DISQUS

I like this explanation better: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/05/populist...

The author argues among other things "This is a story of unequal re-distribution of wealth from the less fortunate to the more fortunate. This is a story of the United States in which the rich get richer at the expense of everybody else."

Or, to put it in terms appropriate to this discussion: Inequality is ok if a rising tide lifts all boats, but that's not what's happening in America. We don't have a split between egalitarians and meritocrats. We have a kleptocracy gone bad.

The author claims to be a libertarian.

Well, the banks got the general relaxation of regulations by the Bush administration, the lifting of leverage limits to 30 to 1 or some such nonsense, the prohibition of regulation of derivatives, the bankruptcy requirement that derivatives were first in line to be paid, just to name a few. And probably more.

Where you been, brother?

According to Simon Johnson writing in the Atlantic:

"But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them."

Is he right? Is America all ready governed by an oligarchy. Are we already a fascist, corporatist state?

You all are worried about Obama, yet the coup may have already occurred.

Where were you all anyway?

Reading your article makes me think that James Galbraith must be Naomi Klein in drag!

I never got that the first time through his article and, you know, second time through it still doesn't seem that way.

What type of eyeglasses do you wear anyway?

Of course, Will ignores the substance of Hilzoy's comment. So here it is:

"To be fair, Wilkinson does not seem to mean that Obama is a closet Objectivist. He means that Obama, like Rand, believes in "saltative, game-changing, lone-genius invention" rather than "an accumulation of tiny productivity-enhancing innovations" as the driver of economic growth, and hopes to achieve it via government intervention. I don't see that at all: I think Obama's economic policy is driven not by a particular view of the specific types of technological change that drive growth, mainly by quite different ideas: that we need to replace demand to get out of the recession, that we cannot defer dealing with energy and health care without doing lasting damage to the economy, and that we have underinvested in public goods and infrastructure in ways that we cannot afford to continue.

But insofar as I can discern a position on the question "saltative invention vs. an accumulation of tiny enhancements?", I would have put Obama in the second camp. He is, after all, known to be a fan of behavioral economics, with its many tiny tweaks, and his whole history as a Senator is full of small legislative improvements of the sort that no one who cared only for game-changing leaps would have bothered with. But I can't think of a single analog to Galt's amazing static-powered engine in Obama's entire set of beliefs. In any case, I'd be interested to hear Wilkinson's reasons for thinking as he does."

Well, I would be interested in hearing Wilkinson's reasons as well. He's ignored Hilzoy's argument and focused on his made up straw man.

Her thesis is that people in power will use crises to advance their interests. Just as we are seeing. Open your eyes.

Or exactly how right she got it.

unregulated derivatives

David Henderson presents the basic free trade/free market argument and, if all else were equal, few would argue. He does concede that trade in oil is more important than trade in bananas, but basically equates the two.

I would disagree. Without bananas, our lifestyles are little affected. Without oil, our entire culture crashes. We won't go to war for lack of bananas; we now are at war for oil resources. Oil is our lifeblood.

Henderson says we are dependent on trade for bananas and oil, but we are dependent in different ways. We are dependent on trade for bananas as a source of bananas. We are dependent on oil, independent of trade. We are dependent on oil like a drug addict is dependent on his drug suppliers just like President Bush said. Our foreign policy often turns on questions of who has the oil.

Henderson also does not mention that oil is a limited resource. Just like house prices could not rise forever, oil supplies also can not rise forever in the face of increasing demand. Someday we will be forced to look elsewhere for our energy needs just like the farmers in the high plains will need to start looking for new water resources after pumping out the Ogallala aquifier.

Henderson and you may be right that energy independence is a crazy idea. It certainly is a crazy idea anytime soon. But I do not think your free trade argument makes the case, because it ignores too much of the reality of our current oil economy. Oil is not like bananas. But we should work to make it so. We do not need to be independent of foreign oil, but it is dangerous to remain dependent on it. I believe a case can be made to aggressively pursue other energy sources now rather than to have those changes forced on us later.

I usually hear the same message in all Will Wilkinson's posts: He says, "I am the smartest guy in the room and I have a lot of disdain for those who don't think like me." Today's posts are the same. He hates seeing democracy in action and disparages Obama as an economic illiterate.

He exudes the same hubris that has infected the Bush administration from the start and has caused the financial system to implode.

Globalization certainly has its good points, but we clearly have not understood its dangers, nor how to avoid its downsides.

Energy independence may be impossible, but our dependence on foreign oil is dangerous and has lead us into costly and devastating wars.

Ideologues of all stripes are dangerous.

Your last paragraph gives it away: "...if wealthy people are better-educated..."

And what is one reason wealthy people are better educated? Because they had wealthy parents.

Why did George W. Bush get into Yale? Because his daddy went there.

Your last paragraph just discusses differences between rich and poor and there is no mention of a middle class. What are we become? A banana republic?

The middle class was the source of this country (go read your history, Mr. Tory) and its long term strength. Changes in the social contract that weaken the middle class, weaken this country. That's the problem symbolized by increasing inequality despite the sophisticated sophistry of its apologists.

More deserts
More drought
More wild fires
More floods
In general more extreme weather.

These are predicted from climate models as a result of more carbon in the atmosphere.

Now whether the extended drought in Australia, the wild fires in California, the 500 year floods in the midwest are evidence is arguable.

"Ocean acidification is likely to have an ecological cascade effect right up to parts of the food web that are important to human beings, such as fish and shell fish," said Will Howard of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center.

So I really think you have to admit that higher levels of carbon is, at least, a legitimate cause for concern and that your statement may be a little bit presumptuous.