:

Brooks finds himself much more suspicious of the free market after his research into the social nature of relationships, and sees the financial system less as an Ayn Rand-type vision of rational individuals, but instead as several groups of people competing and collaborating with each other. The most successful groups, he says, are the ones who take turns having a conversation and are good at signaling each other.

"The free market produces a lot of wealth, but it's embedded ... in a series of understandings. And if you don't have those relationships, then people can't thrive in that free market," he says. More at NPR, one of the most fabulous news sources out there.

Meet the Press: Collection of GOP Weaklings for 2012

Loony Michele Bachmann was on the first half of the show and gave her usual spiel. David Brooks and Eugene Robinson discussed the budget and the weak republican field for 2012:

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David Brooks on his new book, The Social Animal:

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Shields and Brooks on Budget, Debt and Boehner

I agree with David Brooks and Mark Shields on the budget. I wish Obama would've made the case for reforming Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, which account for 60% of the budget. But entitlements were left untouched. Obama missed the opportunity to get out in front of the issue. It would also be nice if he slashed the defense budget by ending whatever we're doing in Afghanistan.
Seems to me the longer we wait to make the cuts, the worse the poor will suffer. It also seems that Americans are ready to hear the message that the nation needs to get its financial house in order. Americans, drowning in debt, need to see government lead the way.

America's Economic Plateau

An interesting column by David Brooks, who looks at Tyler Cowen’s e-book, “The Great Stagnation." The article points out how our relative wealth is changing our values and our economy, turning it into one that doesn't create as many jobs.

But his evidence can also be used to tell a related story. It could be that the nature of technological change isn’t causing the slowdown but a shift in values. It could be that in an industrial economy people develop a materialist mind-set and believe that improving their income is the same thing as improving their quality of life. But in an affluent information-driven world, people embrace the postmaterialist mind-set. They realize they can improve their quality of life without actually producing more wealth.
....
In other words, as Cowen makes clear, many of this era’s technological breakthroughs produce enormous happiness gains, but surprisingly little additional economic activity. Read the whole thing at NYT

Brooks and Shields on Obama's Tucson's Speech

In general, I'm opposed to everyone analyzing Obama's speech as if every speech he makes is a performance with a political end. With that said, David Brooks and Mark Shields make the speech analysis bearable. Pay attention at the 5:40 mark:

Vote to End Debate on Tax Cuts and Unemployment Extension Dec. 13

A vote to end debate on the tax cuts and unemployment extension will happen Dec. 13 at 3 pm. Then the bill is expected to move forward. I totally disagree with Mark Shields who says liberals should be angry. There isn't any room for ideology right now because there's too much to get done. Our leaders need to be present in the real world. I'm happy with the way Obama stepped in, compromised and got a deal done within a matter of days. Psychology is half the battle. If people believe the tax cuts and unemployment extension will be good for the economy, as most economists are forecasting, then that will lead to a better economy.

Unemployment Benefits Likely to be Extended in Lame Duck

David Brooks and Mark Shields talk about a bunch of stuff, including liberals getting ready to walk on Obama. I actually think there are people walking on the liberals on recent issues. It's become apparent to me that the techniques the left uses to manipulate people are a lot like the right's.

Brooks said the deficit/debt commission proposal smoked out who was serious about cutting the debt. Many aren't. The left flat out rejected it, which is kind of silly because the national debt is out of hand. I'm guessing many people never even read it.

Shields calls the draft proposal the eat your spinach plan.

Shields says unemployment benefits will be extended in the lame duck session, which is good news for many seeing that the new Congress, stocked with conservative republicans, isn't likely to extend benefits.

Pelosi Has Votes to be House Minority Leader But...

Both Mark Shields and David Brooks say that Nancy Pelosi is an effective leader and that she has the votes to be the House minority leader but that politically, she shouldn't.

Brooks doesn't expect Michele Bachmann to get very far in her quest for a leadership position, which is good to hear. He says republicans need to stick with a humility theme. Mitch McConnell obviously doesn't feel that way. Pundits and the media fail to realize that there's something deeper to the republican opposition of Obama. It's more personal, visceral.

Brooks concludes Obama has little chance of winning re-election in 2012 because he's not loved in Ohio. I don't believe this nation was as ready as it thought it was for a Barack Obama. People asked for change and when they got it either it was too little or it was too much, depending on which side of the fence you're on. Then there is the majority of Americans who didn't even bother to vote. Turnout was low compared to 2008, when 132 million voted; 82 million voted in the 2010 midterms and most of the voters were white.

Brooks Calls Bennett Ouster an Outrage

The republicans ousted conservative Utah Senator Bob Bennett in the primary because he voted for TARP and he worked with democrat Ron Wyden on a healthcare proposal. Brooks was an advocate of the Wyden-Bennett healthcare proposal and called the ouster of Bennett a "damn outrage." Republicans are just screwing themselves in the long run.

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Brooks and Shields Say no Immigration Reform This Year

Columnists Mark Shields and David Brooks say immigration reform won't happen this year. But they both agree that Arizona's new immigration law is misguided. They also talk about the financial reforms. All signs point to passage. The $50 billion fund that they talk about would be funded by the banks.

Dodd and Shelby on Meet the Press April 24

Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby were getting on so well, David Gregory didn't know what to do with himself. The bottom line is financial reform legislation is coming and it's coming soon.

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Most of the roundtable agrees that Arizona's new immigration law is a bad one and John McCain's shame:

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The roundtable on financial reforms and why I respect David Brooks:

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Media Hype on Next Supreme Court Justice Pick

After watching Jon Kyl and Chuck Schumer discuss the selection of the next Justice, I came away thinking that it's the media is stirring up controversy on the replacement of Justice John Paul Stevens. Kyl all but rules out a filibuster. From everything that I've read, no matter who Obama chooses, the court can only become more conservative because Stevens was very liberal. And given Obama's choice of Sonia Sotomayor, it doesn't strike me that Obama is going to pick someone based on their ideology.

This Week roundtable discusses the next Justice. George Will says there will be no fight over Obama's choice and Arianna Huffington says there will be. Arianna, seeing through her very liberal eyes, didn't even hear what Kyl said this morning. Arianna's pick: Elizabeth Warren. Good grief. I like Warren's oversight work with TARP, but she's clearly not judge material. Some people only see the world through political ideological eyes and Arianna is one of those.

Meet the Press roundtable on the next justice:

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In a Sensible Country

O and Joe at Malia, Sasha and Maisy Biden's basketball game

David Brooks has another column in an unofficial series to nail down exactly who Obama is. I've always said Brooks, a conservative, comes closest to knowing, at least according to me. In his column, he contrasts the left and the right's view of Obama. In a sensible country, Obama would be perceived as rational, smart, fair and hardworking as he is.

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office. Read it all

Tea Partiers the New Hippies?

After long ignoring them, David Brooks is just now trying to make sense of the tea party movement. He makes a good attempt, but doesn't get it yet. Though I'd like to believe otherwise, the tea party is soft core white supremacy. It's made up of people worried that non-whites have more power than they do. It's white people worried that these non-whites don't have their best interests in mind, that they're going to seek some sort of revenge. This is all irrational thinking, by the way. Brooks compares the tea partiers to the Hippy movement. At least the hippies stood for something good. Some tea partiers stand for fiscal conservatism, which is good, but mostly that's just a cover for white people scared out of their wits. I don't think tea partiers are saying extreme things to shock people. I think that's what they believe and they're finding the courage to say it within the tea party culture.

There are many differences between the New Left and the Tea Partiers. One was on the left, the other is on the right. One was bohemian, the other is bourgeois. One was motivated by war, and the other is motivated by runaway federal spending. One went to Woodstock, the other is more likely to go to Wal-Mart.

But the similarities are more striking than the differences. To start with, the Tea Partiers have adopted the tactics of the New Left. They go in for street theater, mass rallies, marches and extreme statements that are designed to shock polite society out of its stupor. This mimicry is no accident. Dick Armey, one of the spokesmen for the Tea Party movement, recently praised the methods of Saul Alinsky, the leading tactician of the New Left. Read it all at NYT

Brooks No Longer Dismissing Tea Party as Nutters