Interesting Thoughts on a Sunday

China announced yesterday a plan to invest something in excess of $100 billion in infrastructure.  I hope it includes pollution control spending because the air in China is very dirty.  I also contrast that with the U.S. where we can't even fund road maintenance adequately so that bridges don't collapse underneath innocent drivers. (Ok, that hasn't happened in a while, but it will happen again.)

Ross Douthat wrote an interesting column hoping that Marco Rubio and Rand Paul duke it out with a vigorous policy debate.  He finds interesting policy proposals within both of their beliefs (as do I on occasion) but is not sure they will cut through the Tea Party obstructionism that propelled both into the Senate.  I will say that Rubio did support and sculpt the now dead comprehensive immigration reform that the Senate passed last year and died in the Tea Party House of Representatives.  Which is also where comprehensive Tax Reform died.  But Rubio is closer to John McCain on foreign policy while Rand Paul is more isolationist than Obama, and I like Obama balance more than either of the other extremes.

Link to Ross Douthat column


Thomas Friedman wrote a column on Makers and Breakers using the internet and focused more on the Makers.  But the observation of the Breakers is much more challenging.  The internet allows Jihadists to communicate very easily and inspire the potential for anarchy almost anywhere.  The government can try but they cannot protect us from this anymore then they can protect us from random acts of teenage gun violence.  Sh*t has always happened and it will continue to happen.  That is life in a global society of 7 billion people.  Policy makers can only control the big impulses, they have no control over the details for every individual.  And the individual must be responsible for themselves.

Ultra Conservative Republicans believe that Democrats don't understand that, but you cannot protect the upper class sense of safety if you don't prevent desperation from fostering anarchy in your midst.  That is what has happened in Iraq and Syria.

So when we are discussing policy, politicians need to remember that they are there to foster the collective safety of the population by preventing anarchy while allowing the creative forces of capitalism to improve the standard of living for all.

On that front, it is interesting that politicians of both parties are anti-Uber and anti-AirBnB because they compete with regulated interests that contribute money to both parties.  So you have local politicians of both parties trying to squash Uber and AirBnb which is really why you need a free press that is open to investigating both parties, not the partisan cable channel model in which one side does no wrong and criticisms of the other party are so constant they have no credibility.