Category: Politics
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Why People Vote: “Doing It” Together
PoliSci folks have been pointing out forever that voting is irrational. The odds that your vote will make any difference are miniscule, so taking the time and effort to fill out the form (much less learn about the issues) is a losing proposition. It seems that people believe in the power of collective action. Or…
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Tea Partiers and OWSers: Who Needs to Get a Job?
In fact their employment level is about the same, but a lot more of the OWSers are working for a living. How can that be? Retirement. the Wall Street Journal found: … the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%). Professor Hector R. Cordero-Guzman and business analyst Harrison…
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“Our problem is not that we don’t have enough stuff — it’s that we don’t have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.”
“Are Jobs Obsolete?” http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/9/7/cnncom-are-jobs-obsolete.html
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Well Being Comes from Equality, Not GDP
“If Americans want to live the American Dream, they should go to Denmark.” Here’s the book. Related posts: More on American Inequality and (Lack of) Opportunity Republicans Create Opportunity? Yeah, Right. Guns and Gun Deaths, State by State The Strategic Value of Torture True Conservative Values, and Torture
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Yes: Machines Are Replacing Humans
Q: Does technology complement or replace human labor? A: Yes. I’ve looked at this in some depth — with much thinking help from Robin Hanson — here, here and here. After thinking and reading about it for another year or so, I’m prepared to make the bald statement: Yes, an ever-increasing number of workers in America…
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Did Fannie, Freddie, and the Community Reinvestment Act Cause the Meltdown? Uh uh.
This meme has been shredded every which way from Sunday, but given that Michael Bloomberg promulgated it yet again just this week, I felt the need to share the facts for those who might not have seen them. Let’s start with a picture: Those two bars on the left are loans that American Enterprise Institute…
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Why Doesn’t Warren Buffett Give All His Money to the Government?
Psychohistorian’s comment over at Modeled Behavior gives the best answer I’ve seen to this question (a specious rhetorical question that — since it ignores the obvious issue of collective action — Tyler Cowen acknowledges to be worthy of a fifteen-year-old). If I say, “We should all bring a dish so we can have a potluck, 
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Krugman: “while we were arguing about NAFTA, Sauron was gathering his forces in Mordor”
via EPIphenomena – NYTimes.com. Related posts: Must. Make. Gubmint. Smaller. Proofiness! It’s About Bloody Time. Sheesh. Did I Mention Mentioning that It’s the Health Care Costs, Stupid? We Should Make Janitors Work Longer Because Lawyers Are Living Longer
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Yeah, Right: Government Regulation Is the Problem
Bruce Bartlett points us to this: Where do these numbers come from? The Bureau of Labor Statistics asks businesses why they laid people off, and the businesses tell them. Welcome to the reality-based community. Related posts: Reagan Staffer Bartlett Quotes Conservative Icon Wills, Eviscerating Republicans Choosing a VP For All the Right Reason Drowning the Baby…
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#OWS — How Wall Street Capital Destroys Capitalism
Yves Smith points to this passage from Ron Suskind’s Confidence Men, about the business model behind private-equity funds: Charlie Hallac, a top deputy to Larry Fink at BlackRock and head of the firm’s analytical arm, BlackRock Solutions, distilled it down with precision: “Of every twenty deals, the large aggressive PE firm expects seventeen of the…
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#OWS: Saving Capitalism from the “Capitalists”?
I had one of those big Aha moments earlier this year — as is so often the case, while reading one of Steve Randy Waldman’s posts. Karl Marx was a “sharp analyst”, but a “terrible futurist”, he says (emphasis mine for easy skimming; read his whole post, in fact everything he’s written). … the story…
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Arnold Kling: Non-Acute Health Care Is a “Status Good”
He really said that. I guess people take their kids to annual checkups because they want to signal their high status to others. This is totally in keeping with Jonathan Haidt’s findings: on measures that “have anything to do with compassion,” libertarians are at the very bottom of the political spectrum. Likewise Tyler Cowen’s paean…
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A Lean, Mean Fighting Machine: Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the U.S. Military
This is not some limp-wristed notion from a coastal-elite dressing-gown blogger. (That would be me, caricatured uncharitably but not completely inaccurately.) It’s from the man who one Army National Training Center official described,* in 1997, as “the best war fighter the army has got.” Douglas Macgregor thinks we can cut the defense budget by $280 billion over ten…
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Getting In and Out of Unemployment: 1967 to 2011
I find the following graph singularly depressing. It shows the chances of becoming unemployed (red), and the chances of exiting unemployment (blue), since 1967. The odds of becoming unemployed today are basically identical to 1967. The probability of exiting unemployment — the “escape rate” — has plummeted over that period. (Though it was roughly flat…
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I Guess the Right Wing Hasn’t Been Paying Attention for the Last Thirty Years
Tyler Cowen: Anyone — Keynesian or otherwise — paying attention to the last thirty years of empirical macro never expected much crowding out of financial capital in the first place. Google hit #3 out of 952,000, from June 1, 2011: Two words explain all you need to know about our national economic debate. I think…
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Palin: “Only by empowering the individual will our economies be rescued.”
“When cronyism thrives, innovation, prosperity, and freedom suffer because small innovative firms get shoved outside,” she said. “Only by empowering the individual will our economies be rescued.” Funny that she doesn’t mention the opposite alternative — disempowering the cronies (politically and financially). Could that possibly be because she are one? via Slovakia rejects Euro bailout…
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Is the Elasticity of Labor Demand at Zero?
I’m reminded of the joke about two ladies meeting at the races at Ascot. “Oh dahling,” says the first, “what a wonderful hat. Where did you get it?” The second, looking down her nose condescendingly and slightly embarrassed, sneers, “Dear, we have our hats.” Do American employers have all the workers they need or want given…
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Savings Equals Investment Equals … Zero?
Update: See a follow-up post to this post and the comments, here. Randall Wray bills this image — in wonkish humor that I know many of my Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)-savvy readers will get — as “The Most Subversive Sign Seen at the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protest.” Love it! Which prompts me to finally publish this post,…
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WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL THE JOBS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE CREATING??
I’m actually not going where you might think based on this post’s title. I’ve been there often enough. Instead: In response to my post of this on Facebook, a friend of mine (yes, a real-world friend) writes: I am one of those people who has been severely affected by the job crisis. I am educated…
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Quasi/Market Monetarists: Will You Tell Me a Story?
I was poking around in data as is my wont, sussing things out, and put the following graph together. It quite caught my eye. The five-year averages make it a lot easier to see the big picture. At first glance this looks like a profound secular shift in the economy. (Tyler Cowen: Wow, that is a…
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A Brief History of Corporate Whining
Pretty much says it all… No related posts.