When children throw a temper tantrum, they usually end up breaking something. Mom's dishes or dad's sports memorabilia isn't quite on the level of the US Economy.
Republicans are far more likely to oppose raising the debt limit than anyone else; they say don’t raise it by 61-25. Republicans, however, also believe overwhelmingly that not raising it would cause serious economic harm — by 66-27.
At least we now have confirmation as to just how fucked up the Right is there days.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Mutually Assured Destruction
Two men with concealed-carry weapon permits shot each other dead in Michigan in a road-rage incident.
Witnesses tell WZZM 13 one driver was following another driver too closely. The first driver pulled into the Wonder Wand Car Wash parking lot and the other driver followed him into the lot.These weapons sure did a bang-up job protecting these two guys. I bet this makes you feel so much safer.
Witnesses say the driver of the following car fired shots, and the first driver returned fire. Both drivers were shot and killed. Authorities say both men had licenses to carry concealed weapons.
Back in the day nuclear Armageddon loomed over us: the Mutually Assured Destruction of two gigantic nuclear arsenals pointing at each may have prevented World War III. There's no incentive to shoot first if you know that your entire country will be wiped out.
But the small-scale Mutually Assured Destruction of handguns provides no such protection. The mindset is that whoever shoots first wins. Obviously, this is a failed strategy: you need to shoot the other guy in the back proactively in order to really protect yourself.
Welcome to the nightmare world of the NRA.
First Star To The Right, Straight On Until Morning
This recent piece in the Times about Voyager I leaving our solar system filled me with melancholy. What happened to our country's spirit of exploration? One of my criticisms of the president is his continued belief that the space program should be privately funded. Honestly, I'm not sure I want to see a future that looks like the Aliens universe. I'd rather it be more like Star Trek.
Think about what Voyager will see as it leaves our solar system after having traveled 11.7 billion miles. It's simply mind boggling!
From the article...
Dr. Gurnett and his team have spent the past few months analyzing their data, trying to nail down whether what they were seeing was solar plasma or the plasma of interstellar space. Now they are certain it was the latter, and have even pinpointed a date for the crossing: Aug. 25, 2012.
I have to admit that part of me is wondering if some alien ship will snap it up and transmit a message back to us.
Think about what Voyager will see as it leaves our solar system after having traveled 11.7 billion miles. It's simply mind boggling!
From the article...
Dr. Gurnett and his team have spent the past few months analyzing their data, trying to nail down whether what they were seeing was solar plasma or the plasma of interstellar space. Now they are certain it was the latter, and have even pinpointed a date for the crossing: Aug. 25, 2012.
I have to admit that part of me is wondering if some alien ship will snap it up and transmit a message back to us.
We Dodged a Bullet in 2008
Back in the days of the Soviet Union, there were two main Russian newspapers: Pravda ("Truth"), which was the official organ of the Communist Party, and Izvestiya ("News"), which was the official organ of the government.
These ironic names elicited a popular saying: "In Pravda there is no news, and in Izvestiya there is no truth."
Both of these publications still exist, though there are two versions of Pravda: one is still the Communist Party organ, and the other is just a Russian news website.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article in the The New York Times arguing against an American strike on Syria to avenge gas attacks on Syrian civilians, Putin articulated many of the same arguments that most Americans already believed. Though Putin's article was obviously slanted, it was relatively tame, stating many obvious truths, and even co-opted conservative Republican language, ending with, "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."
John McCain apparently saw Putin's article as a direct slap in the face, as it completely gutted every argument McCain had made for attacking Syria. McCain complained bitterly about the Times letting Putin speak to the American people, saying that Russian citizens don't have the right to criticize Putin in their own country.
So a Russian website took McCain up on that, and his article has now appeared in Pravda.ru. McCain's column ripped Putin a new one. Where Putin's article was a reasoned argument against American intervention in Syria and a call for peaceful decommissioning of Syria's weapons of mass destruction, McCain's article was a petty, personal diatribe against Putin. It had nothing to do with Syria, and made no case whatsoever for an American strike against Assad. McCain had to personally attack Putin because the Russian president dared criticize McCain's entire ethos of attacking any country that he feels like.
In the end, the publication of McCain's article showed that his main argument was false: people can criticize Putin in Russia. McCain only made himself sound like a maniacal blowhard, compared to Putin's smooth arguments calling for peace and reasoned cooperation. Which is bad, because many of McCain's criticisms of Russia are dead on. His pettiness discredits himself and the arguments he is trying to make.
And it turns out McCain published his article in the wrong Pravda: it appeared on the website Pravda.ru, not the Communist Party's Pravda. The editor of the Communist daily called Pravda.ru "Oklahoma City Pravda." Not that it really matters, because the Communist Party no longer controls the Russian government: Putin's party is called United Russia, and holds more than 50% of the seats in the Duma. It's basically a collection of plutocrats bent on self-enrichment, rather than Communist ideologues who use the Party apparatus for self-enrichment. A subtle, yet important, difference.
What we have here is another example of John McCain's overweaning egomania. The only reason McCain was ever considered a "maverick" is that he has always felt the need to exact revenge from anyone he felt wronged him, even erstwhile political allies. For example, George Bush unfairly trashed McCain in the presidential primaries in 2000, so McCain got his revenge by cosponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.
And how seriously did McCain take the whole Syria debate in the first place? Apparently, not very: he was playing poker on his iPhone during the Foreign Relations committee meeting on Syria.
All this shows that the American people really got it right when they rejected John McCain in 2008. This guy is egotistical, unbalanced and monomaniacally bent on attacking any country that crosses him. As president McCain would have gotten us back into Iraq, and he would have started three more wars in Libya, Iran and Syria. In short, he is the last guy you would want to have the nuclear football.
At this point, even die-hard Republicans have to agree that we almost literally dodged a bullet when Obama beat McCain in 2008.
These ironic names elicited a popular saying: "In Pravda there is no news, and in Izvestiya there is no truth."
Both of these publications still exist, though there are two versions of Pravda: one is still the Communist Party organ, and the other is just a Russian news website.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article in the The New York Times arguing against an American strike on Syria to avenge gas attacks on Syrian civilians, Putin articulated many of the same arguments that most Americans already believed. Though Putin's article was obviously slanted, it was relatively tame, stating many obvious truths, and even co-opted conservative Republican language, ending with, "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."
John McCain apparently saw Putin's article as a direct slap in the face, as it completely gutted every argument McCain had made for attacking Syria. McCain complained bitterly about the Times letting Putin speak to the American people, saying that Russian citizens don't have the right to criticize Putin in their own country.
So a Russian website took McCain up on that, and his article has now appeared in Pravda.ru. McCain's column ripped Putin a new one. Where Putin's article was a reasoned argument against American intervention in Syria and a call for peaceful decommissioning of Syria's weapons of mass destruction, McCain's article was a petty, personal diatribe against Putin. It had nothing to do with Syria, and made no case whatsoever for an American strike against Assad. McCain had to personally attack Putin because the Russian president dared criticize McCain's entire ethos of attacking any country that he feels like.
In the end, the publication of McCain's article showed that his main argument was false: people can criticize Putin in Russia. McCain only made himself sound like a maniacal blowhard, compared to Putin's smooth arguments calling for peace and reasoned cooperation. Which is bad, because many of McCain's criticisms of Russia are dead on. His pettiness discredits himself and the arguments he is trying to make.
And it turns out McCain published his article in the wrong Pravda: it appeared on the website Pravda.ru, not the Communist Party's Pravda. The editor of the Communist daily called Pravda.ru "Oklahoma City Pravda." Not that it really matters, because the Communist Party no longer controls the Russian government: Putin's party is called United Russia, and holds more than 50% of the seats in the Duma. It's basically a collection of plutocrats bent on self-enrichment, rather than Communist ideologues who use the Party apparatus for self-enrichment. A subtle, yet important, difference.
What we have here is another example of John McCain's overweaning egomania. The only reason McCain was ever considered a "maverick" is that he has always felt the need to exact revenge from anyone he felt wronged him, even erstwhile political allies. For example, George Bush unfairly trashed McCain in the presidential primaries in 2000, so McCain got his revenge by cosponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.
And how seriously did McCain take the whole Syria debate in the first place? Apparently, not very: he was playing poker on his iPhone during the Foreign Relations committee meeting on Syria.
All this shows that the American people really got it right when they rejected John McCain in 2008. This guy is egotistical, unbalanced and monomaniacally bent on attacking any country that crosses him. As president McCain would have gotten us back into Iraq, and he would have started three more wars in Libya, Iran and Syria. In short, he is the last guy you would want to have the nuclear football.
At this point, even die-hard Republicans have to agree that we almost literally dodged a bullet when Obama beat McCain in 2008.
Good Words
“Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”
~John Adams, (“A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88))
Look To Your Right
If you look to your right, you will see that I have a new contact form on the site. This replaces the old email contact which got lost at the bottom of the page and I think disappeared for awhile when I went through my last redesign. I've had a few emails of late from people who don't want to comment but would like to send me information to share on the site if we so desire. Likely, there are others so this note will go directly to my email. Speaking of which...
I've had more than a few emails regarding my Neighborhood Mental Watch post from Tuesday. Interestingly, many of them told me that they already have community organizations like it in place where they live and have had them since Columbine. One email suggested that, rather than start a new organization, we should simply add it in to the already effective Neighborhood Watch program. After all the support George Zimmerman enjoyed in tracking suspicious characters, one would think that keeping an eye in mentally ill people with guns would spark a bipartisan bonanza of neighborhood vigilance, right?
It seems like it would be easier to take what the Lemmers did with their son and Pete Hoffmeister suggested we all do with troubled young men and fold it into the already existing USAonWatch program. Certainly, it would address the more common problem of gang violence in addition to shooting sprees. Our president sets a great example of what a community organizer can do so why not follow his lead?
I've had more than a few emails regarding my Neighborhood Mental Watch post from Tuesday. Interestingly, many of them told me that they already have community organizations like it in place where they live and have had them since Columbine. One email suggested that, rather than start a new organization, we should simply add it in to the already effective Neighborhood Watch program. After all the support George Zimmerman enjoyed in tracking suspicious characters, one would think that keeping an eye in mentally ill people with guns would spark a bipartisan bonanza of neighborhood vigilance, right?
It seems like it would be easier to take what the Lemmers did with their son and Pete Hoffmeister suggested we all do with troubled young men and fold it into the already existing USAonWatch program. Certainly, it would address the more common problem of gang violence in addition to shooting sprees. Our president sets a great example of what a community organizer can do so why not follow his lead?
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Good Words
“The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” ~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by John Adams
On Stiglitz: Part Eight
The next chapter in Stiglitz's book, The Price of Inequality, is called "The Battle of the Budget." Written around the time of the 2011 budge battle (see also: When the Right Lost the 2012 Election Due to Moonbattery), it's frustrating that in 2013 we are still having the same fight and have not progressed.
This budget brinksmanship obscured the real economic challenges facing the country: the immediate problem posed by the high level of unemployment and the gap between the economy's potential output and its actual output, and the long term problem of growing inequality. The brinksmanship shifted attention away from these fierce problems to the issues of deficit and debt reduction.
Stiglitz describes this shift as being caused by what he terms " debt and deficit feitishists." Ironic that these people ignored the actual causes of our debt and deficit and, instead, ascribed the cause to their emotional feelings (see: psychosis) about government spending. I'll get to spending later but as he notes correctly, the four main causes of our debt and deficit are: the Bush Tax Cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Medicare D (a huge rent for the drug companies) and the underperformance of the economy itself due to contraction. The figures for each of these causes are: $3.3 trillion dollars, $2.5 trillion dollars, $500 billion dollars, $900 billion dollars. Given that we have made some small improvements in the tax structure earlier this year, these numbers aren't quite as bad anymore but they still illustrate the need for improvement.
But we still have a fundamental and systemic problem with our tax structure. The people that contribute the least to our economy (the financial sector) are taxed at a ridiculously low rate for the amount of money they make. As Stiglitz notes, the lower tax rates on capital gains did not lead to higher, sustainable growth but rather, two speculative booms (1997, early 2000s) in the technology sector and the housing sector.
Bush argued successfully in 2003 for a (temporary) cut on the tax on dividends, to a maximum of 15 percent, less than half the rate paid by someone who receives a comparable income in the form of wages and salaries. The claim was that it would lead to more investment by firms in plant and equipment, but it didn't. Arguably, it may have had the opposite effect. Firms were, in effect, encouraged to pay out dividends while the tax rates were low, leaving fewer funds inside the corporation for a good investment project, should have turned up.
Stiglitz goes on to argue the need for stiffer taxes on rents and how we need to put more taxes on the toxic things in our economy. He makes a very interesting point that considering the fact that the financial sector nearly brought down the world economy, they are "polluters" and need to be taxed accordingly. For those of you unfamiliar with basic economic theory, taxing good things distorts markets and can do harm. Taxing bad things corrects the erosion of consumer surplus and inefficiency of markets due to the public expense of something like pollution. The public has born a great deal of expense as a result of the financial collapse and the people in those markets should be taxed at a higher rate.
In addition, the financial sector (along with many other sectors of our economy ), no longer need subsidies. It continually amazes me that the Right argues vociferously for less social welfare but wants corporate welfare to continue in earnest. The tax breaks we give to the multi-billion dollar oil industry are ridiculous.
So, Stiglitz has six action items in regards to our tax system'
1. Raise taxes on the people at the top
2. Eliminate loopholes and special treatment for upper incomes
3. Eliminate subsidies
4. Tax rents at higher rate
5. Tax pollution
6. Tax the financial sector similar to the ways we tax pollution given the costs they impose on the rest of society.
As I stated above, the deal on the budget reached earlier this year is a beginning down this path but it's not enough.
Now, seeing the word "tax" is sure to cause the mouth foamers' blood to rise. They will caterwaul and bloviate about how it hurts businesses and they won't hire people but they are pushing a myth, which is a polite way of saying they are lying, as Stiglitz notes on page 225. Suppose you own a business and calculate that hiring a worker will yield you a return of $100,000. $50,000 of that will go to costs the firm has to pay (including taxes, salary, other costs etc). This leaves a profit of $50,000. Now, you had to pay an extra tax of $2500 (5 percent) on that employee, would you still hire? Of course you would. Taxes don't prevent people from hiring if there is profit involved. What prevents people from hiring is a lack of demand (discussed many times on this site) which would push that $100,000 figure downwards. If they don't have the business coming through the door, they won't hire.
Moving past the issue of revenue, let's turn our attention to spending. Stiglitz argues for more spending to really get the economy going again. He dismisses the deficit/debt fetishes and notes...
The United States is an especially good position to pursue this strategy, both because returns to public investments are so high, as a result of underinvestment for a quarter of a century, and because it borrow so cheaply long term. Unfortuneately, especially among the Right (but, even, alas, among many in the center) deficit fetishism has gained ground. The ratings agencies-still trusted despite their incredibly bad performance in recent decades-have joined in the fray, downgrading US debt. But the test of the quality of debt is the risk premium that investors demand. As the book goes to press, there is a demand for US T-bills at interest rates near zero (and, in real terms, negative)
Exactly right. The fetishists don't get to determine the quality of our debt. The free market does. It simply isn't justified on the basis of economic principles. Stiglitz goes on to note that economic stimulus can be achieved through a long standing principle called the balanced budget multiplier (increasing taxes and expenditures simultaneously while taking care to not add any more to the current deficit). He argues that if this happens, GDP would increase two to three times the rate of spending. This growth would decrease the national debt over the intermediate term (pages 217-218).
But won't all this spending make us "like Greece?" No, says Stiglitz...and everyone else who doesn't let their emotions about spending dictate policy (side note: why is it that the Right cite power hungry human nature as the reason why people in the government should not be allowed to spend money yet believe, in the same head, that people are little angels when they make financial decisions privately?). Greece owes money in euros of which they have no direct control. US debt is in dollars and we control the printing presses. The idea that we would default is pure moonbattery. Sure, you'll hear bloviating about inflation but, again, the free market does not see that happening.
One can infer that both from the very low interest rate that the government has to pay on its long-term debt and even more from what it has to pay for inflation-protected bonds (or more accurately, the difference between the returns on ordinary bonds and inflation protected bonds). Now, the market could be wrong, but then the rating agencies giving a downgrade to the United States should have explained why the market was wrong, and why they believed that there is a much higher risk of inflation than the market believed. The answers have not been forthcoming.
Likely because it was politically motivated. The United States knows that the Fed will buy government bonds. Greece has no idea if the ECB will buy their bonds at all. Essentially what's going on here is that the adolescents are playing make believe and saying that there is less faith in the US government than there actually is. Considering they are big believers in the free market, this makes no sense to me.
Some other bits from the chapter...
Reagan supply side economics, which held that lowering tax rates would increase economic activity, so much so that tax revenues would actually increase, has (as we noted in chapter 3) been disproved by what happened after both the Bush and the Reagan era tax cuts.
Ah, but we should never let reality get in the way of a good fantasy, right?
No deficit reduction group suggested a frontal attack on corporate welfare and the hidden subsidies (including the financial sector) that we've stressed in this book, partly because the Right has succeeded in convincing many Americans that an attack on corporate welfare is "class warfare."
Of course, when Reagan said it, it was okey-dokey.
Regarding Social Security and Medicare...
In the most hopeful scenarios, the Right would privatize both services. Privatization, of course, is based on yet another myth: that government run programs must be inefficient, and privatization accordingly must be better. In fact, the transaction costs of Social Security and Medicare are much, much lower than those of private sector providing comparable services. This should not come as a surprise. The objective of the private sector is to make profits-for private companies, transaction costs are a good thing; the difference between what they take in and what they pay out is what they want to maximize.
Social Security and Medicare can be fixed quite easily with very simple adjustments phased in over time (increasing retirement age, means testing etc). Unfortunately, no one in Congress seem willing to move towards that end. Privatization is absolutely the wrong answer and we all know the real reason why the Right wants to get their hands on that money. As Stiglitz notes..
The agenda for privatization of Social Security was not about providing more money to America's retirees or more security or about increasing efficiency. It was about one thing only: providing more money to the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent-more money to Wall Street. The magnitudes involved are potentially enormous. Think of the $2.6 trillion in the Social Security Trust fund. If Wall Street could get just 1 percent per year for managing that money, that would be an extra bonanza for the managers of $26 billion dollars a year.
It's about as obvious as the smell of pig shit.
Stiglitz round out the chapter with a discussion of how the Right likes to blame the victim (in this case, the middle class) for our economic woes. Cuts in wages reduce economic demand so, again, it makes no sense to blame your average worker, especially considering how well the wealthy have done despite the contraction. On the last few pages of the chapter he offers a scathing indictment of austerity (pages 230-231) as well as an evisceration of the myth of the failed stimulus (page 232)., explaining in detail just how awful it would have been had we not had it and how the Obama administration failed to note just how deep the hole was that we dug ourselves.
He challenges anyone to find historical examples of austerity actually working in more than just rare cases in countries that are small and had trading partners experiencing a boom. He blows apart the myth of how a government budget should be like a household budget. Considering that the former can change the macro-economy and the latter counter, one would think the differences are obvious.
So, as this latest round of budget battles gets underway, Stiglitz is correct when he says government spending can be very effective. Funds directly spend on high productivity, structural reform, and basic infrastructure will increase productivity which will include an increase in demand. One need only look at examples from the past like Grand Coulee Dam or the current return on government investment in research to see that this is true.
(Note: the link to The Price of Inequality in the first line of this post takes you to Amazon.com where you can look inside and read the entire book and source material)
This budget brinksmanship obscured the real economic challenges facing the country: the immediate problem posed by the high level of unemployment and the gap between the economy's potential output and its actual output, and the long term problem of growing inequality. The brinksmanship shifted attention away from these fierce problems to the issues of deficit and debt reduction.
Stiglitz describes this shift as being caused by what he terms " debt and deficit feitishists." Ironic that these people ignored the actual causes of our debt and deficit and, instead, ascribed the cause to their emotional feelings (see: psychosis) about government spending. I'll get to spending later but as he notes correctly, the four main causes of our debt and deficit are: the Bush Tax Cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Medicare D (a huge rent for the drug companies) and the underperformance of the economy itself due to contraction. The figures for each of these causes are: $3.3 trillion dollars, $2.5 trillion dollars, $500 billion dollars, $900 billion dollars. Given that we have made some small improvements in the tax structure earlier this year, these numbers aren't quite as bad anymore but they still illustrate the need for improvement.
But we still have a fundamental and systemic problem with our tax structure. The people that contribute the least to our economy (the financial sector) are taxed at a ridiculously low rate for the amount of money they make. As Stiglitz notes, the lower tax rates on capital gains did not lead to higher, sustainable growth but rather, two speculative booms (1997, early 2000s) in the technology sector and the housing sector.
Bush argued successfully in 2003 for a (temporary) cut on the tax on dividends, to a maximum of 15 percent, less than half the rate paid by someone who receives a comparable income in the form of wages and salaries. The claim was that it would lead to more investment by firms in plant and equipment, but it didn't. Arguably, it may have had the opposite effect. Firms were, in effect, encouraged to pay out dividends while the tax rates were low, leaving fewer funds inside the corporation for a good investment project, should have turned up.
Stiglitz goes on to argue the need for stiffer taxes on rents and how we need to put more taxes on the toxic things in our economy. He makes a very interesting point that considering the fact that the financial sector nearly brought down the world economy, they are "polluters" and need to be taxed accordingly. For those of you unfamiliar with basic economic theory, taxing good things distorts markets and can do harm. Taxing bad things corrects the erosion of consumer surplus and inefficiency of markets due to the public expense of something like pollution. The public has born a great deal of expense as a result of the financial collapse and the people in those markets should be taxed at a higher rate.
In addition, the financial sector (along with many other sectors of our economy ), no longer need subsidies. It continually amazes me that the Right argues vociferously for less social welfare but wants corporate welfare to continue in earnest. The tax breaks we give to the multi-billion dollar oil industry are ridiculous.
So, Stiglitz has six action items in regards to our tax system'
1. Raise taxes on the people at the top
2. Eliminate loopholes and special treatment for upper incomes
3. Eliminate subsidies
4. Tax rents at higher rate
5. Tax pollution
6. Tax the financial sector similar to the ways we tax pollution given the costs they impose on the rest of society.
As I stated above, the deal on the budget reached earlier this year is a beginning down this path but it's not enough.
Now, seeing the word "tax" is sure to cause the mouth foamers' blood to rise. They will caterwaul and bloviate about how it hurts businesses and they won't hire people but they are pushing a myth, which is a polite way of saying they are lying, as Stiglitz notes on page 225. Suppose you own a business and calculate that hiring a worker will yield you a return of $100,000. $50,000 of that will go to costs the firm has to pay (including taxes, salary, other costs etc). This leaves a profit of $50,000. Now, you had to pay an extra tax of $2500 (5 percent) on that employee, would you still hire? Of course you would. Taxes don't prevent people from hiring if there is profit involved. What prevents people from hiring is a lack of demand (discussed many times on this site) which would push that $100,000 figure downwards. If they don't have the business coming through the door, they won't hire.
Moving past the issue of revenue, let's turn our attention to spending. Stiglitz argues for more spending to really get the economy going again. He dismisses the deficit/debt fetishes and notes...
The United States is an especially good position to pursue this strategy, both because returns to public investments are so high, as a result of underinvestment for a quarter of a century, and because it borrow so cheaply long term. Unfortuneately, especially among the Right (but, even, alas, among many in the center) deficit fetishism has gained ground. The ratings agencies-still trusted despite their incredibly bad performance in recent decades-have joined in the fray, downgrading US debt. But the test of the quality of debt is the risk premium that investors demand. As the book goes to press, there is a demand for US T-bills at interest rates near zero (and, in real terms, negative)
Exactly right. The fetishists don't get to determine the quality of our debt. The free market does. It simply isn't justified on the basis of economic principles. Stiglitz goes on to note that economic stimulus can be achieved through a long standing principle called the balanced budget multiplier (increasing taxes and expenditures simultaneously while taking care to not add any more to the current deficit). He argues that if this happens, GDP would increase two to three times the rate of spending. This growth would decrease the national debt over the intermediate term (pages 217-218).
But won't all this spending make us "like Greece?" No, says Stiglitz...and everyone else who doesn't let their emotions about spending dictate policy (side note: why is it that the Right cite power hungry human nature as the reason why people in the government should not be allowed to spend money yet believe, in the same head, that people are little angels when they make financial decisions privately?). Greece owes money in euros of which they have no direct control. US debt is in dollars and we control the printing presses. The idea that we would default is pure moonbattery. Sure, you'll hear bloviating about inflation but, again, the free market does not see that happening.
One can infer that both from the very low interest rate that the government has to pay on its long-term debt and even more from what it has to pay for inflation-protected bonds (or more accurately, the difference between the returns on ordinary bonds and inflation protected bonds). Now, the market could be wrong, but then the rating agencies giving a downgrade to the United States should have explained why the market was wrong, and why they believed that there is a much higher risk of inflation than the market believed. The answers have not been forthcoming.
Likely because it was politically motivated. The United States knows that the Fed will buy government bonds. Greece has no idea if the ECB will buy their bonds at all. Essentially what's going on here is that the adolescents are playing make believe and saying that there is less faith in the US government than there actually is. Considering they are big believers in the free market, this makes no sense to me.
Some other bits from the chapter...
Reagan supply side economics, which held that lowering tax rates would increase economic activity, so much so that tax revenues would actually increase, has (as we noted in chapter 3) been disproved by what happened after both the Bush and the Reagan era tax cuts.
Ah, but we should never let reality get in the way of a good fantasy, right?
No deficit reduction group suggested a frontal attack on corporate welfare and the hidden subsidies (including the financial sector) that we've stressed in this book, partly because the Right has succeeded in convincing many Americans that an attack on corporate welfare is "class warfare."
Of course, when Reagan said it, it was okey-dokey.
Regarding Social Security and Medicare...
In the most hopeful scenarios, the Right would privatize both services. Privatization, of course, is based on yet another myth: that government run programs must be inefficient, and privatization accordingly must be better. In fact, the transaction costs of Social Security and Medicare are much, much lower than those of private sector providing comparable services. This should not come as a surprise. The objective of the private sector is to make profits-for private companies, transaction costs are a good thing; the difference between what they take in and what they pay out is what they want to maximize.
Social Security and Medicare can be fixed quite easily with very simple adjustments phased in over time (increasing retirement age, means testing etc). Unfortunately, no one in Congress seem willing to move towards that end. Privatization is absolutely the wrong answer and we all know the real reason why the Right wants to get their hands on that money. As Stiglitz notes..
The agenda for privatization of Social Security was not about providing more money to America's retirees or more security or about increasing efficiency. It was about one thing only: providing more money to the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent-more money to Wall Street. The magnitudes involved are potentially enormous. Think of the $2.6 trillion in the Social Security Trust fund. If Wall Street could get just 1 percent per year for managing that money, that would be an extra bonanza for the managers of $26 billion dollars a year.
It's about as obvious as the smell of pig shit.
Stiglitz round out the chapter with a discussion of how the Right likes to blame the victim (in this case, the middle class) for our economic woes. Cuts in wages reduce economic demand so, again, it makes no sense to blame your average worker, especially considering how well the wealthy have done despite the contraction. On the last few pages of the chapter he offers a scathing indictment of austerity (pages 230-231) as well as an evisceration of the myth of the failed stimulus (page 232)., explaining in detail just how awful it would have been had we not had it and how the Obama administration failed to note just how deep the hole was that we dug ourselves.
He challenges anyone to find historical examples of austerity actually working in more than just rare cases in countries that are small and had trading partners experiencing a boom. He blows apart the myth of how a government budget should be like a household budget. Considering that the former can change the macro-economy and the latter counter, one would think the differences are obvious.
So, as this latest round of budget battles gets underway, Stiglitz is correct when he says government spending can be very effective. Funds directly spend on high productivity, structural reform, and basic infrastructure will increase productivity which will include an increase in demand. One need only look at examples from the past like Grand Coulee Dam or the current return on government investment in research to see that this is true.
(Note: the link to The Price of Inequality in the first line of this post takes you to Amazon.com where you can look inside and read the entire book and source material)
The Usual Malarky
The gun community and the Right are foaming at the mouth again about gun free zones after the Navy Yard shooting. As usual, they aren't really thinking. If they allowed anyone to carry a gun in a place like the Navy Yard, then guys like Aaron Alexis, a gun enthusiast with mental health problems, would have free access to roam around as they please. Further, Alexis was going in to kill people no matter what the state of defense in the Navy Yard. This was a very mentally disturbed man who was angry at his employer.
This military directive, issued in February 1992 under George HW Bush, explains the policy of the Department of Defense on Use of Deadly Force and the Carrying of Firearms by DoD Personnel Engaged in Law Enforcement and Security Duties. It is a very reasonable policy that makes perfect sense which is why the gun community hates it.
Speaking of making perfect sense, props to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz for politely asking his customers to leave their guns at home. This comes on the heels of some gun supporters playing a role in "ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners.” I guess there was an incident recently at the Newtown, Connecticut Starbucks. Man, these folks are all class. I love the first photo in the link that shows the woman working on her laptop next to the nutjobs.
Note that Mr. Schultz did not call for a ban on the premises of his stores which means people can still bring guns into Starbuck's. Essentially what he is saying is, "Hey, jack wagons, take your psycho elsewhere."
This military directive, issued in February 1992 under George HW Bush, explains the policy of the Department of Defense on Use of Deadly Force and the Carrying of Firearms by DoD Personnel Engaged in Law Enforcement and Security Duties. It is a very reasonable policy that makes perfect sense which is why the gun community hates it.
Speaking of making perfect sense, props to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz for politely asking his customers to leave their guns at home. This comes on the heels of some gun supporters playing a role in "ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners.” I guess there was an incident recently at the Newtown, Connecticut Starbucks. Man, these folks are all class. I love the first photo in the link that shows the woman working on her laptop next to the nutjobs.
Note that Mr. Schultz did not call for a ban on the premises of his stores which means people can still bring guns into Starbuck's. Essentially what he is saying is, "Hey, jack wagons, take your psycho elsewhere."
Good Words
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
~John Adams, (“A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” 1787-1788)
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Neighborhood Mental Watch
As more information comes out about Aaron Alexis, it's becoming very clear that we, as a nation, are falling short in terms of mental health. Someone that hears voices should not be allowed to own firearms. Period. Yet, as is usually the case now with these shootings, the gun community is falling all over themselves to make sure that none of our nation's gun laws are changed in terms of mental health restrictions. Since we've seen the piles of dead children's bodies won't move them, this latest incident won't either. Further, the Bloombergs and Bradys of the world will be equally as impotent in bringing about change. So, it's time to turn the whole debate on its ear.
I propose bypassing civil law (for the most part) and creating private, community based organizations around the nation that keep an eye out for mentally unwell people and raise a red flag if they own firearms, specifically focusing on young men as they seem to fit the profile of these spree shooters. We can use Bill and Tricia Lemmers, along with suggestions from Peter Brown Hoffmeister, as the models for how to intervene in such situations. Think of it as a Neighborhood Mental Watch.
The structure could be set up in a similar way to MADD or DARE (so we would need to come up with a cool acronym...NMW doesn't really pop...any ideas?) juxtaposed with a local militia. The gun community has their views on militias being allowed to protect local communities. Fine. So will we. It will be staffed by mental health experts, community leaders, retired law enforcement officials, teachers, ministers, and other concerned citizens who will keep on eye out for the next Adam Lanza. Like George Zimmerman patrolling his community for thieves, the Neighborhood Mental Watch will be ever vigilant and seek to keep towns safe.
Perhaps it's time to admit that the gun community is correct. Police are inadequate in terms of providing protecting from criminals. So is the law. It's time to take matters into our own hands.
I propose bypassing civil law (for the most part) and creating private, community based organizations around the nation that keep an eye out for mentally unwell people and raise a red flag if they own firearms, specifically focusing on young men as they seem to fit the profile of these spree shooters. We can use Bill and Tricia Lemmers, along with suggestions from Peter Brown Hoffmeister, as the models for how to intervene in such situations. Think of it as a Neighborhood Mental Watch.
The structure could be set up in a similar way to MADD or DARE (so we would need to come up with a cool acronym...NMW doesn't really pop...any ideas?) juxtaposed with a local militia. The gun community has their views on militias being allowed to protect local communities. Fine. So will we. It will be staffed by mental health experts, community leaders, retired law enforcement officials, teachers, ministers, and other concerned citizens who will keep on eye out for the next Adam Lanza. Like George Zimmerman patrolling his community for thieves, the Neighborhood Mental Watch will be ever vigilant and seek to keep towns safe.
Perhaps it's time to admit that the gun community is correct. Police are inadequate in terms of providing protecting from criminals. So is the law. It's time to take matters into our own hands.
Good Words
"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition… In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.”
~George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793
Monday, September 16, 2013
Another Incident With Alexis
It looks like Aaron Alexis has a real problem with guns (see: not mentally fit to own one). Ah well, 12 people are dead. Who cares? At least there are plenty of other mentally unhealthy people that have their 2nd amendment rights protected by 12 year olds with massive insecurity complexes.
Patience
I wrote this over the weekend before the Navy Yard shooting and planned to post it tonight...
I'm trying to figure out what I hate more after the Colorado recall election of two state senators over their support for new gun safety laws: the usual bloviation from the gun community or the hand wringing from the left that gun control is dead. I think it's the latter.
It's always amazed me how opponents of the gun community (and other conservative causes) cower in the face of defeat. Maybe they should take a page out of the Right's playbook and lie, foam at the mouth, and scream that America is being raped. Nah, they can't do that...sensible people are too reflective and honest!
What they should do is realize that the recall election was actually a failure. They wanted to recall five senators but only got two. The Democrats still have the majority in Colorado. It's amusing that the "liberal media" is spinning this as a loss.
Further, the only thing now that is required in the Great Gun Debate is patience. Eventually, we are going to see something like this on a larger scale within the gun community and all this nonsense will be over. Likely, it will come from the area of mental health as it relates to gun ownership and gun rights groups themselves will be falling all over each other to pass the legislation.
Until it affects them personally, nothing will be done.
As of right now we know that Alexis was a military contractor and a gun enthusiast. He was arrested in 2010 on gun charges (firing his weapon within city limits in Fort Worth). So, how did he get the guns he used in today's shooting? And I thought that mass shooters don't attack gun full zones like a military base...
I'm trying to figure out what I hate more after the Colorado recall election of two state senators over their support for new gun safety laws: the usual bloviation from the gun community or the hand wringing from the left that gun control is dead. I think it's the latter.
It's always amazed me how opponents of the gun community (and other conservative causes) cower in the face of defeat. Maybe they should take a page out of the Right's playbook and lie, foam at the mouth, and scream that America is being raped. Nah, they can't do that...sensible people are too reflective and honest!
What they should do is realize that the recall election was actually a failure. They wanted to recall five senators but only got two. The Democrats still have the majority in Colorado. It's amusing that the "liberal media" is spinning this as a loss.
Further, the only thing now that is required in the Great Gun Debate is patience. Eventually, we are going to see something like this on a larger scale within the gun community and all this nonsense will be over. Likely, it will come from the area of mental health as it relates to gun ownership and gun rights groups themselves will be falling all over each other to pass the legislation.
Until it affects them personally, nothing will be done.
As of right now we know that Alexis was a military contractor and a gun enthusiast. He was arrested in 2010 on gun charges (firing his weapon within city limits in Fort Worth). So, how did he get the guns he used in today's shooting? And I thought that mass shooters don't attack gun full zones like a military base...
Shooting at the Navy Yard
There has been another shooting. Multiple gunmen. We don't know yet if it is home grown or international as of yet. We do that one of the shooters is dead and is identified as Aaron Alexis. One or two others may be at large.
A House With No Rules
It's been pretty obvious for quite some time now that the Right in this country behave like adolescents, specifically 7th graders. Two of the four quarters every year, I amble over to the junior high and teach a block at that level in US History. It is truly remarkable how similar they are to conservatives' words and actions (see: blurting, temper tantrums, bullying, game playing) that I see in that class. Specifically, they have real problems behaving and following the rules they don't like.
This point was driven home recently be a discussion on FB with Reverend Jim. He and I are good friends and do see eye to eye on some issues of the day but he has fully bought into the American Taliban line of thought. Recall that the people calling themselves conservatives these days can be accurately characterized by the following characteristics
Reverend Jim used many of these themes and styles in his assertion that religion was under attack by the state. Interestingly, he used the exact same examples that I have heard from other conservatives (wedding planners not accepting gay people etc). It's almost as if they get their news from the same source...hmmm...
Based on a couple of examples, religion was under attack everywhere...ahhh, the secular state...look out!!! (of course, the exact opposite is true). He employed DARVO and laughingly played the victim card. He seemingly threw out previous complaints about our country being too outraged at everything and became outraged himself (we hate in others what we fear in ourselves). He ignored the words of the founding fathers on the separation of church and state and proceeded to rewrite history. He took issue with a person's right to take to social media and other avenues to call out these businesses as prejudiced. Given his belief in the free market, this made no sense. He was adamant about taking away government power yet failed to realize that doing that would accomplish the exact opposite of what he desired: protection of the rights of the people. In short, he was completely irrational...just like a 7th grader.
The most glaring illustration of this was his disappointment that life wasn't fair and our system of justice isn't perfect. How many times have we told that to our teenagers? Very odd that we have to tell it to adults, especially ones that rail against self esteem culture and too much fairness.
Anyway, the discussion ended when I asked him to present his ideal, in terms of the law. If someone can turn someone away based on their religious beliefs, does that mean businesses can turn away women that aren't submissive? How about other beliefs? If I don't want black people coming in to my business, can I turn them away? Where do we draw the line? As of today, he has not yet responded.
At that point it occurred to me that the Right may not want to draw the line anywhere. One might think they would still like to have laws about murder and stealing. But given how much they love their guns and go into anaphylactic shock over financial regulation, it seems that they don't. Most conservatives take a dim view of police and think that people should just police themselves. Cops are slow and can't be counted on to get there on time. After all, nothing says civic justice like your local Oathkeeper. They have a direct line to what God intended to the law!!
Like the 12-13 year olds in my class, they want a house with no rules. In the same way they rebel against their parents and me, they only want to follow the laws they like which honestly seem like not very many. Like an adolescent that is told to be home by 10pm, they foam at the mouth about paying taxes and view it as stealing. Just like those same conversations with teenagers, the challenge is always the same: if you don't like it, leave. No one is keeping you prisoner here.
I used to think this way when I was their age. And then I grew up. They never did and they put the government in some sort of daddy-mommy role and then proceed to rebel against it, never taking into consideration that human nature is such that we do need laws otherwise people wouldn't behave themselves. The centerpiece of this is civil rights, the very foundation of our society. People should not be refused service because of the color of their skin, their gender, their physical and mental abilities, and their sexual orientation. We don't discriminate in this country. Period.
My entire conversation with Reverend Jim boiled down to his inability to accept the changes that were happening for the betterment of our society. We are constantly improving the way we treat people and that's exactly what we should be doing, especially if we consider ourselves a Christian nation. Jim doesn't get to decide who is better and who is worse in our country. No one does. That's why we have laws.
Maybe someday conservatives in this country will grow the fuck up and accept that simple fact.
This point was driven home recently be a discussion on FB with Reverend Jim. He and I are good friends and do see eye to eye on some issues of the day but he has fully bought into the American Taliban line of thought. Recall that the people calling themselves conservatives these days can be accurately characterized by the following characteristics
- Ideological purity
- Compromise as weakness
- A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism
- Denying science
- Undeterred by facts
- Unmoved by new information
- Fear of progress
- Demonization of education
- Need to control women's bodies
- Severe xenophobia
- Intolerance of dissent
- Pathological hatred of government
Reverend Jim used many of these themes and styles in his assertion that religion was under attack by the state. Interestingly, he used the exact same examples that I have heard from other conservatives (wedding planners not accepting gay people etc). It's almost as if they get their news from the same source...hmmm...
Based on a couple of examples, religion was under attack everywhere...ahhh, the secular state...look out!!! (of course, the exact opposite is true). He employed DARVO and laughingly played the victim card. He seemingly threw out previous complaints about our country being too outraged at everything and became outraged himself (we hate in others what we fear in ourselves). He ignored the words of the founding fathers on the separation of church and state and proceeded to rewrite history. He took issue with a person's right to take to social media and other avenues to call out these businesses as prejudiced. Given his belief in the free market, this made no sense. He was adamant about taking away government power yet failed to realize that doing that would accomplish the exact opposite of what he desired: protection of the rights of the people. In short, he was completely irrational...just like a 7th grader.
The most glaring illustration of this was his disappointment that life wasn't fair and our system of justice isn't perfect. How many times have we told that to our teenagers? Very odd that we have to tell it to adults, especially ones that rail against self esteem culture and too much fairness.
Anyway, the discussion ended when I asked him to present his ideal, in terms of the law. If someone can turn someone away based on their religious beliefs, does that mean businesses can turn away women that aren't submissive? How about other beliefs? If I don't want black people coming in to my business, can I turn them away? Where do we draw the line? As of today, he has not yet responded.
At that point it occurred to me that the Right may not want to draw the line anywhere. One might think they would still like to have laws about murder and stealing. But given how much they love their guns and go into anaphylactic shock over financial regulation, it seems that they don't. Most conservatives take a dim view of police and think that people should just police themselves. Cops are slow and can't be counted on to get there on time. After all, nothing says civic justice like your local Oathkeeper. They have a direct line to what God intended to the law!!
Like the 12-13 year olds in my class, they want a house with no rules. In the same way they rebel against their parents and me, they only want to follow the laws they like which honestly seem like not very many. Like an adolescent that is told to be home by 10pm, they foam at the mouth about paying taxes and view it as stealing. Just like those same conversations with teenagers, the challenge is always the same: if you don't like it, leave. No one is keeping you prisoner here.
I used to think this way when I was their age. And then I grew up. They never did and they put the government in some sort of daddy-mommy role and then proceed to rebel against it, never taking into consideration that human nature is such that we do need laws otherwise people wouldn't behave themselves. The centerpiece of this is civil rights, the very foundation of our society. People should not be refused service because of the color of their skin, their gender, their physical and mental abilities, and their sexual orientation. We don't discriminate in this country. Period.
My entire conversation with Reverend Jim boiled down to his inability to accept the changes that were happening for the betterment of our society. We are constantly improving the way we treat people and that's exactly what we should be doing, especially if we consider ourselves a Christian nation. Jim doesn't get to decide who is better and who is worse in our country. No one does. That's why we have laws.
Maybe someday conservatives in this country will grow the fuck up and accept that simple fact.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)