US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

I hate to quibble but the American right tends to be quite (classical) liberal wrt economics

I'm reading Hobsbawm now, and I blinked a couple times he used "liberal economic theory" to refer to laissez faire.

yeah liberal (and its successor, neoliberal) mean something completely different in economics

Liberal in French still means this but that's because the French Right isn't particularly liberal wrt to civil rights or individual economic rights.

I think of myself as liberal in the sense of shying away from taking away ppl's indivdual rights/exerting govmt control except when there's a very compelling reason and I'm a classical left-liberal inasmuch as most of our civil rights I regard as sacrosanct. I'm quite conflicted over gun rights, maybe, but that's about it yet I think the moral basis for classic economic liberalism is as problematic as its economic backwardness.

ppl like Dr. Francis Townsend, who advocated giving $200 per month in pension for each elderly person as long as they spent it by the end of the month.

There have also been utopian socialist schemes which advocated having a 'use by' date on money (or 'labour-hour certificates' or whatever, depending on the particular society)/

I like this idea

House Dems almost pull a fast one on the Republicans, although it's a shame they don't show balls like this more often.

yeah that was awesome

steny!

I know!

bout time!

(btw Alfred which Hobsbawm are you reading?)

Age of Extremes. I worked my way through the "Ages" series.

I think that's the one I have; starts with World War I?

Yep.

the end of democracy in Michigan

RIP Benton Harbor. Not that anyone will miss you, but it's the principle of the thing.

This is unusual for Toronto. I realize that it's way on the mild end of the spectrum Stateside.

In the coffee shop this morning (fairly empty), some woman three tables over ripped out her earpiece and announced, "That's it--I can't stand listening to him." Her friend, sitting at the counter where I was seated: "Who's that?" Woman: "Ignatieff." (For anyone oblivious to Canadian politics, that would be our mushy, eggheaded John Kerry-type liberal-centrist.) Friend: "He looks like a faggot." He then amended this to say he looks like Frankenstein. Woman: "Hey, you know who's running for president? Donald Trump." After they both agreed that Trump understood money, the woman said, "I saw him on TV, and he said he's going to get rid of OPEC." This is big news: Donald Trump is going to fire OPEC if elected. Woman: "They need someone in there who understands what to do. Mr. Obama (she said it like Senator Geary says "Corleone" in Godfather II), who says he's not a Muslim..." At this point, yes, I turned my head around and gave her my most pointed look of contempt. Woman (smiling): "Never mind--you just read your paper, we'll be quiet."

They were both in their late-'50s, early-'60s. Again: one-tenth of one percent of what I'm sure I'd overhear in almost any American coffee shop. But unusual here. The last time I encountered something similar was when I spent half-an-hour arguing with a hot dog vendor in 2008. No mention of Muslims, but he was concerned that Obama was going to run a 24-hour House Party out of the White House.

Holy shit @ Benton Harbor! I might be doing some demonstratin' soon!

yeah I know we like to bitch a lot about how insane our fellow Americans are but, at least in Boston, that would not be a normal overheard conversation

ppl usually reserve political ranting like that for private parties

I probably overstated the American side of it, not wanting to come across as really naive. (And Boston's pretty liberal, right? Scott Brown notwithstanding.)

you wouldn't hear that in new york or chicago either

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/nba/news/story?id=6360764

wow, i missed a pretty good discussion about Keynesianism here yesterday. i tend to look at it more technocratically and less moralistically -- during a recession, private parties (businesses and individuals) are not spending (in fact, they may be saving -- which is a natural impulse during bad times). the government comes in as the spender of last resort (b/c it can access the federal fisc) and makes up the difference b/w the current depressed level of GDP during the ongoing recession and a targeted level of GDP through deficit spending. these funds can be targeted (e.g., giving money directly to private parties [unemployment benefits to laid-off workers, bailouts to ailing industries, slashing taxes to taxpayers]) or more scattershot and untargeted. the real idea is to lower the unemployment rate, which will then put idle resources to work and increase GDP on its own and this will increase tax revenues (which will in turn pay down the deficit caused by the increased amount of government spending).

FDR's mistake during the late 1930s was to listen to the deficit hawks of his time and decrease federal spending and the scope of the New Deal when the economy was still too weak to generate activity on its own. in defense of the FDR administration, Keynesianism was still in its infancy at that point (plus the New Deal was more an ad-hoc reaction to the Great Depression than an entirely coherent application of Keynesian principles -- in fact, Keynes hadn't even written his General Theory of Employment [his economic/theoretical rationale for increased government spending] until 1936, whereas the New Deal started in 1933) and it didn't have the experience and data regarding deficit spending that we have today.

as for economic populism -- that's really been dead since Reagan. 'nuff said about that.

Another point to remember about FDR: in 1932 he actually ran, somewhat incoherently, on lowering the deficit.

If the Depression hadn't deepened as 1932 waned and Hoover wasn't so damaged, I'm sure his confusing platform would have inspired more comment.

we are a cheap ass people

http://www.politicususa.com/en/u-s-ranks-dead-last-in-overall-social-spending

The United States currently ranks thirty-fourth (34th) out of the thirty-four (34) members of the OECD in regards to spending on social programs, DEAD LAST. The amount the United States spends is currently only 7.2% of our gross domestic product on programs that make up our social contract with the American people . . . Canada currently spends 26% of their GDP on social programs, yet their national debt is very small compared to the United States, it is about 50% of GDP . . . Currently Germany spends 21% of their GDP on social programs.

eh, US military spending (in some sense of "ought") ought to be counted as social spending (& anti-social spending too inasmuch as we actually use the bombs etc).

Actually, in some weird way, that's an intriguing way to look at it: how much of US military spending is spent on Americans, American companies and generally to the direct buy-local benefit of America? How many defense dollars essentially stay domestic (not counting those we, er, drop on other countries)? It's perverse, but sure, I can see defense spending as a sort of stealth domestic stimulus program.

Super rich see fed taxes drop. Good news though: altruism lives!

I'm a bit dubious about those specific numbers, as I suspect it omits that the majority of health care costs in the U.S. (for the elderly) is publicly funded, mandated social spending at lower jurisdictions, and government sponsored pensions in the U.S. while including them elsewhere.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Health%20Care&year=2001_2021&sname=US&units=p&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&col=c&spending0=4.98_5.30_5.54_5.67_5.84_5.83_6.10_6.27_6.93_7.02_7.28_6.95_7.00_7.39_7.55_7.77_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00&legend=&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_e_g_g_g_g_g_g_g_____
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Education&year=2001_2021&sname=US&units=p&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&col=c&spending0=5.69_5.87_5.91_5.82_5.77_5.89_5.76_5.95_6.01_6.05_5.84_5.68_5.64_5.66_5.72_5.75_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00&legend=&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_e_g_g_g_g_g_g_g_____
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Pensions&year=2001_2021&sname=US&units=p&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&col=c&spending0=5.63_5.75_5.72_5.63_5.57_5.54_5.66_5.82_6.53_6.41_6.49_6.28_6.28_6.26_6.27_6.32_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00&legend=&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_e_g_g_g_g_g_g_g_____
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Welfare&year=2001_2021&sname=US&units=p&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&col=c&spending0=3.07_3.63_3.75_3.44_3.23_3.08_3.01_3.45_4.52_4.96_4.66_3.95_3.57_3.35_3.22_3.17_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00_0.00&legend=&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_e_g_g_g_g_g_g_g_____

Note: those are totals (including state and local expenditures). The U.S. has an enormous "social contract expenditures", they're just structured as age related pay-go wealth transfers, pushed down to states, or subsidize inefficient industries like healthcare with lots of coverage gaps.

I can see defense spending as a sort of stealth domestic stimulus program.

SORT of? It's the biggest, longest-running such program in American history

much of our foreign aid is set up in similar "stealth domestic stimulus program" ways too. for instance the 2-3 billion in military aid given to Israel every year that is earmarked to be spent on US defense contractors and funneled directly back into US economy.

it's "virtuous cycle"

it's A... buh

yes

Department of Defense spending is smaller than social security and Medicare/Medicaid, though, isn't it? They're each around 20% of the budget, I thought.

What's "good" about the defense industry is that they're good at spending ridiculous amounts of money doing and making things, and that aren't generally thought of as a total waste. It's not like paying enormous sums to build every US school desk out of diamonds, or to build for every Nigerian citizen a Cat In The Hat hat made from prairie dog skins, though those too would have domestic stimulative effects.

It's not like paying enormous sums to build every US school desk out of diamonds, or to build for every Nigerian citizen a Cat In The Hat hat made from prairie dog skins

i dunno, a lot of DoD projects actually are like that.

i mean... SDI for instance. or (H/T to dick destiny) this: http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2011/04/15/the-empires-dogshit-laser-a-pirate-someday/

What's "good" about the defense industry is that they're good at spending ridiculous amounts of money doing and making things

... things that are often highly perishable, so to speak, and often make other things highly perishable.

I don't disagree with those replies, but I think a lot of folks are like, whoa, laser guns, fuckin A, it's like Star Wars! whereas if we spent the same amount of money building a giant air-conditioned dome over Houston, people would say, what a waste.

Also it seems like much of that money is pretty much given to our 'enemies'. So in a lot of cases we are paying double.

greenwald makes a pretty good point here -

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/13/obama/index.html

I experience such cognitive dissonance when I read all of these laments from liberal pundits that Obama isn't pursuing the right negotiating tactics, that he's not being as shrewd as he should be. He's pursuing exactly the right negotiating tactics and is being extremely shrewd -- he just doesn't want the same results that these liberal pundits want and which they like to imagine the President wants, too.

That was Column of the Week, certainly

see also his MSNBC appearance where he and O'Donnell agree that Dems only give a shit about liberals during primary campaigns.

hard to argue the prez's priorities with $42 billion in tax cuts and $38 billion in budget cuts just in the last five months

Good ol' Santorum

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/15/rick-santorum-langston-hughes-poem-gay/

Yesterday, I caught up with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) after a town hall he hosted in Henniker, NH. Earlier that day, he announced his presidential run and unveiled his campaign slogan, “Fighting to make America America again.” ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser was quick to point out that “this eloquent turn of phrase” was actually “borrowed from the title of a pro-union, pro-racial justice, and pro-immigrant poem written by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes — ‘Let America Be America Again.’”

I asked Santorum about the campaign slogan, which was already plastered at the front of the room under the official Santorum campaign posters. Santorum at first distanced himself from it, claiming “I had nothing to do with that.” Asked for a clarification, the former senator laughed and added that his campaign staff “didn’t inform” him about the origin of the phrase. However, Santorum said he has read “some” poems by Hughes

welcome, President Santorum

wait which country are we right now I am confused

a progressive, liberty-loving one.

Official campaign website

http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/