USA 1 - 0 Guadeloupe

The US went into the game tonight playing for second place in the group. After Canada’s 1-1 draw with Panama, they end up on four points and Panama on seven. That means that US needed only a draw against Guadeloupe to progress, holding both the head-to-head and goal difference tiebreakers with Canada. A win, however, should be the minimum demanded of the players after their pathetic loss to Panama.

Bob Bradley opted to pair Bocanegra with Goodson in the center of defense with Eric Lichaj coming in to play left back. The only other change from the starting lineups from the previous two games is the replacement of Agudelo with Wondolowski.

The game got off to a cracking start and Guadeloupe should have been up 1-0 inside 5 minutes when Lichaj blocked a shot onto the crossbar. But that was as close as Guadeloupe would come to the American net. The Americans responded immediately, however, and Dempsey forced the Guadeloupe goalie Grandel into his first of many excellent saves from a dipping free kick. Inside 10 minutes Altidore put away the only goal of the game, picking up the ball about 30 yards out, taking a touch, and firing a stunning drive into the top corner. Although it looked as if Grandel might have done better, it was an excellent strike. One hopes that it opens the floodgates for Altidore.

The rest of the first half contained a plethora of chances for the US. Cherundolo and Lichaj did well getting down the flanks, and Wondolowski had some good hold-up play through the middle. Bradley and Jones were spraying the ball all around the field with great aplomb. But the US really should have scored at least one or two more.

One had the feeling the second half might bring the glut of goals many Americans had been waiting for. But the only good chance fell to Dempsey, who hit another brilliant free kick off the crossbar. But that was the only bright spot for Dempsey in what may well have been the worst half he's ever played for the US. Donovan, Dempsey, Wondolowski, and others all missed real sitters.

It's been a tremendously disappointing group stage for the US. If they play like they did in any of these games against Jamaica on Sunday, they'll go out of tournament at the quarterfinal stage. And even if they improve a little bit, there's no way they're going to come close to beating Mexico who have just been fantastic in every game so far.

Man of the Match: Franck Grandel, GK. He was fantastic for Guadeloupe, racking up 9 saves, which didn't include several forays to pick up loose balls or crosses.

Income Inequality

The joys of summer and having nothing to do allowed me the opportunity to finally read all of Timothy Noah's excellent analysis of The Great Divergence, which has, since its publication in September 2010, won the Hillman Prize for magazine journalism for reporting that "fosters social and economic justice." The piece fully merits the prize and if you have time, I suggest reading it in entirety for yourself. I thought I'd offer a brief synopsis and then suggest some relevance given the Republican Presidential Candidates Debate last night.

The great divergence refers to the growing income inequality in the United States. Income inequality refers to the difference between the percentage of income taken in by the wealthy and by the poor. A superficial acquaintance with the last century of American history is probably enough to take a stab at what the charts look like. Income inequality (measured by the income share of the top 10%) was extremely high through the Great Depression (at about 45%), but dropped dramatically during World War II, as many more women entered the workforce and men who previously didn't have access to higher education went to college on the GI Bill. From the 40's through the 70's, income inequality remained fairly stagnant with top 10% income share in the low 30%s. Since that time, however, income inequality has exploded. There were enormous leaps during the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II years, leading to almost 50% of income being concentrated in the wealthiest 10% of all Americans by 2007.

Noah's report on income inequality takes the form of a ten-part series, with part 1 being an introduction and part 10, the conclusion. In parts 2-8, Noah assesses some of the possible explanations for the great divergence, and offers a breakdown of the degree to which each factored into the rapid rise in income inequality. Each of the sections is available individually, so if you want a more complete analysis of any one, please feel free to read the individual sections, but I'll offer Noah's final analysis.

Race/gender: 0%

Immigration: 5%

"Imagined uniqueness of computers as a transformative technology": 0%

Tax Policy: 5%

Decline of Labor: 20%

Trade: 10%

Wall Street "pampering" of the "Stinking Rich": 30%

Education system failures: 30%

The breakdowns of the cause don't necessarily equate to the breakdowns of the solutions. For example, tax policy could in fact have consequences on things such as Wall Street's pampering of the Stinking Rich, and government policy could well have an impact on the decline of labor. In essence, everything on the list can be controlled by some form of government policy. So now let's take a step back to last night, and think about some of the Republican ideas for ways to stimulate the economy.

One proposal was the removal or halving of the capital gains tax. A capital gain taxes income from investments such as stock dividends, mutual funds, hedge funds, money markets, and all sorts of other advanced things I don't really understand. Of course, you have to have a lot of money to have more than a negligible amount of capital gains. While the tax on short term capital gains is identical to the income tax rate, the tax on long term capital gains is already significantly less than the income tax rate for the same income bracket. Cutting the capital gains tax, then, is equivalent to cutting taxes on a large source of income for the wealthiest segment of the American population.

Another key point articulated over and over again by Republicans last night was that the government should stop regulating Wall Street. Of course, if the pampering of Wall Street executives is one of the primary causes of income inequality (as Noah suggests), then if the government has a vested interest in reducing income inequality, regulating compensation to Wall Street executives (especially those of failing companies) doesn't seem like the worst idea.

Republicans have also been long-time opponents of organized labor, but this issue has been thrust into the spotlight again recently because of the high profile case in Wisconsin. But if the decline of labor is one of the biggest factors of the great divergence, then shouldn't the government be looking to encourage organized labor rather than break it apart?

In short, most of the major economic policies of the Republican field expressed last night will not only fail to end the great divergence, they will encourage its growth. Reducing taxes on the wealthy, in the form of capital gains, estate, or general income tax, will result in the budget deficit becoming even greater, yet Republicans want to cap the ceiling on the national debt. So either there must be enormous cuts in spending or the tax rate on lower and middle income families is going to have to be raised. Even Obama has been drawn into this mess, extending the Bush era tax cuts for everyone, after it had been thought that he would allow them to lapse on the highest two income brackets.

With American society now being more unequal than almost all of its counterparts in the developed world, history has witnessed a 180 degree reversal. Whereas in the early years of the republic, Europeans migrated to America for reasons of social mobility, it would now be logical if the trend shifted, with poor Americans emigrating to a more mobile more equal Europe. If I were to speak the language of politics, I would say that America has forsaken its founding creed as the land of opportunity.

Republican Presidential Candidates Debate

I thought I'd offer some thoughts on tonight's Republican Presidential Candidates Debate. The candidates are Rick Santorum (RS), Michelle Bachmann (MB), Newt Gingrich (NG), Mitt Romney (MR), Tim Pawlenty (TP), Ron Paul (RP), Herman Cain (HC). I'll use those abbreviations to refer to them throughout.

It's impossible to win the nomination this far away from the primaries but it is possible to lose it. I think with that in mind, none of the candidates said anything too outlandish. There were no huge flubs, and despite HC's inexperience, NG's disastrous campaign thus far, and MB's penchant for firebrand rhetoric, everyone seemed to escape relatively unscathed. I think there's a general consensus that the night was pretty good for MR and MB, and that nobody really lost.

With the fact that the candidates did everything in their power to keep from distinguishing themselves from one another tonight, let's look at a few of the moments that stood out.

The question that produced the best responses by far was in regard to HC's comment that he would be uncomfortable with Muslims in his cabinet. He made a fascinating attempt to clarify his comments by stating that he was referencing the Muslims who are trying to kill us, not the loyal ones. Thanks HC, because I really thought that you were going to appoint some terrorists to your cabinet. But if HC's response was bad, Gingrich's was even worse. Gingrich alluded to Nazism and communism and talked about how loyalty tests had done a good job weeding these people out of government. Our country has certainly come a long way indeed if a presidential candidate can make veiled references in support of McCarthyism.

The questions about gay rights also elicited some interesting responses. RP and HC affirmed that decisions about gay rights should be left entirely to the states, with RP going so far as to say that issues of marriage should not have anything to do with the federal government whatsoever. The rest of the candidates were outspoken for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The candidates did differ somewhat as to what to do about the repeal of DADT. HC and RP said they would leave the new Obama policy in tact, NG and MR said they would want to overturn it, RS said people should be punished for engaging in homosexual behavior in the military, and MB thought DADT was still in effect and said it should be continued.

Newt Gingrich's high point of the evening came when talking about illegal immigration. He argued that we've been sucked into a false either/or where we can either treat people humanely and grant amnesty to or deport the estimated 20 million illegal immigrants in the country. He said we can do some of both simultaneously. Gingrich's answer was all the more impressive given that it came on the heels of TP supporting SB1070, RP arguing that a 5 year-old illegal shouldn't receive care in an emergency room, and HC arguing that the children of illegal immigrants born here shouldn't become citizens. It was a generally a question that everyone else scampered to the right on while NG was willing to identify it as a more complex issue.

The real name of the game tonight seemed to be who can hit Obama the hardest. While I understand their desire to distance themselves from Obama's policy, some of the blows seemed to be especially harsh given that some of the candidates currently hold elected office in Congress and have to work with Obama. I wouldn't want to work with people who said things like that about me. It was more indicative of the partisanship in this country than it was of a serious intellectual debate on differing conservative ideas.

The best moment of the night by far came during the last commercial break, when there was an advertisement for medicine to help ease constipation - as if the product's marketing department knew that listening to seven Republicans blathering on about the horrible state of the economy and Obama's leadership for two hours would be enough to make anyone constipated.

Oh, and if you like trees... or flowers... or animals... or clean air... or clean water... don't vote for MB. She wants to dismantle the EPA entirely.

The Right To Die

Dr. Jack Kevorkian's unfortunate recent death has unsurprisingly reinvigorated discussions about end-of-life decisions. This seems an appropriate legacy for a man who knowingly sacrificed years of his life to prison to stimulate discussion about an issue he cared about deeply. As a paragon of dedication to the cause of intellectualism, Kevorkian's work merits thoughtful reflection (and hopefully discussion) here.

In the wake of his passing, Ross Douthat wrote an article praising American society for jailing Kevorkian. "It should make us proud of our country that he would... find himself in prison, where murderers belong." Douthat's position is not uncommon - many people find Kevorkian's work abhorrent. The question is why.

Douthat offers a reframing of the debate about doctor assisted suicide. He claims that free will rather than humanitarianism is the linchpin of the argument. Douthat suggests that "even when death is inevitable and inevitably painful, it is not considered merciful to prescribe an overdose to a cancer victim against her will, or to gently smother a sleeping Alzheimer's patient." I think this is a dangerous statement from Douthat; he conflates ignorance with opposition. In the two examples provided here, the patients have not been consulted. They are ignorant to the fact that someone has thought of ending their lives. This represents a third distinct category from those who have expressed a desire to die and those who have expressed a desire to live. I believe this class of people, especially those who cannot express such desires, merits further consideration. Nevertheless the focus of this piece is on those who express the desire to die.

Douthat seems to think that his reframing of the debate sufficiently demonstrates his point, that doctor assisted suicide is bad. The "not hypothetical slippery slope" envisioned by Douthat is one that would allow MS patients and quadriplegics and manic depressives and "devastated widowers" to affirm a right to die. Why yes, Ross, it would. It seems tremendously silly to think that we have a right to life enshrined int he Declaration of Independence, but we don't have a right to death. In fact, Douthat is suggesting that we don't have a right to life at all; it is an obligation.

Imagine if some of our other rights operated like this. There would be no plea deals in the judicial system - we would be obliged to trial by jury. We would all own firearms. We would have an obligation to freely assemble and to express our views. We would be obligated to petition the government. Evidently, Douthat's argument is that an individual life is not one's own. Life is apparently so valuable that the government can prohibit the choice to end one's own. This raises an interesting scenario in that the government will kill people who don't want to die while prohibiting those who do want to die from taking their own lives.

The ending of one's own life is a serious decision - not one to be taken lightly, and so there could be procedures in place to ensure that people were not doing so indiscriminately. There could be a psychological evaluation required to ensure the patient was not suffering from some treatable mental illness. There could be a waiting period to ensure that the patient had sufficient time to think through this option and all its alternatives.

We live in a society in which the most basic individual right is denied. Is it because taking one's own life is unnatural? Well, so are transplants, surgeries, and medicine. We will extend your life, we will take it for you if you commit heinous crimes, but if you want to end it yourself, you're out of luck. The only thing more ironic would be if the penalty for attempted suicide were death.

Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton

After having had the misfortune of choosing this match to sit down and watch in its entirety (only the second time I have been able to do so for Liverpool this season), I thought I would offer my thoughts on what must surely be one of the most abject performances in Liverpool's Premier League history.

To call them bad would be a disservice to Wolverhampton, who are bad. Liverpool were much worse than bad. In fact, "downright awful" doesn't begin to approach an adequate characterization of their display. Liverpool were found wanting in every single possible component available for categorization. The defending was calamitous. Reina was floundering on crosses consistently and probably should have saved the one goal (he got the angle wrong and was slow to come out). The passing was pathetic. Sadly Javier Mascherano is more capable of unlocking a brilliant pass than any of the members of Liverpool's midfield today and he is a purely destructive midfielder. And on the few occasions when Liverpool got the opportunity to attempt at shot, the shooting was woeful. Raul Meireles, Ryan Babel, and David N'Gog were all culprits in this regard.

And I have not yet begun on Roy Hodgson. I do believe that Hodgson should be given time to fashion the team in his own image. He is, after all, still playing with Benitez's players, but he should not be exempt from criticism for this performance. In the first half, Liverpool were absolutely inadequate. Wolverhampton pressed them high up the field, and I'll bet that Pepe Reina attempted as many passes as anyone else wearing red. To get around a high-pressing defense, a team must play at pace. This is a correction that should have happened at halftime. Instead, Liverpool came out for the second half playing exactly the same. Unsurprisingly, they were punished after catastrophic defending let Stephen Ward score his first ever Premier League goal, and his first goal at all in over three years. And why wasn't Maxi Rodriguez included? He's been one of the few consistently positive performers for Liverpool this season.

And I haven't even mentioned yet that going into this match, Wolverhampton were bottom of the table. They had taken only 1 point out of a possible 24 on the road this season. Wolverhampton were also playing on only two days rest after losing at home to Wigan on Boxing Day. How much worse can it get? Well, Liverpool play sixth-placed Bolton at home before a three game run of away matches that sees them visit ninth-placed Blackburn and eight-placed Blackpool either side of a trip to Old Trafford. If Liverpool play as horribly as they did today, I'd be surprised if they get more than a solitary point from those four fixtures. The pressure is on as well, as West Ham, Wigan, and Wolverhampton, the Ws of the relegation zone, have all won at least one game of the festive fixture feast and Liverpool are sitting just three points above the drop zone.

I simply cannot imagine what the American owners are thinking as they try to make sense of Liverpool's needs. If they watch the footage of today's game, they'll be thinking they need at least eleven new players.