"Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000."

Did anybody else see this article in the NYT, and does anyone else find it extremely aggravating?

You Try to Live on 500K in This Town

"The total costs here, which do not include a lot of things, like kennels for the dog when the family is away, summer camp, spas and other grooming for the human members of the family, donations to charity, and frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity, are $790,750, which would require about a $1.6-million salary to compensate for taxes. Give or take a few score thousand of dollars."

I understand it's jokey, but one of the students here pointed out that it displays an insider's wink/nod that really does beg sympathy. So . . . now we are to pity the people who ran the world economy into the ground because Obama says they have to trade their 3/4 of a million dollar lifestyle for a 1/2 million dollar lifestyle? Most of the people I meet these days still work for under $12 per hour.

UNRELATED: Anyone out there know a simple HTML trick for indenting lines in Blogger?

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Back in Xela

Not posting until I can get ahold of my photos, but I thought I'd post something because I think my mom thinks I died. Hi Mom.

Krugman's latest on the stimulus. Not looking pretty.

"Mr. Obama’s postpartisan yearnings may also explain why he didn’t do something crucially important: speak forcefully about how government spending can help support the economy. Instead, he let conservatives define the debate, waiting until late last week before finally saying what needed to be said — that increasing spending is the whole point of the plan."

The basic point of the article is that Obama went too soft, which allowed Senate Republicans to take ahold of the bill and remove the immediately effective measures, replacing them with permanent tax cuts that pass money right back up to the top. I smell the rotten '90's coming back around.

During the campaign a lot of far-lefty doom/gloom types were recasting the tired doom/gloom mantra that X Democratic candidate is "just a Republican in disguise." What Krugman seems to be saying instead is that Obama has been chilling in the Dem doghouse for far too long, where he has maybe learned to be completely ineffective at taking control of a debate?

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"Ultimo dia del monstruoso"

The folks that run the school (and the folks that drive the taxis, and work in the restaurants, and walk through the park) have all been counting down the final Bush days for the last two weeks.

Went last night with fellow student Emily for a celebratory dinner, along with her teacher, her host family, and their son's friend. Wonderful people. The father, Saul, (who is also a teacher) gave a nice toast about how the rest of the world is also happy "to see Obama realize the dream of Martin Luther King."

Later on I asked if Guatemalans really felt any sort of hope about Obama, and they all assured me that people are really hopeful and excited. I asked if they had reservations, because I am a skeptic and I never trust the things people tell me. Saul said, of course. We are hopeful about Obama but we know this economic system is a problem.

Anyway, related, something promising about trade policy by Laura Carlsen of Mexico City's Americas Program. I know nothing about her or her organization, but it was an interesting read about the likelihood of a NAFTA renegotiation under Obama. Carlsen recognizes that we're all guessing at this point, but notes right away that Obama recently told President Calderon that we need to revise labor and environmental standards in the agreement. I thought this part was super interesting:

The industrial policy that Obama outlined clashes ideologically and legally with NAFTA and other free trade agreements. It hasn't been lost on the rest of the world that the U.S. government is adopting measures such as massive subsidies and bailouts that it has sought to deny developing countries under free-trade rules. Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect refers to this as "the sin of committing industrial policy" and warns that it's only a matter of time before a trade partner registers a suit against Obama's anti-crisis measures. This would be an excellent opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of our trade policies and chart a new course.

Anyway, a Canadian student here tells me that Canadian companies have been suing the US for years over timber duties illegal under NAFTA, so maybe that snippet is not that interesting after all. But it's worth a read if you've got a few minutes.

I think we can all agree . . .

. . . that each of the last eight years was even shittier than the one before it. Whoever Obama ends up being, I'm looking forward to watching the entire world ridicule the outgoing creep for at least a good twenty years.

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"Obama es muy amable."

Well, I am planning to get a cable for my camera soon, at which point I will post photos, most of which are not actually that interesting. In the meantime, here is a photo my friend Rajni sent me of us playing croquet with her family this Thanksgiving. You can tell by the looks on our faces that we were pretty much destroying the competition.
Actually you can´t really see our faces.

Met up with my host family yesterday: Consuelo (matriarch), Eduardo (brother), Ivan (son), and Milagro (granddaughter). Was quickly conscripted into helping Eduardo change the light bulb in the room where I´m staying. I held up the ladder while he leaned on me and climbed up. Almost lost my footing against the bed and dropped him. Mili (Milagro) made me listen to the ocean inside of a seashell for twenty minutes. She´s really into feeling my hair and my beard and describing the difference. Then she makes her grandmother do the same. She´s six.

I´ve had several conversations about Obama - everywhere I go people want to talk about el moreno. Consuelo is really happy about him and talks about how hopeful Central Americans are about Obama. It´s hard for me to see what Obama has ever said that bodes well for Latin America, partly because he kept his cards so close to himself during the election. Mostly really vague platitudes about changes in trade policy, but most people seemed to think those changes would require unraveling just about every trade agreement out there, which seems unlikely. But I have a hard time communicating that even in English though, so for the time being I just agreed with her. Once I brush up on my Spanish I´m going to try to explain how Obama is more like a cancer, or an autoimmune disease like AIDS or lupus. (See yesterday´s post.)

Without fail, the following comments are a part of every conversation I´ve had so far.

1. "Guatemala is a very poor country."
2. "The U.S. takes all of Guatemala´s oil."
3. "Guatemala is run by narcotraffickers."


Also, it took 540 dead Palestinians and several Israelis, but looks like the U.S. has finally joined in calls for an end to the attack on Gaza. My friend Rishi sent me this today, and I thought it made some interesting points about the need for moderates on both sides to find common ground, even as they disagree about the situation during the last several days. Personally I´m more critical of Israel since they have the planes, but I think this is appropriately conciliatory, and the underlying logic here seems hard to dispute:

¨And all the well-meaning organizations following the Status Quo Rules, thinking they are serving their side, are really only prolonging the crisis.¨

Off to lunch.