Fucking Royals
mikethemadbiologist | February 20, 2011By now, you might have heard about how the Wisconsin Senate Democrats have fled the state in order to prevent a bill from passing, supported by Republican Governor Scott Walker, that would cripple public sector unions (if it's about redressing the budget, then why does the bill deal with union dues, which have nothing to do with the budget?). Before I address the title of the post, I want to comment on the Democratic tactics. Despite conservative/Republican bleating, including one commentor on this post, the Democrats have done nothing illegal. They are playing by the rules, just as…
mikethemadbiologist | February 14, 2011I've often discussed on this blog how the advantage of having a fiat currency is that one can deficit spend when you need to (think of it as being on the gold standard, except that you can mine as much gold as you need, when you need it)*. Of course, if you deficit spend when there is no idle capacity (human or mechanical) in the real economy, this can lead to inflation. Likewise, if you flood a sector or group of people with dollars when they don't need it, this also will lead to inflation and price distortion, and can result in socially undesirable outcomes (e.g., rampant income…
mikethemadbiologist | January 9, 2011Marshall Auerback comments on the new 'creative' economy (italics mine):
Finally, there is the odious problem of political corruption, which manifests itself in many forms, but most recently through the cynical revolving door policy between Wall Street and government. Peter Orszag's move to Citi after spending months launching broadsides against Social Security from his perch at OMB and then the NYTimes goes beyond cynicism. Nobody expects a former government official to live like a monk after spending time in public service. But the idea that someone would help plan, advocate, and carry out…
mikethemadbiologist | December 22, 2010Democrats need a better class of pundits, ones who aren't so enamored of their own cleverness, while at the same time, utterly ignorant of political history. It would help, for instance, when trying to defend the estate tax. Matthew Yglesias, in a fit of contrarianism worthy of William Saletan, asks the following scintillating question:
I think if I read another snatch of writing where a progressive puzzles over why the estate tax is unpopular, I'm going to shoot myself. More informative, I think, would be self-examination. Why are liberals eager to tax estates. My own effort to think this…
mikethemadbiologist | December 19, 2010While there's been some discussion of the massive cut, albeit temporary, in the estate tax (arguably the tax cut least likely to produce jobs), the new gift tax rules are even more obscene:
Families would be able to make tax- free gifts to their children or others of as much as $10 million, an increase from the current limit of $2 million, under the tax-cut bill Congress is debating this week.
Beginning in 2011, an individual U.S. taxpayer's lifetime gift-tax exclusion will jump to $5 million, up from $1 million currently, according to the legislation. Gifts from living parents allow…
mikethemadbiologist | October 28, 2010Regarding their op-ed page, The New York Times seems eager to provide misinformation via Thomas Friedman columns. It's a fascinating business model. Besides, being lectured by Tom "Suck on This" Friedman completely blows up the irony meter. His latest inane--and factually incorrect--burbling:
Let's kowtow even more to public service unions so they'll make even more money than private sector workers, so they'll give even more money to Democrats who will give them even more generous pensions, so not only California and New York will go bankrupt but every other state too.
Then, of course,…
mikethemadbiologist | September 23, 2010And 'suburban' is code. Monday, I responded to a rich twit's complaint about how difficult his life was at $450,000 of annual income (Note: Since then, said twit has removed the post. Fortunately, Brad 'Deling' DeLong is aware of all internet traditions, and has saved the post for posterity). In that post, I wrote:
Perhaps Henderson's outburst should be chalked up to the influence of degenerate white culture or our finishing school 'elite' educational system. But I digress.
Most readers got the snark, but the first commenter worked himself into high dudgeon over the degenerate white…
mikethemadbiologist | September 20, 2010I swear every time I go on vacation, there's an outbreak of stupidity. One symptom is a ridiculous plaint by law professor Todd Henderson, who whines about barely getting by on $450,000 per year.
No, really, I'm not kidding. I suppose the rest of us should just eat a bullet or something (and bullets are cheap!). Thankfully, Michael O'Hare and Brad DeLong (aka 'Mr. Deling') tear down this staggering display of narcissism. I would only add that when one has $500,000 of student debt, you probably shouldn't buy a million dollar house. Or maybe, you'll have to forgo part of the $100,000…
mikethemadbiologist | September 19, 2010Why, yes, I did. And Senator Evan "I'm dumber than a sack of hammers" Bayh illustrates exactly what I'm talking about:
Today, MSNBC's Chuck Todd asked Bayh about the poverty data, and whether there is a disconnect between the real economic pain that people are feeling and lawmakers squabbling over tax rates for the wealthy. Bayh agreed that there is a disconnect, but then concluded that the poverty increase means lawmakers should forget about "fairness and things like that" and cut taxes for the rich:
TODD: Yesterday, the Census came out and said one in seven Americans are living below the…
mikethemadbiologist | August 10, 2010Apparently, the Obama Administration is very upset with the "professional left":
"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."
Actually, when it comes to the expansion of presidential power, Obama has been worse than Bush. After all, never claimed he had the right to assassinate U.S. citizens at will. Seriously, between that and Obama's muddling on gay rights, Obama is to constitutional scholar as Newt Gingrich is to historian (Or intellectual. Or decent human being).
Moving on:
The press secretary dismissed…
mikethemadbiologist | July 24, 2010Someone tell me why we didn't nationalize BP assets in the U.S., fire the board of directors and other high-level managers, and then use the assets to fix all of the problems--including the unemployment caused by the spill. Because this sounds like the clarion calls of freedom and liberty to me (italics mine):
In the first few days after BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters. Coastal…
mikethemadbiologist | July 19, 2010I've read through the Washington Post article on our bloated, inefficient national security-surveillance apparatus--what Atrios characterizes as a system "to transfer money and power to elites while cementing the existence of a giant and extremely opaque patronage system. One with surveillance capabilities." This caught my eye as it sounds like a serious security risk (italics mine):
Among the most important people inside the SCIFs [sensitive compartmented information facilities] are the low-paid employees carrying their lunches to work to save money. They are the analysts, the 20- and 30-…
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2010Are Democrats intentionally trying to lose the next election? Because that's the only possible way to explain this:
Twelve Democratic Senators spent last weekend in Miami Beach raising money from top lobbyists for oil, drug, and other corporate interests that they often decry, according to a guest list for the event obtained by POLITICO.
The guest list for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's "winter retreat" at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Resort doesn't include the price tag for attendance, but the maximum contribution to the committee, typical for such events, is $30,000. There…
mikethemadbiologist | January 21, 2010I think this is only part of the story, but it seems that the 'Democratic Machine' in Massachusetts might have slipped a gear:
"Nobody likes her" says mom. What she means is, Coakley had no friends in politics. The Democrats in Massachusetts let this happen because - "I don't know" says mom.
Maybe they weren't about to let Western Mass manipulate them. Maybe it all comes down to nothing more than who is friends with whom.
All Scott Brown did was see an opportunity and turn it to his advantage.
There is no deeper national implication. This is not a death knell for the Democratic party or Obama…
mikethemadbiologist | December 6, 2009David Sirota was debating (although given that said 'debate' occurred on cable TV, that's probably far too genteel a word) David Frum about healthcare, when Sirota brought up the finding that 45,000 people in the U.S. die every year from a lack of health insurance. Frum's response is incredibly arrogant (go to the 4:00 mark):
Sirota is absolutely right that Frum's discounting of the study with "I went to Harvard, believe me" is incredibly arrogant. But what's worse is what came first:
"That number is not a reliable number, that number is an estimate."*
And evolution is just a theory. Oops…
mikethemadbiologist | July 6, 2009He wasn't as pithy as let them eat cake, but the sentiment is the same. What's gone missing in the debate over a public option for healthcare (although when more the seventy percent support it, it's hard to see how this qualifies as a debate) is that tens of millions of people already have a public option: it's called Medicare. So, if you're 65 or over, you get government healthcare. So why can't I have the same options my parents have? One of my parents works so they can choose the employer's private plan or Medicare. Why can't I?
Having said that, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of…
mikethemadbiologist | June 23, 2009I'm wary of criticizing Paul Krugman. I'm a firm believer in the DeLong Rules of Krugman, which can be paraphrased very simply:
Don't disagree with Paul Krugman.
Re-read rule #1, you fucking moron.
Nonetheless, I think Krugman, in an otherwise excellent column, misstates the motivations behind the 'centrist' Democrats opposition to the public option for healthcare:
Yes, some of the balking senators receive large campaign contributions from the medical-industrial complex -- but who in politics doesn't? If I had to guess, I'd say that what's really going on is that relatively conservative…
mikethemadbiologist | June 21, 2009What's so frustrating about the healthcare debate is that even though 76% of Americans want a public option, this is somehow deemed politically unviable. Never mind that the Republicans were crushed at every level electorally and that President Obama has a 63% approval rating. Even this tepid option--and it is tepid compared to what most other Western nations have--probably won't pass.
With that, I bring you Charles Pierce, who describes this as what it is, a complete failure of our political system:
But we no longer are a viable self-governing political commonwealth, and our…
mikethemadbiologist | April 13, 2009From The NY Times' Frank Rich comes this amazing tidbit about Obama economic advisor Larry Summers:
I was less shocked by the White House's disclosure of Summers's recent paydays than by a bit of reporting that appeared deep down in the Times follow-up article on that initial news. The reporter Louise Story wrote that Summers had done consulting work for another hedge fund, Taconic Capital Advisors, from 2004 to 2006, while still president of Harvard.
That the highly paid leader of arguably America's most esteemed educational institution (disclosure: I went there) would simultaneously…
mikethemadbiologist | November 9, 2008Glenn Greenwald describes how a noxious combo of thin skin and blogger criticism can send smart reporters and pundits down the path of obstinancy:
Everything changed when he turned himself into the chief defender of the original Paulson plan and thus became the target of substantial criticism from bloggers and their readers. Once that happened, the comment sections to his columns and his weekly chats became filled with negative feedback -- most of it substantive, some of it pure invective -- while Google searches of his name now produce conspicuous and aggressive critiques of his work.…