Meltdown

[Karl Henning]

snyppsss is back! Now we can have Christmas!

[snyprrr]

snyppsss is back! Now we can have Christmas!

Yaaay!!!

I'm cutting fruit for $7.50hr.!!! I'm losing my shit!!!

I WILL be breaking bad here shortly!!


But seriously Karl, why does the gov get money for usury when they have/had the power to print their own???

[Karl Henning]

You've got a job? Good to hear!

Today you're cutting fruit, tomorrow you'll be the COO of Georgia-Pacific.

[milk]

Well, here's one side of an argument, by none other than David Simon (of The Wire fame):

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire

Just a quote on libertarianism from the middle of his rant (to whet some appetites):

"Ultimately we abandoned that and believed in the idea of trickle-down and the idea of the market economy and the market knows best, to the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. It's astonishing to me. But it is. People are saying I don't need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I'm not connected to society. I don't care how the road got built, I don't care where the firefighter comes from, I don't care who educates the kids other than my kids. I am me. It's the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar."

[The new erato]

Good stuff. I always knew the creators of The Wire had to be intelligent people.

[Octave]

You guys are warming the cockles of that

[milk]

Good stuff. I always knew the creators of The Wire had to be intelligent people.

Simon was a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun before writing for TV. Generation Kill and Treme are also pretty interesting shows. He's a smart guy, whether one agrees with him or not. I guess Treme is a subject for discussion, this being a music site. Much of the music on the show isn't my thing. However the theme is interesting. One of his theses seems to be that America doesn't care about it's authentic "cultural" heritage (New Orleans) and that unfettered capitalism and corrupt institutions destroy musical roots along with the middle class. Something like that maybe.   

[Todd]

"Ultimately we abandoned that and believed in the idea of trickle-down and the idea of the market economy and the market knows best, to the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. It's astonishing to me. But it is. People are saying I don't need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I'm not connected to society. I don't care how the road got built, I don't care where the firefighter comes from, I don't care who educates the kids other than my kids. I am me. It's the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar."

I've not read the entire article, but this quote is filled with errors and strawmen.  Using the phrase trickle-down betrays a specific partisan outlook rather than a serious review of policy options of more serious libertarians or conservatives.  I wonder if he or similarly minded lefties have bothered reading, say, Milton Friedman's policy ideas.  I wonder how many of them would oppose, for instance, Friedman's idea of the negative income tax, which took practical form in the earned income tax credit.  And where, may I ask, is the outrage at the years long easy money policy, including possible proposals (threats?) of negative nominal interest rates, which would directly harm people dependent on holding money in banks (ie, the little guy) while pushing even more money into financial markets helping those with money to invest (ie, the rich), which is nothing short of trickle-down – you know put more money to work in investment, creating more jobs, putting more money in the hands of the little guy?  Sounds great. 

The rest of this paragraph is basically false.  While I have no doubt that there are some people who think as he describes, I've never come across any in person or on paper.  Everyone knows who paid for public roads.  (Quick related question: Who paid for all the logging roads on state and federal lands, and for all the private roads?  Were those all publicly funded?)  Everyone knows who pays for firefighters.  Everyone knows who pays for schools, and except for those who home school, most people care greatly about who educates kids, as well as how much public money goes to the process.  This becomes critical to consider since a typical lament of the American Left is that education gets short shrift, while the Department of Education shows that inflation adjusted spending has increased by a factor of about four or five since the early 1960s, and the US is one of the biggest spenders on education in the world on a per pupil basis.  (This is not to argue for drastic cuts to education, it's just to point out that truckloads of money may not make kids smarter.)  And why is it that the American Left so regularly laments the general state of public funding while ignoring the reality that total government spending in the US is actually quite close to most European and other "advanced" countries, and higher than some, at around 40% of GDP?  The implication of what they say is that the public sector is being starved, or at least malnourished, when the data show otherwise.  The issue is allocation, and anyone who looks at time series data will see the increasing proportion being devoted to transfer payments, which are not means tested.

Perhaps his last sentence is accurate: I am me, hear me roar.  He would rather write in generalities, in partisan rhetoric, in an afactual haze of wishful thinking than address things more seriously.  It's sort of slightly lengthier version of the You didn't build that! argument, though shorter and less sophisticated than what Elizabeth Warren offers, let alone serious non-politicians. 

(Anyone who doubts the purely partisan nature of this article need not look beyond this sentence: I would date it in my country to about 1980 exactly...  Ignore the beginning of deregulation under Ford and then Carter - remember Alfred Kahn?; ignore the changes to ERISA allowing pensions to invest in mortgages under Carter, sowing the earliest seeds of 2007-2008; ignore the first statistical indications of growing income disparity starting in the Nixon Administration – though this accelerated over time; ignore the adoption of fiat money in 1971.  No!  It was all Reagan's fault.  Who doesn't love simplistic narratives?)

One of his theses seems to be that America doesn't care about it's authentic "cultural" heritage (New Orleans) and that unfettered capitalism and corrupt institutions destroy musical roots along with the middle class. Something like that maybe.

That's a common lament among the American Left generally – and not a few on the right I might add, though the cultural artifacts they wring their hands about are often different – and it has been voiced here as well.  So what?  I understand the irony when someone like myself, who enjoys classical music and other fruits of Western Culture poses this question, but still, so what?  There's the whiff of worshipping the dead in the paeans to culture.  Must everything deemed culturally valuable be enshrined and revered, or at least studied, on the public dime?  And who determines what is culturally relevant?  Clearly, various educated elites think they should.  Who else is so sensitive, so sophisticated?  But why should public funds be used to support traditional jazz or bluegrass or whatever other form of music, or art, at the expense of others?  Why should anyone really care if this or that institution dies?  Let those with the money and the inclination worry about saving important culture on their own.

[Karl Henning]

I would date it in my country to about 1980 exactly

I am sure you cited that accurately, Todd . . . but what blatant illiteracy, "about / exactly."

[milk]

I am sure you cited that accurately, Todd . . . but what blatant illiteracy, "about / exactly."

It's described as an impromptu speech so maybe it can be forgiven. I don't think the point of Treme is that public money should be used to prop up certain musical forms. I think there's a more subtle argument going on. It's my fault for the lazy description. Actually, there's a plot line on the show in which developers want to build a jazz center. Honestly, I forget exactly how it's represented but I'm pretty sure the characters have their hands in the public till.     

[milk]

I've not read the entire article, but this quote is filled with errors and strawmen.  Using the phrase trickle-down betrays a specific partisan outlook rather than a serious review of policy options of more serious libertarians or conservatives.  I wonder if he or similarly minded lefties have bothered reading, say, Milton Friedman's policy ideas.  I wonder how many of them would oppose, for instance, Friedman's idea of the negative income tax, which took practical form in the earned income tax credit.  And where, may I ask, is the outrage at the years long easy money policy, including possible proposals (threats?) of negative nominal interest rates, which would directly harm people dependent on holding money in banks (ie, the little guy) while pushing even more money into financial markets helping those with money to invest (ie, the rich), which is nothing short of trickle-down – you know put more money to work in investment, creating more jobs, putting more money in the hands of the little guy?  Sounds great. 

The rest of this paragraph is basically false.  While I have no doubt that there are some people who think as he describes, I've never come across any in person or on paper.  Everyone knows who paid for public roads.  (Quick related question: Who paid for all the logging roads on state and federal lands, and for all the private roads?  Were those all publicly funded?)  Everyone knows who pays for firefighters.  Everyone knows who pays for schools, and except for those who home school, most people care greatly about who educates kids, as well as how much public money goes to the process.  This becomes critical to consider since a typical lament of the American Left is that education gets short shrift, while the Department of Education shows that inflation adjusted spending has increased by a factor of about four or five since the early 1960s, and the US is one of the biggest spenders on education in the world on a per pupil basis.  (This is not to argue for drastic cuts to education, it's just to point out that truckloads of money may not make kids smarter.)  And why is it that the American Left so regularly laments the general state of public funding while ignoring the reality that total government spending in the US is actually quite close to most European and other "advanced" countries, and higher than some, at around 40% of GDP?  The implication of what they say is that the public sector is being starved, or at least malnourished, when the data show otherwise.  The issue is allocation, and anyone who looks at time series data will see the increasing proportion being devoted to transfer payments, which are not means tested.

Perhaps his last sentence is accurate: I am me, hear me roar.  He would rather write in generalities, in partisan rhetoric, in an afactual haze of wishful thinking than address things more seriously.  It's sort of slightly lengthier version of the You didn't build that! argument, though shorter and less sophisticated than what Elizabeth Warren offers, let alone serious non-politicians. 

(Anyone who doubts the purely partisan nature of this article need not look beyond this sentence: I would date it in my country to about 1980 exactly...  Ignore the beginning of deregulation under Ford and then Carter - remember Alfred Kahn?; ignore the changes to ERISA allowing pensions to invest in mortgages under Carter, sowing the earliest seeds of 2007-2008; ignore the first statistical indications of growing income disparity starting in the Nixon Administration – though this accelerated over time; ignore the adoption of fiat money in 1971.  No!  It was all Reagan's fault.  Who doesn't love simplistic narratives?)






That's a common lament among the American Left generally – and not a few on the right I might add, though the cultural artifacts they wring their hands about are often different – and it has been voiced here as well.  So what?  I understand the irony when someone like myself, who enjoys classical music and other fruits of Western Culture poses this question, but still, so what?  There's the whiff of worshipping the dead in the paeans to culture.  Must everything deemed culturally valuable be enshrined and revered, or at least studied, on the public dime?  And who determines what is culturally relevant?  Clearly, various educated elites think they should.  Who else is so sensitive, so sophisticated?  But why should public funds be used to support traditional jazz or bluegrass or whatever other form of music, or art, at the expense of others?  Why should anyone really care if this or that institution dies?  Let those with the money and the inclination worry about saving important culture on their own.

I wonder if you would find anything to agree with in Simon's thinking. I think you might - somewhere in there...perhaps in his characterization of the war on drugs. 

[Todd]

I wonder if you would find anything to agree with in Simon's thinking.

If the portions of his very Guardianesque piece I read indicate his thinking and style, I have my doubts.

[Florestan]

From the comments section of Simon's article, this gem signed VelvetRevolutionary:

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, et al, were more inclined toward a Socialist vision, for America's future, than a Capitalist vision. One need only read their writings, in conjunction with the American Constitution, to fully appreciate this.

[Todd]

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, et al, were more inclined toward a Socialist vision, for America's future, than a Capitalist vision. One need only read their writings, in conjunction with the American Constitution, to fully appreciate this.

I wonder if the poster in question would be able to provide some support for this.  (Actually, I don't.)  The more common critique of the Constitution is that it protects the property owning (including slave owning) class from the tumultuous passions of the masses.  And the poster seems to forget entirely Alexander Hamilton, who in no way could be considered a Socialist. 

[milk]

If the portions of his very Guardianesque piece I read indicate his thinking and style, I have my doubts.

Well I thought it fit here because it is, very literally, a rant (perhaps his crime reporting was more staid).
Not to mention his TV show, which is easily one of the best dramas ever to grace the boob tube. But that's no rant.

Found this:
"While some young Americans – most of them white and affluent – are getting a truly world-class education, those who attend schools in high poverty neighborhoods are getting an education that more closely approximates school in developing nations," says the 52-page report by the Equity and Excellence Commission, created by Congress to look into the disparity in educational opportunity.

here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/19/183590/rich-poor-spending-gap-on-schools.html

Yeah, perhaps his hyperbole undermines more cogent criticisms of libertarianism .

[Florestan]

I wonder if the poster in question would be able to provide some support for this.  (Actually, I don't.)  The more common critique of the Constitution is that it protects the property owning (including slave owning) class from the tumultuous passions of the masses.  And the poster seems to forget entirely Alexander Hamilton, who in no way could be considered a Socialist.

You took it far too seriously, asking for arguments and considering counter-examples. I quoted him just for sheer fun. 

[Florestan]

Yeah, perhaps his hyperbole undermines more cogent criticisms of libertarianism .

Is libertarianism the main ideology underpinning the US economic and social policy today, or has it been in the past? I don't think so.

[Todd]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/19/183590/rich-poor-spending-gap-on-schools.html

Ah, yes, the old throw more money at the problem solution:

Among other things, it recommended higher pay and better work conditions for teachers and principals, and universal high-quality early education. The commission said that the U.S. could afford to pay teachers more, and it argued that raising starting pay to $65,000, instead of today's average of $37,000, and increasing top salaries to $150,000, instead of around $70,000, would help attract better teachers.


Of course, with teaching, annual salaries are practically understated because, of course, almost all teachers in the US work less than the normal full time worker.  But I guess they work hard, so making adjustments for actual hours worked is probably unfair.  $37K on average to start is not too bad, really, though it depends on where one teaches.  Where I live, teachers start in the low to mid 30s and advance within only a few years to north of $60K, which is well above the state average income.  I'm not convinced that more money is the solution in every state.  In a state like Arizona, it makes more sense to focus on bumping salaries. 

And this ignores the double dipping phenomenon where teachers work until retirement, gain their pension, and return to teaching again, on either a part time or full time basis, thus having two incomes.  It's pretty common where I live, though I haven't read up on all the stats.  That's nothing short of manipulating the system for personal gain, all on the public dime.

One of the more interesting developments over the last couple decades has been the emergence of what some commentators - mostly minority, liberal/lefty minded commentators, I hasten to add - have called resegregation of schools, and it is turning out to be more pronounced in more affluent, more "liberal" areas.  I find this most humorous.  I suppose I would, since I live in the outskirts of a Deep Blue city - Portland, OR - which has the unique distinction of being the only major city in the US that became whiter between 1990 and 2010, at least per the Census Bureau.  Portland leaders not only resegregated education, but everything else, too.

I'm sure libertarians and conservatives are responsible for all of these trends and changes somehow.

[Todd]

Is libertarianism the main ideology underpinning the US economic and social policy today, or has it been in the past? I don't think so.

Standard Lefty rhetoric holds this to be the case.  Many firmly believe it.  Such believers have an innate ability to ignore things such as old and new regulations, new agencies (I wonder how many people here have been paying attention to the CFPBs actions recently?), and government spending levels.  This is so because the preferred solution to just about any social or economic problem, real or imagined, is more of the same.  It's never enough when you only and always want more.

[milk]

Is libertarianism the main ideology underpinning the US economic and social policy today, or has it been in the past? I don't think so.

I made no such suggestion.