Boiling the Frog
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed: July 12, 2009
Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?
I'm referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of
cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it's in and
is boiled alive. Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot - but never
mind. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real
problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a
bit at a time.
And creeping disasters are what we mostly face these days.
I started thinking about boiled frogs recently as I watched the depressing
state of debate over both economic and environmental policy. These are both
areas in which there is a substantial lag before policy actions have their
full effect - a year or more in the case of the economy, decades in the case
of the planet - yet in which it's very hard to get people to do what it
takes to head off a catastrophe foretold.
And right now, both the economic and the environmental frogs are sitting
still while the water gets hotter.
Start with economics: last winter the economy was in acute crisis, with a
replay of the Great Depression seeming all too possible. And there was a
fairly strong policy response in the form of the Obama stimulus plan, even
if that plan wasn't as strong as some of us thought it should have been.
At this point, however, the acute crisis has given way to a much more
insidious threat. Most economic forecasters now expect gross domestic
product to start growing soon, if it hasn't already. But all the signs point
to a "jobless recovery": on average, forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street
Journal believe that the unemployment rate will keep rising into next year,
and that it will be as high at the end of 2010 as it is now.
Now, it's bad enough to be jobless for a few weeks; it's much worse being
unemployed for months or years. Yet that's exactly what will happen to
millions of Americans if the average forecast is right - which means that
many of the unemployed will lose their savings, their homes and more.
To head off this outcome - and remember, this isn't what economic Cassandras
are saying; it's the forecasting consensus - we'd need to get another round
of fiscal stimulus under way very soon. But neither Congress nor, alas, the
Obama administration is showing any inclination to act. Now that the free
fall is over, all sense of urgency seems to have vanished.
This will probably change once the reality of the jobless recovery becomes
all too apparent. But by then it will be too late to avoid a slow-motion
human and social disaster.
Still, the boiled-frog problem on the economy is nothing compared with the
problem of getting action on climate change.
Put it this way: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the
consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the
central forecast of leading climate models - not the worst-case scenario but
the most likely outcome - is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that
will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present
path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue
of our time.
But it isn't, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an
attention-grabbing crisis. The full dimensions of the catastrophe won't be
apparent for decades, perhaps generations. In fact, it will probably be many
years before the upward trend in temperatures is so obvious to casual
observers that it silences the skeptics. Unfortunately, if we wait to act
until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have
become inevitable.
And while a major environmental bill has passed the House, which was an
amazing and inspiring political achievement, the bill fell well short of
what the planet really needs - and despite this faces steep odds in the
Senate.
What makes the apparent paralysis of policy especially alarming is that so
little is happening when the political situation seems, on the surface, to
be so favorable to action.
After all, supply-siders and climate-change-deniers no longer control the
White House and key Congressional committees. Democrats have a popular
president to lead them, a large majority in the House of Representatives and
60 votes in the Senate. And this isn't the old Democratic majority, which
was an awkward coalition between Northern liberals and Southern
conservatives; this is, by historical standards, a relatively solid
progressive bloc.
And let's be clear: both the president and the party's Congressional
leadership understand the economic and environmental issues perfectly well.
So if we can't get action to head off disaster now, what would it take?
I don't know the answer. And that's why I keep thinking about boiling frogs.
***
From: "Michael W. Hathaway" <mykhalis@gmail.com>
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/11
Practically on the Table
by Ralph Nader
CommonDreams.org: July 11, 2009
A few days ago, a citizen asked the progressive legislator from
California, Congressman Henry Waxman why he took his name off the list
of about Eighty House sponsors of single-payer health insurance? Mr.
Waxman replied: "it [H.R. 676] isn't going to happen."
In early January and last year, Americans who believe in Presidential
accountability for constitutional, statutory and treaty violations
asked Democrats in Congress-"If not impeachment, why not at least a
resolution of censure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?" The uniform
reply was "It's not practical."
These lawmakers-Democrats all, who are the majority in Congress and
who agree with these questioners-keep saying "It's not going to
happen" or "It's not practical."
"It's just not practical" to provide a federal minimum wage equal to
that in 1968, inflation adjusted, which would be $10 an hour.
"It's not going to happen" to get comprehensive corporate reform at a
time when a corporate crime wave and the Wall Street multi-trillion
dollar collapse on Washington, on taxpayers and on the economy is
tearing this country apart. A little regulatory tinkering is all
citizens are told to expect.
"It's just not practical" to give workers, consumers and taxpayers
simple facilities for banding together in associations with their own
voluntary dues to defend these interests in the corporate occupied
territory known as Washington, D.C.
Last year, the excuse was a Bush veto. So the Democrats didn't even
try to advance reforms they believe in, knowing Bush and his
Republican Party would stonewall. What's the excuse this year with
Obama in the White House?
After all, it was only a year and a half ago when nominating and then
electing an African-American President was "not going to happen, was
not practical."
But since it did happen, why aren't these and many other long overdue
beneficial redirections and efficiencies happening for the American
people? Why aren't there rollbacks, at least, of the Bush-driven
inequities and injustices that have so damaged the well-being of
working people?
Why isn't a simpler and more efficient carbon tax more "practical"
than the complex corruption-prone, corporatized cap and trade deal
driven by Goldman Sachs and favored by most Democrats? The avaricious
tax cuts for the super-wealthy are still there.
The statutory ban on Uncle Sam negotiating volume discounts on
medicines purchased by the federal government are still there. Taking
the huge budgets for the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan off their
annual fast track, and putting them a meaningful House and Senate
Appropriations Committee hearing process has not happened.
Face it, America. You are a corporate-controlled country with the
symbols of democracy in the constitution and statutes just that-
symbols of what the founding fathers believed or hoped would be reality.
Even when the global corporate giants come to Washington dripping with
crime, greed, speculation and cover-ups, and demand gigantic bailouts
on the backs of taxpayers and their children, neither the Republicans
nor the now majority Democrats are willing to face them down.
The best of America started with our forebears who faced down those
who told them "it's not going to happen," or "it's not practical" to
abolish slavery, give women the right to vote, elevate the conditions
of workers and farmers, provide social security and medicare, make the
air and water less polluted and so on. These pioneers, with grit and
persistence, told their members of Congress and Presidents-"It is
going to happen."
To paraphrase the words of a great man, the late Reverend William
Sloan Coffin, it is as if those legendary stalwarts from our past,
knowing how much more there is to achieve a practical, just society,
are calling out to us, the people today, and saying "get it done, get
it done!"
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most
recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.
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