Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Florestan]

Quite right:  if the wealthy do not benefit from these, why should they be compelled to underwrite them?

And you are Commie, too.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Between yesterday and today, Scalia is riding an express train well past Crazytown. Calls the same-sex marriage decision "a threat to our democracy."

How the fat rogue roared!

[Florestan]

I for one have not spent centuries acquiring moral or mental habits. 
And I would like some examples of how the social conformity and governmental interference are different (and detrimental) in countries using the Nordic model compared to others.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden

[Brian]

I invite you all to join me in the Listening thread for a gay composer marathon.

[Florestan]

I invite you all to join me in the Listening thread for a gay composer marathon.

You should make it gay-married composers marathon. 

[Todd]

He´s worse than a Socialist, he´s a Commie!

No, he's just an academic.  Stiglitz dresses up his popular/populist, partisan, essentially Keynesian arguments in very serious sounding, or reading, arguments in an entirely predictable way.  And since he won a Nobel, he must be taken seriously.  Of course, there are a good number of Chicago school monetarist/rational expectations/just general free market types who offer counter-arguments, and some of them have won Nobel prizes, too. So, in other words, pick the position you like, and you can find a Very Serious Intellectual who has already argued for it.

I am disappointed in the false equivalency that opens Stiglitz's article, and while I can certainly appreciate exaggeration for effect, the conclusion is just too melodramatic: Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.  Goodness me, is revolution coming? 

The thing is, and this is no secret, many of America's specific economic woes can be largely alleviated with comparatively minor changes to the tax code.  And here's another not-so-secret: these changes need to involve more than the 1%-ers.  The entire tax expenditure structure (that is, the tax code), which disproportionately favors the top quintile (70% or so of the benefits go them), needs an overhaul.  Stiglitz, of course, knows this.  But he will garner more press for himself if he goes on about the 1%.  Nevermind the fundamental logical and policy flaws in fixating on sticking it to the highest earners and wealthiest people, whose income and wealth are comparatively more volatile than the next 19% of income earners, let alone the 80% after that.  Unstable and widely varying incomes and asset bases do not make for a stable fiscal foundation.  I'm not arguing against progressive taxation and eliminating distortions in the tax code - I'm all for it - but I would like to see more serious policy discussions in the public realm, especially coming from serious thinkers.  Of course, the article was published in Vanity Fair, so that should be kept in mind.

(I should note that tax policy will not be able to address income inequality in a wholly satisfactory way since a significant portion of income inequality is attributable to non-economic factors, the most significant of which is the observable marriage trend over the past forty years.)

[Todd]

The Republicans get their second SCOTUS-fueled campaign issue for the cycle!

Now, more forward-thinking (and/or cynical) Republicans need to start working on ways to carve out the best-educated and wealthiest sub-segments of the gay community and get them to join the Republicans, if not in party, then at least in policy.  It will be a multi-cycle process, but I firmly believe in the power of pocketbook politics.

[Florestan]

pick the position you like, and you can find a Very Serious Intellectual who has already argued for it.

True. 

Stiglitz dresses up his popular/populist, partisan, essentially Keynesian arguments in very serious sounding, or reading, arguments in an entirely predictable way.  And since he won a Nobel, he must be taken seriously.  Of course, there are a good number of Chicago school monetarist/rational expectations/just general free market types who offer counter-arguments, and some of them have won Nobel prizes, too.

True as well, but this says much less about Stieglitz or, say, Milton Friedman or Friedrich von Hayek, than it does about the Nobel Prize for Economics committee members and their criteria for awarding it. If both theory A and theory non-A, or even theory anti-A, are so equally worthwile as to be Nobelized, then we go back again at the quote of the day: "words have lost all meaning"

[Todd]

True as well, but this says much less about Stieglitz or, say, Milton Friedman or Friedrich von Hayek, than it does about the Nobel Prize for Economics committee members and their criteria for awarding it. If both theory A and theory non-A, or even theory anti-A, are so equally worthwile as to be Nobelized, then we go back again at the quote of the day: "words have lost all meaning"

That is not the case at all.  The selections for Nobels in economics are almost always for highly specialized work that genuinely advances the field as whole.  So, while someone like Paul Krugman is a traditional American left-wing economic thinker in macro policy matters and he goes on about this and that accordingly, his very precise and brilliant work in international economics led to his award.  No one in the field questions the quality of his academic work.  The same holds true for other recipients.  The issue is not so much the value or validity of the Nobel itself, but the undue heft it falsely bestows on recipients when they venture into other realms, which almost invariably involve politics.

[Florestan]

That is not the case at all.  The selections for Nobels in economics are almost always for highly specialized work that genuinely advances the field as whole.  So, while someone like Paul Krugman is a traditional American left-wing economic thinker in macro policy matters and he goes on about this and that accordingly, his very precise and brilliant work in international economics led to his award.  No one in the field questions the quality of his academic work.  The same holds true for other recipients.  The issue is not so much the value or validity of the Nobel itself, but the undue heft it falsely bestows on recipients when they venture into other realms, which almost invariably involve politics.

Can economics be separate from politics, or rathe, can politics be separated from economics?

[Todd]

Can economics be separate from politics, or rathe, can politics be separated from economics?

Yes.  Specific areas of micro theory are intrinsically apolitical, and both experimental economics and behavioral economics rely on concrete testing, though the value of such testing can be disputed as normal. 

Your conception of economics is clearly fixed on macroeconomics, which used to be called Political Economy, and that cannot be separated from politics.  The field is much bigger and richer than your question implies.

[(poco) Sforzando]

No, he's just an academic.  Stiglitz dresses up his popular/populist, partisan, essentially Keynesian arguments in very serious sounding, or reading, arguments in an entirely predictable way.  And since he won a Nobel, he must be taken seriously.  Of course, there are a good number of Chicago school monetarist/rational expectations/just general free market types who offer counter-arguments, and some of them have won Nobel prizes, too. So, in other words, pick the position you like, and you can find a Very Serious Intellectual who has already argued for it.

I am disappointed in the false equivalency that opens Stiglitz's article, and while I can certainly appreciate exaggeration for effect, the conclusion is just too melodramatic: Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.  Goodness me, is revolution coming? 

The thing is, and this is no secret, many of America's specific economic woes can be largely alleviated with comparatively minor changes to the tax code.  And here's another not-so-secret: these changes need to involve more than the 1%-ers.  The entire tax expenditure structure (that is, the tax code), which disproportionately favors the top quintile (70% or so of the benefits go them), needs an overhaul.  Stiglitz, of course, knows this.  But he will garner more press for himself if he goes on about the 1%.  Nevermind the fundamental logical and policy flaws in fixating on sticking it to the highest earners and wealthiest people, whose income and wealth are comparatively more volatile than the next 19% of income earners, let alone the 80% after that.  Unstable and widely varying incomes and asset bases do not make for a stable fiscal foundation.  I'm not arguing against progressive taxation and eliminating distortions in the tax code - I'm all for it - but I would like to see more serious policy discussions in the public realm, especially coming from serious thinkers.  Of course, the article was published in Vanity Fair, so that should be kept in mind.

(I should note that tax policy will not be able to address income inequality in a wholly satisfactory way since a significant portion of income inequality is attributable to non-economic factors, the most significant of which is the observable marriage trend over the past forty years.)

Nothing ad hominen there. But I'm sure Ken B will come around to rebut any such implication.

[Karl Henning]

I am disappointed in the false equivalency that opens Stiglitz's article, and while I can certainly appreciate exaggeration for effect, the conclusion is just too melodramatic: Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.  Goodness me, is revolution coming?

Your critique of the curtain line is spot on.

[Ken B]

     All health care reform has a system of subsidies at the center. That's the reform, yours, mine, the Martians, the French who are too evil to have bad health care.

     The opponents have no trouble differentiating between an oversight and an intention for the purpose of opposing the act, but only from the perverse standpoint of becoming unaware of the same facts to read the oversight as the intention. It didn't work and Scalia is pissed because he thinks it should. Me, I had the idea that if the act was constitutional, and that wasn't challenged, the intention would have to be honored and the oversight treated as such.

The problem with this is that it was quite clearly not an oversight. It was drafted that way to provide the states an incentive to set up exchanges. We have seen videos of the drafters saying as much. (You can do your own googling.)

[Ken B]

How the fat rogue roared!

That was only 3 seconds. You have 1:57 left.

This is a political thread, right? So I can say what *I* think is the biggest problem in American politics. It is that for so many people politics is not about policy. It is about tribalism, and building your self-image around expressing contempt for those who disagree with you, simply as members of another tribe.

[(poco) Sforzando]

That was only 3 seconds. You have 1:57 left.

This is a political thread, right? So I can say what *I* think is the biggest problem in American politics. It is that for so many people politics is not about policy. It is about tribalism, and building your self-image around expressing contempt for those who disagree with you, simply as members of another tribe.

Good to see you, too, Ken B, and thanks for that contemptuous remark!

[Brian]

It is that for so many people politics is not about policy. It is about tribalism, and building your self-image around expressing contempt for those who disagree with you, simply as members of another tribe.

This is also a very good summary of Antonin Scalia.

[Ken B]

This is also a very good summary of Antonin Scalia.

I wasn't aware I denied that. Do you have a link where I did?

[Brian]

I wasn't aware I denied that. Do you have a link where I did?

Huh?

Just because this is a politics thread doesn't mean every reply to you is a personal attack.
EDIT: Although that is a reasonable assumption.

[ibanezmonster]

This is a political thread, right? So I can say what *I* think is the biggest problem in American politics. It is that for so many people politics is not about policy. It is about tribalism, and building your self-image around expressing contempt for those who disagree with you, simply as members of another tribe.

You could probably extend that to include American culture in general, as well.