So, longtime readers of this blog/Twitter followers of mine will know that I'm a little bit crunchy and green compared to your average Republican. I'm pretty rabid about recycling. I drive a clean diesel car that gets 50 mpg on road trips. I buy a lot of organic. I buy our bath and many of our personal hygiene products at the Body Shop because I worry about animal testing. I like taking the DC metro and Amtrak, instead of driving or flying, respectively (well, except for when there are massive delays).

But I am also a rabid free-trader, having grown up in a state that is very dependent on overseas trade, especially with Asia, and being a believer that free trade enables Americans to have access to widely marketed goods that are cheaper than they otherwise would be, and promotes investment that ultimately raises standards of living elsewhere (which has a whole range of knock-on benefits I won't even begin to get into here; you can read about them on your own time).

So, consider me someone who's not particularly impressed on two counts when I read this in today's Politico Morning Tech:

NEW TARIFFS ON SOLAR TECH -- The Commerce Department is set to unveil new tariffs on solar technology imported from China this afternoon in a case that has the industry on tenterhooks. The anti-dumping duties will be the second Commerce has imposed on solar tech from China; the first tariffs, countervailing duties announced in March, were lower than expected and eased tensions slightly between the U.S. and Chinese industries. While domestic manufacturers are hoping the tariffs will help their panels compete with cheaper Chinese tech, solar developers and installers - the majority of U.S. solar jobs - fear increased prices will hurt the solar industry overall.

Awesome.

So, the Obama administration has recently been trying to cultivate a more pro-free-trade image with Obama signing into law free trade deals and such.

And God knows they've been promoting the heck out of green energy and urging us all (and our utilities) to use it more-- which, you know, kind of depends on the affordability of it since installing solar panels isn't an investment like buying a new fridge for most people or businesses (both in terms of the fridge being perceived as being cheaper, and because people think more about the freshness of their milk than they do saving the environment, as a general rule).

So what do they do? Institute new tariffs that will discourage purchase and installation of a key green technology that the administration supposedly wants people to use.

#FAIL. ...
>> more

For the past couple of years, I've been banging on a bit about how changes in women's role in society potentially have impacted, and stand to impact, our economy, culture, and so on (and the impact they're having on the relevance of certain political debates involving what we have traditionally come to refer to as "women's issues"-- something that, by the way, increasingly strikes me as a rather outdated, outmoded and not particularly meaningful term).

In this Atlantic piece, some of these changes are discussed rather extensively, pushing the question alluded to in the title-- are we facing the "end of men" in some or any respect(s), or will we be?

This piece from the WSJ last week is a must-read, and similarly begs some questions about what our society-- and gender roles-- might look like in 20 years.  

Young women, who have already passed young men in education, are now more career-driven as well, according to a survey released Thursday.Young women, who have already passed young men in education, are now more career-driven as well, according to a survey released Thursday.

About two-thirds of women between ages 18 and 34 cited a high-paying career among their top life priorities, compared with just 59% of young men, the Pew Research Center in Washington said. That was a reversal from 1997, when 56% of women rated a high-paying career high on their list of priorities, less than the 58% of men surveyed back then, according to Pew. The research is based on phone surveys of 1,181 women and 1,308 men.

The Pew survey suggests women's growing economic power is upending long-standing perceptions of work, marriage and family—though not at the expense of raising children. Indeed, while young women now put a higher value than men on their career, roughly six in 10 women ages 18 to 34 said being a good parent was one of the most important things in their life. That was up 17 percentage points from 1997.

Women "are not saying they want career success at the expense of these other things," said Kim Parker, associate director of Pew Social and Demographic Trends.

Women may also be responding to the reality that in many cases they will be bigger contributors to their family income than their mothers were. Though men still make more than women, their median earnings have been stagnant since the 1970s, adjusted for inflation, putting an increasing share of families' financial burden on women.

[...]

Women have long been accumulating economic heft, accounting for 47% of the nation's overall labor force, up from about a third in 1960. Young women first eclipsed men in college attainment in the early 1990s, and the gap has grown wider. About 44% of women 18 to 24 were enrolled in college or a graduate program in October 2010, compared with 38% of men the same age.

According to the Pew survey, a much smaller share of women between ages 35 and 64 say having a prosperous career is among the most important things to them.

I don't have a particular conclusion to reach here except to say that goodness, things certainly have changed over the past 30 years, and this trend is probably another reason why, when in a political context I discuss so-called "women's issues" with my mother and others of her generation, I feel like we're operating distinctly not on the same wavelength. It is also one thing that likely explains why I continue to be deeply uncomfortable with political discourse that focuses on fixing our economy or our society or our culture (or insert another appropriate ill here) by resuscitating policies that worked 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. Not only are policies like that likely to already be rather outdated, how much more outdated could they appear to be in five or ten years' time? I fear the inevitable answer there is "quite a bit."

It would be nice to believe that the economic challenges we've been facing over the past few years are purely cyclical (we have ideas that have been tested for dealing with those). But I suspect they are in many cases structural, and I think changes like those that we're seeing where gender roles and characteristics-- like relative levels of ambition, educational pursuits, and entrepreneurship levels-- are concerned add an extra layer of complexity when we're thinking about the nature of the problem(s) we face and how (or perhaps even whether) we attempt to fix (all of) them. 

No real conclusions; just a bit of food for thought, and a general note that the times they are a'changin... ...
>> more

The gubernatorial race is well underway in Washington, with Jay Inslee having left Congress last week in order to focus full-time on running to replace outgoing Gov. Christine Gregoire, and Rob McKenna running while, well, continuing to do his job as Washington’s Attorney General. This week, as it happens, perhaps offers something of an indicator of the nature of the contest, with thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who tipped me off to a couple of interesting tidbits.

Beginning tonight, McKenna’s Presidential Initiative Summit, “Pillars of Hope – Attorneys General Unite Against Human Trafficking” (a 3-day National Association of Attorneys General meeting) gets underway at the Seattle Westin. The summit continues through Friday, focusing on indentifying methods of combating sex and labor trafficking.

Meanwhile Friday lunchtime, Inslee will be attending a fundraiser hosted by California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom at the Sheraton in downtown Seattle. This follows a fundraiser earlier this month with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (Inslee raising money with Spitzer being something bound to tick off a few readers, given the circumstances in which Spitzer exited his job as governor).

Serious business aimed at combating a real social ill versus light-hearted socializing with big names in party politics to propel one’s political career is what this will read as to some political observers, I imagine—unfortunately for Inslee.

Now this is not to say that raising money isn’t important. It is, especially if you’re a Democrat running in a blue state who is, despite that, facing a race that many expect to be competitive and anticipating a strong challenge from a Republican. This is moreover the case when you think about the expense associated with advertising in the Seattle media market, something that Inslee looks like he’s going to have to do, and not on the cheap, either.

But it is also something that is likely to cause a few chuckles among some Washington political types (in both parties) who, to put it kindly, don’t universally view Inslee as much of a workhorse (whereas, say, retiring Rep. Norm Dicks, for whatever else you or I might say, does seem to have been viewed pretty consistently as a hard worker) or the most humble and suck-it-up-and-do-your-job type of Washington political figures. ...
>> more