Between Hell and High Water

How Do We Organize our Political Framework If It Isn’t Anchored by Economic Growth?

By Mike Koetting February 13, 2024

My last post suggested that at least some of the premises underlying specific political and policy decisions are based on assumptions about reality that are increasingly questionable. Today’s post considers what it would take to establish premises that might better fit evolving circumstances.

Our Framework for Policy May Point in Wrong Directions

By Mike Koetting January 30, 2024

When it comes to policy, most of our thoughts get focused on specifics—will Trump be elected again, will Congress reach a deal on immigration, will the Supreme Court strike down the Chevron deference, and so forth.

Not usually up for discussion is whether the background framework in which these issues get addressed will remain more or less the same. We simply assume it will. Intellectually, we know it changes over time—and that specific policy choices have a greater or larger impact on it—but we also don’t usually stop to consider how soon there could be changes that might drastically alter our barely conscious decision rules. We just assume that life will be more or less the same as it is now.

The Gap Between Awe and Fear

By Mike Koetting January 16, 2024

Today’s blog stems from my own feeling of disorientation as I contemplate the distance between some of the most spectacular knowledge ever achieved by humans and the risks to life as we know it from the application of this knowledge.

Some advances are truly dazzling. They can be seen only as magic to all but a handful of experts. My mind is blown by the fact we can identify a tiny strand of chromosome, understand its function and then manipulate it. Or that a computer can listen to a Zoom call and provide a workable summary of the discussion in multiple languages.

The application of science and technology inevitably results in changes to “life as we know it”. But how much change do we want? And, even if we could agree on the answer to that, how confident are we that we can limit change to within those boundaries? Or, perhaps, even if pushed beyond where we intended to stop, that we will be able to adapt to where the chips do fall?

The Post Office Navigates a Changing World. Or Not.

By Mike Koetting December 5, 2023

Christmas is approaching. I would know that, if for no other reason, from our mailbox, which is daily stuffed with catalogues.

When I was a kid, there used to be so many cards during the holidays, that the Post Office in our neighborhood did two deliveries a day the weeks before Christmas. A few catalogues, but mostly cards. I still get holiday cards, but it’s nothing like the tsunami of greetings my parents received.

The decline of Christmas cards turns out to be emblematic of a number of very thorny issues facing the United States Postal Service.

Gas Prices in America

By Mike Koetting November 20, 2023

Two weeks ago, Lisa Cook, a governor of the Federal Reserve Board appointed by Biden, was asked why he was getting so little credit for the economic situation. She suggested that consumers judge the economy not by a slowing of inflation but by the prices they are still paying. People, she said, simply want gas prices back to where they were before the pandemic.

Don’t we all. I still flinch at what it costs to fill up our family car. Still, this comment not only explains why voters question Biden’s economic stewardship, but also puts a blazing spotlight on the long road ahead as economy and environmental realities collide.

My First Car & Our Government

By Mike Koetting November 17, 2023

The first car I ever owned—actually, it was a joint ownership, but that’s a different story—was a 17-year-old, 1951 Plymouth. It was a beater. Edges crumpled, seats beyond uncomfortable, floorboard rusting out, no radio, heater didn’t work and it had a sometimes starter.

We drove this car because that’s the only car we had. There was no public transportation where we lived. Without a car, we were, literally, stuck.

Americans don’t seem to realize that their government is that car. When first put together, it was a magnificent machine—the envy of many countries. And would-be countries. But over the centuries, other countries began to see problems, tinkered with the American original and made one change and the other. The United States did some important tinkering, but it retained a lot of the original, particularly aspects of the structure that make our government so change-resistant. At the same time the creativity unloosened by democracy accelerated the rate of change. Predictably, over the years, our government became less fit for the highway.

Our Black Legacy Tour

By Mike Koetting October 24, 2023

There is no shortage of immediate crucial issues for contemplation such as the dysfunction in the U.S. House and the threat of a complete meltdown in the Middle East. But I wanted to write about our Black legacy tour of the Deep South while it was still pressing in my mind.

At the instigation of a good friend, she, her husband, my wife Barbara and I visited some of the important sites of Black history in the United States. We started at the Whitney Plantation outside New Orleans, a plantation that has been restored to focus on the lives of the enslaved people rather than the masters of the house, and ended at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, built around the remnants of the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated.

The trip included a string of terrific museums and several other sites. All were spectacularly done and unleased a flood of facts, ideas and emotions. It would be impossible to summarize everything I learned or felt in a blog this length, but there were threads in the experience.

A Circus with Consequences

By Mike Koetting October 12, 2023

A Circus with Consequences

As I write this, the Republicans in the U.S. House are still thinking about who should be the next Speaker of the House. I’m not sure how much I have to say that is different from others, but I don’t see how I can regularly write about politics and policy without commenting on what’s happening. The current struggle marks the incontrovertible entry into a 15-month period that will determine whether American democracy continues as we know it or takes a detour, one from which it may never return.

Threats to Freedom of Speech Are Real; Threats from Freedom of Ignorance May Be Even More Immediate

By Mike Koetting September 26, 2023

For several years now, I have been stock-piling notes for a possible blog on freedom of speech. I haven’t done one, however, because thinking about it always makes my head hurt. The over-riding principles are straightforward and almost universally accepted. But applying them is excruciating difficult. As often the case, Scott Stantis nails it:

Perhaps someday I’ll write that blog. But in the meantime, I am more concerned about a different problem, which I will call “freedom of ignorance”–the idea that anything one says is as valid as anything else and there are no obligations to consider either the foundations or implications of one’s opinion. Combine this with the ability of people to self-select their media sphere, and society is at great danger from people exercising their constitutional right to never hear any contrary news.

What We Can Learn from Coverage of the Chinese Economy

By Mike Koetting September 12, 2023

Today’s post is not about China. Well, maybe sort of. But it’s really about what we can learn from the recent turn in the Chinese economy.

For the past few weeks there has been a tidal wave of coverage about the slowdown in the Chinese economy. From Al Jazeera to the Wall Street Journal, everyone has had a prominent story about how the Chinese economy is sagging. I don’t know enough about either China or economics to assess the situation in detail, but the biggest question in my mind is “Why would anyone be surprised at this?”

There are a host of specific partial answers to that question, but most of them are covered by an observation that society doesn’t typically anticipate the future very well. No surprise. As the old witticism goes, “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” Even if you’re pretty sure you know what is going to happen, you might not know when, or how much, or what other events will also affect the consequences. And sometimes the anticipated event doesn’t even happen. So the easiest thing to do is assume that things will continue more or less along the current path. This is particularly tempting if it looks like the future is going to involve major changes in what the “powers that be” had planned.