dagblog - Comments for "F*** You, White Liberal: a Middle-Eastern American Glad Trump Won"

It was supposed to make you

trkingmomoe — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 07:09:12 +0000

In reply to Thanks Momoe, I value your

It was supposed to make you smile. There is lots of anger and panic flying around here right now.

Thanks Momoe, I value your

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 06:49:28 +0000

In reply to Well stated my good friend.

Thanks Momoe, I value your ideas and opinions so this made me smile.

I just want to acknowledge

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 06:45:08 +0000

In reply to I accept Camus's appraisal of

I just want to acknowledge your comment and say that I agree with your conclusion. Intended to do so sooner but have been out of pocket visiting family. Thanks for taking the idea seriously enough to delve into it.

I accept Camus's appraisal of

moat — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 22:49:32 +0000

In reply to I do not accept that adopting

I accept Camus's appraisal of what separates a cheerleader for murder from those who condemn it.
In my mind, that is the real cultural war being fought all around the world.
For many various reasons, our politics have created a special place for our citizens where this sort of thing is always somebody else's problem.
So, the anger I expressed is not toward any of your intentions in presenting a point of view but a reaction to the realization that the conversation you are calling for has been postponed to a place and time I cannot imagine. As far as I can see, the new deal for owning the predatory nature of our society is being sold as a program to predate better.
Not the message I was hoping to hear.

Not sure where you are - my

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 07:31:28 +0000

In reply to I give up. I honestly don't

Not sure where you are - my "mainstream" gal got defeated in June 2008, conceded within days, gave a nice kumbay speech at the convention, accepted that traditional Russian exile position to keep her from being a threat, and was off to foreign climes in Jan 2009, and after 4 years abroad was out of the government, and has spent the last 2 years being blamed for all the domestic policies of the guy who defeated her along with the foreign policies of his predecessor. Bring it on, I'm used to this wise-ass shit detached from reality. Go ahead, toss in a few "elite" and "establishment" and "neoliberal" bits so I feel at home.

Even there, the go-it-slow and why-can't-along reach-across-the-aisles president did put together a bailout that threw money at Wall Street but snuck in a Detroit bailout anyway. Yes, I read ~~Friedman~~ Krugman (wrong NYTimes columnist), knew it wasn't enough *before it happened/as it was debated*, knew the Republicans were weighing it down in unhelpful tax rebates rather than stimulus, so yes, the recovery's taken 7 long years but has happened, which is a bit more than we could have expected from the Republicans who crashed it. And yes, the insult to injury of besides banks not spending the free money given + loaned to them, also went and absconded with people's houses through illegal mortgage foreclosures and otherwise predatory behavior.

(on a personal level, my investment bank's changed names 3 times over this period, so I get reminded of the consolidation & too-big-to-fail with every statement)

(There was also the decision to kind of cover up the rebates as less tax witholding, so people wouldn't even realize they had them. Why? Good policy or bad? Certainly lowered the credit the administration received)

I don't think any of this has to do with "economics" per se, and everything about who took a gun or Uzi to a knife fight and has the stomach in the belly or contra, pure chutzpah to make things a total mess and then demand all sorts of considerations and payouts as recompense for cooperating - kind of like asking the firemen rescuing your burning house for tithes and to take off their shoes before entering your house. And Regulation - that dirty word that had everything (IMHO) to do with why the industry felt much more entitled and enabled when the gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight came into power Jan 2001.

And yes, I cheered Alan Grayson and Elizabeth Warren when they tore regulators new assholes in hearings, but it's not near enough or even useful compared to stopping the theft - but hey, they're in the opposition minority. Funny - it's kind of like Iraq inspections - at least we know the magnitude of the crime vs. a coverup, but it didn't stop the crime. Should Hillary have given Goldman Sachs a harsher dressing down during her speech? I suppose, just like John Dillinger's mother should have scolded him for all those murders. Not quite useful, but at least we would have known where Ma stood, right?

Anyway, we did all this during the primaries and general elections. Why don't you talk some interesting new economics ideas and stop with the retreading the election time bullshit.

Yes, I get the issue with austerity, which in the case of Greece is a problem because they're so fucking irresponsible that do this or that, it's still a road to hell, whereas pumping money into Ireland, Portugal, Spain has the likelihood of sane behavior and faster recovery among adults - they had sane economics before but got caught in something bigger, and the feel-good tactic of punishing sin is counterproductive. Why did we push for so much budget austerity vs. say a jobs program for long-suffering blacks, or combined into a larger not-just-an-ethnic-favoritism approach? well, for one reason, Obama likely couldn't get away with it anyway, but maybe he could have - penguins did fly in one BBC report, ending up in Brazil methinks. Even with a House stacked against him, he could have brought the issue to the American people who would have ~~demanded his birth certificate~~ rallied behind him and it would have been okay. Anyway, go to those who really supported him and the Hope & Change thing if you want some answers - I'm not his primary fan club, even though I think he's done reasonably well under the circumstances, given his basic nature at bargaining/not bargaining.

I suppose the 1 economic policy question from the past is whether you think Glass-Steagall was the only thing required to stop the crash all by its lonesome and whether it is appropriate in toto or which parts for the way banking and insurance and investment and various other ways of shuffling around money & assets works in 2016.

But more interested in hearing about MMT and all its wonders, since it was my dismissal of *that* you were criticizing (and *no*, I'm not a deficit scold, though I think in times of plenty, e.g. the later Clinton years, paying down the debt *may be* helpful if aligned properly with other needs and policies).

I don't think economics is my

ocean-kat — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 06:17:08 +0000

In reply to I give up. I honestly don't

I don't think economics is my area of expertise so I try to stay out when it gets to deep into the details. But it seems to me you're talking about mainstream "conservative or republican" economics. Perhaps PP is too. Aren't there any liberal mainstream economists? What about Krugman or Reich? Not mainstream? They're arguing against virtually everything you claim mainstream economists believe.

Let's not get into the they didn't go far enough argument. Democrats never ever go far enough on any issue for me. So I agree with that. But Krugman has been arguing for years for tax increases on the wealthy. He's not debating how much we should lower taxes to "spur" investment. And B Clinton balanced the budget in a large part by raising taxes on the wealthy with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Krugman's been trashing supply side economics for years. He has also been pushing for borrowing to finance a massive infrastructure bill. Citing high unemployment and zero interest rates as reasons to do it. He's been talking about the failure of austerity in Europe and even predicted it would fail.

I could go on. What I see is an argument between the conservative and liberal mainstream. Or is it that liberals are just not considered mainstream?

And by the way, in the 2008 presidential campaign Hillary was spending considerable time and energy talking about mortgage relief for main street home owners. In doing so she actually pushed Obama to consider it.

I give up. I honestly don't

quinn esq — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 04:34:13 +0000

In reply to Quinn, if you're actually not

I give up. I honestly don't get how you see economics, PP.

Because YES, your mainstream guys said bail out Wall Street and not the individuals.

And YES, your guys basically supported do-nothing'ism after the crash.

And YES, they missed the bubble in the first place.

The fucking "mainstream" of American economics is absolutely nut-scrunchingly awful shit that swept through the US universities, and [very] effectively purged other ways of seeing the world. Their departments got financially-connected to finance and wheeler-dealer firms they never should have touched, and the flow of money and jobs helped tip out all those old leftie types. Their new "studies" erased any and all connection to reality as I knew it, in favour of almost pure ideology, produced a million studies, each seemingly more unhinged in terms of its assumptions, and endlessly brayed about becoming "quantitative" [and with almost nothing to show for it.] And, as consciously as in any other purge, they drove the "political economy" people and industrial strategy people from the room altogether.

And we've ended up with insane policies built around more and more and MORE tax cuts somehow being the way forward, a constant shouting to reduce the deficit and increase stringency, but all in all, basically every policy is weighed in terms of whether it hands more money to the owners of capital and the wealthy. I'm serious. And yes, it's just that crass.

And so we argue around an "agenda" consisting of ways to further reduce the "tax burden" on the wealthy and corporations... which worries about borrowing when interest rates are effectively zero.... which endlessly prefers trade deals which produce net economic gains, but leave tens of millions as net losers.... which frets on and on and ON about wages rising, while salaries and bonuses at the top end get no attention.... and so on.

I mean, it's not the "mainstream" that raised the 1% issue. Or the minimum wage.

Anyway. I busy myself these days with other questions, and now and then ponder different ways of seeing and working in the economy altogether. But mostly that's out of a crystal clear sense that the battle over Economics Departments is over. These people are charlatans, but they had business and finance backing, and so... they won. There's no winning those worlds or those textbooks back. I donno, maybe this battle that took place within academia is just less well-know than I thought, but the world is now ruled by morons who took BComms and MBAs and who somehow think their jabber about free markets and competition and productivity has something to do with actual economic outcomes.

It doesn't.

And these people areevery bit the corporate gas-bag disinformers the fossil fuel industry fronts are.

So it's more than slightly irritating when otherwise sane people come on and quote this sort of shit as having something to do with being "serious" or "adult" about things. Like.... dude. You live in Europe. How's that "austerity" schtick worked out? Do you actually think there is ANY economic case for following these policies in a deflationary environment? Where interest rates are basically nil, and unemployed resources cover the continent? Cause I'm sure as shit not seeing it. And that's after years of it.

Quinn, if you're actually not

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 07:28:10 +0000

In reply to I wrote a long note here, but

Quinn, if you're actually not an economic bozo, why don't you actually show it and write about it, rather than flitting in here and there as the voice of Brit/Canadian wonkery past who's seen it all and knows it all - ooh, I'm a neoliberal, which I"m still not sure what it is except probably akin to "sellout, neither fish nor fowl, not pure enough in progressivism". So be it.

But a new luscious economic theory in the hands of true believers seems a dangerous thing - those with less magical economic wherewithall than you have proclaimed the new Modern Monetary Theory will simply blast away any problems - balance the checkbook, auto surplus, iphone + Starbucks coffee in every pot.

I'd actually love a real economic discussion, including a non-snide view of MMU, but not when it just pops up in the middle of a campaign to explain away the ease of spending $2 trillion or $10 trillion on new programs without breaking a sweat.

At the same time, I recognize the shortcomings and continual breakthroughs in astrophysics, genetics, earth science, and so on, so have no problem believing that there are better models than mulled over leftovers of Keynesian brand economics. And I don't doubt that there's a huge difference between what theorists propose and what politicians shove through the chute or mendaciously obstruct or all the other ways to misuse economics. Because God knows if they can get heated about the theory of global warming, they're certainly happy to screw over anything related to money. So the 2009 bailout was half a loaf, a lot of other measures in theory were hobbled, etc.

Did I as a "neoliberal" propose that we should bail out Wall Street but not bail out individuals and instead foreclose their mortgages illegally? If I did it was on one of those binges of Dilaudid mixed with a bit of bathtub meth, and I do terribly regret it (the economic collapse and all, not the banging high). My little noggin' of economic realism saw Cassandra-like the impending doom of the housing bubble mixed with Fannie Mae largesse about 10 years early - did "mainstream economists" support the largely do-nothing policy that followed? I seem to recall the last time a mainstream economist tried to stick his dick into affairs, he got roundly smacked down by Big Dick Cheney proclaiming "deficits don't matter". Was that the intelligent economic debate I missed in this 30 year wandering through the desert now laid at the feet of "mainstream economists"? (I'm still waiting to see some Clinton-critic discuss and factor in the effect of Bush or even Obama on Clinton policies - but it's so luscious to blame Bill for the whole 30 years - the Dynasty, ooh!!!). Krugman won the Nobel on his clustering theory for economies - which seems to be pretty apt, since everything's clustering out, so if you're not part of one of those clusters, you die. Anyone want to ask him about that rural white problem? Or do you have a better idea to save your Nova Scotian brethren? I'm all ears (aside from the thumbs). Have at it, wonk-boy - don't play this "I don't have time"- we know winter's moving in and now that you've killed the big moose, you'll be setting up the parcheesi board next to the fireplace nibbling on cheetoes until first spring thaw. Digame, hombre - ¿que pasa con esa nueva economia jodida?

Well stated my good friend.

trkingmomoe — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 06:42:05 +0000

In reply to I do not accept that adopting

Well stated my good friend.

I wrote a long note here, but

quinn esq — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 06:02:37 +0000

In reply to Sweet. I suspect they like

I wrote a long note here, but ultimately, I don't have the time to engage in some long debate.

So let me put it this way -> You're an economic bozo.

And I'm actually not.

The economic history of the last 30 years in the Western world lays out in extraordinary detail how you and your "mainstream" economists turned away from more statist/leftist theories and produced.... reduced growth rates in incomes and wealth, greater debt, insecurity, etc etc.

But hey, well done you guys, right?

Hilarious.

And just FYI, you might want to check the structure of your argument up above. If there's a better example on here of pure rhetoric talking, I'm hard pressed to find it. Seriously. You probably think you were just initiating a civil debate on this issue, right?

But here's what you just said. Unprompted by me, ok?

I'm apparently a believer in an "economics where pigs fly and blind men see"...

that's "not tested in any practical terms and highly unaccepted by main stream economists,"...

and that sound "an awful lot like anti-climate "science" or "Intelligent Design" ...

So YOU and your theorists have just produced 30 YEARS OF WORSE RESULTS than the previously more statist or leftist crowd, and yet somehow me and my guys are the ones who believe in pigs flying and are anti-science?

Seriously, PP, take a hike. You and your neo-liberal buds do not have a clue on economics, you don't have anything empirical to undergird your position, and you need to stick your stupid insults.

Or maybe better, try, just trrrrrry, to think about economics in a slightly less stupid way. I'm not even gonna propose that I know the right way to do it, but come on man.... try harder to be less stupid.

"Anti-climate science?" Are you serious? Jesus, man, you need to dial this shit down.