Debt Ceiling Cop-Out

Mitch McConnell had a plan to punt on the debt ceiling. Basically, Congress would cede its authority to raise the debt ceiling to the Executive Branch for the remainder of Obama's term in office, retaining only the right to block such an increase by an affirmative two-third supermajority vote which, obviously, would never happen. Three main thoughts about that:

1. Yippee! Substantively, it would be amazing if they would just agree to raise the debt limit, or even better, scrap the concept for the time being, and just let this whole effing debt negotiation stop.
2. Once upon a time, a wise Congress ditched the debt ceiling altogether, just authorizing an unlimited amount of debt in perpetuity. Unfortunately a foolish Congress later re-instated the limit, but there's no reason why this Congress couldn't destroy the limit as well.
3. The specific mechanics of this plan strike me as really weird. It's phrased as "giving the executive the power to raise the debt limit," but since the debt limit is really just the maximum amount of debt that Congress has authorized (as it must do under the Constitution), that's a strange way to put it. Ultimately what's going on here is that Congress authorizes the executive to issue an unlimited amount of debt, and claims to restrict itself from revoking that authorization for a few years except by a two-thirds vote. That last bit is clearly impossible, or it would be if the maxim that a legislature cannot bind its future self still held true. The specific device of an executive request followed by a potential Congressional veto is also, I think, the kind of thing the Supreme Court has frowned upon.

But first and foremost, this does seem to suggest that McConnell's corporate overlords really, really want this limit raised. Maybe the wealthy/business community would like a "deficit reduction" deal best of all, but if the deal looks impossible then they clearly prefer not tanking the world economy. One almost wonders, in fact, if Obama knows that, and is trying to make his final offer that Republicans end up rejecting, and then settling for a clean debt increase in lieu of, as "reasonable" (which is to say right-wing) as possible, so that he ends up looking that much better. That's the optimistic interpretation, anyway.

UPDATE: Apparently the plan is even crazier than I thought. I think I take back the "Yippee!" part, though I still hope they end up raising the limit and/or scraping it somehow without making any big ol' spending cuts.

DJ3K!!!!1!!1!!!

My dad and I just went to Modell's Sporting Goods store to purchase some extra-long golf tees, and on our way through the front door we were bombarded by signs imploring us to "celebrate" Derek Jeter's 3000th hit by purchasing commemorative bracelets. Uh, no. But it did kind of drive home for me how big a deal people are making of this: a really big deal. And I think that's very telling. In 2009, Jeter played in 153 games, posting a .334 batting average while notching 212 base hits and finishing third in the MVP voting, behind Joe Mauer and Mark Teixeira. That was, obviously, a really great season. And I remember that at the time people were talking about the possibility that he would break the all-time hits record. That had been his age-35 season, and he had 2747 hits through that point; to get the 1509 hits he would need to match Pete rose, he would've needed just 7.5 more seasons of the caliber of his '09 showing. Unlikely? Sure. But not impossible, if he played at a very high level on a good offensive team until he was 45 or so.

Now people aren't talking about Jeter setting the all-time hits record. Now people are making a big effing deal out of his getting to 3000. This is not being treated as one more step in the long march of his career, this is being treated as the summation of his career, the valediction. What people will say of Derek Jeter decades from now is that he was a member of the 3000-hits club. That's it. And I think the fact that people are making such a fuss about this number demonstrates that people understand that now, after a year and a half of pure mediocrity from him.

Two quick asides: he went 5-5 today, with the second hit (a home run) being the 3000th. Whatever, good for him, it's his day, he might as well go crazy. Also, yes, those posters used the phrase "DJ3K" to denote this occurrence. I kid you not...

What Can We Wish Away?

Lawrence Tribe has an article in the New York times titled, "A Debt Ceiling We Can't Wish Away" in which he argues against the theory that the 14th Amendment negates the debt ceiling. First he refers to a 1935 Supreme Court case that declared that the Public Debt Clause of that Amendment only means that Congress cannot "alter or destroy" existing debts. Then he considers and rejects the argument that this means that all actions which make a default more likely are unconstitutional, finding it untenably broad. Then he gets to the meat of the argument: he concedes that while the Public Debt Clause might well mean that an actual default on an actual debt is unconstitutional, this doesn't mean the President has the authority to do whatever it takes to avoid such a default. If he could, Tribe argues, why couldn't he choose to levy a new tax to fund debt obligations, instead of issuing more debt? Or print a bunch more money? The rest of the article is devoted to claiming that using the constitutional option would be a bad thing, and that the Constitution doesn't and shouldn't solve all of our problems.

But there's a problem for all of these arguments that he makes: what on earth is Obama supposed to do?

Not-Catch-Up Growth

Catch-up growth, also apparently known as compensatory growth, is when something grows especially quickly after a period of slowed growth. This is an idea in biology, but also in economics, which is where I encountered the term. The idea is that, heading into a recession, an economy might be growing at a certain fairly predictable linear trend. The recession then causes the economy to shrink, falling well behind its previous trend. In these situations, it is supposed to be possible for the economy to go through a brief period of extreme growth that would be unsustainable normally. What this does is get the economy back on its pre-recession trend, so that (in terms of GDP at the very least) the recession might as well never have happened. This is what isn't happening in the American economy right now: we're growing, but not fast enough to undo any of the damage from the recession.

I can think of a couple of examples of catch-up growth in baseball. Entering the 2008 season, Carlos Delgado had a .280/.386/.549 career batting line while averaging 38 home runs and 121 RBI's per 162 games. But through June 25th of that year, he was hitting just .229/.306/.396 with 11 home runs and 35 runs driven in over 75 games. Then, in a memorable game at Yankee Stadium as part of a cross-town double-header, he hit a two-run double, a three-run bomb, and a grand slam, tying the Mets club record for runs driven in in a single nine-inning game. Beginning with that game, he hit .308/.392/.626 with 27 home runs and 80 runs driven in over the season's last 84 games. Yeah, 80 RBI's in 84 games. He ended up with a .271/.353/.518 slash line in 2008, with 38 home runs and 115 RBI's in 159 games, in line with his career averages. But he wouldn't've gotten there without his amazing second-half run.

Likewise, entering the 2010 season Jose Reyes had a career .286/.337/.435 line, but through May 22nd, he was hitting just .211/.258/.277. But from that point until he got injured playing on a hideous astroturf field in Puerto Rico (and no, I still haven't forgiven Major League Baseball for that), he hit .354/.394/.583. After that, he was at .277/.321/.419, and he ended the season at .282/.321/.428, very much in line with his career averages. But he needed that month of amazing catch-up growth in order to get there.

Here's one subtle story of the Mets' recent offensive success this year that's gone kind of unnoticed. Well, mainly it's the story of why it's gone unnoticed. Entering this year, Josh Thole had a career .286/.357/.373 line; Angel Pagan had a career .285/.335/.435 line; and Jason Bay had a career .278/.374/.508 line. Through his injury that kept him out until late May, Pagan was hitting .159/.259/.246. Through May 21st Thole was hitting .205/.281/.241. And through June 13th, Bay was hitting just .207/.303/.273. But since those various points, Pagan's been hitting .305/.377/.418, Thole's hitting .329/.430/.438, and Bay's hitting .347/.405/.542. All of those are slightly better than their career lines, or what you might hope to get out of those players over a full season. But they're also not as ridiculous as what Delgado or Reyes did in their runs of catch-up growth. All three of these players still look like they're having a very disappointing year, and in a sense they are. For that reason, it doesn't really look like Bay, Pagan, or Thole are 'surging.' (Slightly different in Bay's case, since there's been so much attention on his struggles and any sign of his breaking out of this slump.)

But it's still a huge deal for the team. Sure, it'd be nice if one of them would decide to carry the team the way Delgado did after the break in '08, or Reyes did in June of '10. But hey, Reyes is kind of carrying the team already. What Pagan, Thole, and Bay have done is stopped being automatic outs. They're no longer black holes in the lineup. They are, more or less, themselves. And that is all they need to be. Remember, the point of the Mets entering this year was that Thole/Davis/Murphy/Reyes/Wright/Bay/Pagan/Beltran was, on paper, a very good offense. The problem was that all of them had question-marks. There were reasons to doubt all of them, although Wright and Davis perhaps less than the others. And those doubts were well-founded early in the season, as Thole, Wright, Bay, and Pagan all sucked. But it's still true that, on paper, that's a great offense. So if Thole, Bay, and Pagan can stop sucking, and just start being themselves anymore, that's plenty. It'll make the Mets a good team going forward, especially if Wright and/or Davis come back and play like themselves as well. Catch-up growth is very nice, it's flashy, and it gets attention. But unlike in the American economy as a whole, it's not what the Mets need. They just need nice, normal growth. Pagan, Thole, Bay, and, eventually, Wright don't need to play like people making up for a slump, they just need to play like people playing their normal games.

On the Minimum Wage

This past semester, I took a class in microeconomics. The information I learned in this class has proved tremendously useful in finding ways to criticize the rightwards-leaning conclusions people often draw from economics. So, just for fun, in this post I'm going to be critiquing the notion that minimum wages are a bad idea, an idea which I've critiqued before for various reasons but have figured out a new way to critique, using fancy microeconomical diagrams.

On Independence

In and around the year 1776, many people living in the American colonies decided they wanted to get out from under the rule of the British Empire and form their own independent nation. Now, not all of them wanted this; from what I remember of AP U.S. History, it was about 40% "patriot," 20% "loyalist," and 40% neutral. Ultimately the pro-independence faction convinced the neutrals to more or less support them, and most of the loyalists fled to Canada, and the movement for independence was born. One military victory later, you had the United States of America.

In and around the year 1860, many people living in the American South decided they wanted to get out from under the U.S. federal government and form their own independent nation. Not all of them wanted this, but ultimately the forces supporting independence prevailed and the movement for independence was born. One military defeat later, and you still had the United States of America.

For most of the nation's entire history, many of the people of Canada who live in Quebec have felt that they don't like being under the rule of the Anglophone Canadian government. From time to time they try to get up a movement in favor of independence. So far it hasn't gotten very far, and we still have this thing called Canada.

Thoughts on All-Star Voting Results

First of all, JOSE!!!!!

Second of all, I think almost all of these elections are correct. On the A.L. side of things, Alex Avila, Adrian Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez, Jose Bautista, Curtis Granderson, and David Ortiz are rather clearly the best at their positions. Josh Hamilton's spent a lot of time injured this year, which means there are a bunch of outfielders who've compiled better seasons, but he was last year's MVP and when he's played this year he's been great. I think that's a completely reasonable pick. On the N.L. side, Brian McCann, Rickie Weeks, Jose Reyes (!!!), and Matt Kemp are pretty clearly the best people out there.

But let's be honest, the Derek Jeter thing is absurd. His on-base percentage and slugging percentage this year are both .324, and his defense, as usual, sucks. Asdrubal Cabrera is slugging .502, and Jhonny Peralta's hitting .311/.359/.538 with good defense. Hell, there are dozens of A.L. shortstops having better years than Jeter. And I understand career numbers making something of a difference, but Jeter hasn't even been okay this year, he's been awful. Meanwhile, Robinson Cano doesn't really deserve this, but in his case I think the career accomplishment thing is more understandable. Ben Zobrist, Dustin Pedroia, Howie Kendrick, and Ian Kinsler all appear to be comparable at hitting, but doing a better job fielding; that's probably enough of a judgment call that you can't really fault anyone either way.

For the N.L., Rickie Weeks is more or less comparable to Danny Espinosa at second, and probably a little bit better than his voting rival Brandon Phillips; you can't fault the voters here, though there were other picks they could've made that would've been fine as well. Placido Polanco is probably the only hitter in the entire All-Star game who's a below-average hitter this year, though no other third basemen have distinguished themselves that much (with the exception of Pablo Sandoval, who's played about half the games). I don't think you can really complain about anything at such a weak position. As for the outfield, Andrew McCutchen is clearly the best out there, and it's a bit of a travesty that he's not even on the roster. And there are perhaps half a dozen other outfielders who arguably deserve to be there in lieu of Lance Berkman. But at the same time, I think that's kind of a reasonable pick.

As for the lineups, here's what I'd do based on these rosters. For the American League, Granderson, Cano, Gonzalez, Bautista, Ortiz, Rodriguez, Hamilton, Avila, and Jeter. (Yeah, ninth, that's right. If he's even there.) For the National League, Reyes, Braun, Kemp, Fielder, Votto (as DH), Berkman, McCann, Polanco, and Weeks.