Category: Politics

When You’re Last Year’s News

You’re the Boss: A System That Encourages Small Businesses Not to Hire Older Workers:

“I have good reason to suspect that my costs and the costs of all of my employees are going to go up if I hire an older worker…

Our current system hides these costs, and I’m sure that this is a large part of the difficulty that older workers have in getting hired. Some of you will probably object that my system would result in lower wages for older workers. In some cases it might, but that beats no wages at all. As I said in my last post, it may be illegal to discriminate on the basis of age, but there’s always a way to rationalize hiring any given worker over any other one. If we can put a price on the insurance costs, then the skills and experience that older workers bring to the table can be properly accounted for.

Postscript: Yes, I know that a single payer system would solve this problem. But it ain’t gonna happen, so I’m not waiting for it.”

(Via Business and Financial News – The New York Times.)

Markets don’t make moral decisions.  They make economic ones.

Proud to Be Cynical

Proud to Be Cynical:

Mike Huckabee, in 2011, on Natalie Portman having a child with a man she’s engaged to, before they’ve actually married:

‘One of the most troubling things is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet that boasts of, hey look, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having children and they’re doing just fine.’

‘There aren’t really a lot of single moms out there that are making millions of dollars each year by being in a movie’

‘I think it gives a distorted image that not everybody hires nannies and caretakers and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and would not get healthcare.’

Mike Huckabee, in 2008, on Bristol Palin having a child with a man she was engaged to, before they’d actually married:

‘It ought to be a reminder that here is a family that loves one another. They stuck with each other though the tough times and that’s what families do.’ … Huckabee said the surprise pregnancy announcement should not affect vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s support in the conservative and religious right communities. … ‘I’m grateful for the way she’s being supported by her family.’

There is a lot wrong here which I’m sure you guys can tease out. That last ‘most single moms’ sentence is heinous.

But again facts don’t really matter here. This is a strict ideology built on an alternate reality. You can’t reason with people who not only believe their president is Kenyan, but need to believe he’s Kenyan. The belief comes first. The casus belli of white populism is resentment of those not like us. Facts are mere materiel meant to be invented, discarded, smelted and recast in service of the cause.

It’s very hard to love these people.

Loud and Wrong

Proud Of Being Ignorant:

“What runs through Adam’s point, and Andrew’s point is one of the common threads of white populism–a rejoicing in not knowing things. It does not much matter to Huckabee that Obama wrote an entire book investigating the lack of a relationship between him and his father. It does not matter that Obama’s father and Kenyatta were ultimately of different factions. And most damning of all, it does not matter that every year on July 4th the country which Huckabee claims to love effectively throws national anti-colonial bash celebrating its liberation from the British.

The easy claim to make here is that the difference between American anti-colonialist and British anti-colonialist is skin color. Were it so simple. More likely, I think, Huckabee just doesn’t much care. A significant portion of the conservative base fundamentally believes Obama, not simply to be wrong, but to be an outsider to the American tradition.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic.)

Trains and Freedom

Trains and Freedom:

“Anyway, my experience is that of the three modes of mechanized transport I use, trains are by far the most liberating. Planes are awful: waiting to clear security, then having to sit with your electronics turned off during takeoff and landing, no place to go if you want to get up in any case. Cars — well, even aside from traffic jams (tell me how much freedom you experience waiting for an hour in line at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel), the thing about cars is that you have to drive them, which kind of limits other stuff…

So if trains represent soulless collectivism, count me in.”

(Via Paul Krugman.)

Count me in too, Professor.  Watching trains pass you by as you’re stuck in a traffic jam doesn’t strike me as freedom.

Pain without Purpose

Pain without Purpose:

“And here we reach the limits of my mental horizons as a neoliberal, as a technocrat, and as a mainstream neoclassical economist. Right now, the global economy is suffering a grand mal seizure of slack demand and high unemployment. We know the cures. Yet we seem determined to inflict further suffering on the patient.”

(Via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.)

Political ideology trumps technocratic know-how.  In other words, non-professionals think they know more than the pros.  And we know where that leads.

Family budgets aren’t economies.  The government is not our parent nor does it fund the workings of the economy.  Yet we keep repeating that damn fool “tighten our belts” meme.  The price of ignorance, sophomoric ignorance at that is high.

I Thought Tax Cuts were Supposed to Create Jobs

GOP spending plan would cost 700,000 jobs, new report says:

“A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday…

[This] report comes on the heels of a similar analysis last week by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which predicted that the Republican spending cuts would cause even greater damage to the economy, slowing growth by as much as 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of this year.”

(Via Grasping Reality with a Sharp Beak.)

Predictably, the GOP goes after the messenger when it can’t rebut the message.  It’s a surefire way to determine who’s lying or incompetent and who’s not, who’s got a grip on reality and who’s in denial.  And sure enough as I kept reading:

Republican leaders frequently claim that cutting government spending will create jobs by removing the fear of higher taxes from the minds of the nation’s business owners and entrepreneurs…

So far, the Republicans have been unable to marshal an independent analysis that reflects that view. [emphasis mine]

In other words, they are pulling this economic “theory” clean out of their ideological butts.

Every Issue Isn’t A Voting Issue For Everyone

Every Issue Isn’t A Voting Issue For Everyone:

“And the last thing that needs to be said is black voters are generally good at naming their interests. The party that embraces white populism–whatever party it may be at the time–has generally not been judged to be in the corner. I see no reason why this will be different.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic.)

Nor do I.

Yes, You Have to Pay for Tax Cuts

Democrats should not rise to the bait of “fiscal conservatives” | Jeff Frankels Weblog | Views on the Economy and the World:

“The problem is that a heavy majority of the supposed fiscally conservative congressmen, although passionate about cutting government spending in the abstract, are in truth no better able to find specific dollars of budget cuts that they can support or defend to their constituents than are the Democrats.   Factoring in their immutable desire to cut taxes, I believe that if the Republicans were in full control, we would have larger budget deficits in the coming years than if the Obama crowd retained power.  This is what happened in a big way when Presidents Reagan and GW Bush took office promising to cut the debt while also cutting taxes.   Spending, deficits, and debt soared during their terms, relative to their respective Democratic predecessors.  There is no reason to think anything has changed…

Rep. Paul Ryan’s supposedly tough long-term plan to cut spending doesn’t balance the budget until 50 years from now and runs up another $62 trillion in national debt in the meantime…” [emphasis mine]

(Via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.)

Democratic “investment” = GOP “tax cuts” = increased government spending.

What Will a Republican Majority Do Next?

What Will a Republican Majority Do Next?:

“The current Republican Party lacks a similar basic, manageable agenda. It’s all or nothing. And the GOP no longer seems to have the capacity to get policy plans developed into legislation that is written, negotiated, and signed into law. The GOP has made a political choice to cut off a lot of its policy capacity. That’s why it has no budget plans other than Ryan’s super-unpopular one. It’s why it didn’t come up with any meaningful alternative to health reform. It’s not because Republicans are dumb — although Boehner and his allies were no match for Nancy Pelosi in a battle of tactics and determination — but because offering an alternative would mean negotiating, finding areas of agreement and disagreement.”

(Via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.)

Now this is punditry. Predicted circa July 2010.

Does The U.S. Really Have A Fiscal Crisis?

Does The U.S. Really Have A Fiscal Crisis?:

“But the problem here is bipartisan – as it was with the tax cut last year.  None of the leadership on either side is willing to talk openly about how our biggest banks caused great fiscal damage.  No one is willing to explain why our healthcare costs continue to rise.  And no top politicians currently champion real tax reform.

The Republicans have seized a moment.  To them, this is not really about fiscal responsibility; this is about an opportunity to shrink the size of government.

But the Democrats have played perfectly into their hands.  The heart of their mistake was the president’s refusal to explain clearly how the financial system produced a recession that has pushed up our national debt. “

(Via The Baseline Scenario.)