Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

FWIW, this is an area where I think the Obama administration was an abject failure:

 

Iceland just sentenced their 26th banker to prison for his part in the 2008 economic collapse. The charges ranged from breach of fiduciary duties to market manipulation to embezzlement.

When most people think of Iceland, they envision fire and ice. Major volcanoes and vast ice fields are abundant due to its position on the northern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. (A hot July day in Reykjavik is around 55 degrees.) However, Iceland is also noted for being one of the Nordic Socialist countries, complete with universal health care, free education and a lot other Tea Potty nightmares. Therefore, as you might imagine, they tend to view and react to economic situations slightly differently than the U.S.

When the banking induced “Great Recession of ’08” struck, Iceland’s economic hit was among the hardest. However, instead of rewarding fraudulent banking procedures with tons of bailout money, they took a different path.

 

At the same time, just because no bankers were charged doesn't mean I wasn't glad Obama was president when this occurred, as I shiver to think what might have been if Individual-1 had been in charge.

[Winstonm]

Feb. 28, 2018

 

OSLO — The protocol for nominating and choosing recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize is one of the world’s most scrutinized and secretive.

 

A total of 329 candidates — 217 individuals and 112 organizations — are being considered for this year’s prize, which will be announced in October. The identities of the candidates are kept secret, and indeed, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prizes, is forbidden from divulging any information about its deliberations for 50 years, and even then, only for scholarship purposes and at its discretion.

 

But a wrinkle in this time-honored process — the peace prize was first awarded in 1901 — emerged on Tuesday, when the committee announced that it had uncovered what appeared to be a forged nomination of President Trump for the prize. The matter has been referred to the Oslo police for investigation.

 

Moreover, the forgery appears to have occurred twice: Olav Njolstad, the secretary of the five-member committee, said it appeared that a forged nomination of Mr. Trump for the prize was also submitted last year — and was also referred to the police. (The earlier forgery was not disclosed to the public at the time.)

 

If I had to bet on the forger, I'd put my money on Stephen "Whitey" Miller.

[Winstonm]

Let's see how what the how Individual-1 has re-shaped the Republican party.

 

1) What is the Republican position on democracy?

 

The executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections revealed Monday that state officials had uncovered a “coordinated” and “unlawful” effort to collect absentee ballots on behalf of a Republican congressional candidate in the November election.

 

2) What is the Republican position on free speech?

 

Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into.

 

THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

 

195K

6:56 AM - Feb 17, 2019

 

Two for two. Pretty impressive.

[Winstonm]

And the above "charge" is based on what evidence? Or is it wishful thinking because collusion which has been pushed by progressives for 2 years just isn't there?

 

Funny, but I responded to you with specifics of how the indictments and other information from Muller's court filings show strong evidence of collusion between the campaign and the Russian government, yet you don't respond to those specifics; instead, you repeat your talking points of "No collusion".

 

Perhaps there was no collusion. But I would think anyone with an open mind would have to wonder why such activity occurred and why everyone involved lied about their contacts with Russians, why Jared Kushner wanted backchannel commmunications with Russia eminating from inside the Russian embassy, among a host of questions about problematic actions by people like Junior and Roger Stone, just to name two.

 

If you don't think the facts I set out in the other post are questionable actions worthy of investigation and certainly strong evidence of not only "collusion" but of criminal conspiracy between the campaign and a Russian cutout, then you will never accept any evidence as convincing. If you have made up your mind without knowing the facts, why are you asking the question?

 

I know you give no credence to what I write, but perhaps some else might help. Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist who began disbelieving any collusion but the evidence has changed her views. Here is what she wrote recently:

 

We’re at a point where both sides are making claims of treason, which only serves to feed the intensity of both sides, without convincing Trump’s supporters (and other denialists) that the concerns about Trump’s loyalty — and therefore the investigation that McCabe opened into him — are well-grounded.

 

But there are neutral third party observers here, weighing the claims of loyalty. Four different sentencing processes have sided with those questioning the loyalty of Trump and those close to him.....

 

....Four times so far in this investigation, Trump’s aides have started the sentencing process for their crimes designed to obstruction Robert Mueller’s investigation. All four times, before four different judges, their misplaced loyalty to Trump above country has come up. And with both Flynn and Manafort — where the judges have seen significant amounts of non-public information about the crimes they lied to cover-up — two very reasonable judges have raised explicit questions about whether Trump’s aides had betrayed their country.

 

Yes, the judicial system is siding with Mueller. Yet you are unconvinced?

[johnu]

Alabama newspaper editor calls for the Ku Klux Klan return to 'clean out D.C.'

 

When asked if he recognized the KKK as a racist and violent organization, Sutton disagreed, comparing the Klan to the NAACP.

 

"A violent organization? Well, they didn't kill but a few people," Sutton said. "The Klan wasn't violent until they needed to be."

Comparing the NAACP with the KKK? As Dennison has said, "you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides".

 

What can I say, Dennison's leadership by example is making America great again :rolleyes:

[Winstonm]

Who are those guys?

 

The people who applaud the lock-’em up stuff are easy to account for. The people who are harder to get are the other 10 or whatever percent who aren’t MAGA-heads but who approve of the job he’s doing.

 

These people are utterly unfathomable to me. The ones who love him by definition can’t see what a crook, shyster, and cheater he is, what a bunch of grifters that whole family is, that he’s never lived an honest day in his life, that he’s a complete racist, that the only thing he thinks about any woman is whether she’s a piece of ass or not a piece of ass, and that on top of all that he’s a moron. I understand those people.

 

But the non-lovers who approve of the job he’s doing mystify me.

[Winstonm]

NYT exposes attempted obstruction of justice by Individual-1:

 

WASHINGTON — As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct knowledge of the call.

 

Mr. Whitaker, who had privately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to “jump on a grenade” for the president, knew he could not put Mr. Berman in charge because Mr. Berman had already recused himself from the investigation. The president soon soured on Mr. Whitaker, as he often does with his aides, and complained about his inability to pull levers at the Justice Department that could make the president’s many legal problems go away.

 

Trying to install a perceived loyalist atop a widening inquiry is a familiar tactic for Mr. Trump, who has been struggling to beat back the investigations that have consumed his presidency. His efforts have exposed him to accusations of obstruction of justice as Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finishes his work investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election

.

[y66]

re: Who are those guys?

 

Did you not see the episode near the end of the Sopranos when Christopher drives off the road after nearly colliding with an oncoming vehicle whose teenage occupants had this exchange: "Maybe you should go back Heidi." Heidi, who has no intention of going back, says "Kennedy, I'm on my learner's permit after dark". For those 2 and all the people who support Trump, it's not about doing the right thing. It's about self interest.

 

Here's a serious question: What song was playing on Christopher's car stereo when he crashed?

 

 

Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", performed by Roger Waters featuring Van Morrison & The Band, the first track from the soundtrack of The Departed.

 

[Winstonm]

re: Who are those guys?

 

Did you not see the episode near the end of the Sopranos when Christopher drives off the road after nearly colliding with an oncoming vehicle whose teenage occupants had this exchange: "Maybe you should go back Heidi." Heidi, who has no intention of going back, says "Kennedy, I'm on my learner's permit after dark". For those 2 and all the people who support Trump, it's not about doing the right thing. It's about self interest.

 

Here's a serious question: What song was playing on Christopher's car stereo when he crashed?

 

 

Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", performed by Roger Waters featuring Van Morrison & The Band, the first track from the soundtrack of The Departed.

 

 

I didn't get to see much of The Sopranos so I don't know. My "Who are those guys" referenced Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

[y66]

From Martin Wolf at FT:

 

Might the US move from being a laggard to a leader in tackling global climate change? Two recent announcements — the “economists’ statement on carbon dividends” and the Green New Deal — suggest that it might. Intellectually, these proposals are from different planets. But they could be a basis for something reasonable. More important, influential people at least agree that for the US to stand pat is unconscionable.

 

The economists’ statement has been signed by 3,333 US economists, including four former chairs of the Federal Reserve, 27 Nobel laureates and two former Treasury secretaries. It has four elements: a gradually increasing carbon fee, beginning at $40 a ton; a dividend paid “to the American people on an equal and quarterly basis”; border adjustments for the carbon content of imports and exports; and removal of unnecessary regulations. This plan is also to be proposed to “other leading greenhouse gas emitting countries”.

 

The Green New Deal comes from a group of House Democrats, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is a proposal to transform the US economy. Notable climate-related goals include “meeting 100 per cent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources”, “building or upgrading to energy-efficient, distributed, and ‘smart’ power grids”, and “upgrading all existing buildings in the US and building new buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency”.

 

The US is a pivotal actor in global climate change discussions for four reasons: it is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for 14 per cent of the total; its emissions per head are very high; it has exceptional technological resources; and it has been highly recalcitrant. In brief, US participation is a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for addressing the climate threat.

 

Alas, that threat has become imminent, as the Green New Deal notes. The rise in average temperatures above pre-industrial levels is already 1C. It will take dramatic changes to keep it below 2C, let alone 1.5C. The higher it gets, the more unpredictable and dangerous these irreversible changes will become. Above all, the trend to higher emissions must reverse very soon if the rise in atmospheric concentrations is to halt.

 

This is one reason why reliance on the calibrated price incentives beloved by economists is inadequate. The challenges here are irreversible changes in climate with uncertain effects, on the one hand, and the imperfectly predictable consequences of carbon pricing on emissions, on the other hand. Quantitative objectives are inescapable. Moreover, the needed changes in the way the economy works will demand changes in spatial planning, in building regulations, in regulation of nuclear power, in spending on research and development, and in spreading new technologies across the world. The price mechanism is powerful. But, as a report from the Energy Transitions Commission makes clear, it will not be enough. The economists’ plan might have been adequate if implemented worldwide three decades ago. Now, it is almost certainly not.

 

The Green New Deal recognises the need for regulatory intervention and infrastructure investment. Unfortunately, it places no weight on incentives at all. A letter from activists in support of the Green New Deal states that “we will vigorously oppose any legislation that . . . [includes] market-based mechanisms and technology options such as carbon and emissions trading and offsets, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, waste-to-energy and biomass energy”.

 

This looks like a dialogue of the deaf. But the economists just might recognise that the urgency of the Green New Deal and its focus on regulation and investment have some important things to offer. Activist proponents of the Green New Deal might realise that incentives matter and that the proceeds of a carbon tax might help buy public support. Above all, they might recognise that seeing every social ill through the lens of climate change guarantees that they will fail to achieve anything useful. As the British socialist Aneurin Bevan said, “the language of priorities is the religion of socialism”.

 

Only a broad coalition can tackle the climate challenge. So plans that have a chance of being politically workable will be compromises. A good plan must be a blend of price incentives with command and control, and investment in research and development. The fact that people with different policy approaches agree that climate is an urgent threat is a step forward. More Republicans might accept that the threat is not a hoax and join in.

 

The US cannot solve a global threat on its own. But it could combine the best of the economists’ plan and the Green New Deal. It would then need to make it global. This could be done by a combination of carrots — exporting technology freely and helping poor countries — with sticks — carbon border taxes. This could also be an area where the US, the EU and China might co-operate. Of course, nothing so forward-looking can be expected from the Trump administration. But at least people can plan for the day when he is gone.

 

Pessimism about humanity’s ability to address climate change is understandable. Time is limited, talk plentiful and action negligible. But we can only start from agreement that there is indeed a threat worth addressing. That may now be emerging, even in the US. Turning such a consensus into a workable, globally replicable and politically acceptable plan is going to be very hard. But despair is not an option. We can see some movement. Let us push hard for more.

[Al_U_Card]

From Martin Wolf at FT:

Meteorite impact - end of humankind

Solar Carrington event - end of civilisation

500 ppm CO2 and 1.5C global warming - mostly beneficial

 

More what you say?

[y66]

From On Paying for a Progressive Agenda by Paul Krugman at NYT:

 

Whoever gets the Democratic nomination, she or he will run in part on proposals to increase government spending. And you know what that will mean: There will be demands that the candidate explain how all this will be paid for. Many of those demands will be made in bad faith, from people who never ask the same questions about tax cuts. But there are some real questions about the fiscal side of a progressive agenda.

 

Well, I have some thoughts about that, inspired in part by looking at Elizabeth Warren’s proposals on both the tax and spending side. By the way, I don’t know whether Warren will or even should get the nomination. But she’s a major intellectual figure, and is pushing her party toward serious policy discussion in a way that will have huge influence whatever her personal trajectory.

 

In particular, Warren’s latest proposal on child care – and the instant pushback from the usual suspects – has me thinking that we could use a rough typology of spending proposals, classified by how they might be paid for. Specifically, let me suggest that there are three broad categories of progressive expenditure: investment, benefits enhancement, and major system overhaul, which need to be thought about differently from a fiscal point of view.

 

So, first off, investment – typically spending on infrastructure or research, but there may be some room at the margin for including spending on things like childhood development in the same category. The defining characteristic here is that it’s spending that will enhance society’s future productivity. How should we pay for that kind of outlay?

 

The answer is, we shouldn’t. Think of all the people who say that the government should be run like a business. Actually it shouldn’t, but the two kinds of institution do have this in common: if you can raise funds cheaply and apply them to high-return projects, you should go ahead and borrow. And Federal borrowing costs are very low – less than 1 percent, adjusted for inflation – while we are desperately in need of public investment, i.e., it has a high social return. So we should just do it, without looking for pay-fors.

 

Much of what seems to be in the Green New Deal falls into that category. To the extent that it’s a public investment program, demands that its supporters show how they’ll pay for it show more about the critics’ bad economics than about the GND’s logic.

 

My second category is a bit harder to define, but what I’m thinking of are initiatives that either expand an existing public program or use subsidies to create incentives for expanding some kind of socially desirable private activity – in each case involving sums that are significant but not huge, say a fraction of a percent of GDP.

 

The Affordable Care Act falls into that category. It expanded Medicaid while using a combination of regulation and subsidies to make private insurance more available to families above the new Medicaid line. Warren’s childcare proposal, which reportedly will come in at around 1/3 of a percent of GDP, also fits. So would a “Medicare for All” proposal that involves allowing people to buy in to government insurance, rather than offering that insurance free of charge.

 

It’s harder to justify borrowing for this kind of initiative than borrowing for investment. True, with interest rates low and demand weak it makes some sense to run persistent deficits, but there are surely enough investment needs to use up that allowance. So you want some kind of pay-for. But the sums are small enough that the revenue involved could be raised by fairly narrow-gauge taxes – in particular, taxes that hit only high-income Americans.

 

That is, in fact, how Obamacare was financed: the revenue component came almost entirely from taxes on high incomes (there were some small items like the tax on tanning parlors.) And Warren has in fact proposed additional taxes on the wealthy – her proposed tax on fortunes over $50 million would yield something like four times the cost of her child care proposal.

 

So benefit enhancement can, I’d argue, be paid for with taxes on high incomes and large fortunes. It doesn’t have to impose on the middle class.

 

Finally, my third category is major system overhaul, of which the archetype would be replacing employer-based private health insurance with a tax-financed public program – the purist version of Medicare for all. A really major expansion of Social Security might fall into that category too, although smaller enhancements might not.

 

Proposals in this category are literally an order of magnitude more expensive than benefit enhancements: private health insurance currently amounts to 6 percent of GDP. To implement these proposals, then, we’d need a lot more revenue, which would have to come from things like payroll taxes and/or a value-added tax that hit the middle class.

 

You can argue that most middle-class families would be better off in the end, that the extra benefits would more than compensate for the higher taxes. And you’d probably be right. But this would be a much heavier political lift. You don’t have to be a neoliberal tool to wonder whether major system overhaul should be part of the Democratic platform right now, even if it’s something many progressives aspire to.

 

My main point now, however, is that when people ridicule progressive proposals as silly and unaffordable, they’re basically revealing their own biases and ignorance. Investment can and should be debt-financed; benefit enhancements can be largely paid for with high-end taxes. Howard Schultz won’t like it, but that’s his problem.

[hrothgar]

Meteorite impact - end of humankind

Solar Carrington event - end of civilisation

500 ppm CO2 and 1.5C global warming - mostly beneficial

 

Two non-sequiturs and a lie...

 

Par for the course.

[kenberg]

From On Paying for a Progressive Agenda by Paul Krugman at NYT:

 

 

 

"My main point now, however, is that when people ridicule progressive proposals as silly and unaffordable, they’re basically revealing their own biases and ignorance."

Well put. His main point is that people who disagree with him are stupid. That has always been Krugman's main point.

 

[barmar]

"My main point now, however, is that when people ridicule progressive proposals as silly and unaffordable, they’re basically revealing their own biases and ignorance."

Well put. His main point is that people who disagree with him are stupid. That has always been Krugman's main point.

Economics is complicated. Even trained economists have a hard time with it, and there are many disagreements among them.

 

Telling someone that they're unqualified to make judgements on complex fiscal policies is no more of an insult than telling them that they don't know enough math and physics to be a rocket scientist. Ignorant is not the same as stupid, although making judgements and decisions about things you're ignorant of could be (I qualified this because sometimes you have to make a decision with minimal information, and you just have to go with your gut).

 

The difference, though, is that many people think they understand economics enough to comment on it, perhaps because they manage their personal finances, or because it impacts them directly. Kind of like the way many Brits thought their opinion on Brexit was meaningful, even though they knew little about all the complexities (I expect that most based their vote on one or two aspects of EU membership).

[andrei]

If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves, if we wanted to.

We could hire out more teachers.

We can fix our subways.

We can put a lot of people to work for that money, if we wanted to.

 

Green New Deal is in good hands.

[Winstonm]

"My main point now, however, is that when people ridicule progressive proposals as silly and unaffordable, they’re basically revealing their own biases and ignorance."

Well put. His main point is that people who disagree with him are stupid. That has always been Krugman's main point.

 

Hey, Ken,

 

I really don't get your apparent antipathy toward Krugman (But maybe that is me). From my reading of the article, Krugman explains his reasoning or argument for each of three types of government spending - and he explains it quite simply. The only people I noticed Krugman being condescending toward were those who substitute political bias or rhetoric for a reasoned argument.

 

Perhaps you disagree with his logic. If you do, I'm sure you have reasoning other than "capitalism good, socialism bad!", and that, to me, is the point he made.

[y66]

It's funny what keeps us from thinking about stuff with an open mind and a cold eye, whether it's Sanders' arm waving, Warren's DNA testing or Krugman's snarky bedside manner. If someone knows of a more rational way to think about financing universal childcare and other stuff for which a strong productivity argument can be made than Krugman's -- if you can raise funds cheaply and apply them to high-return projects, you should go ahead and borrow -- I'd love to hear it.

[kenberg]

Krugman's short article is neither substantial nor convincing. And if he wants to say tings such as " To the extent that it’s a public investment program, demands that its supporters show how they’ll pay for it show more about the critics’ bad economics than about the GND’s logic." it is to be expected that there will be some response in the same spirit. If he has any wish to encourage open discussion, he needs to re-think his approach.

My training in econ consists of Econ 1 and 2 out of Paul Samuelson's book in the 1950s. I am more than prepared to accept that I lack expertise. In fact I insist that I lack expertise. Maybe we could think of a four way classification. People might or might not have a high level of training in economics. People might or might not agree with Krugman. I claim that each of these four categories has some individuals in it. Krugman seems to acknowledge only two categories. If I were to agree with Krugman then he would happily place me in the group of intelligent well-informed people who agree with him , even if I got a C in Econ 2 which I think I did. (Not a difficult class, just boring) If a well-trained economist disagrees with Krugman, then he is placed in the ignorant biased disagree with Krugman category. In his article, he makes no mention of intelligent well-trained people who disagree with him I doubt he thinks that they exist.

 

I see myself as someone who is fully aware of his lack of depth in Econ, but who is willing to listen and think about it. I don't see Krugman as helping me with this.

 

[y66]

From Moody's Analytics:

 

The additional cost to the federal government of providing universal child care under Warren's proposal is estimated to be approximately $70 billion per annum on average, or $700 billion over a 10-year budget horizon on a dynamic basis (after accounting for the economic impacts of the proposal).

 

This is based on a number of assumptions, including that the proposal becomes law this year and becomes effective in calendar year 2020 (see Table 1). We also assume that it takes two years before there is full take-up on the program. It will take time for the centers and family child-care homes to become fully operational across the country and for families to work out what options are best

for them.

 

The budget cost estimates also depend on the assumption that almost two-thirds of families that use formal child care will use center care, which is more expensive than family child-care homes. We assume that the cost of center care by 2020 will be $14,500 per child, compared with almost $11,000 per child for family child-care homes. These costs also reflect the proposal’s mandate to pay child-care workers substantially more than they earn currently to ensure consistently higher quality of care.

 

To help defray some of the federal government’s costs, for low-income children the local administrator will cover 20% of the cost and the federal government the remaining 80%. For children in families with higher incomes, 50% of the cost of care will be covered by the local administrator through the collection of parental co-payments and other means, and the federal government will pick up the remaining half. Regardless of the arrangement between the federal government and the local administrator, no family will be required to spend more than 7% of their income on public child care.

 

The proposed universal child care and early learning services could be paid for by revenues generated by Warren’s proposed 2% tax on

household net worth above $50 million and 3% tax on net worth above $1 billion. That is, $700 billion out of the total 10-year revenues generated by the proposed net worth tax could be used to pay for the child-care proposal.

 

The Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act is thus deficit neutral over the 10-year budget horizon on a dynamic basis.

This does not look silly or unaffordable to me either.

[Winstonm]

Krugman's short article is neither substantial nor convincing. And if he wants to say tings such as " To the extent that it’s a public investment program, demands that its supporters show how they’ll pay for it show more about the critics’ bad economics than about the GND’s logic." it is to be expected that there will be some response in the same spirit. If he has any wish to encourage open discussion, he needs to re-think his approach.

My training in econ consists of Econ 1 and 2 out of Paul Samuelson's book in the 1950s. I am more than prepared to accept that I lack expertise. In fact I insist that I lack expertise. Maybe we could think of a four way classification. People might or might not have a high level of training in economics. People might or might not agree with Krugman. I claim that each of these four categories has some individuals in it. Krugman seems to acknowledge only two categories. If I were to agree with Krugman then he would happily place me in the group of intelligent well-informed people who agree with him , even if I got a C in Econ 2 which I think I did. (Not a difficult class, just boring) If a well-trained economist disagrees with Krugman, then he is placed in the ignorant biased disagree with Krugman category. In his article, he makes no mention of intelligent well-trained people who disagree with him I doubt he thinks that they exist.

 

I see myself as someone who is fully aware of his lack of depth in Econ, but who is willing to listen and think about it. I don't see Krugman as helping me with this.

 

Thanks for clarifying. I read him as saying counter-arguments stem from a false premise based on political bias. I agree that in a short article leaves little room for more in-depth analysis. I read into your position that one problem you have is that Krugman does not address the question of should we do these things?

[kenberg]

From Moody's Analytics:

 

 

This does not look silly or unaffordable to me either.

 

I would separate them Let us suppose the figures are correct. Then there are two questions. Should we impose the suggest tax to raise 700B over ten years, and should we spend 700B over ten years for the suggested child care program? Perhaps we should do both. I do not see it as clear cut that if the answer to the first question is yes that it also follows that the answer to the second question is yes.

I favor children having good care, who doesn't. I amhappy to listen to arguments about the merits of a specific proposal. I am also happy to here arguments about why we should reduce the national debt, and arguments about why it is important to do so. Or arguments about why it is not important to do so.

 

Any plan to raise 70B per year, and any plan to spend 70B per year, is a significant plan. The fact that the two amounts are the same does not, in itself lead me to conclude that the money should be raised in that way or spent in that way.

 

Perhaps this is what should be done but I don't think that being cautions makes me, or anyone, a biased ignoramus. I don't think it is obviously a good thing to do, or obviously a bad thing to do.

 

And of the various things Krugnan refers to, this is the one which I most immediately take an emotional leaning toward. Again I am cautious. Maybe it's right. Maybe.

 

 

[Winstonm]

I would separate them Let us suppose the figures are correct. Then there are two questions. Should we impose the suggest tax to raise 700B over ten years, and should we spend 700B over ten years for the suggested child care program? Perhaps we should do both. I do not see it as clear cut that if the answer to the first question is yes that it also follows that the answer to the second question is yes.

I favor children having good care, who doesn't. I amhappy to listen to arguments about the merits of a specific proposal. I am also happy to here arguments about why we should reduce the national debt, and arguments about why it is important to do so. Or arguments about why it is not important to do so.

 

Any plan to raise 70B per year, and any plan to spend 70B per year, is a significant plan. The fact that the two amounts are the same does not, in itself lead me to conclude that the money should be raised in that way or spent in that way.

 

Perhaps this is what should be done but I don't think that being cautions makes me, or anyone, a biased ignoramus. I don't think it is obviously a good thing to do, or obviously a bad thing to do.

 

And of the various things Krugnan refers to, this is the one which I most immediately take an emotional leaning toward. Again I am cautious. Maybe it's right. Maybe.

 

Krugman classified this $70 billion per year as investment. The return ROI he suggested was increased productivity by freeing more people to work. Are you concerned that the revenues from increased productivity will not offset the investment cost?

[kenberg]

Krugman classified this $70 billion per year as investment. The return ROI he suggested was increased productivity by freeing more people to work. Are you concerned that the revenues from increased productivity will not offset the investment cost?

 

I am simply suggesting that we look carefully.

 

Here are some things to look at.

 

A program such as this could be sold as good for the kids. Perhaps it is. But the program could also be sold as a sound economic investment. It is my guess that "good for the kids" is a more appealing argument then "sound financial investment". But if Krugman wants to argue "sound financial investment" then we can go that way and see whether the evidence justifies this.

 

When I said that this is the part of the article I found most emotionally appealing I was in fact thinking of "good for the kids". And so I was thinking that would be the part we looked at.

 

Of course perhaps it is both a good investment and good for the kids. Also, perhaps it is neither.

 

My original response to the Krugman post was only a line or two, and it concerned what I see as a very recurring feature of Krugman's writing, his total dismissiveness of any views other than his own.

 

Of course he is under no obligation to present views he disagrees with. He can present his views and let others present theirs. But he simply seems unable to present his views without mixing in several comments about how stupid or ignorant or biased or whatever the people are who have the gall to not simply accept that he is right in whatever he says.

 

[y66]

I am simply suggesting that we look carefully.

 

Here are some things to look at.

 

A program such as this could be sold as good for the kids. Perhaps it is. But the program could also be sold as a sound economic investment. It is my guess that "good for the kids" is a more appealing argument then "sound financial investment". But if Krugman wants to argue "sound financial investment" then we can go that way and see whether the evidence justifies this.

 

When I said that this is the part of the article I found most emotionally appealing I was in fact thinking of "good for the kids". And so I was thinking that would be the part we looked at.

 

Of course perhaps it is both a good investment and good for the kids. Also, perhaps it is neither.

 

My original response to the Krugman post was only a line or two, and it concerned what I see as a very recurring feature of Krugman's writing, his total dismissiveness of any views other than his own.

 

Of course he is under no obligation to present views he disagrees with. He can present his views and let others present theirs. But he simply seems unable to present his views without mixing in several comments about how stupid or ignorant or biased or whatever the people are who have the gall to not simply accept that he is right in whatever he says.

Krugman is dismissive of views like the one Tucker Carlson expressed on Fox News today, namely, that government sponsored daycare is a nefarious Democratic plot to increase immigration. I suspect Krugman is working on clarifying some of the ideas he put out there in today's op-ed and that more details will be forthcoming. I also suspect he would not disagree with your advice that we look at this stuff carefully.