The Leading Indicators author Zachary Karabell takes on consumer sentiment surveys, and casts doubt on their usefulness. “Yet after decades of these surveys, the link between them and actual behavior remains tenuous at best. … People seem quite capable of being anxious about the world and spending money at the same time, and equally capable of feeling confident and saving.”
Join Karabell for a live author chat (sub. req.) tomorrow at noon Eastern.
I’ve read a number of articles and posts over the last twenty-four hours which have crystallized and also shaped my view that we should be approaching the crisis in Ukraine with more caution and deliberation than we currently are. As I wrote at the outset, you have to really squint hard to see Putin and Russia’s current position as one of strength or one in which he’s improved his position over what it was a month ago, a year ago or even five years ago.
One of the big questions so far in this crisis has been the stance of Germany, which was at first oddly silent in its response and then more leaning toward constructive dialog than confrontation. I was struck by a reader email to Andrew Sullivan’s site in which the reader notes the striking contrast not just between German and US press reaction but the different historical metaphors they’re employing. Here, as we know, everything is World War II, appeasement and containment, if not necessarily explicitly reference to the Nazis and Hitler. In Germany, however, they’re focused on 1914 and the onset of the World War I, a relatively minor crisis pushing the great powers of the day to stumble into a cataclysmic war that destroyed virtually all the losing states and debilitated the survivors.
Jack Conway, who previously I had known for his prominent fight to make for-profit colleges more accountable in Kentucky, explained to Sahil Kapur his reasoning in refusing to defend the state’s anti-gay law: “I thought long and hard. I thought about the arc of history.”
It seems as if they’ve been such unserious contenders for so long that candidates make it into the runoff election who say things like, “I mean this president has continued the policies of supporting Nazis in Ukraine…That’s what he’s doing right now.”
Arizona state Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Democrat who is running for Congress, just came out as gay. He said the anti-gay bill that was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer was a “game-changer” for him.
If you’re wondering what just happened in the Senate, Sahil Kapur explains why members of the president’s own party torpedoed a top civil rights nominee at the Department of Justice.
Pope Francis suggests he’s open to civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.
Not that the Pope hasn’t given us some forewarning. He’s not endorsing it exactly. And he’s making clear that it’s not marriage, which is between a man and a woman. But, c’mon, the Catholic Church drives a pretty hard line in some cases about when opposite sex couples can get married (i.e., post divorce). So this is a pretty big deal.
Fascinating letter from TPM Reader RS (and one of the many reasons I love email channel with readers, going strong for more than thirteen years ) …
A bit of background- my family immigrated from Kiev to Philadelphia in 1992 during the last great wave of Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union. I was 10 years old. As you can imagine, my feelings towards modern Ukraine are quite mixed and probably somewhat contradictory. We still have friends and family in Kiev, and while my grandparents continued to visit almost annually while their health allowed, my parents have never gone back even once. My sole visit back was in 2009, which simultaneously served to strengthen my connection to my place of birth and dramatically increase the appreciation I have of the all the substantial benefits of being an American.
Chairman Issa says his IRS investigation may have hit a “dead end.”
The Texas tea party may not have won any federal nominations last night, but Ed Kilgore points out that they’re winning at something much more important: Moving the Republican party to the right.