Getting the numbers right. In the economy some spend too much and go under, while others save and get ahead. We make numbers calculations all the time: can I afford a new car? Can I pay for a soda with my lunch or should I stick with water? Each individual does this and some get it wrong. Can one planner do it for everyone? What if they get it wrong? Then the society has a famine, as happened in the Ukraine in 1936 and in North Korea over the last two decades.
But sometimes an economic planner will get it right. Joseph correctly read the Pharoah's dream and put food in silos to get them from the fat through the leaner times.
Summarizing economist Ludwig von Mises, Sylvia Nasar writes, "Take the question of whether the cost of making the car is more or less than the amount consumers are willing to spend on it. To figure the cost, add up the hours of labor, pounds of steel and rubber, marketing, distribution, and other inputs, multiply by their prices, and add everything up. ... Does it make sense to produce cars? If your cost is less than your revenue, you can keep on making them" (277).
When we're doing a Sudoku you are adding up numbers that aren't relevant outside of the box. If you get one number wrong (as I didn't in the one I did above) then nothing adds up. But there are no real consequences except a mild feeling of irritation. But if there is too much borrowing versus the amount of actual production in the national spending process the whole economy can crater, as it did in 1929. Today our debt is soaring, and there are hidden new costs to do with Obamacare that make it very difficult to "add everything up" in terms of labor costs. Will the whole charade collapse? If so, you can be sure the media will say it's something that George W. Bush said or did that caused it. No blame can ever be attached to their Wunderkind with the enormous ears.
I wish that Obama wouldn't have taken this risk with the economy. It doesn't seem worth the trivial pursuit of leftist fame he might garner if the poor are covered. I preferred the emergency room. That too was a mindless stopgap but at least it didn't dragoon the entire economy into a Mad Ludwig's Castle which will possibly send the debt so high the country will lose even more of its credit rating. Obama basically has nothing to lose. He lives for today and he knows if everything goes wrong the media will cover for him, and it will be blamed on someone else just as Benghazi was blamed on Hillary. Obama, by definition, can do no wrong.
79 comments:
I'm glad for the decisions the president made that allowed me to keep most of my life savings.
Riverboat gambler.
I'm also grateful for the moves Obama made that allowed what was left of my life savings, after Bush got through with it, to go from 20% less than what I'd saved to 30% more than what I'd saved. Four years from now I expect to have two dollars for every dollar saved.
"Can one planner do it for everyone? What if they get it wrong? Then the society has a famine, as happened in the Ukraine in 1936"
You are apparently referring to the Famine in the Ukraine during 1932-33.
You're misinterpreting history here, I suppose, to try to mount a peculiar argument regarding Federal interference in agriculture such as price-supports--?
As you know, American agriculture enjoys considerable support from the Federal government, and it has traditionally favored such support. Rather than suffering from such support, it benefits directly. Most farming (and ranching) has been converted from family to corporate operations over the last half century. This means that our Federal government actually supports corporate farming, for the most part. Is this a good thing? That's one question, and it has little if anything to do with Soviet agricultural collectivization. There have never been such strategies used in the U.S.
In fact, as historians have come to understand, the Ukraine Famine of 1932-33 was not an accident or a consequence of failed Soviet planning per se, but a deliberate policy by the Stalinist regime to "punish" Ukraine for not being fully compliant in the imposed collectivist model(s).
It's a mistake to "compare" the collectivist policies of the early Soviet period with any American agricultural problems or practices during the 20th Century. They have nothing in common.
The recent American economic recession was caused by banking, investment, real estate and insurance failures. The banking bail-out, which represents the largest such action in the history of our nation, was instituted during the Bush II second term.
This was followed by certain "stimulus" programs proposed during the first Obama term, passed by both houses of Congress with bi-partisan support, intended to spur economic recovery. They have had steady but limited success, as American industry and investment hoards capital, while it continues to export jobs abroad.
Economic stimulus programs are standard Keynesian practice during lean economic times. The stock market has been thriving, and slow but steady improvement is taking place. Republicans have taken a stand against balancing the budget on the backs of the rich, which may prolong the recovery. The "cliff" looms, but the country must face its debt squarely and begin to pay it off.
The preponderance of that debt is the result of three factors: The fiscal crisis caused by the credit default scandal, the two "credit card" wars, and the decade-long Bush "tax holiday" for the rich.
We will ALL have to pay to get a handle on the debt. Democrats, Republicans, upper, upper-middle and middle-class alike; and at this juncture, it's counterproductive for either side to demonize the other with accusations and name-calling.
My concern is with planning. That is to say centralized economic planning. Joseph does get the Pharoah's dream right and averts a famine. But not all leaders are so fortunate. North Korea has gotten it quite wrong. In 1994 their food line from the USSR collapsed and 2 million starved to death (estimates vary). There is no free press in NORTH Korea but the 18 yr old boys are five inches shorter than in S. Korea.
We still don't know if Stalin planned the famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s. He objected to Ukrainian nationalism.
What FDR and others have done w planning has caused some of our 16.4 trillion dollars of debt. Fannoe Mae caused a crisis that took down many banks and necessitated a bailout and then another. Only Ron Paul has really talked about this from the Austrian angle. Hayekians argue against Keynesian bailouts. Will Hayek ultimately be right? Is planning generally bad because the hoi polloi gets it right over the long haul? This is what interests me.
Kirby,
Here's an interesting graphic Whitehouse.gov: US National Debt.
You might make different assignments of "responsibility" than the Obama White House did, but I do think it is an interesting starting point. In particular, it assigns $7T of the debt to GWB and his policies: tax cuts, unfunded domestic and defense spending, the wars, etc.
I think this makes an important point. You were silent about the deficit during the Bush Presidency. Tax cuts as stimulus in 2001 were a natural approach (so far as you and your were concerned) to the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The smaller tax cuts (basically, deferral of the expiration of the Bush cuts) in a more severe crisis in 2010 are proof that Obama is a communist/socialist. The unfunded expansion of Medicare Part D, and you have no issues. A funded expansion to universal health care, and the apocalypse is upon us. An unjustifiable war in Iraq that results in more than 6,000 US fatalities (military and civilian) and you have mild concerns, but four people die in an ambush in Benghazi, and you're talking impeachment.
Not only are you a hypocrite with no sense of proportion or judgement, you're an unimaginative hypocrite, parroting the talking points du jour.
This is quite ridiculous. I'm supposed to take seriously Obama's chart here that puts the majority of the burden for the debt on GWB. How could he do anything else? Why doesn't he just assign all of it to GWB? He might as well.
I'm still struggling through the Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, by Sylvia Nasar. I like this sentence by Joseph Schumpeter which appeared in the middle of the American Great Depression.
"Recovery is sound only if it does come of itself."
(p. 337)
I'm bored by the comments so am beginning moderation again.
I think it's freezing out some of my better commenters to have such a constant stream of know-it-alls responding to every post and hurting the feelings of my sensitive conservatives every time they post. It's just gotten so predictable I think that all my conservatives have one by one been ganged up on until I am the only one left.
I would like to hear from someone else who's actually read Hayek. There is a wonderful review from Orwell of The Road to Serfdom:
"It cannot be said too often -- at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough -- that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of...
Since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is boiund to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter" quote in Nasar, p. 399
What I find funny in the Orwell quote is that he complains of a lack of popular will within collectivism but collectivism is popular because of how it corrects unemployment. You'd think that would collide within itself after a short while.
After I am done reading Nasar, I intend to read the book about the debate between Hayek and Keynes by Wapshott.
I may be on hiatus for a bit while I get these ideas brushed up. I may not. Keynes was a violent anti-Semite. Hayek was a Jew, whose cousin was Wittgenstein. I'm for Hayek at least at this point, and am hoping to have a few more Hayekians join in the conversation if that's at all possible or plausible.
You have to be gently encouraging of Hayekians so that they don't fear getting gassed by leftists. Come out, come out, Hayekians! I will keep you safe!
Kirby,
This is quite ridiculous. I'm supposed to take seriously Obama's chart here that puts the majority of the burden for the debt on GWB. How could he do anything else? Why doesn't he just assign all of it to GWB? He might as well.
He's honest. This isn't to say that there's no lipstick on the pig, but the place to argue is over the "Economic and Technical" category. The assignments to Bush are pretty conventional. Did you think wars were free?
In any event, if you don't like these numbers, find others that give a reasonable breakdown of the causes of the deficit and assignment of blame. This "Obama caused 14T in deficit" is entirely unsupportable.
I'm bored by the comments so am beginning moderation again.
Your call. I'm not sure how moderating comments is going to make them more interesting, though.
I think it's freezing out some of my better commenters to have such a constant stream of know-it-alls responding to every post and hurting the feelings of my sensitive conservatives every time they post.
Poor little conservatives. Did insisting on facts hurt their feelings? Or was it the surprise of getting demolished in the election? Do they have so little confidence in their beliefs that they can't stand contradiction? God save these poor brave conservative cowards!
Brett and I've played tag-team liberal here for a long time, often just one of us against you, Sir James, Emma, GM, WB, WW, and even jh if the topic had anything to do with women. We fought the good fight, and kept our heads high. We're still here.
BTW, miss some of those voices. My sense is that GM's pouring effort into his own blog, and WB is understandably putting a priority on ministry and family life. We're a guilty pleasure for him, but one he seems not to be able to indulge enough to suit the rest of us. Sir James has kept his head down since the election, probably on the theory that I'd gladly pour burning coals on his head for is pre-election posturing. He's right, of course, but it is a privilege that he's richly earned. Had WB's map held, I'd be putting up with a lot more guff than that.
Let me suggest as a more sensible approach, you find posts that give us something to chew on besides our usual (and fairly predictable, at this point) partisan differences.
Keynes was a violent anti-Semite
Contemporary conservative writers who are eager to purse an ad hominem argument have raised the notion of anti-semitism, through the usual process of selective harvesting of quotes and false framings. Doesn't make it so. And I don't think you can justify "violent" at all.
Heavens knows he has the better of the economic arguments.
I think it's fair to argue about the effectiveness of the current administration's efforts--though the real proof is always 3-5 years down the road--but I don't think there's any argument about who blew up the debt. The real question would be whether those expenditures solved any problems, or were worth the cost. Does anyone still think we accomplished anything worthwhile in Iraq and Afghanistan? With hindsight, it seems less so by the minute--something that I predicted five years ago.
Remember, too, that our biggest gripe with Silliman was that, by closing his comment box, he was closing off debate. The best measure of your performance as a controversial commentator is your willingness to take on all comers, and not run a house organ for your own self-aggrandizement. I suspect that most people are just distracted at the moment.
JDL, who has not shown his face around her for a while, I seem to recall saying that he was moving to Nova Scotia or someplace in far eastern Canada. That might be one possible explanation for his absence.
Eloquent propaganda is more welcome than none at all.
women women who said anything about women i never talk about women the things i say about women i have never published anywhere for it is love poetry of the highest degree i speak only of the virtues of women the fairness the sweetness the transcendendt airs the whims the eyelids of women when have i said anything about women i mean it's barely a topic for me i mean here i am a celibate monk what could i ever say about women i think women this women that of course once in while you can't leave out the women there' aren';t very many women speaking over here it's a guy thing i guess guys at the bar wha'tis everyone drinking curtis is having a pink lady stu is nursing a belgian ale brett is partial to local brew kirby's having an arnold palmer gm palmer is having a kirby derby herbal werby which is chamomille tea and brandy ( new drink ) dim lamp is a teatotaler i would presume jadl it is rumoured has been now to drink like a fish i will taste wine once in a while just a taste who else craig gin and tonic or a pineapple pina colada
me shiraz older stuff if it's available whom else WW what does wendy drink when she's out with the boys
how can i help it if in my social perspective i have arrived at the crux of the issue the very throbbing wound of the issue of american neurotic cultural necessity i can't help it if i see the center for all it's worth the wobbling center did some one put something in my drink...certainly you'd have to agree that while men are to be blamed for all the ills of society for the last 3000yrs women must own the last 50 they took over they are responsible for all the ills of the world now it's alll them the guys just take orders from the women like always you married guys know that
yeah kirbin kayoss
politics is passe'
let's be done with it
it's a mirage
a circus smoke and mirrors thing
no more talk of politics it's a bygone subject
it's ruined itself as a topic we must be done with it we trashed it thrashed it smashed it crashed it hashed it bashed it ashed it jashed it lashed it quashed it washed it and it still could'nt get clean
we're done with politics
let's talk of religion now
how torn and tattered and bewildered the various faiths are looking at one another like
how the phuq did you get here
not to put too fine 'o point on it
jh
women should come forth and join my new movement
WOMEN WHO ASSUME THE ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITIES WWATUR
I'm bored by the comments so am beginning moderation again.
Kirby wrote:
"I think it's freezing out some of my better commenters to have such a constant stream of know-it-alls responding to every post and hurting the feelings of my sensitive conservatives every time they post. It's just gotten so predictable I think that all my conservatives have one by one been ganged up on until I am the only one left."
Amen.
Stu wrote:
"Poor little conservatives. Did insisting on facts hurt their feelings? Or was it the surprise of getting demolished in the election? Do they have so little confidence in their beliefs that they can't stand contradiction? God save these poor brave conservative cowards!"
From my perspective, Stu, you slam anyone with a conservative viewpoint. And you are quick to pick apart each sentence they may type.
I prefer to respect each other's arguments.
WW
WW,
From my perspective, Stu, you slam anyone with a conservative viewpoint. And you are quick to pick apart each sentence they may type.
I am sorry that you feel that way. It's hard to respond without feeling as though I'm going to evoke a "there you go again" response. But I do accept arguments from conservatives that I believe are sound, and I expect that conservatives will challenge my ideas.
Any mocking in the foregoing, btw, was directed at Kirby and not at you. It's not my experience that your arguments as lame as his.
There is a question being raised here as to the purpose of this venue. Is this a place where liberal and conservative ideas can be tested against one another? That has been the claim, and I'd argue the source of much of the energy here. Kirby seems to be backing off on that, and you seem to be supporting him. What is the vision then? Is there a place here for a spirited dissent?
As for the "picking apart each sentence," I only pick apart the sentences I disagree with. Sometimes I'll quote a sentence to agree with it. But the line-by-line approach is really just a structured way to respond.
I prefer to respect each other's arguments.
I prefer to respect people. Arguments are fair game :-). Of course, if I'm paid in disrespect, I'll return disrespect in proportion, but that usually sorts itself out fairly quickly. I don't believe I've ever treated you with disrespect, and if you feel that I have, let me assure you that that was not my intent, but that I'm very sorry for it anyway.
Peace
who appointed wendy moderator
when did that happen
nobody consulted moi
mondieu
c'est horrible (heavy on the -ble)
i try to provide moderation over here in fact kirby his lawyers and i have agreed to a penny a word i state things i mix it up i even use punctuation once in awhile and nobody listens to me
so i just babble babble on like a babbler lost in babylon
i would just like to offer...
it is my understanding that the proclivities off politics and presumption here are much broader and varied than simply- conservative - liberal -there's many shades of grey in between the extreemz
i'm so happy to have my last comment posted i went to bed last night thinking i'd lost it and voila there it is
stu in his defense has made a life of picking things apart and zeroing in on rational and irrational aspects of everything
my only worry about stu is he used to joke more now he takes it all so seriously like for me i take kirby with a grain of cayenne pepper everyone here seems to prefer certain spices
i thought the agreement over here was that if kirby lost the election wendy would come over to my office and do some part-time consultant work...paid by commission -- i'm in the style and temperament building 3rd floor gold doors at the end of the hall
business is the business of middle management morons and those people run the country i'm sorry i just had to say it those middle management morons and the cops and the people with watered down varieties of protestant religion and guns and animosity to our way of governance what is wrong with this country you have assault vehicles being sold as pleasure you have millions of people being programmed by computer programmers the others are just apps i guess...this is a time when nothing is making any sense
here's what i think
i think there should be a girl government
and a boy government
two systems of government
they can meet once a year the girllaw girls and the boylaw boys can meet in st louis and compare notes but they should never be expected to get along in one government things need to be separate again like the old private schools what was wrong with that that system worked fine this mesushing ( a yiddish expression) of boys and girls together in the social structure is not good
perhaps lutheran surrealism will see its(') day after all...i hope kirby you can cultivate some patterns for women professional religous more lutheran women in convents helping the poor and running hospitals that's what the country needs and they should be doing it all for nothing too where are the women who are willing to sacrifice for their lover....is this gone is this stabilizing social virtue all but evaporated off the morning coffee???
men want to be valourous but the women have changed the tune and the men can't seem to hear anything the voices are too shrill
the serenade is no more
(tear drop....plink)
i'm studiying in the area of catholic aesthetic nihilism
this entails considerable incense and a penchant for boredom not to mention ghostly sounding chant
and and and i'm currently on a tirade against hymns hymn hymns it's all about hymns what's with all the hymns hymns and herrs it all looks pretty grim after awhile
i'm sorry kirby
humour has gone out the door
with the cat
here kitty kitty kitty
jh
I think if you want to encourage bi-partisan debate, you have to have a somewhat more even-handed approach to subject-matter. In my experience here, I've seen most of the discussions steered by Kirby into radical right positions. Once that gambit is proffered, things quickly descend into flame wars and skirmishes.
Political subjects, particularly when they are presented in a highly partisan manner, are highly flammable. It should surprise no one that the discussions here quickly ignite.
Another thing about Lutheran Surrealism is that Kirby is a major--actually, the mainy--participant in his own discussions. On most sites, this happens rarely. Silliman, for instance, almost never injected himself into the comment stream, preferring to let his readers conduct discussions separately.
Rather than resenting this pyrotechnical tendency, Kirby could consider stepping back a bit, to see where these exchanges might lead on their own, without prodding and provocation. Too many of the arguments take place between the moderator and one or two of the commenters. It's highly suggestive of the familiar shock-jock conservative radio hosts, who bully their callers and then peremptorily cut them off when the outcome gets dicy. Blogging is not radio, but I think this is a useful analogy.
I just can't waste my time on small conversations about whether or not for instance Keynes was anti-Semitic. I have only a Kindle and typing out a sentence can take several minutes and then proofing it is a problem. The rest of you have assault weapons.
I never saw this venue as an extension of the flame wars at radio stations. I'm not that kind of person.
I wanted to have conversations where respectful listening was the top priority. But the left is so incensed and so certain of itself that almost any sentence that doesn't push their agenda is a rationale for killing the speaker.
I want to get into larger points. The big point here is whether planning is possible and whether it's a good idea. By planning I mean whether government intervention in insurance, in medical care, in gun control, in freedom of speech, etc., is desirable.
As for Keynes' anti-Semitism, there is abundant proof of it in Nasar's book. He is talking about Germany in the 1920s:
"Yet if I lived there, I felt I might turn anti-Semite. For thepoor Prussian is too slow and heavy on his legs for the other kind of Jews, the ones who are not imps but serving devils, with small horns, pitch forks, and oily tails... It is not agreeable to see a civilization under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and the brains. I vote rather for the plump Hausfraus..." (291).
But I really don't want to get stuck in this.
I also don't want to be mired in the kind of rubbish that Curtis wants to toss out. He cites Silliman's blog, which was a free-fire zone for years. The end began when Curtis wanted to post something incendiary against Obama and Silliman wouldn't put it through.
Silliman moved to monitoring and finally he closed the comments box entirely since he was tired of editing the tripe that came through every day, and I can't blame him.
silliman is far more famous than I am, and has enormous name recognition. I'm a far less well-known figure. He goes around the country and appears in forums. I hate that kind of thing and appear in a forum only once or twice a year, generally on a very specialized topic inside of an academic forum.
I'm not interested in turning this venue over to Curtis Faville. I'm not interested in what he has to say. In eight years of sparring with him, I can't say it's really taught me anything about anything but Curtis. While he's an interesting person in his own right, I don't really care to make my life into a Curtis Faville seminar.
I'm on better terms with Stu who fights hard and at times becomes supercilious. I don't like it, but I am often still learning something, so I put up with it.
I was glad that Wendy weighed in. She and JH have had problems over the years because he's so misogynistic that it comes naturally to him, and she's got a slight feminist side. So they get each other into slight snits. I don't like this, but I find them both so mild-mannered and congenial I don't find their problems to be overwhelming. I'd ask JH to refrain from arguing that women should not be a part of the discussion here or should be kept in some separate box. I like women's viewpoint, especially if they are conservatives, as it's comparatively rare and bracing for me.
GM and Brett used to get into snits, but that's subsided.
The main thing is I'm not running a roach motel here. I'm just not paid enough to do it and I have enough problems getting along in real life with real people that I must get along with every day.
I can't spend my days sorting things out here.
So what I propose is that we go on and think about the big issues and try to keep this from getting too personal and calling names and so on.
The big shock jocks are paid a fortune to deal with the jerks who call. I am not getting anything out of this except airing a few ideas and hoping to learn something. It's a kind of unpaid seminar.
The drawback of using party politics as the lingua franca is that it tends to lend to flooding. I've decided to go a bit deeper and try to think about aesthetic issues to a degree, and see if that works. I also intend to keep the posts shorter, and to think instead about aesthetics-religious issues, with a touch of humor.
I may also bring in some personal things. But I'm going to monitor and I don't want tempers to fly. If I need to, I'll go Silliman, and just cut the comments box. I'm not getting that much from the comments box at present, and am tired of the Stalingrad type conversations in which people seem to fight it out over inches of turf. Stu has become particularly bad. Some of it is my fault as I bring up things that I know will irritate him. I'm going to try not to do that, and I'm going to try to stay focused on bigger issues.
I'm quite interested in economics right now, so in spite of my weakness in this area, will continue to post -- especially tiny quotations from books I'm reading.
i'll tone it down sure but let me not be misunderstood i do not distrust the presence of women on this blog i welcome women we can talk fashion we can talk paradigm shifts i don't care we can talk anything and if anyone takes anything i say with less than a grain a salt well it ain't my problem
actually i think you could go over the comments stream for the last 4 years or so and find kirby does sit back and let the battlers battle he understnads that insight often emerges in controversy and why not what has anyone got against controversy WTF you going to give us all ritalin and tell us to sit in the corner till the bell rings jeepers creepers where'd ya get those peepers
let not fear dictate your words comrades let loose the floodgates of rhetoric blab and talk profusely
the space is infinite
i deny the label mysogynysto
i'm just here to call women to a higher place than atheistic secular humanism can take them
there is no such thing as equality it's a mathematical abstraction
it's a dubious science at best but not without some interest econ econ housekeeping women should be economists becaue it's about the home koinania coin koine ekoinomeia and how much money each home can handle each day...i propose an economics of disentanglement from money altogether...we should go back to free trade...i have two chickens you have some garden vegetables and a dozen eggs let's trade...money is an unnecessary inconvenience it's like lubrication in your car it serves a purpose...yet i insist it only has value when given away
as soon as you earn some it's worth diminishes ever notice that
i beg forgiveness from all the women who would be afraid to jump in here because of my reckless rhetoric i'm all for women talking here i simply think government should be divided there should be a girlgovernment and a boygovernment...leave it to mystery who would actually be running things
i applaude wendy's bravery for stepping into the circus ring
i'm not a masculinist
i'm a realist
granted
somewhat berzerk
but who's counting
jh
I largely disconnect from the battles between participants unless I'm explicitly named. Recently Stu told Curtis that I would be among those spending a very long time in purgatory.
This was odd since Stu is seemingly a universalist. He has even said that the devil himself is going to get into heaven, as is Hitler.
But I'm going to spend a long time in purgatory.
There are thousands of positions within the Christian universe. I happen to be a fairly conservative Christian in my beliefs. I might change, but I doubt if any of my beliefs would change due to an argument here.
We should just be presenting our viewpoints, not trying to change others.
That is a pointless cause.
Stu would fit into a Universalist church with almost no trouble. He accepts Islam and other faiths as equal with his own.
That's fine with me.
I think there should be a place for the narrow road to life.
I apologize if I got JH's bearings wrong. We often do.
No one can understand anyone else's opera, and if they could, they wouldn't be able to describe it to anyone else accurately, and if they could, no one would believe it. I start with the ten commandments and work forward through Leviticus looking especially for taboos. I love taboos.
They mark us as human.
Kirby,
As for Keynes' anti-Semitism, there is abundant proof of it in Nasar's book. He is talking about Germany in the 1920s:
"Yet if I lived there, I felt I might turn anti-Semite..."
Feeling as if you might turn into an anti-semite shows a tendency, not a realization. I do not applaud or excuse the tendency, but there's an important distinction between temptation and manifest sin. The quote you have is inadequate to establish Keynes as an anti-semite -- it only establishes that he felt some attraction to it. As for the violence you averred, it is utterly absent here.
That said, this is a purely ad hominem line of argumentation. The question of whether Keynes was an anti-semite doesn't shed any light on the validity of his economic theories.
But I really don't want to get stuck in this.
Nor do I, but I can't let this sort of blackguarding go unchallenged.
I'm on better terms with Stu who fights hard and at times becomes supercilious. I don't like it, but I am often still learning something, so I put up with it.
I'm glad you're learning something. It gives me reason to believe that my contributions have value. As for the superciliousness -- I think of myself as humble, e.g., I have absolutely no idea to react to praise, and almost never think it is deserved. But to restate what I said to Wendy in slightly different words: I look down on some of your ideas, but I do not look down on you.
Recently Stu told Curtis that I would be among those spending a very long time in purgatory.
True enough, but I was not thereby damning you. The claim wasn't that your sins were unusually severe, just that you were unusually strongly committed to the particular sin of not seeing Jesus in the poor (cf. Matt 25:44ff). My comment can be found over in the Abortions/Guns thread, for anyone who wants to judge it in context.
This was odd since Stu is seemingly a universalist. He has even said that the devil himself is going to get into heaven, as is Hitler.
I have universalist tendancies, and indeed, viewed in context, the purgatory remark that you referred to here is universalist, as it really says that the only thing that separates us from God is our own pride.
As for Hitler and even the Devil, I don't know whether they make it to heaven or not, and I'm surprised that you think I committed myself on the question. God will judge, not you or me. My universalist tendencies make me think it might be possible, indeed that it might be inevitable. Again, as with Keynes, tendency does not entail commitment. Universalism is an interesting and attractive idea to play with, but that's not enough to make it true, and I don't know whether it is true or false.
He accepts Islam and other faiths as equal with his own.
Not exactly right. I do think that Islam and other faiths should be equal under the law. I think that each preserves something Godly (this is a whiff of universalism, but nothing like a statement of equivalence). But I am a Christian, indeed, a Lutheran, and I have no inclination to change. We know we got it right ;-). The distinction here is that I very much perceive myself as belonging to a minority religion (bloody-minded evangelicals outnumbering those with a reflective, scholarly faith by something like 10,000-1). It's not that I see myself as being persecuted in my minority, but I do see a strong persecutorial streak in the religious right, and a need to challenge and check it.
Kirby - a shift in the blog's priorities is all well and good - but, to be honest, the sentiment will be completely meaningless if you continue to communicate into the future as you oft have in the past.
(all Democrats being stupid, evil, communists, etc.... that kind of thing... and your post about abortion as a response to Sandy Hook...I mean, what kind of response are you looking for?).
You can claim not to be getting Personal - but if you attack a group, and a person belongs to that group, you Are getting personal.
Change the focus and tone of the blog, groovy - but don't be a hypocrite about it.
For instance, in this comments box, you place the blame for the debt on FDR and Obama - seemingly refusing to acknowledge the huge impact Bush's policies had on the debt, and the structural deficiencies in our economy.
If you're looking for fair answers, be a fair broker.
Brett, in my prior incarnation (yesterday) I would have said that the French rabble deserved to be mown down for standing up to the king. Today, I didn't see it that way, and didn't say it that way.
There is a wonderful little moment in the film in which Javert pins one of his own medals on a small boy who has been mown down by his troops.
It's a redeeming moment for sure.
If I could find something to pin a medal on Obama for, I could follow suit. But he already has the Nobel, the presidency, the Harvard Law Review editorship.
I can't see why he would need my approval.
He killed Osama. That was excellent. PJ O'Rourke in today's WSJ said that only Jimmy Carter would not have achieved that if given the special op.
It was a funny piece.
Ok, I'm going to pull back some. Maybe I will still find something in BO that doesn't stink by the end of his second term. We have to live in hope.
Meanwhile, go see Les Miserables. I once asked for it in a bookstore and they asked me to write it down. I did and they said, Less Miserable? It must be in Self-Help.
only catholics go to purgatory the rest are lost in limbo but who knows after the rapture jesus might have a second thought
Kirby,
He killed Osama. That was excellent. PJ O'Rourke in today's WSJ said that only Jimmy Carter would not have achieved that if given the special op.
Let me argue that O'Rourke (who can be hilarious -- a noble virtue) is factually wrong here.
In the most analogous situation, Carter did put the trigger. Unfortunately, equipment failed, and there was an accident resulting in 8 US fatalities as the forces withdrew. He was unlucky, and pilloried for it. Carter's experience is something that subsequent Presidents have been very aware of -- you only get credit for making the risky call if you win.
I'll note a roughly contemporaneous parallel in the Mayaguez incident, in which President Ford sent the Marines in to free merchant sailors captured by the Khmer Rouge. This raid was also ineffective (the sailors having already been freed), and resulted in a total of 41 US fatalities -- 18 in combat (including 3 Marines accidentially left behind who were later executed, shades of Wake Island), and 23 when a supporting helicopter crashed outside of the battle zone.
What I find particularly interesting about this is that failure of Operation Eagle Claw (the event to free the hostages at the US embassy in Iran) is remembered so much more negatively than the Mayaguez raid.
As regards both, I think it is fairest to say that the attacking forces lacked the proper doctrine and training, and that the lessons learned would eventually pay better fruit. In particular, the main force in the Mayaguez raid was the 1/4 Marines, with support from the Navy and Airforce. A lesson learned was the need for a specialized assault force, specifically trained in hostage rescue. This resulted more or less directly in Delta Force, which was the main force in Operation Eagle Claw. A lesson learned was the need for helicopter pilots trained in low-level night flying, as well as the need for more reliable technology. Obama undoubtedly benefited from these earlier failures.
I am reasonably confident that George HW Bush and Bill Clinton would have ordered the raid, too, as each made decisions to commit small special force units. I'm thinking here specifically of the Battle of Mogadishu (aka, "Black Hawk Down") during the Clinton administration, and Operation Nifty Package (an unsuccessful effort to capture Noriega during the Panama invasion, which also resulted in US fatalities) during the Panama invasion.
I'm less sure of Reagan. It's possible (and not crazy) to argue a parallel in Urgent Fury, the invasion of Grenada, but this was a much larger scale operation, with the US bringing a preponderance of force into battle.
No, the one President who we can be reasonably sure would have failed is the one President who did: George W. Bush, who let bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.
Let me remind you that Obama said during the 2008 campaign that he would follow bin Laden into Pakistan if necessary, a statement that John McCain jumped on as naive. Obama had his chance, and as he promised, he took it. I don't doubt that having been given the same chance, McCain would have also kept his word, and turned it down.
Note in passing: I was interested enough to go back and see what your reaction was at the time. A few minutes with teh Google and I came up with the February 27, 2008 thread "Last Night's Debate," evidently between Barack and Hillary. I'll note specifically that you approved of Obama's willingness to go after bin Laden, even in Pakistan. It's interesting to contrast your reactions then, which reflected on the man as you saw him before the right wing propaganda machine spooled up.
BTW, my wife is planning for us to see Les Miserables. I read the book years ago, and recommend it, long though it may be.
I see a lot of this stuff in terms of individual psychology. I can't help it.
I know that pisses Kirby off, and I know why it does.
I'm reverting to my mentor as a college instructor, Professor Braddock, who died in a climbing accident in Australia, years after I knew him. He believed that most disagreements were the result of differing backgrounds which produce different ways of perceiving reality and ways of thinking. I still find a lot of substance in that approach.
I think Kirby wants to reinforce and renew his sense of duty and virtue, which he sees in self-reliance and application. Those are things I once subscribed to, but moved away from in early adulthood. He sees the conservative position as expressions of that devotion and independence, and those are admirable qualities. But the political expression of those sentiments has been tarnished by the corruption of cynical Republican strategists, who use those ideals as a way of seducing decent people into all kinds of attitudes, which are opposed to their real interests. It doesn't make a lot of sense to advocate fracking, if youre a rancher living in Nebraska, and yet people can be readily seduced into believing that the the billions and billions the petroleum companies are going to make outweighs the devastation that will be visited on the people who live on top of those mineral fields. They're being duped.
Those people deserve to benefit from the fruits of our sensible husbandry of the planet's resources, but the costs to society at large, and to them in particular, are far too great a price to pay for our gluttony of consumption.
Waste not, want not.
But the petroleum companies of the world wage a continual war with conservationists--who are really the true conservatives of our day--because they have enormous immediate profits to reap.
I think that true conservatism isn't what the radical right is offering in our time. And I think smart people like Kirby need to stop fighting against their better instincts. Christian virtues aren't shared by rapacious capitalists. Capitalism is a wonderful toy, but it doesn't spontaneously produce virtue. It produces product, and wealth. Not honor, not integrity, not virtue. And anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is crooked.
I'm an independent, not a fuggin' Lib. Some of my opinions are liberal, others are conservative. I like to think of my opinions as pragmatic expressions of enlightened self-interest. I want America to prosper. I don't think we can save the world. I like to stand apart from the organs of commitment, such as religions, or fraternal societies, or official memberships. I'm selfish with respect o personal goals, but I get a great feeling of satisfaction from helping other people. Don't expect me to support any cause out of friendship, because I'm not loyal that way. Provoke me, and I'll turn pugnacious.
We need more women talking here.
I haven't seen Les Miserables as it hasn't opened yet here in Manila. Some movies, like Cloud Atlas or the Bourne Legacy, enjoy a run in the Philippines before they're released in the U.S.; others, like Lincoln and Les Miserables, aren't released here until the studios know how American audiences have reacted to them.
I've now seen Cloud Atlas three times. It has big name stars in it, like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Hugh Grant, but the key role in the movie is played by Bae Doona, a South Korean actress who is well known in Korea, China and Japan, but until now unheard of in the west because it's her first role in an English language production. She plays a clone named Sonmi 451, who escapes from her life as a clone long enough to elope with a dissident pureblood and lead a clone revolution that presumably alters the future as dramatically and profoundly as Jesus altered the past two thousand years. Bae said that playing Sonmi 451 wasn't a difficult stretch for her because reincarnation is an important part of Buddhist culture. The tricky part was learning enough English to speak her character's lines.
Is there contemporary art in Manila? Spain had many important surrealists such as Dali but most had to leave Spain to make a living. Dali spent a lot of time in America. I enjoyed watching the Mike Wallace Youtube video w Dali. He says he embraced Roman Cattholicism w his mind but not completely with his heart. The weirdest part of the vid is a five minute intro that Wallace does about Parliament cigarettes which he smokes throughout the video.
We met Wallace in an elevator in NYC in 2004 at the passport office. He was getting an emergency passport done just as we were.
Is there contemporary art in Manila?
My wife and I saw a production of Forbidden Broadway in August with an all Filipino cast consisting of six performers and a pianist who were all excellent. Tickets for us were quite expensive, although I think anyone with a student ID from a Philippine university was admitted for a quite nominal fee. Students with discounts weren't let in until the lights went down, so it was clear who the real patrons were. We got a coffee at Starbuck's after the show and the whole cast was there.
I don't recall whether I heard this somewhere, or if I just made it up out of the drift of news stories of the time, but wasn't there something about the Department of Defense wanting to "embarrass" Carter with that bungled rescue attempt, as retaliation for his "soft on defense" spending positions?
At the time, it seemed like we ought to have made a much better showing. The whole operation seemed badly planned and executed, and it really made us look weak. That clearly led to Carter's defeat in the next election.
During the Bush II fiasco in Iraq, the tables were turned, as Cheney and the Wolf squeezed the CIA to produce phony evidence and the DOD (thru Rumsfeld) to "promise" a quick, clean victory with no residual mess. How badly did that turn out?
I always thought Reagan acted like a goose during and after the Grenada operation. Huffing and puffing about American domination and the courage and determination of "our troops!" Reminded me of The Mouse That Roared, except in reverse. A great nation polishing off a tiny island principality. Wow.
Kirby,
Brett, in my prior incarnation (yesterday) I would have said that the French rabble deserved to be mown down for standing up to the king. Today, I didn't see it that way, and didn't say it that way.
I've been thinking about this, and perhaps am trying too hard to cast for universals. But why the difference between yesterday and today? I have a thesis.
Let me suggest that the vast majority of the time, your opinions on economic inequity (which might be named as class warfare in some contexts) is based on viewing it as a contention between groups: the rich and the poor. And you ascribe to these groups certain characteristics, e.g., initiative and effort to the rich, dependency and laziness to the poor. Oddly enough, this perspective is a natural consequence of an assumption that I suspect you make that the world is just or nearly so.
But the narrative perspective of Les Miserables is a micro view: it takes a number of protagonists, and establishes their story with enough detail to allow moral judgments based on them as individuals, rather than as members of a group. And the individuals have moral attributes that seem somehow unexpected given their economic/political roles. In Valjean, you see someone caught in turbulent times. In the face of starvation, he steals bread, and then is implacably pursued over this (to us, minor and perhaps even excusable) theft for decades. He lives through turbulent times, yet is basically a good man who invests himself in helping other people. When he is given a beneficent gift by a godly bishop, he uses this gift productively to lift hundreds out of poverty through productive work. In Javert, you see a redeeming moment when he shows an unexpected compassion.
Looked at this way, what Hugo is really arguing is that our usual moral categories of good and evil make sense for individuals, but not for groups. So he creates Valjean to shake up the right's view that the poor are evil, shiftless, and incapable of improvement; but also shakes up the left's view that police are mindless, heartless automata of the state. In both cases, the "enemy" is personalized, humanized. Hugo goes so far in this program to even humanize prostitutes, and to present them as caught up by circumstances they did not choose and cannot control, the good being swept along with the bad.
Perhaps herein lies a characteristic difference between the left and right: the left more likely to let their micro view (i.e., personal narratives) inform their macro view (i.e., of class characteristics), and this tendency is reversed for the right. So what made Hugo work for you is that while he took a leftist narrative framework (i.e., the micro view), he gained credibility because his conclusions are not so easily characterized.
But the issue of how just is the world also may be a characteristic and even more fundamental distinction. The right perceives the world as just or nearly so, and therefore attempts to change social structure are much more likely to make it less just than it is already. [This of course raises the contradiction that once such changes are made, they'll see in the new arrangement a just or nearly so society, and resist change to it for the same reason. Oddly enough, I can remember Emmy saying something very much along these lines -- that once Obamacare became established, her conservative perspective would ultimately lead her to resisting changes to it. She'd be obligated then to defend the new status quo. I thought it a striking remark.] The left perceives the world as containing considerable injustice, and therefore is more willing to believe that careful social engineering can result in greater justice.
(Addendum to my previous note: in alluding to the Mayaguez raid, I suggested a parallel in Wake Island. I meant to mention the Makin Island raid rather than Wake. There are some similarities, but Makin is by far the better parallel.)
Stu I appreciate these analogies and discussions. One thing missing in LM were Valjean and the prostitute's families. Where were they? That's the backup for most. I am often struck by the poor's lack of a family structure. Where is the backup? I think the right wants families to prevail and wants to legislate against atomization. The left is for atomization and then wants the state to pick up the tab. This might come out of specific problem families. Bam's mom chose to gallivant and marry profligates who left jer in the lurch. The Bush family marries safely. Mrs. Bush a librarian who stuck by her man. I think this is another aspect of conservative. Making safe bets. Liberals want to make wild bets and havee the state deal w the abortions diseases and heartbreaks in terms of children. LeBron James doesn't have any idea who his father is. He's one of millions and millions. In LM Coozette is real cute so may luck out of the circle of poverty. But only by marrying into the aristocracy. Is that fair?. One problem for me with Hugo's world was monarchy. Without democracy we are talking about inherent inequity.
I think the right resents working hard and saving in order to bail out the profligate. It's Aesop's fable of the grasshopper and the ant. We are also being asked to support wilder and wilder sex lives amd pay for the fallout. The CDC is all about sexual diseases now. Very little research for Lyme or other diseases on a comparative basis. Aagain is this fair? The left wants to run the economy through its Augean stable of poor decisions. This ruins the economy. It impoverishes everyone. Justice is a point of view and I think that that word is still central to all participants but people see it differently. As a relatively conservative Christian I see the non Christians who play with sex and abortion and disease as the problem. LM sides w Christianity too bit a different denomination. France is hard for me to judge. France in the 1830s is very hard to understand. The rich are grotesques in the film. The poor are not much better. But we have a few angels in the story too. It is a beautiful morality play. I can't say what I really think without prolonged study and thought as to how well it translates to today's America. Family is the crucial unit for me. Then church. Then it's hard to understand but ... justice is at least a central term to which all can refer.
Kirby,
One thing missing in LM were Valjean and the prostitute's families. Where were they?
As Les Miserables is a work of fiction, no answer is possible. But I think it is reasonable to note that there are accidents of life that can separate a person from family, but even more so then than now, as mortality rates at all ages were higher in the past.
I am often struck by the poor's lack of a family structure.
I'm doubtful that the correlation is that strong. Yeah, screwed up families can be a cause of poverty, but there are plenty of other causes: health costs, disability, and unemployment to name a few. These causes so often co-occur that it's not always possible, indeed, not always meaningful, to assign a single ur-cause. The policy question is how to break these cycles.
I think the right wants families to prevail and wants to legislate against atomization. The left is for atomization and then wants the state to pick up the tab.
I think this is a false framing. Both left and right are pro-family, and pro-social integration. There is a difference, though, in how they think about it. The right, for example, is more prone to coercive approaches. More shotgun marriages certainly means fewer children raised by single moms, but it also means more children raised in dysfunctional families. Making divorce harder to obtain means fewer children raised by single moms, but it also means more children raised by dysfunctional families. The left and right evalute the risks and rewards of these strategies differently. Undoubtedly some shotgun marriages turn out well, and making divorce harder to obtain saves some otherwise healthy marriages that are undergoing ephemeral stress, but the question here is a policy question -- no matter what you decide, it will be better for some and worse for others.
The left does want a more comprehensive social safety net, but it is emphatically not in favor of creating a dependent class. For most of the social safety net, the goal is to get a person back on their feet and productive as soon as possible. The great exception to this is social security old age pensions, but they're structured and managed as an earned benefit.
Liberals want to make wild bets and havee the state deal w the abortions diseases and heartbreaks in terms of children.
(Imagine me rolling my eyes right about now... .) Look, I've been married more than 34 years. I have friends of all political stripes, and I see no correlation between political belief and marital stability. What I do see in my friends, though, is a relatively narrow band in terms of education and income. Divorce is relatively rare in this demographic. What statistics tell me is that there is a strong correlation between divorce rates and income. Compose this with a weak correlation between income and conservatism, and you get a weak non-causal correlation between divorce rates and conservatism. If it were causal, the effect would be there if you controlled for income, and it is not.
In terms of abortion, I don't know of anyone who thinks of an abortion as a moral good in and of itself. For those who are pro-choice, they tend to think about the question in a larger framing. Abortion can prevent the formation of single parent households, albeit at the risk of a different kind of dysfunction than right's preferred strategy of shotgun marriages. Abortion can preclude having that one more child destabilize the finances of a family that's on the edge, and so save marriages that might otherwise fail. But it does so at the risk of other sorts of dysfunction. Abortion, if illegal, will still happen, but the mortality and morbidity rates among women who have abortions will be far higher (cf., Ed's narrative).
One problem for me with Hugo's world was monarchy. Without democracy we are talking about inherent inequity.
Something we agree on, but Sir James would not.
Sir James may have.liked the inequity. I don't know. Dali thought royalty meant luxury and he was for luxury. I could.do without it. The greatest luxury is idle time.
With regard to creating dependency through handouts there is the example of Yellowstone National park.
I just saw George Will on C-Span talking about religion and politics in America. He was talking at Washington U. on December 4 of this year. In the questions someone asked him about Luther and he said that Luther was intemperate and not at all Democratic and he associated Luther with Hitler! Boy, I do get tired of hearing that link. Hitler was a Catholic.
He was from Austria.
Not that I'm associating Hitlerism and Catholicism.
But you'd think someone with Will's stature wouldn't blunder here.
He spoke well about Madison, Tocqueville, and the British tradition of skepticism. I liked his talk. It's just when he mentioned Luther that I thought I was dealing with a blockhead. He mentioned Luther's essay against the Mennonites in the Peasant's War. He apparently didn't realize that Luther later wrote against the carnage of the aristocrats against the peasants.
When he was talking about Madison he really knew his stuff. He cited Federalist Letter 10 and 51.
He said Wilson was the great problem for the progressives. That the idea of human progress belies the notion that humans can progress and that there is no such thing as "human nature."
That we can change our very nature, or have some kind of saltation with regard to our basic moral nature. He said religious people don't buy this, and instead argue for a moral stasis.
I think this is correct. We don't improve.
I think the progressives believe they can socially engineer better people and that this will lead to more justice. They want to use poems and art to this end.
i saw a little piece of the will show george will laconically and almost tongue in cheek basically said it's over the american experiment was a nice idea but's it's over because we fail to come to terms with the spectre of violence which has been the hallmark of our social virtue since day one
isn't that what he said when he said tocqueville would stand aghast at even his predictions
maybe hitler was just an angry altar boy or maybe he hated his father but one thing is certain he knew he had to take down rome and well that's where his little project failed it were not ne'er gwon bee...what was left...cyanide koolaid with schnapps i guess
i missed the bit on luther but i think he's correct in pointing to intemperance he might've pointed to luther's fondness for the lute and his ability to plunk out some pretty nice melodies...but as for feces on the churchdoor...now that is purely bad taste....even the british wouldn't resort to that
the church and i can only speak for the one holy catholic one has always banked on the side of hope for humanity but has recognized that this takes soem discipline some work but this is different than holding up work as some sort of inherent means of virtue...to kneel and pray is a form of work to read scripture is work to go through the mindset of knowing that some things we learn are very important it's good to be good but it's difficult too
it's really difficult to disregard the obvious surges in technology and medicine at some level we have to acknowledge that the science has worked what has been figured out has worked for the benefit of many many people but has there been a parallel benfit in moral awakening some say yes there has some say we actually experienced a worldwide transformative moment on dec 20 it's just that nobody saw the subtlety of it so we missed it but it actually happened
your last comment about progressives is very troubling i'm troubled to the core i'm doubled with trouble about that statement it's a world breaking set of words it is upsetting and if i didn't know otherwise meant for incendiary purposes a regular handgrenade of rhetoric...my take on progressives is they want to use reason or their excuse for reason or their superficial reasoning their merely science based reasoning as the mend-all for society and they believe they really believe they have the goods the ritalin will address the problem the progesterone synthesis will stop the ovaries the sound of human flesh being quietly suckd into a vaccuumm cleaner the preponderance of inanaity the constant distraction of commerce the mindnumbing displays of garish crap everywhere the pretense of wealth the glitz the glitter the games the spectacles the babble the loud noise the zip zip zip of traffic the ipodded youth who are being raised to believe they can controll the world with a finger tip i swear i'm going insane
poems and art are passe'
who needs em
we're all going to die anyway
no such thing as a bad day to die
let me speak of death then
the little death of constrained breath
when societies fall to pieces right before your eyes societies literally melting becoming amorphous clumps of refuse with nothing but whisps of smoke to indicate some form of former life
ah well
hear the broken bell
when are we ever going to come around to the awareness that
there's really not very much happening
merry christmas everyone
jh
Self defense is legitimate. If someone breaks into your home you are.permited to kill them. If someone is trying to kill you or your family you can kill them first. This is why it was okay to kill Hitler. If he's committing gemocide and killing you can kill him. Abortion is a similar problem. If you believe children are human and defenseless you mau feel you need to defend them with force. Hitler didn't believe the Jews were human.
A similar problem arises with theft. I think Luher was a true Christian and Catholic. He saw Pope Leo.as a thief who was stealing from Germanss and so used the right of self defense to withdraw from that specific body. Germans were starving to death while the Pope partied. But he was a Catholic except when it comes to.women. Women have the right to defend themselves too. This means they need a voice aand therefore ordination or at least deacons.
Zimmerman believed he was defending himself. We have the right to defend ourselves against murderers and thieves. Zimmerman may have misunderstood what Martin wanted in that neighborhood. Itt was dark and he couldn't see the young man's face because.of the hoodie. But Zimmerman had the right of self defense.
We had the right to defend ourselves against the British.
And to defend the slaves.
And to fight the Germans.
We had the right to kill OBL.
Jesus said no we can't kill the Pharisees but only because
"We had the right to defend ourselves against the British.
And to defend the slaves."
How's that again?
He wanted the drama of the Crucifixiion to play out. He said He could call down 72000 angels and destroy all of Rome if He felt like it. He didn't feel like it.
But we have that right.
Luther said stealing when you have no bread is defensible. It's justified.
We have the right to live.
When one group such as the Democrats tries to steal from another group via exxcessive taxation in order to give that money to their own voters we're in dicu territory. No one except Karen Carpenter types are starving in this country. To steal from another group is wrong even if legislative means are used. This is why Obamacare is wrong.
The French decided that Hollande's attempt to tax at 75% all income over 1 million Euros was wrong. Hollande like all socialists is a thief. This is a dicey area. Hugo presents the upper classes as predatory in LM. And the poor as unable to defend themselves althouh they try in the June Rebellion. But legitimate reasoning can be used for illegitimate reasons. I don't knpw enouh about the.particulars of the June rebellion or the July Monarchy. Life and property can be defended with lethal force. I thinl these are ideas we all believe across the board.
But there are disagreements. Hitler felt he was defending himself and Aryans against the Jews. Most believe he went too far as the German princes went too far in the Peasants War. There is a line that gets crossed when defense becomes an unreasonable attack.
Hollande os miffed.
I couldn't get rid of that last line because I couldn't scroll down.
"I think the progressives believe they can socially engineer better people and that this will lead to more justice. They want to use poems and art to this end."
You seem to argue against yourself here, Kirby.
I thought your whole moral position was based on the perfectibility of man, that through training and good breeding you could create a super race of virtuous, docile, industrious followers. I thought you believed that art and literature should reflect a moral approach to existence, and channel people toward better living.
Here, you seem to be saying the opposite. It's like trying to incorporate original sin into dialectical materialism, but it won't work. The Enlightenment more or less killed off the idea of original sin, but you want to bring it back. Did Jefferson believe in original sin? I don't think so. No one who subscribes to the Declaration of Independence could believe in the divine right of kings, or the permanence of sects, as in India.
The Zimmerman case turns on whether Zimmerman went too far in his own defense and became an aggressor. I believe he's innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Zimmerman isn't white but even if he was he should have the same right of self defense as a black guy even against a minor. These are ambiguous circumstances. NBC presented Zimmerman as a bigot and a zealous overdefender but they edited the tape to change the case and convict and railroad Zimmerman. They should be loable for this. It is mot an error and they should pay millions for this.
Candy's attempt to change Benghazi.is also a case of lying or altering the record to help a false witness.
If we believe in justice we have to start with the ten commandments but work forward through Aquinas and Luther Madison and other cases thinking carefully about principles and precedents.
I think we need to keep guns to defend ourselves against bad government. Cyclops would have been for arms control in his cave. Odysseus not so much.
The Msm tried.to present Martin as Goldilocks with candy. At first he was 140 pounds but then he was 180. At first he was a kid but then he wasn't 12 as the MSMs picture would have us believe but a late teen and in trouble constantly at his school. He was suspended for drug abuse.
We keep getting false witnesses.
Sharpton was a false witness for Tawana.
These principles have to be kept in mind. It's why I think even secularists have to read the Bible. Most legal precedents stem from there. God and Solomon and Jesus judge. We need their judgements as they echo through our literature. It's in LM and Shakespeare. We have the Greeks and the Romans such as Pilate and Nero. We have Alcibiades and Agamemnon. Our jidgement is weaker if we don't have these precedents clear in our minds.
cyclops could kill you with one look he doesn't need fire arms
women have always been deacons (servers) they don't need another title it's time we re-establish MOTHER as the highest social mediating office not so much the queen mother but the practical everyday mother of all things common sensical
we had no right to kill OBL
simpley because we had the power and the might and the toys to do it doesn't give us the right as a matter of fact i don't think it ever happened it was all staged they made a an agreement with the muslim extremists that osama would disappear live a luxurious life of leisure in bahrain and never bother any one any more he was paid to disappear and the military and the media made a deal to cover it all over in political drama that never happened osama is alive and well
once i was picked up hitchhiking by a drunk guy who needed to sleep it off we parked in my dad's driveway and i left him to sleep in the car in the morning he had to use the bathroom so he came to the house my father was awake and he talked to the guy and let him use the bathroom then the guy left but he had actually walked into the house we never locked our house out in the country my dad talked to me about it afterward but he showed no fear just the hope that the guy didn't shit his pants and made it safely whereever he needed to go
now i gotta go to celebrate mass with my brothers
merry christmas everyone
jh
"I think we need to keep guns to defend ourselves against bad government."
This presumably is the justification of the Founders for the 2nd Amendment.
What form would you see as the legitimate expression of a discontent with "bad government"?
Do you see yourself becoming a part of a civil militia, run by rebels against the Federal Government? Would it take the form of a general revolt across the nation? How would it be led? What would its ruling principles consist of?
I think these are relevant questions when proposing the idea of a "defense" against bad governance. It you believe such an alternative is real, then you must address the actual process such a step would entail.
Kirby:
"Liberals want to make wild bets"
In terms of "un-safe bets" I think the risks that were taken during the securities firms' meltdown, as with the unrestricted speculation in the real estate market (primarily associated with wealth and so-called conservative factions), are much more injurious to the health of the economy, than any illiberal initiatives designed to alleviate the burdens of subsistence living, health care access, or modest stimuli like public works programs.
I think the national debt is primarily a consequence of the obligations we fulfilled to the financial sector, the unfunded foreign war adventures, and of imprudent tax "holidays" during a period of economic boom. It's during periods of prosperity that we should be paying the bills we incurred during periods of bust (when stimuli and safety nets were most crucial).
I don't know if this is Keynesian theory but I like it. It is generally recognized that imposing strict spending limits during a period of recession actually exacerbates the problem of cash flow.
Curtis the House report on the Bubble placed the biggest burden on bad mortgages through Fannie Mae. On top of this was.a.wild speculation without sufficient covering capital so that as the housing market cratered it pulled down whole banks. Keynes died in 1946. It's hard to know how he would have responded. He and Hayek switched positions and were more friendly than I knew. The housing bubble and the ban on redlining was part of the collapse. But there were other problems with a general lack of regulation. That's my understanding but is probably inadequate. Also it seems that no two people agree.
As far as my position with regard to moral improvement via art I don't know what to say. We're animals. Our job is to try to try to know the eternal laws as laid out in the Bible but I don't believe in saints. I'm Lutheran. I believe we're fallen but not perfectible even if we can stand for the good. I think art should explore not dictate.
Does Federal Reserve.monetary policy work? No one really knows. The Great Depression caused doubts even for Keynes. Unemployment is a part of macroeconomics but so is national debt. We're all floundering. The budget is now 60% entitlements. Can we cut some and get some.people back to work? Can we cut back on defense? Where do we trim?
I wish I knew. I watch the proceedings bit am not too clear. I read the Austrians but they disagree a lot too. Von Mises is the most austere. Hayek varies much more than I thought and was for universal healthcare in 1946!
The big name now is Amartya Sen.
We're a long way from Major Douglas!
Is there a panacaea?
guns don't protect anyone against bad government especially now that they can extinguish your house with lasers from sattelites from outerspace...in a n instant...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzppppoooooff only smoke where family values once resided guns are playthings in the hands of disgruntled children guns are the sick fascination of a culture run amok guns are the chinese retaliation for future crimes happiness is a warm gun
home economics they don't teach home economics anymore women used to major in that what was wrong with that it sounds perfectly sensible econeconomics tossing the coin so to speak...what have i read recently o i know i read the signature on a ten dollar bill of the secretary of the treasury or no the actual treasurer and if i'm not mistaken in 2006 anne escabedo cabral it was a woman obviouslsy the script was not memorable but it just shows to go ya it's all about money and women and spending anymore it used to be about men and saving now it's about everyone even kids have credit cards we're all players in t the money game
i think we can all agree that it doesn't pay to have a safe anymore
people used to have safes now they have digitized credit of course the misappropriations committee is going to get it wrong...this makes it very difficult for art thieves...(did you guys know that i am in fact an art thief)...for sometimes buyers want to use their credit cards when cash is preferred but then they mark the bills now it's harder and harder to put counterfeit currency out there they're tracking everything take a 50 to the story and they snap it and zap it and scrutinize i usually tell them it is good money i made it just this morning
they've taken economics out of the home and made it a hollywood tv game
the only economist worth listening to is suzi orman she has a way of making people feel good about the money they think they have she wants people to have a glass of wine and feel good feel good when you do your acconting invest well and feel good about it suzi wants everyone to feel good about their money and that's all there is to it all this theory is just number crunching and speculating on the mysterious viccissitudes of human emotions isaac newton believed he could attach a number to everything everywhere everyhow
nombers
nombres
numeros
numerology
numbre folias
left to the numbers we're sunk
economists and i've said this before i know i just have to keep iterating the iterable in hopes that no one becomes irritable at the table because if there's one thing i hate it's irritable irate rats iterating its and thems against the irritation of a nation
...economists must be, above all, ethicists...in jh(S) world that's what they are
where did that come from
what was i saying
this is supposed to be funny right
excuse me....gas'
uh phew
i gotta get some relief
can't get no satisfaction
a panacaea?....hmnh....ritalin and soft porn?
jh
NYT breaking news: Talks On Fiscal Crisis Face Setbacks That Threaten Deal
we see from this headline that it's all about the deal the kind of deal one can deal can you deal the deal that deals dutifully with the dealers it all boils down to that...and who are the dealers....why need anyone ask...it's the enlightened american public trusting in the meta-dealers to deal them the deal they so desperately need but never get
when the deal goes down
economics should be limited to very vague and ambiguous forms of rhetorical precision....no ....for sure... i really mean it
what's the objective of economics?
soup and bread on the table
everythng more than that is dreaming and pretense
you heard it here
yo
jh
Kirby,
The category of entitlements consists of two very different categories of spending.
One category consists of benefits that were substantially paid for by the recipients or in their interest, and these include the great social insurance programs: Social Security old age pensions, Medicare, and unemployment insurance.
The second category consists of benefits that were not paid for, e.g., Medicaid, Social Security disability payments, and federal support for state welfare payments.
Failing to distinguish between these categories is misleading at best, and is all too likely to result in counterproductive budget/policy "solutions."
Kirby,
I think the progressives believe they can socially engineer better people and that this will lead to more justice. They want to use poems and art to this end.
You're conflating society with human nature. Perhaps this will be clearer if you consider the passage from monarchy to democracy. You've already agreed that this transition results in more justice. I'll point out that this is a transition in social organization, not a change human nature. This is what progressives look for: ways to change society, not human nature, so as to result in greater justice.
But let me turn this blowtorch back on you. Don't you believe that religious belief results in better people? How is this not social engineering? It seems to me that it is conservatives who believe that human nature is improvable.
Stu does it still amount to 60%? Can that number.be cut?
Your second point is somewhat sound but I don't know if the idea is to make us better or just act better. It's good to keep the ten commandments in mind. We can keep them outwardly bit St. Paul says knowledge of the law makes us aware of sin so that we commit mental sins in understanding the law. We must be bad therefore since we can understand evil.
I don't know how to cut the debt or to make people stop committing crimes. It seems like a sin to steal from our grandchildren for benefits today.
Kirby,
Stu does it still amount to 60%?
Seems pretty close. I found a source for the 2013 budget that claims 24% health care (this is mostly Medicare, but some Medicaid), 23% pensions (mostly SS), 11% welfare.
Can it be cut? Cutting earned benefits generally means cutting the corresponding taxes (which are basically fees for service), and is generally deficit neutral. But cutting welfare is certainly possible. Is it wise? Likewise, cutting defense (24%) is also possible. Or increasing taxes.
Your second point is somewhat sound but I don't know if the idea is to make us better or just act better.
Is there a difference? Another way of describing a "bad" person who "acts good" is as someone who successfully resists temptation.
It seems like a sin to steal from our grandchildren for benefits today.
If that was what was happening, I'd be inclined to agree. But I don't think that's what's happening. After all, they'll have grandchildren to borrow from too.
Stu:
The Social Security programs are considerably more elaborated and complex than you realize.
There are several separate "trust funds" none of which is funded out of general treasury revenues or obligations. All are true insurance programs.
The Retirement and Survivors Trust Fund, the Disability Trust Fund, the Medicare Trust Fund are all different, and all are supported with tax levies on the public.
There are welfare benefits, including Supplemental Security Income (for Aged, Blind and Disabled individuals), which are funded through a combination of Federal and (some) State treasure expenditures.
When Republicans bitch about the "entitlements" mess, they aren't talking straight. The Trust Funds were always supposed to be "off limits" to general treasury budgeting. But Republicans like to think of what citizens pay for their own insurance programs as "just money"--no different than the expenditures we make for defense, or public works, or foreign aid, or national parks, or anything. So as a way of "balancing the budget" they set their sights on "entitlements" to "pay for" their wars and tax breaks and bank bail-outs. But everyone-the rich, the middle class, even the poor, pay for social insurance programs, without respect to what kinds of spending we may decide to engage in as an immediate necessity, like a war. In other words, you don't ask people to give up their retirement benefits (which they've already paid for, or are paying for separately) scheduled to begin in, say, 5 years, to pay off a debt you incurred in making bombs and tanks last year.
They're apples and oranges. It isn't just "all money." It's not just "all taxes" of what ever color.
The next time you hear a policy wonk bitch about "entitlements" ask him or her what they really mean. Do they suggest raiding the trust funds to pay back the national debt? But they have NO CLAIM on those trust fund benefits. It's nonsense.
They may want to cut Social Security, and there are sensible and prudent ways to do that, if you choose to go down that path. But "dealing with entitlements" as a way of paying off the debt is just BS, plain and simple. It's actually illegal. It's a shell game. Even the popular media--which Kirby hates so much--has bought into this radical conservative lie.
WE believe that you can 'socially engineer' better societies, not people, Kirby -
Certain societies are better than others...
Across time and space.
Why?
Is it because those individual HUMANS somehow all managed to be born with better hearts?
Or was it because of better systems?
Of course, it was because of better systems that people behaved better...
We just have to figure out what the best systems are, and argue about it.
Curtis,
Thank you for repeating my argument: in the main, what Republicans call "entitlements" are insurance programs for which the beneficiaries have made (nearly) actuarially sound premium payments.
Yeah, Republican hypocrisy around the issue is pretty breathtaking. They say that 47% of the population doesn't pay taxes, ignoring payroll taxes (i.e., these very premia), then view the benefits received as coming from the "taxpayers." They also ignore the fact that a large proportion of the people who don't pay income taxes are retired people, who spent a productive working lifetime paying these taxes.
I do, however, think there is a small truth underlying the Republican criticism. Analyses of the trust funds typically show an actuarial shortfall, some on the relatively short term (Medicare, which has come under additional stress due to the unfunded Part D), and some on longer terms (SS pensions). Correcting these shortfalls requires adjustments in benefits, contributions, or both. Not large adjustments, but adjustments nevertheless.
The real problem here is very different. The efforts to stabilize SS in the 80's resulted in a requirement that the trust funds invest only in US Treasury bonds. The ROI on these bonds is very low at present (one problem), and the existence of guaranteed purchasers of these bonds has reduced the pressure on Congress to balance other parts of the budget (the far bigger problem). Indeed, the Bush-era tax cuts amounted to little more than a transfer of the wealth represented by the trust funds from the people who paid for them to the rich, who got the benefits larger federal expenditures without the offsetting cost of taxes to pay for them. Now that the bill is due, they don't want to pay.
i've heard and it's only hearsay that the bilderberg group makes all the decisions about money and some jewish guy in las vegas and it's like a blood bank it's not anybody's money there's a huge way to shift funds from new york to jakarta and it's done rather simply by those who know how they are entitled and they don't care what you or anyone thinks so money passion where's the money passion what's the budget passion what's the numbers we're talking about are they real numbers what about the money in people's purses or lack thereof...so what they do is very similar to blood transfusion they just say well this is an O negative situation and we have a stock of O negative blood and plasma don't forget the plasma bring the tubes set up the intravenus di milo and away you go the screams about no money are really about blood transfusions that need some assisstance sometimes the tubing gets plugged and one actually has to blow on the other end
it's about lubrication
keeping the machine lubricated
making sure blood transfusions can happen
the rhetoric is meant to suspend our common sense in a smokey atmosphere of delightful ambiguity
every person is an estate
i get a kick when i hear
"grow the economy"
they're going to "grow"
the economy
like a garden
manure is essential for good growth
and money like manure needs to be justly distributed else the garden sags...don't forget the poor azaleas
just distribution must always entail the poor...sometimes poverty is an inheritance
tumble weeds stumble through the parking lots of box stores
bring back the "do nothings"
every 7 years they should completely write off the debt just XX it out with zer000000000s
that way the math would be less daunting...have a system of social apologies...."""sorry"""" i know that money was forthcoming but now it's not we'll have to think of something else in the mean time here's some tuna fish
jh
Stu:
You're still mixing apples and oranges.
The cap on Social Security taxes is a flat amount. The amount payable to beneficiaries has always been a mathematical computation, which favored the lower end of the spectrum. Republicans regard Social Security as a wealth transfer to the less well off, and that's true. However, no money was taken from the Trust Funds to give the rich a tax holiday. The tax holiday was money removed from general treasury revenue--precisely the money that pays for all non-benefits expenditures. It isn't fair that the tax holiday should now be extended, during a time when our ability to grant such windfalls no longer exists. The original argument the Congress made in the 90's for "tax relief" was that it was unconscionable to have a surplus of any kind, that that "surplus" needed to be "returned" to the public. But the benefit to the rich was many times more lucrative than the modest reductions enjoyed by the other 99%. That's still true. A lot of people believe that "falling off the cliff" is a lot better for the country, since the rich will once again be paying their old ("through the nose") rates. It may "hurt" ordinary tax payers more, but the amount the rich will pay will be much greater, and it will be good for the country.
dissed
phqn dissed
can't believe it
ah well
where's my pencil
Romney troed to walk back the 47% comment and revise it to 30%. How many are on welfare and foodstamps and are in other words wards.of the state? Unemployment is 8%. Romney thought he could hel by clarifying the business rules. 9-9-9 was supposed to simplify the tax code. Businesses have to see.profit to get in the game. More profit means more taxes garnered even of the overal take per person iss not as punitive. We wamt everyone working. Unemployment was under 2% in 1944.
tried to walk back
we want everyone
is it possible to get profits going better again?
Can industry work.again in America?
Curtis,
The cap on Social Security taxes is a flat amount.
I'm well aware. The FICA cutoff was $110K this year.
The amount payable to beneficiaries has always been a mathematical computation, which favored the lower end of the spectrum.
This is incorrect. The computation does not take into account the correlation between life expectancy and SS benefit, which is strong. After all, the SS benefit is a good surrogate for lifetime income, and lifetime income is a good surrogate for lifetime health-care quality. If the mortal/benefit correlation is taken into account, social security pensions are regressive. You didn't know this?
Republicans regard Social Security as a wealth transfer to the less well off, and that's true.
It's false -- cf., the preceding argument.
However, no money was taken from the Trust Funds to give the rich a tax holiday
You're missing my point. The fact that the trust funds had to be invested in treasury bonds subsidized government spending, and made actuarially unsound budgeting (cf., the Bush tax cuts, unsubsidized Medicare Part D, a couple of unfunded wars) possible. Now that the trust savings flow has gone from net positive (i.e., more contributions than payments) to net negative, they want to renege on the debt they incurred. I don't see why the American people should forgive that debt.
"This is incorrect. The computation does not take into account the correlation between life expectancy and SS benefit, which is strong."
In a simple arithmetic sense, benefits payable to people on the lower end of the benefit hierarchy have always realized much more in benefits than they ever paid in, than those at the upper end of the pyramid.
"After all, the SS benefit is a good surrogate for lifetime income, and lifetime income is a good surrogate for lifetime health-care quality. If the mortal/benefit correlation is taken into account, social security pensions are regressive. You didn't know this?"
This is an unintended affect. Social Security was never intended, at its inception, to be a full retirement benefit, only a "supplement" to other sources and investments. When it was instituted, for instance, older family members routinely lived in an extended family setting, often in the same household. People no longer do that; but the benefit still isn't intended to replace lost living circumstance. People who worked their whole life on minimum wage, will "recoup" their Social Security investment early in the retirement, but will never be comfortable if they planned to depend on it to live.
"You're missing my point. The fact that the trust funds had to be invested in treasury bonds subsidized government spending, and made actuarially unsound budgeting (cf., the Bush tax cuts, unsubsidized Medicare Part D, a couple of unfunded wars) possible."
I don't know. This is a stretch. It wasn't until the Congress decided to combine the accounting of the general treasury with the benefits trust funds (circa 1969), that they really began to spend irresponsibly. They could "show" a balanced budget by adding the "surplus" from the trust funds to offset the deficit of the general treasury expenditures. That was simply a lie, a lie that no one in the media seems to have had the courage to remind people about.
"Now that the trust savings flow has gone from net positive (i.e., more contributions than payments) to net negative, they want to renege on the debt they incurred."
The RSI trust fund is good until about 2028. The Disability trust fund is somewhat less secure. The big problem is the Medicare fund, and that's why everyone is concerned about it. What I find astonishing is that people will speak of "entitlements" being on the verge of complete collapse, when it's only the Medicare Trust Fund that's ailing. Not the RSI (SS benefits) Trust Fund.
IMHO, the easiest way to bring the RSI Trust Fund into total line would be to curtail some of the "auxiliary" benefits, which are paid to dependents and children and so forth. Women married only ten years to someone can make a 100% claim against an x-spouse's record, even if they divorced 25 years earlier. This is dumb.
"I don't see why the American people should forgive that debt."
Right.
Curtis,
In a simple arithmetic sense, benefits payable to people on the lower end of the benefit hierarchy have always realized much more in benefits than they ever paid in, than those at the upper end of the pyramid.
Source, please. Because I believe this is only true in the (counterfactual) case that they live as long (in aggregate) as people at higher incomes.
I don't know. This is a stretch. It wasn't until the Congress decided to combine the accounting of the general treasury with the benefits trust funds (circa 1969), that they really began to spend irresponsibly. They could "show" a balanced budget by adding the "surplus" from the trust funds to offset the deficit of the general treasury expenditures. That was simply a lie, a lie that no one in the media seems to have had the courage to remind people about.
Exactly. So why don't you know? You've just repeated my argument, but shy away from the conclusion.
I think we're mostly in agreement. You seem a bit more solid on the details, but a bit more shy about calling a cheat a cheat.
Curtis,
Here is a source for my argument in re: life expectancy: US Social Security Administration, Office of Policy: Trends in Mortality Differentials and Life Expectancy for Male Social Security–Covered Workers, by Average Relative Earnings
I refer you (for starters) to Chart 3, which tells a rather dramatic tale. For males born in 1941 who received SS pensions, the life expectancy in the upper half of those receiving benefits was 21.5 years. For those in the lower half, it was 16 years.
What this table doesn't show, but is easily inferred, is excess mortality among lower wage earners before retirement. Investment bankers don't fall from lifts.
Curtis,
OK, here's one for your side: Policy Basics: Top Ten Facts about Social Security. Note particularly the graph and discussion in the section "Fact #2: Social Security provides a guaranteed, progressive benefit that keeps up with increases in the cost of living."
My intuition is that SS is still (slightly) regressive, but this definitely requires an analysis of mortality before retirement age. I'll see what I can find.
communities must return to social security as the basis for existence
social security is predominantly to be about people
can people care for one another
of must it all be mediated through
medical institutes toot toot
it's the end of the world once again
seems like we go through this all the time our disappointment being:
we're still here
with a new year budding
may it bloom wildly for
everyone babbling and bantering on this blog
avant
jh
Somewhere Brett said that the left wants to tinker with the system to make it better. I accept that this can be done but note that good intentions can stilll make things worse. A doctor shoild first do no harm. Obamacare attempts to create global healthcare coverage and puts an onus on employers that may lead to further and deeper unemployment. A good idea for the.left may be a bad idea for the whole. The notion of freedom of discussion still exists and I prefer it in principle. Any kind of warlike stance that silences any faction is uncivil. I'd prefer not to moderate so if we can avoid moves calculated to silence others I'll just leave this open. Democracy requires discussion. I finished Nasar's book on economics last night. She concludes with Amartya Sen. Sen witnessed a famine in Bengal in 1943 and his life's work was meant to understand and prevent famines. He won the Nobel in 1998. He thinks famines only occur when voting and speech have been terminated. But what about truly being able to speak and write WELL? And to think clearly and well?
South Korea has Gangnam style a vid that attacks the pretentions of the would be wealthy in a suburb of Seoul. North Korea has massive dances which are meant to hide the famines and poverty by presenting flowery tributes to the dictator and his beneficial rule.
Curtis,
Here's a nice paper: Differential Mortality by Income and Social Security Progressivity (PDF).
The authors ran simulations of model workers, taking into account mortality through a workers lifetime. The conclusion is that social security is regressive for males, and progressive for females.
Stu:
I think our discussion began when you made the small error of claiming that Social Security Disability benefits are "not paid for"--which is incorrect--they're paid out of a dedicated trust fund supported by the taxpayer, just like the RSI trust fund.
This devolved into your argument about whether SS benefit entitlement is progressive or regressive. I have no position on this question.
I do know that the "return" on investment is much greater to those at the bottom of the benefit pyramid. Because "entitlement" is established through "quarters of coverage" the amount one pays to earn those quarters has always been relatively tiny. You can build up 40 quarters (the current minimum to qualify) by paying in a mere pittance, which you could "recover" within one year of your entitlement; whereas, people who had paid taxes on, say, $600,000 or more over their work-life into the trust fund, might take eight years to get it back, and of course, the interest on a nest-egg of that size would make it much greater over a 30-40 year span.
Nevertheless, a social insurance program can't function with high risk investments, which is why the administration of the trust funds has always depended upon fixed investment instruments, which are dependable and strong. In the Bush II years, Republicans bitched about their inability to invest their SS contributions in the stock market, but the vagaries of the market don't support their illusion of bounty. Social Security has always functioned better for those least able to support it, and that's probably better for society as a whole, by spreading the benefits over the widest possible spectrum. But it's a socialist notion, no question.
Over the decades since its inception, Congress has seen fit to expand the beneficiary base to include several different additional classes of benefit. Had the program been limited strictly to those who actually contribute the taxes, the trust funds would be much healthier today.
The real conundrum in our time is the expansion of medical entitlement, the rapid growth of medical care costs. Despite this rapid rise, Americans enjoy a relatively mediocre level of general medical care. It's clear that the profit motive has far outstripped the original purpose of medicine, and continues to dominate the debate about care delivery.
I haven't seen a doctor for almost 10 years, but there are people who visit the emergency room on a monthly basis. Obviously, that kind of thing is unsupportable, just as doctors who routinely schedule tests that cost $5000 apiece for people who could never afford them without group coverage. It's a broken system, and one we must fix. Obamacare is designed, in part, to do that, but it was siginficantly hamstrung by Republican revisions, and is an incomplete piece of legislation. We still need a single-payer system, but the medical insurance companies still have too much power in Congress, and we may never get it.
Curtis,
I think our discussion began when you made the small error of claiming that Social Security Disability benefits are "not paid for"--which is incorrect--they're paid out of a dedicated trust fund supported by the taxpayer, just like the RSI trust fund.
You're right that I was wrong, but your clarification is imprecise. Let's try to get this right. The distinction we're trying to make is whether a particular trust is funded out of payroll taxes, income taxes, or some combination. It appears that both funds are entirely funded out of payroll taxes.
I do know that the "return" on investment is much greater to those at the bottom of the benefit pyramid.
You are mistaken here, but it is an easy mistake to make. Low income survivors receive a larger proportion of their pre-retirement income as pension. But their ROI is discounted by the fact that fewer low-income wage earners make it to retirement age, and the post-retirement life expectancy is lower for those who do make it. The balance between these factors are such that the Social Security ROI for low income males is less than the ROI for middle income males, but this inverts for females. That was the conclusion of the Gota, Shoven, and Slavov article I linked to above.
Because "entitlement" is established through "quarters of coverage" the amount one pays to earn those quarters has always been relatively tiny.
Here you're confusing the eligibility requirement with the computation of benefit amounts. You do need 40 quarters of SS payments to establish eligibility, but the amount of the benefit (IIRC) is determined by the average of those last 40 quarters. (I believe this formula is modified for people who max out). Someone who has tiny qualifying contributions will earn a tiny benefit.
Nevertheless, a social insurance program can't function with high risk investments, which is why the administration of the trust funds has always depended upon fixed investment instruments, which are dependable and strong.
This is in error, although it does describe the actual investment strategy. The error here is in thinking that the optimum investment strategy must be pure -- i.e., it must consist only of low-risk, low-yield vehicles, or high-risk, high-yield vehicles. In fact, properly managed blended strategies can usually produce better yield/risk profiles, and would in this case too.
In the Bush II years, Republicans bitched about their inability to invest their SS contributions in the stock market, but the vagaries of the market don't support their illusion of bounty.
You missed the point. Brokers were very eager to move to personal accounts, and these would have generated by far the largest fee/investment ratio. This feed into a general Republican belief that the stock market represents a kind of lottery that rewards Republic virtue, but the real push came from fee-seeking fund managers.
Social Security has always functioned better for those least able to support it, and that's probably better for society as a whole, by spreading the benefits over the widest possible spectrum. But it's a socialist notion, no question.
Agreed, but... Social Security today has a critical role in pension planning for middle-income wage earners. The point is that these days it is typically the only defined benefit portion of those pensions. The stability this provides allows a slightly higher risk profile in the defined-contribution portion of the pension, and over the course of a lifetime, a significantly higher expected pension.
The main thing is that our system still works well insofar as groceries and keepingnthe lights on. Starvation is not a possibility in the lower 48. Food distribution is fine. Healthcare is good unless you're a homeless drug addict. What might wreck it is if our other rights begin to wane. The first amendment is already in abeyance at many colleges. And the second amendment is next. As an American I don't like the constant harping on how southern slaveowners define America. How is tha true? We aren't like the exloded Soviet Union and its eastern colonies or like crazy Africa or the exloded Spanish colonies. Our history has been fortunate and fair and just overall. We sure beat everything else going. The Nordics may be the only exception.
not maybe exception but our only true rivals.
Maybe Canada too.
The Anglophone world is the best.
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