Some people have requested that I post some materials from some guest lectures I have given and courses I have taught. I thought I could pull out this dusty old blog and, as time permits, post some of the charts I use with general commentary - and use this also to post updated charts, economic indicators, business news, and policy and politics with respect to national economics, which has quickly come to a point of nadir in our national discourse.
I have not touched this blog in over a year and mostly didn't maintain it much since I started it in 2004. Over the past year, I would say my political orientation has trended more moderate as we've seen more policy-making from Democrats in The White House and majorities in Congress, and now with a divided Congress. I don't like a lot of what I see on both sides, and I think both sides are working together and with media to undermine the real discussions we should be having as a nation. I will attempt to deconstruct a lot of that here, and to try and point readers and myself in more constructive directions.
I will not obfuscate my point of view, which is discernably conservative in some respects and notably progressive and liberal in other respects. Bear in mind that the bounds of those labels do shift over time. Richard Nixon offered a national health care plan, but Democrats didn't think it went far enough at the time. When President Carter offered a public health system to Ted Kennedy, Kennedy opposed it, partly because he thought it wouldn't work, and partly because he was planning his epic 1980 run for president against President Carter. I'm just one person, and if I'm not your flavor of coffee, that's okay.
You're welcome to comment or email me if you'd like more discussion or with questions, and I will get to that as time permits.
Please note to the right of the page I have accumulated over time a list of other people's related blogs, mostly economic related and not all with a partisan or ideological bent, many of them academics. I encourage you to check them out and please email me any others I should consider listing there (or any I should unlist).
Your interest flatters me just by visiting the page. This will be an experiment. If I'm unable to keep things posted daily or every other day, I may alert those of you whose email I have when a new post goes up. Let's see how this goes! Onward, outward, and forward....
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Is It Time for Post-Bipartisanship yet?
"Grow up Democrats. Do it alone. Face the music. You're the majority." - Rachel Maddow.
Rachel Maddow, PhD, is the only person you need to watch to know what's really going on behind the scenes in Washington - why what's happening is happening. If you want to know why something is the way it is in Washington, just watch Rachel. And she's no shill for the Democrats either.
Rachel Maddow, PhD, is the only person you need to watch to know what's really going on behind the scenes in Washington - why what's happening is happening. If you want to know why something is the way it is in Washington, just watch Rachel. And she's no shill for the Democrats either.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
George Will: As Big a Fraud as Palin
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6855016.html
Look, all you really need to know is that Paul Ryan's budget was so horribly received in Washington that even John Boehner distanced himself from it, and Democrats have been using it all week to pillory the Republicans with it, asking them for "more please!"
Why? Because for all Will's alleged "simplicity," his entire column is reductio ad absurdum of extremely complex government for an extremely large and complex society. Read it again, and this time stop after every sentence and read between the lines. Take this little gem:
"Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits, or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent."
They would be made "permanently solvent" because they would be dead in 10 years. See that? Slash it to a small tax credit after 10 years and it's gone. Well yeah, I can make any budget "permanently solvent" -- by reducing it to $0. Nice trick, George. Brilliant, Paul.
This is the absurdity of the plan (and the crazies who think like this) in all its elements. What this kind of infantile wishing masquerading as serious commentary is really doing is making a small set of crazy people believe that we live in a world with magic ponies where we don't have to pay taxes and nobody gets hurt, that the world is a small and simple place with simple "common sense" solutions at every turn, if only the bleeding heart evil greedy socialist communist fascist technocrats would just wake up and realize that everything is really very, very, very simple and very, very, very easy. And that makes the crazies very, very, very angry! It's all so easy! So simple! Why won't they see it!?!?!? Ridiculous.
As Obama has said, "Who wouldn't want that? If it's that good, why wouldn't I be doing it already?" The answer to his rhetorical question reveals the intellectual fraud of George Will, Paul Ryan, and the fiscal crazies on the right. The adults in the Republican party (though few) and the adults in the Democrat party, and the adult independents and experts are all trying to deal with the way the world is and not the way in which they wish the world was. We tried the latter approach to governing in the last 8-year administration. How did that work out for them? For us? Do you see any flying magic ponies on American main street? How about in Baghdad or Islamabad? Because the last administration put people in power who actually believed -- and governed under -- the fraud that Will is peddling.
Look, all you really need to know is that Paul Ryan's budget was so horribly received in Washington that even John Boehner distanced himself from it, and Democrats have been using it all week to pillory the Republicans with it, asking them for "more please!"
Why? Because for all Will's alleged "simplicity," his entire column is reductio ad absurdum of extremely complex government for an extremely large and complex society. Read it again, and this time stop after every sentence and read between the lines. Take this little gem:
"Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits, or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent."
They would be made "permanently solvent" because they would be dead in 10 years. See that? Slash it to a small tax credit after 10 years and it's gone. Well yeah, I can make any budget "permanently solvent" -- by reducing it to $0. Nice trick, George. Brilliant, Paul.
This is the absurdity of the plan (and the crazies who think like this) in all its elements. What this kind of infantile wishing masquerading as serious commentary is really doing is making a small set of crazy people believe that we live in a world with magic ponies where we don't have to pay taxes and nobody gets hurt, that the world is a small and simple place with simple "common sense" solutions at every turn, if only the bleeding heart evil greedy socialist communist fascist technocrats would just wake up and realize that everything is really very, very, very simple and very, very, very easy. And that makes the crazies very, very, very angry! It's all so easy! So simple! Why won't they see it!?!?!? Ridiculous.
As Obama has said, "Who wouldn't want that? If it's that good, why wouldn't I be doing it already?" The answer to his rhetorical question reveals the intellectual fraud of George Will, Paul Ryan, and the fiscal crazies on the right. The adults in the Republican party (though few) and the adults in the Democrat party, and the adult independents and experts are all trying to deal with the way the world is and not the way in which they wish the world was. We tried the latter approach to governing in the last 8-year administration. How did that work out for them? For us? Do you see any flying magic ponies on American main street? How about in Baghdad or Islamabad? Because the last administration put people in power who actually believed -- and governed under -- the fraud that Will is peddling.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Monday, February 01, 2010
Still The Party of No
No ideas. (Aside from reading "the bill," has anyone read "the pamphlet"?)
No compromise.
No good faith.
No to America.
No compromise.
No good faith.
No to America.
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