With Ryan, Romney Rolls the Hard Six

Until Friday evening, my thoughts on Mitt Romney's likely running mate were limiteded to my certainty that it would not be Marco Rubio. Romney's whole campaign had been based on making the election a "referendum on Obama," An up-or-down vote on the incumbent President, into which Romney himself barely figured at all.

Ryan and his famed budget wonkiness are a clear departure from that strategy. Combine that with Obama's widening lead in the polls over the past few weeks, and to me the Ryan pick is pretty clearly a Hail Mary. Convinced he was going to lose, Romney changed the conversation. Now, instead of a referendum on Obama, the election will certainly be about the size of government.

Greece's Past and the Debt Crisis

Here is an interesting article I read on Greece's debt crisis. The basic argument is that the Greeks resent their northern European creditors - despite an enormous amount of leniency - because they feel that they have been taken advantage of historically. The author does not present any quantifiable polling data, but his historical examples do offer some food for thought. This is the kind of wedding of history to current events which helps us understand why people can behave so stupidly. It is sometimes difficult to see how the history of Classical Greece, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and the Third Reich can still have an effect on the present.

Turkey and Israel are at it again

Photo credit: The Economist (also, an article worth reading)

In case you haven’t been following recent developments in the Middle East/North Africa region other than Libya—and let’s face it, it’s my academic guilty pleasure so I can hardly expect everyone to—Turkey and Israel are at it again. The briefest outline goes a little something like this: 9 Turkish citizens are killed as part of an aid flotilla to the West Bank, Turkey demands an apology, Israel refuses to apologize, the UN investigation is leaked which calls the actions of the Israeli commandos unnecessary but also does not call the blockade illegal, Israel still refuses to apologize, Turkey expels the Israeli ambassador, Israeli FM approaches the internationally recognized Kurdish terrorist group the PKK with talk of support, the PKK also demands an apology, Turkish PM visits Cairo, there is an attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo.  With Turkish threats of warship escorts, and Israel just not being cooperative, the U.S. is stuck between a rock and a hard place this week at the UN.

Cameron vs. Twitter?

I am not a big believer in the idea that web-based social media is a revolutionary political tool. My fellow 20-somethings tend to embrace this idea because twitter et al. are so widely used in their social circles. I suspect that those in older demographics jump into social media because they see the 20-somethings doing it and don't want to feel old. But Facebook doesn't change the way people think, or the concerns they have about their political situation. It simply changes the speed at which ideas are exchanged.

Additionally, I have little patience for the claims that the current riots in London are a youth-led political movement in the vein of the Arab Spring. Unlike Tahrir,  the Tottenham riots represent the worst rather than the best potential of collective youth activity. The rioters are involved basically in theft and arson, not political activism. If your biggest political grievance is that you don't want to pay market value for a PS3, then you probably have no legitimate political grievances.

However, none of that means I'm OK with David Cameron's recent talk of disrupting UK access to social networks to combat the riots.

Critical Juncture in EU Integration?

Dueling Banjos today in RCW's afternoon edition: a Daily Mail op-ed says the Euro must end, while ex-Eurocrats counter that the Euro could be saved with further EU integration. The authors' biases are obvious enough, but what might be less obvious is that they don't actually disagree with each other.

Both articles present the separation of monetary and fiscal policy as the source of the Eurozone crisis, and they're right. If Greece and the rest of the PIIGS still had national currencies, they could mitigate the problems austerity is giving them through inflation. And if fiscal policy were at least partially elevated to the EU level, redistributive assistance to the PIIGS wouldn't be left to the caprice of national politics in Germany. Monetary integration without fiscal coordination has proved to be a dangerous half measure.

A Comforting Map

As we begin this new election season, let's not let ourselves be distracted by hysteria over the growth of China or the so-called collapse of our economy. Let's remember where all the money actually is.

Revolution Number Nile

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has pledged not to seek reelection this September. On January 24, this would have been shocking, too-good-to-be-true news for most Egyptians. The fact that many Egyptians view this as too little change, happening too slowly, is proof of how dramatically the political climate in Egypt has been changed by this week of protests. 

All the same, Mubarak has given the Egyptian public something to think about. I'm curious to see how many protesters continue to come out into the streets in the days ahead. These protests have essentially shut down the country. Are Egyptians prepared to risk food shortages and a continued frozen economy to try and get Mubarak out on their terms rather than his?