Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[gwnn]

Saying "I went to Wall Street and told them: Cut it out!" and thinking it's a convincing argument or whatever sounds more like Alzheimer than anything Bernie said.

[kenberg]

It seems only old people write off Bernie as old :P

 

Which, if you think about it, might not be as crazy as it sounds. We live it.

But I won't write him off. I think age is relevant, but not disqualifying.

General health is very relevant, and age is part of health.

We would all like the perfect candidate, we always have to balance things out.

[barmar]

In case anyone is interested in the statistics:

 

Youngest: eleected = JFK 43.6, by ascension = Teddy Roosevelt 42.9

Median: 54.9

Oldest: Reagan: almost 70

 

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age

[Winstonm]

Don't get me wrong... Bernies' views are much closer to mine than Hillary's.

 

With this said and done, Reagan's Alzheimer's really started kicking in midway through his second term.

Not something that I want to see happen again.

Going with a younger candidate is one way to mitigate the risk.

 

A Reagan with all his faculties is something I hope to never again see.

[Winstonm]

Carn...as far as the eye can see...carn. And it's only 7 days away.

[Flem72]

A Reagan with all his faculties is something I hope to never again see.

 

but he probably wouldn't split the infinitive....

[Winstonm]

but he probably wouldn't split the infinitive....

 

No, but I tend "to boldly go where no man has gone before>" :P

[barmar]

but he probably wouldn't split the infinitive....

It took some searching, but I found these from his announcement of his presidential candidacy:

Much of this talk has come from leaders who claim that our problems are too difficult to handle. We are supposed to meekly accept their failures as the most which humanly can be done.

...

I believe this nation hungers for a spiritual revival; hungers to once again see honor placed above political expediency;

[gwnn]

It took some searching, but I found these from his announcement of his presidential candidacy:

Great stuff! Have a virtual upvote!! :)

[kenberg]

We have watched the first two episodes of Billions, and maybe we will watch a third.. It's not a gret show but it brought to mind some questions I have thought about from time to time.

Regarding the problems created by the unrestrained financial behavior of some at the very top:

 

A. To what extent do we need new laws, to what extent to we need better enforcement of existing laws?

 

B. In either case, few people understand the complexities of high finance. I don't, for example. I barely know a hedge fund from a hedgehog. To either write or enforce laws effectively we need people who have extensive understanding of the mechanisms. But such people come from the high finance culture, and quite possibly their goals are not my goals.

 

Not that I actually have a solution.

[Winstonm]

We have watched the first two episodes of Billions, and maybe we will watch a third.. It's not a gret show but it brought to mind some questions I have thought about from time to time.

Regarding the problems created by the unrestrained financial behavior of some at the very top:

 

A. To what extent do we need new laws, to what extent to we need better enforcement of existing laws?

 

B. In either case, few people understand the complexities of high finance. I don't, for example. I barely know a hedge fund from a hedgehog. To either write or enforce laws effectively we need people who have extensive understanding of the mechanisms. But such people come from the high finance culture, and quite possibly their goals are not my goals.

 

Not that I actually have a solution.

 

 

I believe the three most disastrous occurrences of the past 40 years are the weakening of antitrust laws that happened during the Reagan presidency, the repeal of Glass-Steagall during the Clinton administration, and the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

[y66]

From a Business Insider interview with Barney Frank (paraphrasing mike777):

 

Look, financial entities are a vital part of our economy and we never thought that it wasn’t and we never tried to stop them from doing the things they were doing. We did argue they should do them in a more responsible way.

 

Our basic view was if they were able to take a lot of risks with selling credit default swaps or issuing residential mortgages and packaging them into securities, without having to stand behind those risks, without having the money to put up if the risks went bad ... We never, the bill [never] told them what risks to take or not to take, only that they have to be responsible for them.

[kenberg]

The BI interview with barney Frank is great.

 

I pull out one thing as an example of what I said about most of us not knowing much about the financial industry:

 

 

Some elements of the law have yet to be fully realized — like part of the controversial Volcker Rule that prohibits banks from engaging in proprietary trading and investing in hedge funds and private-equity firms.

 

After the first eleven words I have no idea what this means. For example I don't know what sort of trading is proprietary and what isn't. I could easily find out the meaning, but forming an intelligent opinion about it? Not so easy.

 

But Barney Frank sounds as he knows, and he sounds good.

 

It seems ot me that there could be very broad agreement that concentrating almost unimaginable amounts of money in very few hands is asking for serious trouble, even if one cannot predict exactly what that trouble would be. You don't have to be a wild-eyed radical to see that.

[mike777]

Barney Frank is an idiot on this topic, a moron.

 

At least Winston argues for more regulation, more government intervention despite we see is causes market disruption which it what Winston wants, protection of what Winston loves.

 

 

What Winston hates is destruction of his favorites

 

 

what capitalists desire destruction of protected Winston favorites

 

I should note Winston has been very open and honest and that matters.

[mike777]

the biggest problem against single payer is that Winston and others will not allow its destruction. that is the number one issue you do not allow destruction of govt progams. You protect it no matter what.

 

You do not allow the replacement of it by a program or ten other programs.

[helene_t]

the biggest problem against single payer is that Winston and others will not allow its destruction. that is the number one issue you do not allow destruction of govt progams. You protect it no matter what.

Oh yes, the UK government is about to destroy the NHS. It is quite easy.

 

However, medicare and medicaid and VA are popular in the US so an expension to the whole population will almost certainly be popular as well.

[y66]

Since "Restoring America's Greatness" has become a theme in this election, this excerpt from Paul Krugman's review of "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" by Robert J. Gordon may be of interest:

 

Robert J. Gordon, a distinguished macro­economist and economic historian at Northwestern, has been arguing for a long time against the techno-optimism that saturates our culture, with its constant assertion that we’re in the midst of revolutionary change. Starting at the height of the dot-com frenzy, he has repeatedly called for perspective: Developments in information and communication technology, he has insisted, just don’t measure up to past achievements. Specifically, he has argued that the I.T. revolution is less important than any one of the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine and modern communication.

 

In “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” Gordon doubles down on that theme, declaring that the kind of rapid economic growth we still consider our due, and expect to continue forever, was in fact a one-time-only event. First came the Great Inventions, almost all dating from the late 19th century. Then came refinement and exploitation of those inventions — a process that took time, and exerted its peak effect on economic growth between 1920 and 1970. Everything since has at best been a faint echo of that great wave, and Gordon doesn’t expect us ever to see anything similar.

 

Is he right? My answer is a definite maybe. But whether or not you end up agreeing with Gordon’s thesis, this is a book well worth reading — a magisterial combination of deep technological history, vivid portraits of daily life over the past six generations and careful economic analysis. Non-economists may find some of the charts and tables heavy going, but Gordon never loses sight of the real people and real lives behind those charts. This book will challenge your views about the future; it will definitely transform how you see the past.

 

Indeed, almost half the book is devoted to changes that took place before World War II. Others have covered this ground — most notably Daniel Boorstin in “The Americans: The Democratic Experience.” Even knowing this literature, however, I was fascinated by Gordon’s account of the changes wrought by his Great Inventions. As he says, “Except in the rural South, daily life for every American changed beyond recognition between 1870 and 1940.” Electric lights replaced candles and whale oil, flush toilets replaced outhouses, cars and electric trains replaced horses. (In the 1880s, parts of New York’s financial district were seven feet deep in manure.)

 

Meanwhile, backbreaking toil both in the workplace and in the home was for the most part replaced by far less onerous employment. This is a point all too often missed by economists, who tend to think only about how much purchasing power people have, not about what they have to do to get it, and Gordon does an important service by reminding us that the conditions under which men and women labor are as important as the amount they get paid.

 

Aside from its being an interesting story, however, why is it important to study this transformation? Mainly, Gordon suggests — although these are my words, not his — to provide a baseline. What happened between 1870 and 1940, he argues, and I would agree, is what real transformation looks like. Any claims about current progress need to be compared with that baseline to see how they measure up.

 

And it’s hard not to agree with him that nothing that has happened since is remotely comparable. Urban life in America on the eve of World War II was already recognizably modern; you or I could walk into a 1940s apartment, with its indoor plumbing, gas range, electric lights, refrigerator and telephone, and we’d find it basically functional. We’d be annoyed at the lack of television and Internet — but not horrified or disgusted.

 

By contrast, urban Americans from 1940 walking into 1870-style accommodations — which they could still do in the rural South — were indeed horrified and disgusted. Life fundamentally improved between 1870 and 1940 in a way it hasn’t since.

 

Now, in 1940 many Americans were already living in what was recognizably the modern world, but many others weren’t. What happened over the next 30 years was that the further maturing of the Great Inventions led to rapidly rising incomes and a spread of that modern lifestyle to the nation as a whole. But then everything slowed down. And Gordon argues that the slowdown is likely to be permanent: The great age of progress is behind us. But is Gordon just from the wrong generation, unable to fully appreciate the wonders of the latest technology? I suspect that things like social media make a bigger positive difference to people’s lives than he acknowledges. But he makes two really good points that throw quite a lot of cold water on the claims of techno-optimists.

 

First, he points out that genuinely major innovations normally bring about big changes in business practices, in what workplaces look like and how they function. And there were some changes along those lines between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s — but not much since, which is evidence for Gordon’s claim that the main impact of the I.T. revolution has already happened.

 

Second, one of the major arguments of techno-optimists is that official measures of economic growth understate the real extent of progress, because they don’t fully account for the benefits of truly new goods. Gordon concedes this point, but notes that it was always thus — and that the understatement of progress was probably bigger during the great prewar transformation than it is today.

 

So what does this say about the future? Gordon suggests that the future is all too likely to be marked by stagnant living standards for most Americans, because the effects of slowing technological progress will be reinforced by a set of “headwinds”: rising inequality, a plateau in education levels, an aging population and more.

 

It’s a shocking prediction for a society whose self-image, arguably its very identity, is bound up with the expectation of constant progress. And you have to wonder about the social and political consequences of another generation of stagnation or decline in working-class incomes.

 

Of course, Gordon could be wrong: Maybe we’re on the cusp of truly transformative change, say from artificial intelligence or radical progress in biology (which would bring their own risks). But he makes a powerful case. Perhaps the future isn’t what it used to be.

It's fun to think about where the next "great transformation" will come from. Not the Oval Office I suspect.

[hrothgar]

Barney Frank is an idiot on this topic, a moron.

 

At least Winston argues for more regulation, more government intervention despite we see is causes market disruption which it what Winston wants, protection of what Winston loves.

 

What Winston hates is destruction of his favorites

 

what capitalists desire destruction of protected Winston favorites

 

I should note Winston has been very open and honest and that matters.

 

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

and drinking largely sobers us again.

 

To, wit, Mike777 has a superficial understanding of Schumpeter's notion of creative destruction.

 

Sadly, he doesn't know anything about 19th century business cycles and the reason that modern economies adopted policies involving government regulation.

[kenberg]

It's fun to think about where the next "great transformation" will come from.

 

Maybe we need to fashion a different view of progress. How much has changed since 1940? Quite a bit, but the changes are often of much less importance than the changes during the 1870-1940 period. Growing up, I seldom left Minnesota. I was never on a plane until I was an adult. But so what? Being able to easily fly [added: change that to "to fly easily"] to the West Coast, or Peru, or wherever, is nice but hardly life changing. If you have enough money I guess you can book a ride on an orbiting spacecraft. Given the money, I still can't say I would do that.

 

Medical progress has in fact been amazing. Becky has two knees designed by a computer and a 3-D printer, I had cataract surgery a week ago, everyone knows cancer survivors who would not have had a chance in 1940. Medical technology is one place where there is a lot of action.

 

The place where I think that we have been the least successful is bringing everyone into our modern life. Partly this is because people are not machines, and even the best of plans can go awry. But we could do better in providing opportunity. . How can we have people drinking leaded water in 2016? This should simply not be possible.

 

My point is that progress now should not be measured so much by whether my life gets better, I don't really have any complaints. Rather progress should be measured by how well we can bring about better living for those who have little. I differ from some in that I think some of the problems people have are, to borrow from Jimmy Buffett, their own damn fault. If someone runs headlong toward the worst of choices, it is hard to do much. But that is only part of it, I think we could do a better job of providing good options.

[Flem72]

It took some searching, but I found these from his announcement of his presidential candidacy:

 

Excellent! Bad speechwriters.... :rolleyes:

[Winstonm]

the biggest problem against single payer is that Winston and others will not allow its destruction. that is the number one issue you do not allow destruction of govt progams. You protect it no matter what.

 

You do not allow the replacement of it by a program or ten other programs.

 

I argue that national wealth is built by the means of supporting and giving welfare to the entire populace, not solely the richest members, and surely not by pouring resources into the black hole of military spending.

 

If you deem my concept a communist plot to end the U.S. then I suggest it is you who has the problem with capitalism.

[blackshoe]

I barely know a hedge fund from a hedgehog.

Both of them will stick you. B-)

[kenberg]

We are digging out. Yesterday the papers from last Saturday and Sunday were delivered, today we got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. How is a guy supposed to know what he thinks without the op-ed pages there to tell him?

 

Anyway, I have been falling behind. I was barely aware of the Trump/Fox brouhahahaha. My thought? Even if it is real it is still a publicity stunt. This is becoming beyond unwatchable.

[Winstonm]

Barney Frank is an idiot on this topic, a moron.

 

At least Winston argues for more regulation, more government intervention despite we see is causes market disruption which it what Winston wants, protection of what Winston loves.

 

 

What Winston hates is destruction of his favorites

 

 

what capitalists desire destruction of protected Winston favorites

 

I should note Winston has been very open and honest and that matters.

 

You seem to claim a binary vision of life, as though there were only good and bad, a right way (capitalism) and wrong way (anything else). But the lives of humans are not binary, not off or on. Human lives move more like a Bell curve, needs and wants changing from birth through death. The blunt ax of capitalism should not be relied on to carve the fine lines and nuances of human existence.

[Winstonm]

We are digging out. Yesterday the papers from last Saturday and Sunday were delivered, today we got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. How is a guy supposed to know what he thinks without the op-ed pages there to tell him?

 

Anyway, I have been falling behind. I was barely aware of the Trump/Fox brouhahahaha. My thought? Even if it is real it is still a publicity stunt. This is becoming beyond unwatchable.

 

For some reason watching the GOP transform itself into hideous, blathering idiocy is as chilling as watching the series documentary "Making a Murderer". I only hope the U.S.A. doesn't end up wrongfully convicted of conspiracy to commit stupidity.