This Is Not The Way Forward

Lately, we're getting a bit desperate for topics to discuss that don't make us sound too much like an unhinged foaming partisan hack. It's not easy. We're very excitable around this blog.

Still, sounding like you're a few screws short of marching out of a fifteenth-story window is really not the way to appeal to a broad demographic of readership. Although, quite frankly, it would be quite the feat for our readership to go any lower. Perhaps if we closed our eyes when posting?

So over the next few weeks, we'll discussing some calmer, more cerebral topics that don't get us all in a lather. That's right. You're about to be treated a rational Strawman Blogger.  Probably. At least until such a time as we go off our meds.

We'll start with Libya. We're calm about Libya. Partially because we're an insular, narrow-minded American with a shaky grasp of geography, but mostly because it's a messy regional conflict, and it's unlikely that anyone in America would be dim enough to needlessly entangle themselves in a war with no clear good guys, uncertain prospects, and no clear timeline for resolution.

What's that? Eh? Oh.

We really cannot fathom the mindset that has led the administration to believe that lobbing cruise missiles over sky of north Africa is a good idea, other than that we have some lying around and someone thought it would be fun. But as a military tactic? That kind of assumes that the one thing preventing the rebels from sweeping into power in Western Libya is a Tomahawk strike. Call us unconvinced.

Now, it's entirely possible that proper air support will do a world of good for the rebels. As our wiser friends have pointed out, it's not like Ghaddafi's army is exceptionally large or well-organized, and the fact that a fair portion of it consists of the local hired help is unlikely to improve long-term morale. But historically, air campaigns have not been terribly successful at disloding committed opponents. Battle of Britian, Kosovo, and ect. and so on. As it turns out, it is difficult to occupy a country with an F-22.

Apart from the success of the campaign, we really question the point of getting involved in the first place. Look, people. War sucks. It sucks a little bit for a lot of people, and it sucks much much worse for the few people we ask to do all the fighting. All in all, it's something to be avoided as much as possible.

But if the goal is important, and if it helps secure American interests, than sometimes the dirty work becomes necessary dirty work. And as the saying goes, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.

So the question remains: Is Libya important to America? If so, then why are we wasting our time faffing about with cruise missiles when something more direct is required? And if it's not - well, why are we still faffing about with cruise missiles?

The answer, of course, is that it's easy. Americans are not highly bothered when a bomb lands on the head of a civilian, provided it does so outside a comfortable several thousand mile radius. But they are very bothered when American soldiers are put in harms way. To avoid stressing anyone out, our default option becomes an expensive air campaign of questionable merit, even if it's not likely to produce any good result, simply because no one is going to object.

So there you go. We do, of course, hope it all works out for the best. Previous comparisons aside, Quaddafi is not terribly well entrenched. But it does make one wonder.

A Moment Of Bipartisanship

You want to know what’s awesome? Congress. 64 senators just wrote a letter to the White House begging the president to take the lead in reducing the deficit. Yes! That president! The executive head of the United States who's involvement in passing legislation involves a) signing it, or b) asking Congress to pass it so he can sign it.

The Senate, on the other hand, used to be the body we regularly trusted with passing laws. And sixty four (64!) Senators have signed this, in spite of the fact that you could not normally get more than eight to agree on pizza toppings.

Let's put this into perspective. Enough Senators have signed this letter that they could have drafted deficit-reducing legislation, voted on it, and passed it. It is enough Senators to defeat an anti-deficit-reducing filibuster. It is nearly enough Senators that, by the time the deficit-reducing bill arrived on the president's desk, it would have been veto-proof. It is actually just two Senators short of the number needed to impeach the president if he irritated them. It's really quite a lot of Senators.

So an adult might wonder why a filibuster-proof, almost veto-proof supermajority of elected officials trusted with the authority to pass laws is spending their time writing fan mail rather than, you know, actually doing something about the deficit. But then we would not be treated to the infinitely redeeming spectacle of sixty-four grown members of congress begging for an intervention like a hopeless crack addict. This is what makes America great.

The Bookstores! Won't Someone Please Think Of The Bookstores

We've nothing but respect for Ezra Klein, but this is odd.

Borders probably can't be saved. But what about Barnes and Noble? Over at GigaOm, Michael Wolf argues that they're going to need a radically different model if they're to survive: "In the collapsing world of books, it’s every man for himself, and its time for B&N to accelerate its push into becoming a digital publisher."

Right. So we're pathologically lazy, and didn't really want to take the time to research the current size of the e-book market - not that anyone likes to disclosure their sales figures, anyway. A year-old Forrester research study will have to do. A quick and dirty look at their projections suggest around 5 million consumers. Fine.

Let's put that in perspective. How big is the book trade? Again, we turn to 2009 numbers of questionable veracity: 23.9 billion. E-books pulled in a respectable $313 million.

Hang on a tick. Just north of $300 million? Even if we postulated that the e-book market increased ten-fold in the intervening two years, they'd still comprise somewhere north of 10% of total sales¹. That's big, but it's not THAT big.

It's also assuming a zero-sum situation - at least one of the studies we read suggested that owning an e-reader increased the number of books read, but didn't decrease paperback sales.

Curiouser and curiouser. We're no trained retailer, but it's possible a market the size of the e-book could destroy a company. It just seems unlikely. While we usually promise not to source the Wall Street Journal, we'll make the exception and direct you here. Their take, at least, is that problems facing Borders are a bit more traditional - $1.29 billion in liabilities and intense competition from online retailers. One assumes the recession didn't help.

Anyway. All of this is to say two things: There is no collapsing world of books.  When a book moves to an e-reader, it doesn't disappear. It moves onto a new medium. That's a good thing!

And while book sales might be down, so are sales in everything else. Toyota had to be rescued by the Japanese government back in 2008. That doesn't mean we face the collapsing world of the car.

Border's bankruptcy wasn't driven by the e-book, although it probably didn't help. It was driven by a crap economy and a lot of debt, plus stiff competition from a very efficient online retailer. Eventually the e-reader will own the market - just not quite yet.

 ¹Yes, this is an unedifying miscarriage of basic mathematics. We do not bother to dwell upon the expected market size or the commiserate decline in paper book sales. Forgive us.