Amazingly enough, the plot by the Trilateralist-Bilderbergers-Jewish bankers-Illuminati-Zombie Economists-Martians to infiltrate the FBI failed to stop the working class hero to experience a Trumph in the US presidential election, standing up for white industrial workers in the Rust Belt as well as the oppressed workers in casinos and hotels in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Fellow Proletarian leader, Vladimir Putin, has expressed his praise for this triumphant leader on his election. The support of Russian workers, led by worker-oligarch-billionaires, has been expressed as they marched on National Unity Day as they marched in the streets of Moscow chanting "Motherland! Freedom! Putin!" How could the workers of the world be happier?
Barkley Rosser
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Abolish the Electoral College -- Build the General Strike!
Donald Trump told us the election would be rigged. It was. By the DNC, the FBI, the MSM and the slave owners who devised the electoral college swindle. Even Donald J. Trump has called the electoral college a "disaster for a democracy."
There is no reason on earth that the citizens of the United States have to take this reality show beer hall putsch as a done deal. Again, as Donald J. Trump said four years ago, "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!"
From the National Archives and Records Administration:
From the National Archives and Records Administration:
Mid-November through December 19, 2016After the presidential election, the governor of your state prepares seven Certificates of Ascertainment. “As soon as practicable,” after the election results in your state are certified, the governor sends one of the Certificates of Ascertainment to the Archivist.
Certificates of Ascertainment should be sent to the Archivist no later than the meeting of the electors in December. However, federal law sets no penalty for missing the deadline.
The remaining six Certificates of Ascertainment are held for use at the meeting of the Electors in December.
December 13, 2016States must make final decisions in any controversies over the appointment of their electors at least six days before the meeting of the Electors. This is so their electoral votes will be presumed valid when presented to Congress.
Decisions by states’ courts are conclusive, if decided under laws enacted before Election Day.
December 19, 2016The Electors meet in their state and vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots. The electors record their votes on six “Certificates of Vote,” which are paired with the six remaining Certificates of Ascertainment.
The electors sign, seal, and certify six sets of electoral votes. A set of electoral votes consists of one Certificate of Ascertainment and one Certificate of Vote. These are distributed immediately as follows:
- one set to the President of the Senate (the Vice President) for the official count of the electoral votes in January;
- two packages to the Secretary of State in the state where the electors met—one is an archival set that becomes part of the public record of the Secretary of State's office and the other is a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes;
- two packages to the Archivist—one is an archival set that becomes part of the permanent collection at the National Archives and Records Administration and the other is a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes; and
December 28, 2016Electoral votes (the Certificates of Vote) must be received by the President of the Senate and the Archivist no later than nine days after the meeting of the electors. States face no legal penalty for failure to comply.
- one set to the presiding judge in the district where the Electors met—this is also a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes.
If votes are lost or delayed, the Archivist may take extraordinary measures to retrieve duplicate originals.
On or Before January 3, 2017The Archivist and/or representatives from the Office of the Federal Register meet with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House in late December or early January. This is, in part, a ceremonial occasion. Informal meetings may take place earlier.
January 6, 2017The Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes. Congress may pass a law to change this date.
The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the Electoral College vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.
If a State submits conflicting sets of electoral votes to Congress, the two Houses acting concurrently may accept or reject the votes. If they do not concur, the votes of the electors certified by the Governor of the State on the Certificate of Ascertainment would be counted in Congress.
If no Presidential candidate wins 270 or more electoral votes, a majority, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides for the House of Representatives to decide the Presidential election. If necessary the House would elect the President by majority vote, choosing from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each state having one vote.
If no Vice Presidential candidate wins 270 or more electoral votes, a majority, the 12th Amendment provides for the Senate to elect the Vice President. If necessary, the Senate would elect the Vice President by majority vote, choosing from the two candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each Senator having one vote.
If any objections to the Electoral College vote are made, they must be submitted in writing and be signed by at least one member of the House and one Senator. If objections are presented, the House and Senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider their merits under procedures set out in federal law.
Enough with the Pseudo-Social-Scientific Exit Poll Demographic Tea Leaf Sophistry Already!
Did you know that 41% of voters with incomes under $50,000 and 53% of white women voters smoke camels? Neither did I. But there appears to be a trend.
People who may or may not have taken an introductory sociology course and may or may not know how to read a map nevertheless appear to place great faith in the explanatory power of some number that somebody posted in a tweet. I would call it a random number, except that random number has a precise technical meaning. So do the the pseudo-scientific demographic insights that emerge from exit polls. The technical definition of the latter is data junk.
Would you like to learn how to lose at bean bag? It's easy if you try:
People who may or may not have taken an introductory sociology course and may or may not know how to read a map nevertheless appear to place great faith in the explanatory power of some number that somebody posted in a tweet. I would call it a random number, except that random number has a precise technical meaning. So do the the pseudo-scientific demographic insights that emerge from exit polls. The technical definition of the latter is data junk.
Would you like to learn how to lose at bean bag? It's easy if you try:
- First, imagine you are playing eleven-dimensional chess.
- Second, let "data" determine your next move.
- Third, define "data" as some number you saw on twitter.
- Fourth, if all else fails, concede.
Politics is not beanbag.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Welcome to the Amusement Park at the Edge of the Abyss
I tried to tell them. I really did. I wrote a letter to Paul Krugman that he never replied to. I carried on an email exchange with Jonathan Portes, who graciously indulged my ignorant, obviously fallacious opinions. I nattered at Brad DeLong, who blocked me on twitter. I posted to EconoSpeak. All to no avail. Knee-Oh-Liberal Uber Alles...
The experts were not even wrong. They didn't know what they were talking about. They just copied from one another, assuming the guy they were copying from had the right answer. But that guy was just copying from somebody else...
On June 24, the day after the Brexit vote, I wrote:
Here is the thing... on July 3, I asked, "Why Are Experts Ignoring Voters?" correcting the title of an LSE blog post that wondered why voters were ignoring experts, as if it was the voters job to listen to the experts and not the other way around.
Then on August 31, I asked "Did Jonathan Portes Cause Brexit?" I answered my own question by concluding that he probably didn't because probably nobody paid much attention to him.
But my point in all this is that the BOGUS "lump-of-labor fallacy" is a weapon of mass destruction that can do tremendous harm in the wrong hands and the "experts" irresponsible handling of this canard insured that it would get into the wrong hands.
In another post from June 24, I quoted Ann Petifor:
To the great dismay of the experts, the voters were not grateful. Thanks, experts, you did this.
The experts were not even wrong. They didn't know what they were talking about. They just copied from one another, assuming the guy they were copying from had the right answer. But that guy was just copying from somebody else...
On June 24, the day after the Brexit vote, I wrote:
So it turns out the establishment telling people they are a bunch of foolish xenophobes is not an effective electoral strategy. I wonder if the DNC is paying attention? I doubt it.It turns out the DNC was not paying attention. I was not surprised.
Here is the thing... on July 3, I asked, "Why Are Experts Ignoring Voters?" correcting the title of an LSE blog post that wondered why voters were ignoring experts, as if it was the voters job to listen to the experts and not the other way around.
Then on August 31, I asked "Did Jonathan Portes Cause Brexit?" I answered my own question by concluding that he probably didn't because probably nobody paid much attention to him.
But my point in all this is that the BOGUS "lump-of-labor fallacy" is a weapon of mass destruction that can do tremendous harm in the wrong hands and the "experts" irresponsible handling of this canard insured that it would get into the wrong hands.
In another post from June 24, I quoted Ann Petifor:
If, as a result of Brexit, the economy crashes it will not vindicate the economists, it will simply illustrate once more their failure.The big secret consensus behind "free trade" agreements, flexible labor market policies, austerity and expedited immigration is the professional faith of economists that wages are too damn high, that lower wages will be good for GROWTH and growth is good. Wage earners are not supposed to notice or, rather, are supposed to be grateful for the bounty that the restriction of their wages has unleashed.
To the great dismay of the experts, the voters were not grateful. Thanks, experts, you did this.
Monday, November 7, 2016
It Is Monday Before Election Day And WaPo VSPs Whining About Social Security Yet Again
Robert J. Samuelson, of course, although he is only one, but I suspect backed up by the usual editorial gang at the Washington Post today. Dean Baker has already taken him out on various aspects of his ridiculous post, but I shall pile on a bit more with some items Dean did not hit on.
So RJS posed that he was going to be above the fray and discuss two issues supposedly not discussed by the candidates during the campaign. One was indeed old age entitlements, especially Social Security, but let me start with the other, not covered by Dean. That is immigration reform.
Well, on the face of it, Samuelson's claim that they did not discuss it is just totally bogus. It has been one of the most discussed of all issues by Donald Trump from the day he announced when he denounced Mexican immigrants as "rapists." His promising to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it has been one of the most common memes of his entire campaign to the point that the Mexican peso moves up and down against movements in Trump's poll numbers. It is one of the few issues where he has had a more or less consistent position, despite some occasional zigs and zags. He hates immigrants, especially illegal ones, but pretty much all of them, especially if they are minorities, especially Muslims and Latinos.
Now it is true that Clinton has talked about it less than he has, but she has had a clear policy position on it and has mentioned the issue on a not too infrequent basis, if not as much as Trump, including today in her final ad, which had it as one of the four issues she is touting on the last day before the election. It is hardly being ignored by either of them.
Regarding analysis of this, at least RJS is not too unreasonable. He supports the Clinton proposals adding only that there be an E-enforcement of not hiring illegal immigrants.
Ah, but more of the article was about the old bugaboo, old peoples' entitlements, listed as Social Security, Medicare, and nursing home support under Medicaid. So, he mostly repeated old tales, most of them shown the door well by Dean Baker today. What else is there to say?
Well, I note that RJS mentioned two specific policy changes he thinks should be part of the new intergenerational "social contract": raising the retirement age and reducing benefits for higher income people. Starting with the second, this would be a foot in the door to undermining long run support for Social Security, if higher income people came to view Social Security as "welfare for the undeserving poor," rather than as social insurance that covers them also.
As for raising the retirement age, this is supposed to be something to help young people against the supposedly rapacious old farts. But the hard political reality is that it will not be imposed on those nasty old boomers (and certainly not on the already retired). If the past raising of the retirement age (which he also wants for Medicare and the Medicaid stuff) is any guide, it will be imposed on much younger people, proabably tail-end boomers and more so on Gen-Xers and Millennials, the people whom he claims are to be helped by all these "reforms" he and the usual gang of VSPs keep pushing. That this claim of helping young people is totally hypocritical somehow never seems to occur to Samuelson or his pals.
Needless to say, he says not a word about the possibility of raising fica taxes, even though polls have consistently shown solid support for this if need be. As it is, simply raising the income cap if necessary would be an easy way to go, and would stick it to the higher income folks without undermining their support for the system the way that explicitly cutting their benefits would.
I will give RJS one point on this. This issue has indeed not been talked about much by the candidates, and clearly his and the more general VSP frustration here has been that the talk is now if anything about increasing benefits, at least from Clinton. RJS has admitted that even Trump has mumbled occasionally about this, although as with many issues his views on it are murky. But he has at least been clear that he does not support any cuts in benefits. So, the poor VSPs are left with neither candidate saying much about this and certainly not openly supporting their agenda. Tears are just gushing out of my eyes in sympathy for them on this (not).
Barkley Rosser
So RJS posed that he was going to be above the fray and discuss two issues supposedly not discussed by the candidates during the campaign. One was indeed old age entitlements, especially Social Security, but let me start with the other, not covered by Dean. That is immigration reform.
Well, on the face of it, Samuelson's claim that they did not discuss it is just totally bogus. It has been one of the most discussed of all issues by Donald Trump from the day he announced when he denounced Mexican immigrants as "rapists." His promising to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it has been one of the most common memes of his entire campaign to the point that the Mexican peso moves up and down against movements in Trump's poll numbers. It is one of the few issues where he has had a more or less consistent position, despite some occasional zigs and zags. He hates immigrants, especially illegal ones, but pretty much all of them, especially if they are minorities, especially Muslims and Latinos.
Now it is true that Clinton has talked about it less than he has, but she has had a clear policy position on it and has mentioned the issue on a not too infrequent basis, if not as much as Trump, including today in her final ad, which had it as one of the four issues she is touting on the last day before the election. It is hardly being ignored by either of them.
Regarding analysis of this, at least RJS is not too unreasonable. He supports the Clinton proposals adding only that there be an E-enforcement of not hiring illegal immigrants.
Ah, but more of the article was about the old bugaboo, old peoples' entitlements, listed as Social Security, Medicare, and nursing home support under Medicaid. So, he mostly repeated old tales, most of them shown the door well by Dean Baker today. What else is there to say?
Well, I note that RJS mentioned two specific policy changes he thinks should be part of the new intergenerational "social contract": raising the retirement age and reducing benefits for higher income people. Starting with the second, this would be a foot in the door to undermining long run support for Social Security, if higher income people came to view Social Security as "welfare for the undeserving poor," rather than as social insurance that covers them also.
As for raising the retirement age, this is supposed to be something to help young people against the supposedly rapacious old farts. But the hard political reality is that it will not be imposed on those nasty old boomers (and certainly not on the already retired). If the past raising of the retirement age (which he also wants for Medicare and the Medicaid stuff) is any guide, it will be imposed on much younger people, proabably tail-end boomers and more so on Gen-Xers and Millennials, the people whom he claims are to be helped by all these "reforms" he and the usual gang of VSPs keep pushing. That this claim of helping young people is totally hypocritical somehow never seems to occur to Samuelson or his pals.
Needless to say, he says not a word about the possibility of raising fica taxes, even though polls have consistently shown solid support for this if need be. As it is, simply raising the income cap if necessary would be an easy way to go, and would stick it to the higher income folks without undermining their support for the system the way that explicitly cutting their benefits would.
I will give RJS one point on this. This issue has indeed not been talked about much by the candidates, and clearly his and the more general VSP frustration here has been that the talk is now if anything about increasing benefits, at least from Clinton. RJS has admitted that even Trump has mumbled occasionally about this, although as with many issues his views on it are murky. But he has at least been clear that he does not support any cuts in benefits. So, the poor VSPs are left with neither candidate saying much about this and certainly not openly supporting their agenda. Tears are just gushing out of my eyes in sympathy for them on this (not).
Barkley Rosser
Celebrating The 99th Anniversary
of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia that happened on November 7, 1917 (October 25 on the then in place Julian calendar, hence the "October" in the title). It is true that since 2005, it has not been an official holiday in Russia, displaced by November 4 as "National Unity Day" (which celebrates Russia overthrowing Polish rule of Moscow in 1613), with people marching in Moscow this past Friday declaiming "Rodina! Svoboda! Putin!" (Motherland! Freedom! Putin!). But that holiday lets people off for a week, so those who like the older officially defunct holiday still get a holiday and can celebrate there as they please. And while Putin may be officially anti-communist, not only his past as a communist Soviet KGB agent, but his ongoing efforts to rehabilitate that great communist leader, Joseph Stalin, show his true sentiments (maybe).
Anyway, unfortunately, while it looked like we might have been on the verge of a worldwide socialist revolution on this anniversary, that prospect appears to have been squashed. It looked like a great tribune of the working class might win the presidency, a leader of strikes against exploitative owners of casinos and hotels in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, was on the verge of winning the US presidency. That this champion and genuine leader of the international proletariat was near taking power could be seen by the fact that since James Comey's letter of October 28 that gave this heroic candidate a push against a total tool and paid lackey of capitalist Wall Street, US stock markets had experienced their longest sustained slide since 1980, and global stock markets were also sliding in anticipation of this possible world socialist revolutionary takeover. But then the conspiracy to infiltrate the FBI by Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, Jewish bankers, Freemasonic Hocus Pocus Agents, Illuminati, Zombie Economists, and Martians succeeded in forcing Comey to undo his heroic efforts and reverse course.
Now we see that the global capitalists are triumphant with stock markets around the world soaring as their flunky tool prepares to take control of the White House. All the working class can do on this sad anniversary is cry, or perhaps march in the streets of Moscow praising Motherland!, Freedom!, and Putin!.
Barkley Rosser
Anyway, unfortunately, while it looked like we might have been on the verge of a worldwide socialist revolution on this anniversary, that prospect appears to have been squashed. It looked like a great tribune of the working class might win the presidency, a leader of strikes against exploitative owners of casinos and hotels in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, was on the verge of winning the US presidency. That this champion and genuine leader of the international proletariat was near taking power could be seen by the fact that since James Comey's letter of October 28 that gave this heroic candidate a push against a total tool and paid lackey of capitalist Wall Street, US stock markets had experienced their longest sustained slide since 1980, and global stock markets were also sliding in anticipation of this possible world socialist revolutionary takeover. But then the conspiracy to infiltrate the FBI by Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, Jewish bankers, Freemasonic Hocus Pocus Agents, Illuminati, Zombie Economists, and Martians succeeded in forcing Comey to undo his heroic efforts and reverse course.
Now we see that the global capitalists are triumphant with stock markets around the world soaring as their flunky tool prepares to take control of the White House. All the working class can do on this sad anniversary is cry, or perhaps march in the streets of Moscow praising Motherland!, Freedom!, and Putin!.
Barkley Rosser
Understanding the “Left” Opposition to a State Carbon Tax
I’ve been dutifully reading the op-eds and campaign essays by people opposing I-732, Washington State’s carbon tax initiative, trying to understand what they’re missing. Obviously, emotions are running hotter because of the state’s budget crisis, ultimately a product of its horrible revenue system. And there is no question that 732 is flawed in fundamental respects, mainly because of its misguided attempt to return carbon revenues via tax cuts. But the issue opponents of 732 have seized on is not the inefficiency of using the tax system for returning carbon money, but the principle of revenue recycling itself. They view the carbon tax as a necessary and valuable new revenue source and accuse 732 supporters of being enemies of social justice for trying to return it. If their public statements are to be believed, returning carbon money is no more than a cynical play for the votes of pro-business conservatives and serves no other purpose. How to explain their inability to understand the case for recycling?
Well, I think I may have figured it out, or at least I have a hypothesis. It goes like this:
For PR purposes, environmentalists have sold carbon taxes on the basis of a moralistic interpretation of the “polluter pays” principle: companies that generate carbon emissions should pay for their sins. I can understand why they do this, and I’m sure it polls well and comes out favorably in focus groups. Nevertheless, it’s based on an incomplete representation of how the price mechanism operates. Yes, a tax on manufacturers or energy companies will initially be paid by them, but most of it will be passed along to consumers, as logic dictates it should be. After all, it is not just a few companies, but all of us whose economic choices need to be shifted. You can see this already in the taxes levied on various “sin” products. Cigarette taxes, for instance, are not paid out of reduced tobacco profits; they are passed along to smokers in the form of much higher prices on cigarettes. That’s exactly how the system ought to work, too.
Carbon taxes operate the same way. The general public will end up paying virtually all of it through higher prices, and the argument for recycling the revenues is that doing this protects our real income and living standards. The social justice dimension is about the progressivity of the recycling mechanism, especially since consumption taxes are intrinsically regressive. The true incidence of eco-taxes and the consequent role of recycling are not emphasized by green activists, however, for obvious political reasons. Nevertheless, I had thought that, being informed people, they would know how taxes function.
Maybe I was wrong. Absolutely nothing in the argumentation of the anti-732 crowd conveys an awareness of who will actually pay the carbon tax. These people claim to defend their communities, but their logic depends on ignoring the fact that their communities will pay the freight. Defending them, from their point of view, therefore does not include defraying their higher living expenses. Could this interpretation be correct? It’s believable if you think these “left” groups are uninformed about economics and actually believe the rhetoric that it is only the corporations that will pay carbon taxes. (I have noted this misconception in the writing of Naomi Klein, who has gone on record against 732.) Or, perhaps, it is more devious than this—perhaps the opponents of 732 understand their constituents will pay the tax but believe they will come out ahead by asserting a claim on the tax revenues generated from other communities in the state. Between not understanding and understanding but dishonestly manipulating, I prefer the first.
I could be wrong about all of this, of course. The easiest way for me to be proved wrong would be for committed “social justice” opponents of 732 to explain out loud why they are not concerned about the regressive payments imposed on their own communities by a carbon tax, and therefore why defraying them is not part of their agenda.
Well, I think I may have figured it out, or at least I have a hypothesis. It goes like this:
For PR purposes, environmentalists have sold carbon taxes on the basis of a moralistic interpretation of the “polluter pays” principle: companies that generate carbon emissions should pay for their sins. I can understand why they do this, and I’m sure it polls well and comes out favorably in focus groups. Nevertheless, it’s based on an incomplete representation of how the price mechanism operates. Yes, a tax on manufacturers or energy companies will initially be paid by them, but most of it will be passed along to consumers, as logic dictates it should be. After all, it is not just a few companies, but all of us whose economic choices need to be shifted. You can see this already in the taxes levied on various “sin” products. Cigarette taxes, for instance, are not paid out of reduced tobacco profits; they are passed along to smokers in the form of much higher prices on cigarettes. That’s exactly how the system ought to work, too.
Carbon taxes operate the same way. The general public will end up paying virtually all of it through higher prices, and the argument for recycling the revenues is that doing this protects our real income and living standards. The social justice dimension is about the progressivity of the recycling mechanism, especially since consumption taxes are intrinsically regressive. The true incidence of eco-taxes and the consequent role of recycling are not emphasized by green activists, however, for obvious political reasons. Nevertheless, I had thought that, being informed people, they would know how taxes function.
Maybe I was wrong. Absolutely nothing in the argumentation of the anti-732 crowd conveys an awareness of who will actually pay the carbon tax. These people claim to defend their communities, but their logic depends on ignoring the fact that their communities will pay the freight. Defending them, from their point of view, therefore does not include defraying their higher living expenses. Could this interpretation be correct? It’s believable if you think these “left” groups are uninformed about economics and actually believe the rhetoric that it is only the corporations that will pay carbon taxes. (I have noted this misconception in the writing of Naomi Klein, who has gone on record against 732.) Or, perhaps, it is more devious than this—perhaps the opponents of 732 understand their constituents will pay the tax but believe they will come out ahead by asserting a claim on the tax revenues generated from other communities in the state. Between not understanding and understanding but dishonestly manipulating, I prefer the first.
I could be wrong about all of this, of course. The easiest way for me to be proved wrong would be for committed “social justice” opponents of 732 to explain out loud why they are not concerned about the regressive payments imposed on their own communities by a carbon tax, and therefore why defraying them is not part of their agenda.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Guns for All
The fracas at yesterday’s Trump rally in Reno shows why we need gun rights now. A man was seen carrying an anti-Trump sign and someone else shouted out that he had a gun. In the confusion, Trump was hustled offstage by his security detail, and meanwhile the crowd was in turmoil as people tried to figure out what was going on.
Obviously, the problem is that this crowd was unarmed, which is why they were afraid of a possible shooter. If everyone had a gun they could go after whoever they thought was threatening them, and they would all be equally safe.
Obviously, the problem is that this crowd was unarmed, which is why they were afraid of a possible shooter. If everyone had a gun they could go after whoever they thought was threatening them, and they would all be equally safe.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
The Hard Core of Neoclassical Economics
There has been an ongoing debate over whether the very notion of a mainstream, neoclassical economics is still valid. As many commentators have pointed out, various departures have been embraced by portions of the profession which, by sociological standards, have to be considered mainstream: these include game theory and interactive expectations with multiple equilibria, behavioral departures from homo oeconomicus, importation of biological and psychological measures of well-being, and so on. So where are we now?
First, note that each item on this list constitutes a relaxation of a default assumption that other economists, not directly engaged in that departure, typically rely on in their own work. Those who are not themselves behavioral economists generally invoke “U-max” unthinkingly, those who are not personally constructing game-theoretic or similar models invoke convexity assumptions to ensure stable, mono-equilibria, etc. The violation of the core axioms coexists with the default status of those same axioms. I think in this paragraph I am simply describing what currently takes place, not theorizing or explaining it.
Second, here’s a hypothesis. Neoclassical economics has evolved to serve an ideological function which is promoted through incentives, the selection of new adepts, and a conceptual hegemony: the purpose of economics is to solve economic problems with minimum, and ideally no, recourse to politics. Thus welfare economics in particular plays a central role, since it is the basis for proposing economic solutions that don’t depend on a political deliberation or selection process. What the theoretical departures that don’t migrate to the core have in common is their incompatibility with welfarism. The exception proves the rule here. Consider the case of the new institutional economics largely centered on transaction cost theory. This has arguably entered the core of the discipline despite having once taken the form of a departure. Is it coincidental that practitioners in this field have no difficulty modifying welfarism to account for institutional frictions?
Reinforcing these ideological pressures are the network externalities associated with core doctrines: like computer programs they gain in value as more users employ them. (I’m indebted to a manuscript I’m currently reviewing for this insight.) That said, the example of NIE convinces me that pure lock-in is not the only consideration in the inertia at the heart of economic doctrine; ideology is also important.
UPDATE: Google is not indexing this post! I wonder if it's because of the header? Poor Imre Lakatos must be turning over in his grave.
UPDATE^2: Imre can relax. Google, after a long hiatus, hoovered me up.
First, note that each item on this list constitutes a relaxation of a default assumption that other economists, not directly engaged in that departure, typically rely on in their own work. Those who are not themselves behavioral economists generally invoke “U-max” unthinkingly, those who are not personally constructing game-theoretic or similar models invoke convexity assumptions to ensure stable, mono-equilibria, etc. The violation of the core axioms coexists with the default status of those same axioms. I think in this paragraph I am simply describing what currently takes place, not theorizing or explaining it.
Second, here’s a hypothesis. Neoclassical economics has evolved to serve an ideological function which is promoted through incentives, the selection of new adepts, and a conceptual hegemony: the purpose of economics is to solve economic problems with minimum, and ideally no, recourse to politics. Thus welfare economics in particular plays a central role, since it is the basis for proposing economic solutions that don’t depend on a political deliberation or selection process. What the theoretical departures that don’t migrate to the core have in common is their incompatibility with welfarism. The exception proves the rule here. Consider the case of the new institutional economics largely centered on transaction cost theory. This has arguably entered the core of the discipline despite having once taken the form of a departure. Is it coincidental that practitioners in this field have no difficulty modifying welfarism to account for institutional frictions?
Reinforcing these ideological pressures are the network externalities associated with core doctrines: like computer programs they gain in value as more users employ them. (I’m indebted to a manuscript I’m currently reviewing for this insight.) That said, the example of NIE convinces me that pure lock-in is not the only consideration in the inertia at the heart of economic doctrine; ideology is also important.
UPDATE: Google is not indexing this post! I wonder if it's because of the header? Poor Imre Lakatos must be turning over in his grave.
UPDATE^2: Imre can relax. Google, after a long hiatus, hoovered me up.
Taking a Stand on Standpoint
This continues my process of thinking out loud about identity politics; previous posts looked at privilege and microaggression. The common theme so far has been the erasure of distinctions that serve a valuable social function. In a way, that is the message today, although the distinctions at risk are far less subtle.
Standpoint theory is based on the premise that the authority—the credibility and effectiveness—of arguments put forward in a social context depend on the identity of the speaker and the priors implicit in the dominant social discourse. A speaker who has a marginalized identity and whose perspective is at odds with the “ruling” priors will be discounted, “not heard”, unless the right of this person to be heard is successfully fought for. The realm of social discourse is defined by such conflicts between suppression and resistance.
A useful perspective on standpoint theory is that it is a contemporary elaboration of the theory of ideology initially promulgated by Marx. For Marx, the relevant identities were classes defined by their relationship to the means of production, such that class position predisposes a person to thinking about the world in one way or another. The dominant class in a given social formation would be in a position to “universalize” their particular perspective; class struggle would therefore extend to the realm of ideas as well as actions as dominated classes attempted to “think for themselves”, moving from the plane of an sich to für sich. In the twentieth century the theory opened out: it no longer depended on a particular analysis of social class, nor even on the primacy of such classes. Any differentiated social position, such as one’s national background, religion, subculture, age, etc., could be the basis for ideological proclivities. This wider conception of ideology begins to appear in Karl Mannheim and his program for a sociology of knowledge. What standpoint theory does, to a large extent, is place the emphasis on a particular set of social differentiations (race, gender and sexuality primarily) and on the interpersonal level of speaking and hearing.
But a giant problem arises from failing to recognize what all this theory is about. The theory of ideology was never properly about what is true about the world; it is a theory of belief, not truth. In his better moments, Marx recognized the validity of any particular analysis of the economic order depended on objective criteria—logical consistency and the weight of empirical evidence. The utility of a theory of ideology is to help us understand why societies typically labor under dominant ideas that are of questionable validity. To point out the function of ideology is to liberate thought from the presumption that, if a particular argument is widely believed, it should be granted some corresponding measure of respect. That’s obviously useful for a radical thinker like Marx or, I hope, me and you.
There was a form of vulgar Marxism that failed to recognize this distinction. It regarded ideological status as equivalent to truth status, or more crudely, claimed that there are no objective criteria for assessing truth claims, only the interests of different classes. If an argument could be shown to be consistent with proletarian ideology, it was “wrong” from a bourgeois point of view and vice versa. There was no higher court of appeals. This horrible philosophy, which gave us show trials and Lysenkoism, eventually fell into disrepute. Its error is not in claiming that there ideologies, which there clearly are, but in construing the theory of ideology as extending to validity and not just the empirical question of who tends to believe what.
The fundamental problem with standpoint theory as a successor to the classical theory of ideology is that, like vulgar Marxism, it denies the possibility of objective criteria for assessing validity. There is only the social arena of speaking and hearing and no reflective realm in which logical coherence and empirical support can be applied to assessing validity. But wait! I hear a voice say, “Of course there’s no reflective realm; that’s just your privilege speaking. All realms are social and governed by the authority, contested or otherwise, of dominant identities.” That’s an argument against the distinction between belief and validity, that there is no validity apart from the beliefs of those who claim to weigh it. My response is this is exactly the error that deservedly sank vulgar Marxism. Ideology, or standpoints, certainly cloud the process of assessing validity, but they do not require us to conflate validity and social authority.
On a practical level, it’s entirely justified for someone to stand up and say, “You’re not listening to me because you have not questioned a social framework in which my perspectives are ignored or even made unthinkable according to your unexamined assumptions.” There really is a struggle to be waged to expand the range of views that are heard and taken seriously, and to call into question assumptions based on the experiences and interests of those who are socially dominant. What is not justified is for the speaker to claim that being heard has anything in particular to do with being right. We are all fallible and often fail even to identify and express our own interior thoughts and emotions, much less claims about the external world.
There is a second problem with standpoint theory that also reflects past problems in vulgar Marxism. In the bad old days of the Third International, the theory of ideology was applied at the individual level: an author or political or cultural figure would be assigned an ideological label, and that was that. Having been exposed as a purveyor of bourgeois ideology, there was nothing that could be said in your defense. This primitive philosophy was rejected because its inherent reductionism became laughable when it wasn’t tragic. Ideological factors exist and can be examined, but human beings are not reducible to them.
To be precise, there are two aspects of ideological “non-reduction”. First, as an empirical proposition, the theory of ideology points to different distributions of belief. If you plotted probability density functions on various dimensions of belief, different social groups (such as classes) would have different functions, but they would overlap substantially. The second is that belief systems are not independent, separate components of human subjective life or behavior (including political participation and cultural creation). There are many influences on who we are and how we act, many of which we scarcely understand, and the role played by a given ideological element can vary enormously from one person to the next or even one social situation to the next. The field of mutual influence within a person is vastly greater than the field of ideological influences. It’s important to recognize that neither shortcoming of reductionism is removed by pivoting from single to multiple ideological spectra, i.e. intersectionality.
The problem of reductionism haunts the rhetoric of “voices”. Individuals are at risk of being reduced to the ideology or standpoint associated deterministically with their identity, and the content of their speech to this component. To point this out is not to argue against affirmatively reaching out to include underrepresented groups. Distributions of beliefs and perceptions really do exist, empirically, and these elements really do contribute to the content of what people say. But we are never simply instantiations of an identity (as implied by the locution “speaking as a....”), and our personal voices may be anywhere across the distribution of views associated with our “category”.
To sum up, standpoint theory is a contemporary elaboration of the classical theory of ideology. It shifts the emphasis to culturally defined differences, and it offers a more elaborate understanding of social process. But it falls back on problems that appeared long ago in the guise of vulgar Marxism: the failure to distinguish between a theory of belief (or social authority) and a theory of validity, and a reductionist exclusion of the many aspects of belief and action that cannot be explained by this particular theory.
UPDATE: Epistemological confusion becomes legal liability in a Virginia courtroom. Rolling Stone was found guilty of having deliberately published defamatory claims against a UVA associate dean; the article accused her of covering up a campus rape. RS’s problem was that it relied entirely on a single source, the presumed rape victim, without doing the additional research to confirm her story. As it turned out, a modicum of investigation would have shown the story to be false.
Pay attention to the mea culpa issued by the magazine:
Standpoint theory is based on the premise that the authority—the credibility and effectiveness—of arguments put forward in a social context depend on the identity of the speaker and the priors implicit in the dominant social discourse. A speaker who has a marginalized identity and whose perspective is at odds with the “ruling” priors will be discounted, “not heard”, unless the right of this person to be heard is successfully fought for. The realm of social discourse is defined by such conflicts between suppression and resistance.
A useful perspective on standpoint theory is that it is a contemporary elaboration of the theory of ideology initially promulgated by Marx. For Marx, the relevant identities were classes defined by their relationship to the means of production, such that class position predisposes a person to thinking about the world in one way or another. The dominant class in a given social formation would be in a position to “universalize” their particular perspective; class struggle would therefore extend to the realm of ideas as well as actions as dominated classes attempted to “think for themselves”, moving from the plane of an sich to für sich. In the twentieth century the theory opened out: it no longer depended on a particular analysis of social class, nor even on the primacy of such classes. Any differentiated social position, such as one’s national background, religion, subculture, age, etc., could be the basis for ideological proclivities. This wider conception of ideology begins to appear in Karl Mannheim and his program for a sociology of knowledge. What standpoint theory does, to a large extent, is place the emphasis on a particular set of social differentiations (race, gender and sexuality primarily) and on the interpersonal level of speaking and hearing.
But a giant problem arises from failing to recognize what all this theory is about. The theory of ideology was never properly about what is true about the world; it is a theory of belief, not truth. In his better moments, Marx recognized the validity of any particular analysis of the economic order depended on objective criteria—logical consistency and the weight of empirical evidence. The utility of a theory of ideology is to help us understand why societies typically labor under dominant ideas that are of questionable validity. To point out the function of ideology is to liberate thought from the presumption that, if a particular argument is widely believed, it should be granted some corresponding measure of respect. That’s obviously useful for a radical thinker like Marx or, I hope, me and you.
There was a form of vulgar Marxism that failed to recognize this distinction. It regarded ideological status as equivalent to truth status, or more crudely, claimed that there are no objective criteria for assessing truth claims, only the interests of different classes. If an argument could be shown to be consistent with proletarian ideology, it was “wrong” from a bourgeois point of view and vice versa. There was no higher court of appeals. This horrible philosophy, which gave us show trials and Lysenkoism, eventually fell into disrepute. Its error is not in claiming that there ideologies, which there clearly are, but in construing the theory of ideology as extending to validity and not just the empirical question of who tends to believe what.
The fundamental problem with standpoint theory as a successor to the classical theory of ideology is that, like vulgar Marxism, it denies the possibility of objective criteria for assessing validity. There is only the social arena of speaking and hearing and no reflective realm in which logical coherence and empirical support can be applied to assessing validity. But wait! I hear a voice say, “Of course there’s no reflective realm; that’s just your privilege speaking. All realms are social and governed by the authority, contested or otherwise, of dominant identities.” That’s an argument against the distinction between belief and validity, that there is no validity apart from the beliefs of those who claim to weigh it. My response is this is exactly the error that deservedly sank vulgar Marxism. Ideology, or standpoints, certainly cloud the process of assessing validity, but they do not require us to conflate validity and social authority.
On a practical level, it’s entirely justified for someone to stand up and say, “You’re not listening to me because you have not questioned a social framework in which my perspectives are ignored or even made unthinkable according to your unexamined assumptions.” There really is a struggle to be waged to expand the range of views that are heard and taken seriously, and to call into question assumptions based on the experiences and interests of those who are socially dominant. What is not justified is for the speaker to claim that being heard has anything in particular to do with being right. We are all fallible and often fail even to identify and express our own interior thoughts and emotions, much less claims about the external world.
There is a second problem with standpoint theory that also reflects past problems in vulgar Marxism. In the bad old days of the Third International, the theory of ideology was applied at the individual level: an author or political or cultural figure would be assigned an ideological label, and that was that. Having been exposed as a purveyor of bourgeois ideology, there was nothing that could be said in your defense. This primitive philosophy was rejected because its inherent reductionism became laughable when it wasn’t tragic. Ideological factors exist and can be examined, but human beings are not reducible to them.
To be precise, there are two aspects of ideological “non-reduction”. First, as an empirical proposition, the theory of ideology points to different distributions of belief. If you plotted probability density functions on various dimensions of belief, different social groups (such as classes) would have different functions, but they would overlap substantially. The second is that belief systems are not independent, separate components of human subjective life or behavior (including political participation and cultural creation). There are many influences on who we are and how we act, many of which we scarcely understand, and the role played by a given ideological element can vary enormously from one person to the next or even one social situation to the next. The field of mutual influence within a person is vastly greater than the field of ideological influences. It’s important to recognize that neither shortcoming of reductionism is removed by pivoting from single to multiple ideological spectra, i.e. intersectionality.
The problem of reductionism haunts the rhetoric of “voices”. Individuals are at risk of being reduced to the ideology or standpoint associated deterministically with their identity, and the content of their speech to this component. To point this out is not to argue against affirmatively reaching out to include underrepresented groups. Distributions of beliefs and perceptions really do exist, empirically, and these elements really do contribute to the content of what people say. But we are never simply instantiations of an identity (as implied by the locution “speaking as a....”), and our personal voices may be anywhere across the distribution of views associated with our “category”.
To sum up, standpoint theory is a contemporary elaboration of the classical theory of ideology. It shifts the emphasis to culturally defined differences, and it offers a more elaborate understanding of social process. But it falls back on problems that appeared long ago in the guise of vulgar Marxism: the failure to distinguish between a theory of belief (or social authority) and a theory of validity, and a reductionist exclusion of the many aspects of belief and action that cannot be explained by this particular theory.
UPDATE: Epistemological confusion becomes legal liability in a Virginia courtroom. Rolling Stone was found guilty of having deliberately published defamatory claims against a UVA associate dean; the article accused her of covering up a campus rape. RS’s problem was that it relied entirely on a single source, the presumed rape victim, without doing the additional research to confirm her story. As it turned out, a modicum of investigation would have shown the story to be false.
Pay attention to the mea culpa issued by the magazine:
In our desire to present this complicated issue from the perspective of a survivor, we overlooked reporting paths and made journalistic mistakes that we are committed to never making again.In a nutshell, they confused the claim of an individual from a victimized group to be heard with the empirical validity of her claim. It was not only acceptable, it was right for RS to aggressively pursue this lead, but the objective criteria of validity still apply. If you don’t think there’s any such thing as objective validity, try out that argument in court.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
The Biggest Disjuncture Ever Between Public Opinion And Professional Economists?
I just heard on Anderson Cooper that the issue on which the public most trusts Trump over Clinton is on who would manage the economy better. This is in spite of the fact that he would have made more money if he had just put his inheritance in index funds rather than doing what he has done, that he has declared numerous bankruptcies, been sued numerous times for violating contracts and fraudulent dealings, and has refused to release tax returns that apparently contain all kinds of border line or over the border misbehaviors, along with a lot of other stuff not making him look the good businessman people think he is.
OTOH, if one defines "professional economists" as those with PhDs in economics (I grant that this can be debated, but I am going with it for now), then it appears that we have never seen such a lopsided ratio of these people supporting one of the major candidates over the other, with the balance just the opposite of the public. If one looks at former Chairs of the CEA or Secretaries of the Treasury who worked for Republican presidents, not one has come out for Trump. Now, most of them have not come out for Clinton, which is a contrast with former GOP National Security Advisers and Secretaries of State, quite a few of whom have come out for her. But it remains that this is an unprecedented situation.
More to the point is to actually go looking for PhD economists who are supporting Trump. Now I suspect that there are more than have been publicly identified. But in terms of publicly released petitions or publicly released statements, the number is abysmally low, on the order of five or six to the best I can determine, and, frankly, they are by and large not a group to write home about. The one who has gotten the most attention and was by all reports the main author of the main economic policy statement put out by the Trump campaign, is Peter Navarro of UC-Irvine (I confess to not having heard of him prior to his recent appearance as a Trump economic adviser). Most economists have viewed that policy statement as barely coherent and full of falsehoods and contradictions. I do not usually play credentials games, but Navarro has had very few publications in refereed journals in recent years, and his work has not been heavily cited. Of the five or six others, only two do I know anything about. One is John Lott, the favorite economist of the NRA, who once had a sock puppet by himself praising himself called "Mary Rosh," has been frequently accused of using fraudulent or misleading data in his papers, and has been unable to hold an academic job, even in conservative departments, despite his extensive and heavily cited publication record (with many of those citations being in papers criticizing his work). Lott is currently at a think tank he founded whose funding sources are not known to me. The other is probably the most respectable in my eyes, Svetozar Pejovich, now emeritus at Texas A&M. The most well-known of his papers have been about property rights in the former Yugoslavia. These have been respectable, but he has not done much recently, and probably the only reason I know his work is that comparative economics is one of my fields of research. The bottom line is that this is both a very skimpy and unimpressive list.
Of course his supposed top economic advisers are not fully professional economists. While Lawrence Kudlow has intoned on economic issues for many years on TV and elsewhere, his academic education ends with an undergraduate degree in history, and his economic forecasting record has been so bad that one can expect to make money by assuming that what will happen economically will be just the opposite from what he forecasts. Another is Stephen Moore, who does have a masters degree in economics, but his forecasting record is not much better than Kudlow's (we are still waiting for that hyperinflation both forecast so vigorously). He currently carries the title "economist" at the Heritage Foundation, so maybe I should count him as a "professional economists" too.The rest of his supposed board is basically a lot of hedge fund traders, maybe mostly rich people, but not professional economists.
So, there we have it. I do think that sometimes when conventional views of professional economists disagree with public opinion, that the latter may be closer to the truth than the former. But I must say that this particular situation seems to be the largest such disjuncture that I know of, and on this one, I am with the vast majority of professional economists against apparently widespread public opinion. I can only hope that this strongly held public opinion does not result in us having to suffer through policies pushed by the pretty pathetic set of professional economists Trump has backing him.
Barkley Rosser
OTOH, if one defines "professional economists" as those with PhDs in economics (I grant that this can be debated, but I am going with it for now), then it appears that we have never seen such a lopsided ratio of these people supporting one of the major candidates over the other, with the balance just the opposite of the public. If one looks at former Chairs of the CEA or Secretaries of the Treasury who worked for Republican presidents, not one has come out for Trump. Now, most of them have not come out for Clinton, which is a contrast with former GOP National Security Advisers and Secretaries of State, quite a few of whom have come out for her. But it remains that this is an unprecedented situation.
More to the point is to actually go looking for PhD economists who are supporting Trump. Now I suspect that there are more than have been publicly identified. But in terms of publicly released petitions or publicly released statements, the number is abysmally low, on the order of five or six to the best I can determine, and, frankly, they are by and large not a group to write home about. The one who has gotten the most attention and was by all reports the main author of the main economic policy statement put out by the Trump campaign, is Peter Navarro of UC-Irvine (I confess to not having heard of him prior to his recent appearance as a Trump economic adviser). Most economists have viewed that policy statement as barely coherent and full of falsehoods and contradictions. I do not usually play credentials games, but Navarro has had very few publications in refereed journals in recent years, and his work has not been heavily cited. Of the five or six others, only two do I know anything about. One is John Lott, the favorite economist of the NRA, who once had a sock puppet by himself praising himself called "Mary Rosh," has been frequently accused of using fraudulent or misleading data in his papers, and has been unable to hold an academic job, even in conservative departments, despite his extensive and heavily cited publication record (with many of those citations being in papers criticizing his work). Lott is currently at a think tank he founded whose funding sources are not known to me. The other is probably the most respectable in my eyes, Svetozar Pejovich, now emeritus at Texas A&M. The most well-known of his papers have been about property rights in the former Yugoslavia. These have been respectable, but he has not done much recently, and probably the only reason I know his work is that comparative economics is one of my fields of research. The bottom line is that this is both a very skimpy and unimpressive list.
Of course his supposed top economic advisers are not fully professional economists. While Lawrence Kudlow has intoned on economic issues for many years on TV and elsewhere, his academic education ends with an undergraduate degree in history, and his economic forecasting record has been so bad that one can expect to make money by assuming that what will happen economically will be just the opposite from what he forecasts. Another is Stephen Moore, who does have a masters degree in economics, but his forecasting record is not much better than Kudlow's (we are still waiting for that hyperinflation both forecast so vigorously). He currently carries the title "economist" at the Heritage Foundation, so maybe I should count him as a "professional economists" too.The rest of his supposed board is basically a lot of hedge fund traders, maybe mostly rich people, but not professional economists.
So, there we have it. I do think that sometimes when conventional views of professional economists disagree with public opinion, that the latter may be closer to the truth than the former. But I must say that this particular situation seems to be the largest such disjuncture that I know of, and on this one, I am with the vast majority of professional economists against apparently widespread public opinion. I can only hope that this strongly held public opinion does not result in us having to suffer through policies pushed by the pretty pathetic set of professional economists Trump has backing him.
Barkley Rosser
Sunday, October 30, 2016
JFK and the Reagan Revolution
I decided to watch Meet the Press which had Lawrence Kudlow on as a panelist. It seems he has written a book with Brian Domitrovic, which fellow wingnut John Tammy reviewed:
In writing their book, the authors set out to remind readers that life – and by extension economic growth – isn’t that complicated. It’s as basic as a low tax/sound money policy mix. Years ago Kudlow’s teaching of the correct policy mix was broadened to include free trade and light regulation, and that hasn’t changed ... The authors assert that “Both Kennedy and Reagan identified substantially cutting income tax rates and getting the dollar strong and stable as the specific policy mix that would let the private sector, which is to say the real economy, thrive.” ... Broken down to the individual we can easily see that no individual is made more prosperous if more and more of his income is confiscated through taxation. And as individuals take money in return for their production, their prosperity is surely not enhanced by devaluation of the very dollars, Pounds, euros, yen, and yuan they earn. Economists in the discredited economics profession have for the longest time believed in high taxes, and they still believe devaluation is great.I’ll stop right there as I cannot bear to quote Tammy’s claim that the supply-siders are economic geniuses and that the member of Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers know nothing about macroeconomics. Tammy seriously misrepresents the economic discussions of the 1960’s, which I presume he drew from this book. That Kudlow believes tax cuts for the rich is the source of all good things on earth is nothing new but this obsession with dollar appreciation is just appalling. Of course this fits in nicely with the economic stupidity of Donald Trump. But let’s remind these supply-siders of the 1982 recession. The 1981 tax cut may not have directly caused this disaster but it certainly appalled the Federal Reserve enough to go for a second round of tight monetary policy. The toxic mix of fiscal stimulus and tight monetary policy led to a massive dollar appreciation which severely reduced net exports. Does John Tammy and Lawrence Kudlow not remember this?
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Diana Furchtgott-Roth – Trump Economic Adviser or Complete Hack?
Brad DeLong informs us that Diana Furchtgott-Roth has a blog:
"How national pollsters are helping Hillary Clinton." IIRC, back when Glenn Hubbard hired Diana Furchgott-Roth for the CEA, I asked, "Why is Glenn hiring that wingnut?" Various people assured to me that she was not a wingnut. Yes she is. This is highly, highly unprofessional. Any time your list of those putting their thumbs on the Democratic side of the scale includes Fox News and theWall Street Journal, you have lost any standing to appear in polite societyI’ll leave this issue of whether the polls are rigged to others but I did address her hackery with respect toObamacare. Let’s turn to a complete contradiction of hers with respect to the labor market and the implications for monetary policy. Her August 8 post argued:
the job market is not quite as strong as it looks.I have also argued we are not at full employment but I am not arguing for higher interest rates. Donald Trump is so she also wrote:
The unemployment rate stands at 4.9 percent, and the latest inflation data show that the Consumer Price Index rose by more than 2 percent over the past year. The Fed should not depend on employment data, which will be revised several times, to decide when to raise rates. Rates have been too low for too long, and it is time for them to rise — regardless of what the jobs report shows.In other words, the labor market is strong so we must use monetary restraint now. OK, some people might but actually believe that but Diana Furchtgott-Roth is just echoing the inconsistency and stupidity of Donald Trump. The classic definition of a hack. Oh wait – she continues:
Current low rates are impeding economic growth, discouraging saving, and increasing inequality. An increase of 25 basis points in September will still leave the Fed in a position of very loose monetary policy. The Fed's near-zero interest rates have caused massive distortions in equity and real estate markets. Investors who would have had funds in savings accounts or Treasury bills are seeking returns in these sectors. This is a recipe for a bubble, which will cause a crisis when it pops.Brad was right – this is wingnut insanity. Diana Furchtgott-Roth may be even worse than the three stooges – Art Laffer, Lawrence Kudlow, and Stephen Moore. And no Presidential candidate would bring any of them on as economic advisers. Oh wait!
Trump: Repeal and Replace Obamacare
Repeal or Replace was Romney’s 2012 health care theme even if ObamaCare was RomneyCare and the Republicans have no replacement plan. It seems Donald Trump has dusted off this line even if he has no clue about health care economics at all. So who is he turning to?
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the US Department of Labor, is an unpaid adviser to Donald Trump. She has a blog that gave us Insurance Companies Wise Up to Obamacare
“In a well-functioning insurance market, such as for automobile accidents, insurance carriers craft countless plans to meet exactly the needs of millions of different individuals. Typically, only catastrophic unexpected events are covered, not the predictable oil changes.”Let’s stop right here. #1 – one’s health is not the same things as one’s car. And this bit about well-functioning ignores the monopolization of the health insurance market. She continues:
Insurance companies are making losses because fewer Americans are signing up for Obamacare than were predicted, and these Americans are sicker than average. Premiums rose in some markets by 20 percent in 2016, leading to more healthy people dropping out of plans or not enrolling, accelerating the financial imbalance. Premiums are expected to rise by a similar amount—or more—in 2017.Premiums may be going up but part of this is due to the monopolization of health insurance which likely is driving up profits as noted by Brad and Michael DeLong:
As Berkeley economics professor Aaron Edlin has pointed out, consumer abstention is the ultimate competitor. Companies cannot purchase or contrive a solution to consumers who say, “I’m just not going to buy this.” But the ACA requires individuals to purchase health insurance, thus creating a vertical demand curve for potential monopolists. Under these conditions, profits – and consumer abuse – can be maximized through collusion. It is not surprising, then, that in 2015 some of the largest private American health-insurance companies – Anthem, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana – began exploring the possibility of merging. If they could reduce the number of national insurers from five to three, they could then increase their market power and squeeze more profits from consumers.Furchtgott-Roth continues her right wing rants:
Fewer than 13 million people signed up for Obamacare in the 2016 enrollment period, compared with 22 million predicted by the Congressional Budget Office in May 2013.Young, healthy people are not signing up in great numbers for the expensive policies, even with the threat of penalties. Insurance companies and politicians thought that the premiums from these young people, who do not use much health care because they are rarely sick, would be used to pay for the care of the old and the chronically-ill. Rather, young people are either on their parents’ plans, or on employer plans, or going without insurance and paying the penalty.If young people are getting insurance via their jobs, then counting them as not getting insurance is a bit dodgy. I’m no expert on these matters, but I’d trust Kevin Drum over spin from Team Trump.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Donald Loves TrikiLeaks
"I love WikiLeaks," gushed serial sex pest Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally two weeks ago. Make no mistake, though, Mr. Trump does not approve of whistle-blowing. He only loves WikiLeaks so long as it operates as a Roger Stone dirty-tricks apparatus on behalf of his campaign.
The minute it turned against him, whatever it published would be election-rigging filth. He would sue the liars. He would jail the crooks. He would execute the traitors.
A case in point is the following selection of Trump's tweeting between June 2013 and May 2014 on Edward Snowden's revelations about ILLEGAL NSA spying on American citizens.
So what words in the DNI Election Security Statement must we beware of because they mean something other than what they mean? "Confident"? "Consistent with"? "Methods and motivations"? "Tactics and techniques"? "The Russians"?
Not to cast aspersions, but who else might have both the capability and motive to "interfere with the US election process"?
I mean who else besides the Russians or the U.S. Intelligence Community?
What if the NSA, CIA etc.wanted to discredit WikiLeaks and whistle blowers in general? What would be a smart way of doing it? How about a sting operation in which WikiLeaks itself promoted its allegiance to an unsavory, home-grown demagogue, Trump, on the one hand and a foreign adversary, Russia, on the other with Assange's deep antipathy toward Clinton being the blinders that prevented him from seeing the trap?
The minute it turned against him, whatever it published would be election-rigging filth. He would sue the liars. He would jail the crooks. He would execute the traitors.
A case in point is the following selection of Trump's tweeting between June 2013 and May 2014 on Edward Snowden's revelations about ILLEGAL NSA spying on American citizens.
So what gives with WikiLeaks's one-sided campaign against Hillary Clinton -- and objectively in favor of Trump and the summary execution of Edward Snowden? Clinton and the Democratic National Committee attribute the hacking of Clintonista email accounts to "the highest levels of the Kremlin," a claim backed by an October 7th statement from the Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper.
Not so fast. This Clapper is the same Director of National Intelligence who on March 12, 2013, directly lied -- "allegedly" -- to Congress, under oath, about whether the NSA "wittingly" collected data on "millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." The inoperative word in Senator Wyden's question and subsequently in Clapper's answer was "collected," which, in NSA-speak, semantically means something other than collected. (Q & A at 6:00 on video.)
Not to cast aspersions, but who else might have both the capability and motive to "interfere with the US election process"?
I mean who else besides the Russians or the U.S. Intelligence Community?
Update: How WikiLeaks Dies
I didn't really know how to end this post, so I ended it in mid-thought with a question. But I've been thinking, wondering what the game would be if U.S. intelligence was the source of the hacked emails. A hypothesis occurred to me. It is only a hypothesis.What if the NSA, CIA etc.wanted to discredit WikiLeaks and whistle blowers in general? What would be a smart way of doing it? How about a sting operation in which WikiLeaks itself promoted its allegiance to an unsavory, home-grown demagogue, Trump, on the one hand and a foreign adversary, Russia, on the other with Assange's deep antipathy toward Clinton being the blinders that prevented him from seeing the trap?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)