As Ken Parish observes, in my recent post about Chechnya, I discussed the issue of terrorism and its causes in generic terms and didn’t have anything specific to say about Islamism. So, I’ll start by observing that most of what has been written on this topic is, in my opinion, useless or worse.
Read More »
Welfare reform
Among the issues that won’t be addressed in detail in the current election campaign is the case for, and against, welfare reform along the lines adopted in the US. Although the Howard government has made various changes aimed at increasing ‘mutual obligation[1]’, there has been nothing approaching the reforms to the main pure welfare program in the US, then called Temporary Aid for Needy Families, and received primarily by single-parent families. Among those who still think substantial measures of microeconomic reform are needed, welfare reform along US lines is at the top of the list, and Wisconsin, where Governor Tommy Thompson slashed welfare rolls, is generally held out as the model.
Although there are various rationales for welfare reform, the only one I think worth considering is the claim that welfare perpetuates poverty. While relieving immediate distress, it is argued, welfare encourages a culture of dependence that perpetuates poverty. Against this, I’d put the argument that what matters most in preventing dependence is the availability of good jobs, and that a government commitment to full employment is what is needed for a genuinely mutual or reciprocal obligation to work.
There’s not likely to be a convincing and rigorously defensible empirical resolution of this debate any time soon. However, one telling piece of anecdotal evidence is worth a dozen regressions[2], so I thought I’d check out the Wisconsin example. What I found is a report with the headlines
Poverty rate hits 10-year high
State’s struggles also evident in growing number of uninsured: 11%
The rise in the poverty rate[3] is attributed mainly to the loss of manufacturing jobs, rather than to adverse effects of welfare reform. This is consistent with my general view that we need to look harder at employment and unemployment. But reform is clearly playing a significant role
We have gone since 1996, when Pay for Performance hit, from distributing 1.5 million pounds of food to 10 million on an emergency basis,” Tussler [executive director of Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee[ said, referring to the reform requiring work or job-seeking in exchange for welfare benefits.
I’m not claiming that this example proves that welfare reform increases poverty. But it’s hard to see how Wisconsin can be regarded as a successful exemplar of welfare reform when the poverty rate is higher than it was before the main phase of reform, and still rising.
fn1. As many have pointed out previously, the current government’s notion of mutual obligation involves drastically reducing its own obligations, while increasing those place on benefit recipients
fn2. Irony tags were clearly needed here, but Textile doesn’t support them
fn3. This is an absolute poverty measure, based on a poverty line set in 1965, and adjusted since then only for inflation. Of course, it’s not absolute by comparison with third world countries, and it’s about twice the income that was considered to constitute poverty 100 years ago.
Monday Message Board
It’s time for the Monday Message Board, where readers are invited to post their thoughts on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). There will be plenty of posts from me on the election, and plenty of room for discussion, so I’d encourage Message Board comments on other issues.
Root causes
There is no excuse or justification for terrorism. But that doesn’t mean it is inexplicable, the product of purely irrational evil impulses. There will always be people willing, under certain circumstances, to resort to terrorism. If we want to fight terrorism effectively, we have to avoid creating those circumstances.
Successive Russian governments created the conditions in Chechnya that allow terrorists like those responsible for the Beslan atrocity to flourish. There was a long history of oppression, from Czarist times to mass deportation under Stalin. But the current outbreak can be traced most directly to the actions of Yeltsin and Putin. When Chechnya sought independence from Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin’s response was one of brutal and incompetent repression, eventually leading to an effective Russian withdrawal, and the creation of a failed state, in which warlords and militias flourished, and terrorism established itself.
After a series of Chechen terrorist attacks in Moscow and an attempted invasion of the neighbouring republic of Dagestan, Putin came to power with a policy of crushing Chechen resistance, which he implemented with high civilian casualties and the destruction of much of the capital city of Grozny[1].
Again, this history doesn’t justify, excuse or mitigate horrible crimes like the one we have just witnessed. But there is also no excuse for those who advocate policies that are bound to promote terrorism while rejecting any analysis of “root causes”.
fn1. Those interested in a more detailed history can find what seems to be a pretty good one at Global Issues. This is a leftwing site, but seems to give fairly objective coverage.
A terrible atrocity
As usual in relation to terrorist attacks, and in common with others, I find it difficult to say much in relation to the terrorist siege in Beslan, which has now ended with heavy loss of life. The terrorists, who have sunk to new lows in this crime (the hostages, mostly children, were apparently denied water) were mostly killed. No decent person will mourn their deaths. No provocation or historical wrong can justify such foul actions.
I feel for those who have lost loved ones, and especially for the parents of children murdered on this tragic day.
Election blogs
The election has stimulated an explosion of new and revived blogs, aggregators and other websites, and has brought others to my attention for the first time. Here are a few that have caught my eye, in no particular order.
The Daily Flute has excellent economic analysis, mostly serious, but currently looking at the continuous misfortunes of the Persian rug shop industry
Psephite is currently running an assessment of pollies’ websites, most of which are awful. Minor gripe: she uses the acryonym IA which I don’t recognise. As PH would say, “please explain”.
Hack Watch (Iain Lygo) criticises the media from a green perspective, and with an olive green background (quite similar to this, actually
The Poll Bludger (William Bowe) focuses mostly on polls, as you might expect.
Mumble (Peter Brent) also does polls and electorate analysis
I’ll extend this post as I get time, and maybe put up a special election blogroll.
Why you should vote against Wooldridge
Michael Wooldridge has a piece in today’s Age, giving some fairly standard arguments as to “Why you should vote for Howard”. As far as I’m concerned the mere fact that the story reminds readers of Wooldridge’s existence should be a good reason to vote against Howard. Although not the most incompetent Minister in the Howard government, he beat strong competition to be the one who has most lowered standards of public probity. Apart from his notorious extravagance, he regularly did favors to groups which then gave him financial or political returns. Most outrageously, he approved a public grant to a medical lobby group which hired him as a consultant as soon as he left office. It’s the accumulation of this kind of sleaze that brings down long-running governments.
No more years ?
A while ago, I discussed the idea that the forthcoming US election would be a good one for the Democrats to lose, eventually reaching the conclusion that the damage that would be caused by four more years of Bush would offset any political benefits from finally discrediting the Republicans.
Now Niall Ferguson looks at the same question from the other side. Like me[1], he thinks this would be a good election for either party to lose. But, since he’s taking the Republican side of the debate, the damage that a second Bush term would cause is an argument in favor of his case. He concludes
moderate Republicans today may justly wonder if a second Bush term is really in their best interests. Might four years of Kerry not be preferable to eight or more years of really effective Democratic leadership?
fn1. Though not for exactly the same reasons. He puts more weight on criticisms of Kerry than I think can be justified, and less on the extent to which painful economic adjustments are already inevitable.
Who prefers the Greens?
We’ve heard at length in the last few days how the Greens plan to ruin the economy, make vegetarianism compulsory, institute world government, and so on. Presumably, for those making such claims, the worst conceivable outcome from the forthcoming election would be a minority Labor government dependent on Green support (or maybe even forced to go into coalition with the Greens).
This is unlikely, but it could happen if the Greens win some inner-city seats, most held by Labor leftwingers. But the only way the Greens can win is on Liberal preferences. So I’d be interested to know who among those running the anti-Green scare campaign is advocating a policy of putting the Greens last, as Labor did in relation to One Nation[1]. I haven’t seen anything on the Liberals preferences yet, so this is a genuine question – if anyone has the answer, I’d be grateful.
fn1. Except, IIRC, in the 2001 Queensland State election, where, rather opportunistically, they exploited optional preferential voting by advocating a vote for Labor alone with no preferences.
Interest rates, part 2
As everybody knows, low interest rates are a mixed blessing for homebuyers. That’s because they have contributed (along with government policies like the reduction in capital gains tax rates) to the massive boom in house prices that has made houses just about as unaffordable now as they were in 1989 at the peak of the last interest rate cycle.
Everybody knows this except, apparently, John Howard. In his scare campaign against Labor, he calculated the impact of Labor’s peak interest rates applied to the average mortgage prevailing under the Liberals. Not surprisingly, the result is horrific. But Howard is as much to blame for this as anyone else.
John Quiggin 