what happens automatically [...] is closer to what Democrats want
It's closer to what Democrats *say* they want.
If they mess this up, it'll be an unforced error.
Email sent to Max. I'm not longer a constituent of Chris Van Hollen, but I would think the messages to him might be uniquely effective.
The one talking point I hear tossed around by GOP types is that raising taxes on the $200,0000/$250,000 (individual/families) crowd catches a lot of small businesses who report their income as individuals. I'm curious if anyone's got actual numbers on how many businesses we're talking about. Also, I find it hard to believe that there couldn't be some exception carved out for some of the affected small businesses if it were something the Republicans genuinely cared about (which I don't think they do).
I care about small businesses if they serve drinks or fried food.
3: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2009/sb20090326_784114.htm
I do my business through a single owner LLC, and am taxed personally. A partnership also passes through. I would expect that a huge number of small businesses operate one way or the other. Or as an S Corp. Since you get to deduct (or depreciate) so much, though, I'm not finding much sympathy for those who clear, after all that, north of a quarter mil.
6 is the right response to 3. It's a huge number of businesses (or, more accurately, owners of businesses), but it's not a tax increase on any of their business activities, it's a tax increase on their personal income derived from those business activities. Rephrasing: it's not a tax increase for small businesses; it's a tax increase for some subset of wealthy small business owners (specifically: the subset of them who are fortunate enough to clear more than $250k per year).
I.e.: 3 is nothing more than a mendacious Republican talking point.
Why are you putting this on the Senate? Obama could say he will veto any bill that doesn't meet stated criteria.
Why do small business get all the sympathy? I feel that the plight of the poor, downtrodden investment banker is the real tragedy here.
And 1 is the right response to the OP. I've said it before, but I can't be fooled into thinking the Democrats are somehow just going to bungle this one through sheer haplessness. It's too easy, too obvious, and their excuses are too thin. If they fuck this one up, it's because they meant to. And that's the direction all signs are pointing. The only hard part of the process is posturing so as to convince their base that they're not doing it on purpose. Which is, admittedly, quite difficult--and on that score, they're failing.
9: Because nobody wants to get yelled at by Bob until after some more coffee.
11: There's an lack of precision when people talk about "the Democrats." Usually, in contexts like this, when people talk about the Democrats, what they mean is "the Republicans and 10% of the Democrats."
But James's point in 9 is well-taken.
If they fuck this one up, it's because they meant to.
Exactly. Just like last time.
when people talk about the Democrats, what they mean is "the Republicans and 10% of the Democrats" the entire Democratic leadership, except Nancy Pelosi.
9 and 12 are both very insightful.
You know perfectly well I don't have any insight. Take it back.
It's supposedly bad policy to let all the cuts expire because of raising taxes in a recession blah blah blah, but since taxes pretty much have to go up at some point to cover the government's obligations in the long run, and because it seems almost impossible to raise taxes under ordinary conditions, I have a hard time seeing just letting all the cuts expire as a bad policy. If it didn't seem like there was no other way to increase taxes, I would not think this.
This is also the longest stretch before an election you can get and so much campaigning is short-sighted that I bet there's a fair chance lots of people won't be hurt by the vote in 2012. That last part is probably wishful thinking.
9 is absolutely right -- I simply didn't think of Obama as a (literal) veto point because he's been so useless on this stuff. But yeah, he could step in and save the day if he felt like it.
That last part is probably wishful thinking.
No it isn't, given how good Republicans are at attacking regardless of their opponents actual positions. The logical conclusion should be that Democrats will not be penalized for any vote.
There's nothing magical about the Bush tax cuts. Let them expire and introduce new tax cuts aimed specifically at the lower and middle classes, like payroll tax holidays. The politics and policy are both obvious and sound. So, when that strategy never gets used and Chuck Schumer negotiates everything away to the Republicans instead, you'll know that was the already-decided strategy all along.
I no longer have much confidence that the Senate Democrats are dealing in good faith with their voters. Sanders and Franken are pretty much the only ones I'll even bother to listen to any longer.
There's nothing magical about the Bush tax cuts.
The way the light of the moon hit their eyes as we danced the night away can't be described as anything but magical.
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From Josh Marshall yesterday:
Hanukkah starts tomorrow, the most Republican of all Jewish holidays because it celebrates oil.
Happy latkes, everyone!
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I hope the guy with the menorah on the roof of his minivan is still around.
I no longer have much confidence that the Senate Democrats are dealing in good faith with their voters. Sanders and Franken are pretty much the only ones I'll even bother to listen to any longer.
It's depressing that conspiratorial reasoning is the most parsimonious these days, both where you are and where I am.
the entire Democratic leadership, except Nancy Pelosi.
Can't we just have a coup and elect Pelosi as God-Emperor or something? She's not perfect, but she's a hell of a lot better than anyone else with any power.
This country could use a good philosopher-queen.
26, 27: Typical elite-liberal disdain for democracy!
28: "elite-liberal"? Isn't the phrase, "liberal elite"?
Trolling is hard for the simple-minded!
When I was 10, I was able to disdain stuff at a 12th grade level.
LB's analysis in the OP really makes it clear, doesn't it? They're fucking this up on purpose.
26 completely embodies everything wrong with liberalism. If we want Pelosi to be the God-Emperor, then we have to begin by asserting that _by definition_ she's perfect.
32: Maybe. I hesitate to underestimate the degree to which Dem politicians have internalized Third Way false consciousness. Even if they are evil sons of bitches to a man, they're fucking that up too.
"Let me put it this way: If the roles were reversed and Democrats were on the opposite side of the issue, wouldn't the analysis be that Democrats were running a huge political risk by blocking middle class tax cuts and getting blamed for raising everyone's taxes? Admit it. You know that would be the analysis."
Yep. That's right. All of the analysis here comes down to the fact that either party can block anything, or everything, from happening, and that whichever side blocks anything, the Democrats will get blamed for it. That's just incompetent messaging, or deliberately throwing the game, one or the other.
1) I simply know much more about Obama, for instance biography, than I do about Boxer or Dodd. I feel like I understand him.
2) Still reading the book on Japanese sociology, which was something of a bad choice, because it is too recent to help me much in my study of classic Japanese cinema, but is useful and interesting. Longitudinal studies. They aren't so different, had their boomers become sixties protestors become 80s corporatists. Japan keeps trying to raise the pension benefit age. Etc
I'm gaining insights.
3) I'm currently focused on the professional class and Obama's $250k line. The story I'm developing is someone graduating from an elite college, making 5 figures in their 20s, low six figures in the 30s and 40s, then kids are grown, wealth is accumulated, and they hit their 50s with some power, responsibility, networks, and real opportunities. Of course all of them don't get in reach of the ring, but those that do are the leaders, the ones who will be running things in their 50s thru 70s (they don't really retire).
The key for the oligarchy is to make the professional and intellectual elites look upward instead of downward when they hit their 50s. I think the way to do that is to co-opt them during their stress years of the 30s-40s. Obviously this is Obama's story, he doesn't golf with nurses or lunch with plumbers. He isn't unusual.
I think this is what the $250k mark is about. As I understand it, the European social democracies don't worry so much about the very rich, but tax the fuck out of their professionals in order to compel them to commit to the commons and public goods. (E.G., Try to make top-tier colleges expensive and essential, and the UMC won't care about the public school systems. This has multiple effects on all classes) And as I remember, the US with its graduated schedule did the same in the Great Compression.
25:You are not paranoid or conspiratorial enough. I see no way of reconciling the intellectual/professional elites short of a catastrophe, followed by a boom. That is no longer in the cards. When food and energy get scarce they will become even more servile courtiers to the feudal lords.
25:You are not paranoid or conspiratorial enough.
You've no idea how paranoid or conspiratorial I am.
When food and energy get scarce they will become even more servile courtiers to the feudal lords.
I have some turkey and stuffing.
Please please please could I have a little bit of stuffing, wise and kind Mr. Moby?
Umm, so I can't work up the outrage over 36 or 39 percent, when I want 50-75-90. The argument is over stuff that won't change, help, or even slow the neo-feudalism down. Whatever. It's all over. More Ozu tonight.
Carry on.
40: The stuffing is still good. The turkey is getting a bit old for me being out of gravy.
Meanwhile, Republicans openly vow to exercise procedural thuggery to get what they want, as usual. The president will no doubt stress the necessity of working with them, and they'll skate.
As more and more of the hip hop artists hit middle age, the odds of somebody writing a rap called "Procedural Thuggergy" increase.
Game theory analysis!
Option A: Eliminate all tax cuts.
Option B: Keep tax cuts for middle and low-income, eliminate tax cuts for high-income.
Option C: Keep all tax cuts.
Obama and most other dems say they prefer Option B.
Nearly all Republicans favor Option C.
LB thinks that Option A is preferable to Option C. However, it seems likely to me that for most voters Option A is by far the worst possibility. I'm guessing most people are primarily concerned with paying less taxes themselves at this point.
If the democrats and republicans fail to reach an agreement, and the result is that the tax cuts are eliminated completely, then voters will be angry at both parties, but Dems will get greater share of the blame because the President is a Democrat.
I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by this argument, but it doesn't seem ridiculous to me.
Less ridiculous than the conspiracy theories that seem to be the accepted explanation of the moment here at Unfogged.
Running out the door so I can't argue fully, but work through that argument again remembering that most voters pay fairly little income tax, because most voters are quite low income -- median household income is what, in the $50Ks?
I'm guessing most people are primarily concerned with paying less taxes themselves at this point.
You didn't need to add "at this point" to make that sentence true. However, I don't think that letting the cuts expire will not increase most people's taxes but I don't want to look it up because thinking about filling out tax forms makes me grumpy.
Pwned on both my point and the not being willing to look-up anything.
Less ridiculous than the conspiracy theories that seem to be the accepted explanation of the moment here at Unfogged.
Oh bullshit.
48: But most voters, regardless of the reality, believe that they pay high taxes. And of course you know this. So you must be lying about your broader point and really want the poor to be killed and ground up into Soylent Green.
There's nothing ridiculous about believing that when politicians say X, but act in ways that bring about Y, that maybe they actually want Y.
Also, I'd have thought that the last 10 years of politics would suggest that those who vocally disavow conspiratorial explanations in politics are fucking idiots.
If the Democrats are basing their decisions on how they will be perceived by voters they're idiots. How many people believe Obama has raised their taxes?
55: You think they should just ignore the voters?
I've been ignoring more and more people, most of them voters.
It certainly is true that the past ten years have taught me that conspiracy theories, which I used to disavow as a matter of course, are often true. Which is to say, it turns out that it's often not a cock-up after all, it's a genuine conspiracy. The tricky part, though, is sifting through the conspiracy theories and figuring out which ones are right and which ones are wrong. So, in this case, it seems that the conspiracy theory gives too much credit to the Democratic leadership. The idea that they could cook something like this up and get this close to accomplishing their goal is really pretty far-fetched, isn't it? The peep theory, by contrast, allows for a fractured Democratic caucus, a craven Democratic leadership, and a poorly informed Democratic electorate. That sounds more likely to be right to me.
54.1: But I'm giving you another explanation.
54.2: It's well-known that I'm a fucking idiot. Still you haven't explained why my reasoning in 47 is wrong.
48 & 49 are at least stabs at that.
It's not imagining a conspiracy to suggest that legislators, most of whom are rich and none of whom are poor, will advance the interests of capital.
re: 59
I'm not really interested in arguing about the ins and outs of US Democratic party politics. I don't need to argue the toss over your take on things to think that dismissing the alternatives as conspiratorial is bullshit.
For what it's worth, I think that we ought not be surprised that a bunch of fucking millionaires, funded substantially by another bunch of fucking millionaires, might have a vested interest in not seeing taxes for fucking millionaires rise.
48:
Oregon only barely passed a tax increase that only hit incomes over $250000.
Washington state rejected an income tax that only hit incomes over $200000.
Clearly voters are not voting their pocketbooks, but what they think their pocketbooks will be when they finally become as rich as they deserve.
And now you're facing impeachment a conference call!
56: I'm suggesting the voters already ignore them, so they are free to act in the best interests of the population, if they so choose.
Senators Boxer and Feinstein have now heard from me.
This is L.H. Puttgrass, signing off and heading for the tub.
(Would you think that someone, somewhere, would have thought that maybe by letting the "Bush tax cuts" expire you could get people talking about the "Obama tax cuts"? Good branding!)
62.2 is a translation of 61 into the language of the people. Now do it in Scots.
67: I did put gold stripes on my sleeves.
by letting the "Bush tax cuts" expire you could get people talking about the "Obama tax cuts"
Particularly if you had voted on the new ones, say, prior to an election.
For what it's worth, I think some Democrats are probably following peep's logic. Others are using it as an excuse in the usual circular manner ("I can't vote for this, it doesn't have enough votes").
72: Particularly if you cut the taxes for a different set of people and abolished the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.
(The last part might not be needed.)
62: Simplistic Marxism has the same advantage as libertarianism --- you don't need to know any specifics to understand everything.
But, I'm just teasing, ttaM.
Of course, saying that the Dems have been pretending all along to want to let the tax cuts for the rich expire, and secretly were plotting how to keep the tax cuts going while making it seem like they wanted to end them, is a conspiracy theory. The question is whether it is a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
I think my explanation for the Dem's behavior is somewhat more plausible.
I don't disagree with 73.
Here's a plausible mechanism. Many Democrats--and especially the party leadership--aren't much motivated by policy outcomes or taxation levels, but are highly motivated by their prospects of getting re-elected. They have been convinced (rightly or wrongly) that their best electoral outcome is to have all the tax cuts extended. Therefore, they engage in a highly choreographed routine of hand-wringing about the mean old Republicans and votes just not being there (particularly their own, you'll note), while assuring their voters that they'd at least *try* to follow through on their campaign promises, if only [wistful sigh] circumstances beyond their meager control would allow it.
Having watched this dance in regards to Iraq, the bank bailout, DADT, and the public option, I don't give a rat's ass about their precious dry powder or whether they get elected two years from now. I just want them to try to do what they fucking said they would try to do, and if it fails then so be it. Campaign ads can be made from that as well.
Of course, saying that the Dems have been pretending all along to want to let the tax cuts for the rich expire, and secretly were plotting how to keep the tax cuts going while making it seem like they wanted to end them, is a conspiracy theory. The question is whether it is a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
It's a conspiracy theory the way "Tony Blair's decision to help invade Iraq was not 100% based on Colin Powell's extremely convincing and thorough U.N. presentation" is a conspiracy theory. It takes a huge amount of pressure from the media and from humans for any of our leaders to do anything that the rich don't want them to do, and that pressure has very little chance of existing on this issue. They portray it as an unfortunate necessity, but a necessity nonetheless.
How many people believe Obama has raised their taxes?
I would still like to know why there haven't been explanations, if not in the media then at least from, I don't know, Obama, who can speechify if nothing else, that this is not the case.
78: I have some ideas, but I don't want to indulge in conspiracy theories. Ask bob.
78: There have been many explanations, by the media and by Obama.
Some people just refuse to listen.
But if you are an elected official in a democracy, you have to keep on trying. It doesn't help to say that the people are idiots.
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Also, nosflow, you should hear this if you haven't already. It's all good, but the Ligeti and Erickson pieces are especially great.
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78: Obama has speechified on it a lot.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that as part of their economic recovery, his administration has passed 25 different tax cuts.
"Now, let me repeat: We cut taxes," he said. "We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college."
In his Super Bowl Sunday interview with Katie Couric, he touted the tax cuts in the stimulus package: "we put $300 billion worth of tax cuts into people's pockets so that there was demand and businesses had customers."
I've heard him drop those same lines dozens of times. It doesn't matter. People have a pre-conceived narrative in their head that Democrats raise taxes and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. It's like trying to convince them that 99.99999% of the world's Muslims have never blown anything up. Doesn't matter, they've got their story and they're sticking to it. So all this pandering to the Teabag Cracker Brigade is just utterly pointless. At least go down swinging, you gutless wonders.
Huh.
I got a Robert Kyr cd to review for KZSU, and it was crap.
He's hit and miss; his piece on the album is an interesting kind of sound experiment reminiscent of gagaku. The playing throughout is really great.
It's like trying to convince them that 99.99999% of the world's Muslims have never blown anything up.
That's less than 100 people. Probably a bit optimistic for any group.
No, Moby, there are way more than 100.00001 Muslims.
Go easy on him, heebie, he never finished his dissertation.
I cede the math.
Something something no true Muslim something something?
Sorry. I'm doing allot of rate calculations lately. I probably can't help myself.
Moby just blew up my example! Fucking Muslim.
Running out the door so I can't argue fully, but work through that argument again remembering that most voters pay fairly little income tax, because most voters are quite low income -- median household income is what, in the $50Ks?
|Nitpicking warning| That's true but income is variable both from year to year by age. Also working couples vs. single person households. Median full time employed wage income for men in the US is in the mid forties while for women it's in the mid thirties. That adds up to around 80K for a couple where both work full time. Non citizens and people disenfranchised by felon laws have lower incomes on average so the electorate's median income is higher than the US median. I'm pretty sure that the average eligible voter can reasonably believe that they have a very good chance of having a household income solidly over 100K during their peak earning years or are retirees with kids in that position.
But that's still a ways from 250K, let alone enough over that threshold for the marginal tax increase to really affect them. So I really see no poltical reason whatsoever for the Dems not to fight this battle on the 250K level.
|Nitpicking warning|
I suppose I should have added that to 85.
So I really see no poltical reason whatsoever for the Dems not to fight this battle on the 250K level.
I agree with this.
My 47 is saying that if it comes down to choosing between extending the tax cuts for everyone and extending the tax cuts for no one, it may be the politically wiser choice to blink and go with the tax cuts for all.
People clearly don't vote their direct economic interests and often don't follow the news. You need to look at opinion leaders. For example, more people are outsourcing decisions to the Pepsi machine at Costco.
it may be the politically wiser choice to blink and go with the tax cuts for all.
No way. The next election will be based on the economy. No one will give a shit about this vote. Not that there's a snowball's chance they'll play it right; I'm just arguing that it's not even politically wiser except insofar as making rich people happy.
93 I disagree. At some point the Dems have to be willing to say they'll stand up and genuinely fight for their principles. If the tax cuts all expire it will be a messaging battle between 'The Democrats/Obama raised taxes on average Americans' and 'The Republicans refuse to cut taxes for average Americans because they want to give a budget busting tax cut for the wealthy'. I'm not sure how it would play out, but I don't think it is clearly a political loss for the Democrats.
peep, you're redefining conspiracy to a triviality. I think you may be too good for this fallen world. Lying is just not that hard, that it requires some elaborate mechanism. Hasn't there ever been something that you didn't want to do, but you didn't say it? And then through sufficient passivity on your part, it didn't happen? Clearly you've never been married.
91: A disproportionate amount of campaign contributions, to Democrats as well as Republicans, come from the 250K + income bracket. Democrats have reason to be concerned.
"it seems likely to me that for most voters Option A is by far the worst possibility" and "I'm guessing most people are primarily concerned with paying less taxes themselves at this point" and "it may be the politically wiser choice to blink and go with the tax cuts for all" meet "There's nothing magical about the Bush tax cuts. Let them expire and introduce new tax cuts aimed specifically at the lower and middle classes, like payroll tax holidays. The politics and policy are both obvious and sound. So, when that strategy never gets used and Chuck Schumer negotiates everything away to the Republicans instead, you'll know that was the already-decided strategy all along."
Dare the Republicans to oppose it. (Of course, this would have made more sense before the election. (If you think that letting the high-income tax cuts expire is the Democrats' real goal, which is open to debate.) But it still makes sense, even now.)
if it comes down to choosing between extending the tax cuts for everyone and extending the tax cuts for no one
Unsurprisingly, that's exactly the sort of false choice that has been presented for almost every policy debate for the past decade.
98: I would think that nearly all the (national election) political contributions to both parties come from households that, if they don't make above $250k right now, have a reasonable expectation of being able to do so at some point.
97 is about the most wrong thing anyone has ever written.
You still may have a point though.
Yeah, if anything this seems like just half-hearted effort rather than full-on conspiracy or lying. I.e. "I'd kind of like to limit the tax cuts to those making under $250000, and it sounds like a good idea in principle, but when push comes to shove, I just don't care enough to fight as hard as it would require me to."
98 But a lot of them are fine with a tax increase. I was talking the other day with a wealthy centrist friend who was ranting at Obama and the Dems not willing to fight on this one. We're talking a person who loves Chris Christie, hates public sector unions, likes the idea of SS cuts, etc. - i.e. not a liberal by any means.
If the tax cuts all expire it will be a messaging battle between 'The Democrats/Obama raised taxes on average Americans' and 'The Republicans refuse to cut taxes for average Americans because they want to give a budget busting tax cut for the wealthy'. I'm not sure how it would play out, but I don't think it is clearly a political loss for the Democrats.
Of course, if the tax cuts are all extended it will be a messaging battle between 'The Democrats/Obama want to keep increasing the deficit forever with wasteful spending programs, which we can't afford' and 'The Republicans want to gut our social services because they gave a budget busting tax cut for the wealthy'. I'm not sure how that would play out either, but I don't think it's any better for the Democrats than the alternative you've sketched. The point being: the messaging battle doesn't go away just because the Democrats cave. You have to fight it regardless, and these tax cuts seem like as good a place to fight as any (and better than most).
I've heard him drop those same lines dozens of times. It doesn't matter. People have a pre-conceived narrative in their head that Democrats raise taxes and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.
I basically agree with you, but I also think they should tell more specific stories. I mentioned before that the Feb. 2009 stimulus raised the ceiling for pre-tax payroll deductions for public transit. I saw an immedaite financial benefit from that, and actually did go out and am now poised to see a real financial hit as it goes away.
But *even I* don't really think of that as a "tax cut" -- and wouldn't connect it if I heard Obama say "we put $300 billion worth of tax cuts into people's pockets."
106: I don't thnk there's an easy obvious answer.
I tend to think the dems are better off taking a stand in favor of spending rather than in favor of taxes.
102: That leaves two possibilities. You are married to a angel -- I mean a literal angel who can see into your soul and therefore knows when you're passively fucking shit up -- or you're passively manipulating us for your own sinister purposes. Which is it, peep?
At some point the Dems have to be willing to say they'll stand up and genuinely fight for their principles.
"The Dems" in Congress aren't a homogenous group the way the Republicans are; they can ovewhelmingly favor something, but if they don't unanimously favor it, it can't happen.
The Dems have to make a decision: Do they want to have a Senator from Nebraska in their party, or do they want to have liberal principles? I think they've got to ditch guys like Ben Nelson in the long run, and that seems to be happening. But as long as the Democrats aren't 99.44% pure, the liberal Democrats are going to have to compromise with the conservative ones (and soon, with the Republicans, too).
109- I interpreted 102 as "Walt says I've never been married— if only he knew how many countless marriages I've suffered through!"
Even if in the short run the tax cut were the wise tactical choice, it's still a long-term disaster. With that kind of hole in the budget, I don't see how the US's minimal welfare state survives. I don't see any way that an actual tax increase will make it through Congress with the Republican party as it is currently constructed.
111: Do we need somebody to dig up your basement?
if they don't unanimously favor it, it can't happen
That's a failing of Party leadership, not an immutable law of nature.
I'm married to an angel! lurker.
Fixed that.
actually did go out s/b actually did go out and spend money,
Except here they only need forty votes to block the Republican agenda.
I don't think we need to ditch the Blue Dogs, they're worth a half vote which is better than one. What we do need is to just turn the Senate into a normal majority rule legislative chamber like the House. It's not like the Repubs won't do it the moment they get a president of their own without a solid majority. The new Senate will still require some compromises, but much less than now since you'll only need to buy off a few conservatives rather than each and everyone of them having a liberum veto.
114: What?
112: Just twice. And not that much suffering. The wrongness was also about me being "too good for this fallen world".
That's a failing of Party leadership, not an immutable law of nature.
Really isn't it a question that the two American "parties" are evolving towards what the rest of the world thinks of as a political party at different rates. The Republicans are evolving faster, therefore they have the advantage.
119: Come on. Somebody who really was too good for this world would totally deny that they were too good for this fallen world.
I'm married to an angel! lurker.
I wonder what a thread would be like if the lurking significant others were the only ones allowed to contribute. Probably just crickets. But it'd be more fun if they spilled a bunch of secrets.
114: What?
Spouse-murder joke. Nevermind.
It's always awkward when someone doesn't get your spouse-murder jokes.
Especially spouses, prosecutors and juries.
And the nosy neighbors wondering about why you are planting tomatoes after dark in November.
125: I got it. I was just appalled by Moby's bad taste.
See! I am too good for this fallen world!
And true to form, the Senate GOP says they will block everything unless they get their way on taxes. After they get their way on this, they will say the same about the next issue. It works, so why should they stop?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113007532.html
It's a game of chicken. Republicans can absolutely prevent a reasonable bill (cuts stay under 250k, end above 250k) from getting to Obama. He can't sign a bill Congress doesn't send him. In fact, the Senate can't even vote on a bill that doesn't run through all the steps. So the only two items on the menu are (a) nothing happens and "everyone's" taxes go up or (b) he makes a deal.
People seem to be saying that Obama (or Reid) ought to be putting pressure on the Republicans to send him the right bill. He could, but to what end: we've just had a huge demonstration that the people who (a) fund elections and (b) vote in them, don't give a flying fuck for Obama's predicament. He doesn't have any leverage. Republicans expect, correctly, that their message will win the narrative, and that if he tries confrontation but doesn't succeed, they'll be further rewarded, by yet another 'failure' by Obama.
Do the calculation from the Republican end. Tax hike for all, blamed on Obama, is actually better than a capitulation by Obama. They can pass a new tax cut -- the Boehner tax cuts -- in January, and will definitely get it through the Senate. So their rich friends won't lose a nickel if Republicans refuse to blink.
I keep hearing people say that Dems are leaving votes on the table by not seeming to "fight." I'd be interested in some data on how many this really is. In Presidential math, it doesn't matter how many of those people live in Texas or Kentucky or Idaho. Or Illinois, New York, or California, for that matter. Maybe the people of Wisconsin present a useful subject for this.
130.3: I don't see how January ends the game of chicken. It's not like the veto goes away.
They can pass a new tax cut -- the Boehner tax cuts -- in January, and will definitely get it through the Senate.
If the Democrats don't filibuster. If the Democrats filibuster, the Republicans can't get anything through the Senate without making a deal.
I should look up how much taxes will go up if the cuts expire across the board in various income brackets. I'll bet it's negligable under $100K, which is the vast majority of the population. If I'm right about that, and the Democrats could get that point across to the voters (work with me on this one), there shouldn't be any significant penalty for letting the Bush cuts expire across the board.
If the Democrats don't filibuster. If the Democrats filibuster, the Republicans can't get anything through the Senate without making a deal.
This made me want to laugh, and then it made me want to cry.
Oh, I'm not expecting them to. Just pointing out that the status quo is the Bush cuts expiring across the board, and the Republicans can't change that status quo without eleven Senate Democrats plus Obama, or eighteen Senate Democrats without Obama. (Do I have my numbers right? I'm close, anyway.)
without eleven Senate Democrats plus Obama
I'm not comfortable betting on Obama to stop anything.
They can pass a new tax cut -- the Boehner tax cuts -- in January, and will definitely get it through the Senate.
It will definitely get through the Senate if the Democrats capitulate. Maybe that's you're unstated assumption, which isn't unwarranted, but it's perhaps worth stating explicitly.
An alternative, in which the Democrats don't capitalute, would be letting the Republicans propose the Boehner tax cuts*, and countering with their own proposal of lower and middle class tax cuts--payroll holidays, etc., and then letting a public debate ensue. Polling shows that the Republican proposals are unpopular, and the Democratic proposals are popular. This shouldn't be that hard.
* Presumably something along the lines of an indefinite extension of the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less than $250,000 and the complete elimination of all income taxes on incomes over $250,000, along with an elimination of the corporate and capital gains taxes, to, you know stimulate the economy, and help tackle the deficit.
135: I am so much with you that, as Shearer pointed out, I forgot he was a factor.
Given that the (non-)effectiveness of the Bush tax cuts is apparently not an issue, I'm just going to resign myself to the reality of 136.3. I don't see any reason to expect otherwise.
Again, no one should be using "the Democrats." There's no such thing. They act independently. The question is whether McConnell can get 11. I think he can: he might have 5 or 6 already. Would Socialist Obama veto the bill, raising everyone's taxes in the name of class warfare? I think McConnell and Boehner would love to see that.
136.2 -- Can't bring the Dem proposal to a vote in the House.
140: No (unless a compromise is struck), but you can win the battle of public opinion with it. And if no compromise were struck, that just means we'd be stuck with 1990s tax rates, which would hardly be the end of the world.
but you can win the battle of public opinion with it
You do live in an alternate dimension.
On the plus side, we'll overtake China in the Gini coefficient race to the top, which will be easy to spin as some sort of victory. (I trolled to this effect with a fb status update, but given that my friends either mutely agree with me or don't understand me, the trolling there's not very good.)
140: Which is why deciding not to press the issue before the election was so maddening.
Like? Don't like? It's hard to comment on snark.
142: There's probably more recent polling, but this is good enough for now. The Republican position is the unpopular one.
It's hard to comment on snark.
This was my initial reaction to 142, but 146 was at least an effort.
144: Which in turn is why it's hard to believe that the failure wasn't intentional.
146 -- No one acts as if polling like that matters, because polling like that doesn't matter. How many of the people who favor the Dem option live in Kentucky? Take them out of the equation: no one making any decisions has any reason to care what they think. How many of the people who favor the Republican option live in New York? Take those who do not make substantial donations out of the equation.
Even if the numbers are valid, as I said, McConnell can hold steady, preventing the 44% option, knowing that Obama will prefer the 37% option to the 15% option. Because it'll be Obama's fault if the 15% option wins out over either of the options favored by 82% of the population.
144, 148 -- They didn't have the votes. Their polling wasn't telling them that they'd do better in marginal races.
They didn't have the votes.
Then bring it to a vote and get those no votes on record. The effect would be the same and we'd know who needed their arms twisted. Or district projects axed.
Further to 149, it's probably fair to assume that the top 2% are underrepresented in the 15% let it all end contingent. That means that maybe 81% of the population is (a) not in the class affected by the difference between the Dem and Rep proposals and (b) not in favor of having both proposals fail. All taxes go up is not a briar patch Obama or Reid want to be thrown in.
146: I bet a gaziollionty bajillion dollars that the exact same poll phrased in a way that associated the options with specific political parties would erase most if not all of the difference between the GOP and Democratic positions. The Dem brand is poison when attached to anything related to taxes or war. Because they refuse to fight the framing of the right.
Also 151 is correct. Apo for Speaker of the House.
we'd know who needed their arms twisted
You think Pelosi and Hoyer don't know? A significant number of those people will be gone in a month, anyway, so there's no leverage.
Or district projects axed.
This kind of leverage has been underutilized, imo, but I'm not sure even Pelosi is ready to play ball this hard.
A significant number of those people will be gone in a month
See 144.
Because they refuse to fight the framing of the right.
And the evidence for this is that the mega-corporations that control messaging are repeating one narrative, and not the other? People think Obama raised taxes. He's said over and over that he didn't. It's not getting through to people, both because they are closed to that narrative, and because no one but the Dems are pushing theirs.
What, you think those guys misjudged how their constituents would deal with the tax issue in the midterms? I think it's much more likely that they wanted the vote put off in a desperate, and unsuccessful, bid to stay in. Having the vote, and going with Pelosi, would have killed them with the electorate that showed up. Having the vote, and defeating Pelosi, could well have been even worse.
I'm not seeing voters rewarding valiant failure. Not in 2010.
This is all so infuriating I wish I had something of value to add. My housemate had an amusing response this evening when I told him about the Senate Republicans' letter to Harry Reid: "Why don't they just quit if they don't want to do their jobs?"
I'm afraid I'm with CC in 156 and previous on this: winning the battle of public opinion simply by putting divergent tax-cut proposals on the table (per 136.2) is somewhat of a non-starter in this permutation of our media age. Which isn't to say that it's not worth trying.
Hey, if we had all the time in the world, we could reform campaign finance laws, figure out what, if anything, we should do about Senate filibusters, and, oh, I dunno, do something about Fox News at al., though I have no idea what beyond trying to set up or strengthen competing voices.
I honestly don't understand the objections to 136.2. I don't think I'm actually much more optimistic than you about the chance of the Democratics winning that fight (they might, they might not, they probably wouldn't), but when the alternative under discussion is capitulating entirely without even fighting, I'm not sure I see the downside. (Assuming, of course, that the Democrats are shooting straight with voters, of which, again, I'm not convinced.)
139
... I think McConnell and Boehner would love to see that.
So what? Which option would be better for the country?
161: Assuming it's correct that the Dems wouldn't win that battle for public opinion, I suppose the downside would be that they get no concessions -- regarding START or DADT, say -- from the Republicans at all, come a battle of the tax-cut proposals in January, if they refuse to compromise now.
Whether you think they actually will get concessions now is open to debate, of course. If they actually don't, despite the rumors being floated that they are working out agreements on other legislation in exchange, they are cursed dogs.
If you really want to get into the weeds, you'd have to look at how likely it really is that the Republicans will refuse to ratify the New START and so on*. Basically, the Republicans are complete assholes. It's a question of figuring out how to deal with complete assholes who apparently don't give a shit about the welfare of the nation.
* I read somewhere that the Republicans aren't actually holding START hostage in all of this; I'm not clear on that.
162 to 160. My annoyance is getting the better of me, and I'm not even sure if 162 made sense.
162: Oh, gosh, I'd missed that the Dem's were caving on the tax cuts in exchange for Republican concessions START and DADT. That makes me feel a little better at least.
Or, wait.... that's not it? You just mean if the Democrats cave to Republicans now, in exchange for nothing, the Republicans will surely feel obligationed later to concede on some of these other items that are important to Democrats?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That's pretty funny.
159:figure out what, if anything, we should do about Senate filibusters
Merkley Reform Proposal ...E Klein today
And I forget where I read the plan to use/abuse international regulatory measures to destroy Murdoch. Audit him twice a day. Nixon never got it right, I certainly doubt that Obama is capable.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" is persuasive but "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" is just pushing it.
John Kerry is plenty beholden to and sympathetic to the rich, but he's not actually richer than Kennedy. Theresa Heinz Kerry has a buttload of money, but he wouldn't get it if they divorced. He's still rich, of course.
figure out what, if anything, we should do about Senate filibusters
Anton Chigurh.
You know, between this business and the extended NPR coverage of the balanced budget commission, I've been basically ready to blow a gasket all day. Ironically, I spent most of the last few days writing comments on student papers about the importance of putting the other side's arguments in the best light. Meanwhile, I'm thinking "Emerson is right. Those fuckers used to set stray cats on fire as children, and now they are pushing punish-the-poor policies for the same reason. None of these assholes honestly things now is the time to cut the deficit. They know as well as any that the Great Depression was a double dip recession because FDR tried to balance the budget. They just want to be sure there is the maximum possible wealth gap between them and the people they think are inferior.
By the way, did you know that India has *less* inequality as measured by the Gini index? That right, the land of Dalits and Brahmin can distribute their wealth more fairly than we do.
Well fuck it. I should take inspiration from this vervet monkey who, after dogs chewed off her feet, walks on her hands with her baby clinging to her belly.
Those fuckers used to set stray cats on fire as children
Glass houses and all.
164.2: Or, wait.... that's not it? You just mean if the Democrats cave to Republicans now, in exchange for nothing, the Republicans will surely feel obligationed later to concede on some of these other items that are important to Democrats?
Yes. I know. On the other hand, I believe that's how deals are done. I don't know: is there such a thing as putting it in writing? Maybe we should insist on that.
Just walk though it for a minute: suppose Dems say, "We don't believe that you will keep any of your agreements [you are 'negotiating' in bad faith], therefore we will make no agreements with you."
How does that work? It's a BRING IT ON kind of scenario. How does it work out for the Democratic agenda? Given the composition of the House and Senate.
I'm really playing devil's advocate here. I honestly don't know.
||
I have a new source of outrage. I've been trying to argue with a group of local colleagues who are becoming more and more vocal about their climate 'skepticism' -- which is of the lukewarm "the greenhouse effect is real, but maybe the climate sensitivity is low, and anyway we can always use geoengineering, and we wouldn't want to hurt business, now would we?" variety. Apparently to 'balance' a recent public lecture by Han/sen, one of them has scheduled a talk from a "cos/mic rays cause global warming!" person at a local insti/tute in March. This really pisses me off; it's legitimizing crackpotism in a way that these people would never do in their own field. Totally irresponsible. I'm not sure what I can do about it except bitch at people. I don't know if it's better to avoid the talk entirely or go and make an ass of myself by trying to shoot down everything he says.
|>
I'm strongly hinting at the identity of the place, in the unlikely event that anyone cares.
Without doubt there is a Cos/mic Ray Insti/tute somewhere that must be kept in the dark on this.
It hadn't occurred to me that strategic faux-googleproofing could be used to call attention to particular terms like that. Well done, essear.
177: Like a bikini top thin enough for the nipples to poke through.
178: Those are some sharp nipples.
And how. But I heard she only dates Swedes.
Looks like the START treaty was left out of the Republican filibuster threat. Thats the only bill left outstanding that I really care about.
I'm actually kind of hoping DADT repeal doesn't pass, so Obama is forced to fix it by executive order, as he should have done on January 21, 2009.
Unemployment extensions would be nice, but I'm pretty skeptical that will happen anyway.
the only bill left outstanding that I really care about
It's not clear to me what the clause in the Senate Republicans' letter about "funding the government" as the other demand they make is supposed to mean.
For reference, the letter reads:
"[W]e write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike."
What does that mean, "fund the government"? Is it a cloaked way to say that they demand deficit-cutting measures? (Which is a can of worms, a lengthy matter, so I don't see how they could mean that.) Are they saying that they won't raise the debt ceiling? Unless ... unless what? I must be missing something.
Obama doesn't get credit for tax cuts not because of messaging, but because of reality.
Obama's tax cuts weren't about cutting taxes; they were about helping the economy, and he was unable to conceal that. He didn't run for president as a tax-cutter, and everybody understood that.
His preference was to cut taxes less and spend more. The size of the tax cuts was (partly) a result of a compromise with Republicans.
If Obama arrives at the conclusion that the best thing for the country is a tax increase, it's possible he will seek to raise taxes. I'm not aware of any national Republican who might be willing to put the good of the country ahead of tax cuts. Voters know this.
So voters want someone who not only cuts their taxes, but does so from the heart?
Voters elected Obama, and I bet they do it again.
But Republicans are identified with tax cuts because no matter the circumstances, they argue that tax cuts are always the best policy. George HW Bush was all but drummed out of the party for his heresy on this.
Republicans don't have to filibuster START. Al they have to do is indicate in nose counts that they're not going for it. Can't get to 2/3ds without defections, and it looks like there aren't going to be enough.
What does that mean, "fund the government"?
Does "the government" include the defense department? Theres a defense appropriations bill out there right now, yes?
Because if they want to cut off military spending, I'm cool with that.
But that's probably not what they are talking about.
186: Didn't they used to have to do nuke treaties by executive order during the Cold War?
Can't get to 2/3ds without defections, and it looks like there aren't going to be enough.
My understanding is that the Republicans are willing to be bought off on START. They seem to be singalling that they will agree to START, as long as $X is spent on missile defense and new nuclear weapons "modernization" projects, where $X is some figure higher than the $84 billion thats already been offered.
How shitty is it that we can't manage to pass an arms reduction treaty without spending a shit-ton of money to buy new nukes?
JBS, I think in the long run, expiration of the Bush tax cuts is probably a good idea. I don't think it's a good idea short run -- while we're still in (or near) recession. So I'd extend under 250k for 3-5 years. Politically, though, complete expiration over the objection of 80% of the public is a really bad move. I think empowering the people who currently run the Republican party is very bad for the country, short or long term, and so the politics isn't something I'd brush away.
On the pay freeze question, I said I thought the admin was trying to preempt those parts of the Rep agenda that poll well, to leave them with the tea party stuff that's tougher to get the mainstream to buy. It's the sort of move I'd expect Rouse and Messina to have picked up from their previous bosses. To guess where the current tax negotiation is going to end up, you'd have to know how the options are polling with moderate Republicans and "independents." I still don't think Boehner or McConnell are going to want to compromise at all -- why should they, given the January make-up -- and that they'll just take the opportunity of the negotiations to bash Obama. The question is whether Obama and his team think they can hold on, or whether they'll give in on the rich to avoid a tax hike on the non-rich. My guess is that he ends up giving in, not because of incompetence or venality, but because he hasn't got the cards to stay in the game.
As I think about it, from Obama's perspective, if you're going to end up with Bush tax cuts anyway, are you better off doing it now, with Dem majorities and a bipartisan deal (of more limited duration), than having the Boehner tax cuts imposed after his "failure"? There's a colorable political case for that.
189 -- My understanding is that that is theater, and that an Obama loss is of higher value than whatever money gets offered. But I'm kind of out of touch, and maybe there is a deal in there somewhere.
190.3 -- Remember, the Boehner tax cuts will reverse the massive Obama tax hike. A tax hike that solid majorities of the public and every member of Congress opposed, and only came about because Obama was more interested in class warfare than in helping middle class during a very tough time.
190
As I think about it, from Obama's perspective, if you're going to end up with Bush tax cuts anyway, are you better off doing it now, with Dem majorities and a bipartisan deal (of more limited duration), than having the Boehner tax cuts imposed after his "failure"? There's a colorable political case for that.
How would the Boehner tax cuts be imposed over Obama's veto? The Republicans don't have 2/3 in both houses. Obama has the cards to stay in the game he just doesn't appear to have the will.
Sometimes I want to say that there are issues where people should just say fuck the politics of some election two years off and go with the policy that seems right, but that would be stupid.
Anyway, if you let all the tax cuts expire and then passed a new tax cut plan later, it would be passed by a Republican House, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. It could be turned exclusively into the "Boehner tax cuts", I suppose, through a total failure on the part of the Democrats to be a part of introducing, supporting, and campaigning for the new plan, but it could also be an example of that bipartisanship that the admin seems so desperately to crave. And it would even be true to call it bipartisan. So it clearly would never happen.
Hey, if we had all the time in the world, we could reform campaign finance laws, figure out what, if anything, we should do about Senate filibusters, and, oh, I dunno, do something about Fox News at al., though I have no idea what beyond trying to set up or strengthen competing voices.
We could implement the Trapnel Random Lot plan. I hope the last few months have shown you all that representation is too important to be left to elections.
an Obama loss is of higher value than whatever money gets offered
The Obama loss has a lot of value to Republicans, but $84+ billion sent to Republican donor industries ain't chicken scratch. After all, maintaining a high level of military spending has been the top Republican legislative priority for decades.
Plus, I suspect there are a fair number of Republican senators who would like to support START because it is important for, you know, national security.
Because "the Democrats" have the opportunity to prevent the tax increases right now. And if they don't do it, it'll be Boehner and McConnell riding to the rescue. Jeez, maybe urple isn't the only one in an alternate reality. FA, what's in your fridge?
Shearer, you think Obama is going to veto a tax cut for everyone that Republicans send to him? Only if it also repeals health care reform.
How would the Boehner tax cuts be imposed over Obama's veto?
Because once it reaches Obama's desk, his choices are all-or-nothing. In that circumstance, as a matter of policy and leaving aside politics, there's a strong case to be made for extending the tax cuts.
I suspect there are a fair number of Republican senators who would like to support START because it is important for, you know, national security.
Stranger things have happened, and Lugar has given this a pretty good effort. I'm still thinking the answer is no, but maybe with enough money . . .
After all, maintaining a high level of military spending has been the top Republican legislative priority for decades.
A priority not maintained by recent Republican presidents such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George I Bush, all of whom oversaw substantial cuts in military spending - but, interestingly, one maintained by recent Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both of whom left the military budget bigger than they found it in real terms.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/09/defense_spending.html
197
Shearer, you think Obama is going to veto a tax cut for everyone that Republicans send to him? Only if it also repeals health care reform.
No, I think he is going to fold. But not because he doesn't have the cards.
198
Because once it reaches Obama's desk, his choices are all-or-nothing. In that circumstance, as a matter of policy and leaving aside politics, there's a strong case to be made for extending the tax cuts.
It's more likely to reach his desk because he hasn't said he will veto it. And vetoing a bill doesn't mean the subject is closed. And I don't agree that letting all the cuts lapse is bad policy.
as a matter of policy and leaving aside politics, there's a strong case to be made for extending the tax cuts
What's the strong policy case? Because I don't see any.
Regardless of cost, we must stimulate the economy until the economy needs to put on new underwear.
Yes. 204 is my answer to 203.
(Though I would probably mock my view on this somewhat less than Moby does.)
A priority not maintained by recent Republican presidents such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George I Bush, all of whom oversaw substantial cuts in military spending
Nixon? Bush? Ok...
Reagan? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
205: I was going to mock it more. I'm coming around to the pessimistic view that the stimulus isn't stimulating actual economic activity so much as unsustainable consumption while letting really stupid lenders cover their ass and people who cut me off in traffic drive bigger cars.
as a matter of policy and leaving aside politics, there's a strong case to be made for extending the tax cuts
Charley, I'm starting to think you're right about you and I living in different dimensions.
208: That's not Charley's quote.
206: defence budgets fell in real dollars in Reagan's second term. Not in his first, admittedly.
But not in inflation-adjusted dollars. Reagan jacked up the defense budget then held it steady (at roughly the same level as GWB, who was carrying out two active occupations) during his second term.
It's more likely to reach his desk because he hasn't said he will veto it.
This certainly has to be granted. It is, sadly, not Obama's style to draw lines in the sand. (I mean, has he ever? I can't think of one example.)
I mean, has he ever?
Well, there's this.
I know a guy who paints lines in parking lots. That might work better.
202, 212 -- No, I don't think drawing a line in the sand would make it less likely. The game the Republicans want to play makes it even better if he threatens a veto.
They can attach it to must-pass legislation, like raising the debt ceiling, or to an omnibus appropriations bill next fall, and let Obama shut down the government.
Tax cuts for high-income people aren't stimulative, because that money doesn't get spent, it gets saved. (Not a full argument, just identifying it.) There's a policy case for extending the tax cuts at the low end, where low is more like under $100K than under $250K, but one that could be offset by stimulus spending of equivalent magnitude elsewhere.
216: Maybe we should just have drunker rich people?
omnibus appropriations bill
Our outgoing governor says he found federal money to avoid a 30% cut in local bus service. Maybe that was it.
he found federal money
In five-dollar increments!
I agree with 216. Problem 1: The Republican House isn't going to pass a stimulus of any kind. Problem 2: You can't get the stimulative effect of the low end cuts without having to suffer the high end cuts, because Congress isn't going to send that bill to the President in 2011.
220.2: The assumption you're relying on here is that Republicans inevitably win any game of chicken, both in terms of public perception and in terms of the actual outcome. Could be you're right, but I don't see that we have much to lose by trying.
222: Yes. I see how Obama could lose the public perception game, but I don't see how it is assured that he lose the public perception game. Of course, if the government is shut down, he should watch out for interns.
Eh, the economy is pretty fucked no matter what Congress and the President do. We don't make things anymore. Not useful things. It's unsustainable in any meaningful sense. "Service economy"? Please. We can't just service ourselves (well, for the most part, I'm certainly not that flexible). It's all just a big shell game, using up our store of natural resources and accumulated artificial wealth. Brazilification is in full effect, and there's no way to stop it legislatively, because the people it benefits own the government. We need to transform our apathy into withdrawing in disgust.
We need to get the cars out of the garages and install chicken coops instead. We need a healthcare system that isn't based on ever-more expensive heroic interventions. We need education that is just that, instead of an empty exercise in credentialing. We need collective action to take back power.
But we probably won't be up for making any of that happen. All of this Titanic deck chair rearranging is all just a bunch of shuck.
We need to get the cars out of the garages and install chicken coops instead.
I had a chicken coöp once. To get in, you had to buy for cash with seven eggs in reserve.
222(b) -- Pass a bill now, and he gets meaningful input, and some credit. Suffer the same (or worse -- permanent rather than a 3 year extension) bill next year and he's weak, ineffectual, and the policy outcome is probably worse. There's plenty of downside to a valiant failure strategy.
The side that doesn't care if the cars get wrecked wins any game of chicken.
215: I'm sympathetic to any argument that contains the implicit assumption that, politically, Obama knows what he's doing. But I disagree here.
I think Obama is sincere in his preference for the under-$250,000 tax cut. But I also think that he'd stand a very good chance of getting it if he got out in front of this personally.
He can't control what the House passes, but he really has an opportunity to influence the framing of whatever action the Republicans take. If he took a stand - really used some political capital; did an Oval Office address to demand tax cuts targeted to the middle class - he could set the agenda on this.
And yes, it's possible he could lose nonetheless; and his political instinct is correct that such a loss would be costly. But I really think he could substantially change the odds on this.
1) Obama is a tax cutter, he campaigned from late 2007 on tax cuts for those making under 250k, which is like 98% of those paying taxes.
2) Tax cuts are bad politics, (Social) Democrats should campaign on the commons and public goods and mutual security. Everybody must sacrifice means everybody, though not in equal proportion. Everybody benefits means everybody, tniep. It is extremely important to know that your neighbor 5 states over will help you when you need it.
3) Tax cuts, even for the lower brackets, are bad (economic) policy. I think they have much lower multipliers than New Keynesian models claim, and recent evidence bears that out. Money and transfer payments are "leaky" the food the poor buy sends money to Chile or Argentina or is skimmed by finance. This is one place I differ with New Keynesians.
Also, a tax cut or transfer payment does not provide the rational expectation of future security that say, a ten-year job building Bonneville Dam does. Right now, even the poorest laid-off worker may put something away in the reasonable expectation that say, her unemployment payments may be ended.
4) Jobs and investment and jobs. We desperately need infrastructure. We, what's stronger than desperately, need green infrastructure. We need health care (let's fund 100k doctors). We need re-urbanization. The country is dying.
5) Democrats should never give an inch here. I think the problems we are in are partly to do with the New Keynesians ceding rhetorical ground in the 80s, on several fronts. The Fed can't create jobs, fuck the Fed. FDR and Truman taxed everybody. Tax and spend/share is what Democrats do, we should be proud of it, and we should never talk about letting people spend their own money. Never. This is our policy and our politics.
6) The above has absolutely no relevance to anything that will actually happen, probably ever. Since Peak Everything will hit very soon, Obama is the best we will ever get, and Obama is the worst political catastrophe ever. A Democrat/liberal devaluing public goods (which is what the health care bill really does, for instance) as we approve an age of scarcity is simply the worst that could have happened. There will not be another chance.
bah s/b 6 "approach the age of scarcity"
Eh, the economy is pretty fucked no matter what Congress and the President do. ... It's unsustainable in any meaningful sense.
Doomsaying is all well and good, but people who could actually be working if the government followed sensible economic policy probably don't care so much about your sweeping narratives.
The side that doesn't care if the cars get wrecked wins any game of chicken.
And the only way to change that dynamic is to wreck a couple of fucking cars. Ending the Bush tax cuts across the board is a perfect wreck to have if we're going to have one.
232: I don't think you have to go clear into doomsaying (especially since 2012 is the end of the world) to wonder if, after two large economic crashes that we have "stimulated" ourselves to get out of in the past 10 years, maybe the stimulating isn't so much pushing the economy on as it is hiding a fundamental weakness that we'd better fix sooner rather than later.
233: Or get your shoe lace tangled in the pedal.
If it's any comfort, the Eurozone set of political institutions is starting to look equally disfunctional to those of the USA. Crooked Timber has some good links/posts on this lately.
If you're feeling angry and helpless right now, just imagine if you lived in Ireland.
234: That's not, as far as I can tell, a good argument for not stimulating our way out of this crash. Water and rehydration salts don't do a thing to cure the underlying problem for a cholera patient, they just mask the symptoms. But the symptoms are what kill you. < /analogy ban violation>.
Could have Obama turned it around? (Leaving aside who and what Obama actually is)
I think he could. He might have lost every single fight, passed zero legislation, had the economy crash, but through his rhetoric reverse the toxic discourse of the Reagan Revolution. It had to be done. It was much more important to do that than any short term pain of gains.
Now it is not only too late, but he has accelerated the collapse. The elites are already cannibals, the rest of us will soon follow.
236: Krugman has also been all over this, too. And Delong. Americans can derive solace from the fact that they are not always the stupidest motherfuckers in the world.
That's not solace, really. I always found comfort in thinking that politics in other countries was saner and more productive than US politics. Giving up that illusion is among the many, many depressing things about paying attention over the last ten years.
Also, I'd really like to point out that the main things responsible for the situation in the OP (overrepresentation of the rich in the electorate, massive ORotR in the 'public sphere', still-more massive ORotR among donors, policy driven by the assumption that a distracted & uneducated electorate can't be trusted to understand what's happening) are precisely what the Trapnel Plan of Representation By Lot is aimed at addressing.
Real change will require structural & institutional reform. And institutional reform should always proceed on the assumption that society's elites will be working to game the new system from day 1.
237: The "symptom" here was a 5% or lower decline in GDP*. Obviously, because the pain would be spread unevenly, this was a crushing problem for many people. But the lack of a workable political mechanism to do things like that is the underlying problem that we are papering over with stimulus. (Or so goes my often distracted, non-evidence-based chain of thought.)
*Or whatever the prediction was if there was no stimulus at all. My point is that the worst case scenarios would put us back to the nightmarish economic productivity of the '90s.
239: I don't think anybody outstupided us.
Some other countries were just in a more precarious position to begin with.
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FUCK. Qatar for 2022 World Cup? Seriously? How can you have a World Cup Final in a country with that little beer?
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re: 240
I say this affectionately, but the EU still has quite a long way to go before it approaches US levels of mainstream batshit craziness.
The elites are already cannibals, the rest of us will soon follow.
Will cardio or weight training be better for giving me the kind of "gamey" flavor that will make people raised on white meat chicken look for somebody else?
This is all entirely over my head. You guys are the best.
I think he could. He might have lost every single fight, passed zero legislation, had the economy crash, but through his rhetoric reverse the toxic discourse of the Reagan Revolution. It had to be done.
This is wrong. Presidents can do a lot to put things on the agency for public discourse, but what really matters here is a lot more pluralistic--it takes a whole ecology of thinktanks, political operatives, & media (both individual reporters and, more importantly, institutions) to really shift things.
I think McManus is right that Obama missed a huge chance, but that chance was for institutional reform--abolishing the filibuster at a bare minimum, strengthening or replacing entirely the various rule-of-law institutional safeguards (inspectorate general, DoJ OLC, &c.). But--as the saga of Dawn John/sen shows, he really didn't care much about that stuff.
The grain of truth in McManus' story is that Obama probably could have done more to influence the power of the leftist public sphere in the long term by strategically appointing more young leftists to 'credentialling' positions within the administration. This is what Meese did with the Reagan DoJ in the 80s (awesome article! read it!), and it had a real effect in shaping the landscape of legal discourse. (And yes, he's done this to some extent, but--think about that recent Orzs/ag announcement. Drawing your cadre from the Goldman Sachs revolving-door sector, or those likely to join it, is the exact opposite of the kind of long-game strategy I'm talking about.)
But I keep coming back because learning is essential. And you guys are so smart.
The best!
I take solace from how much worse things have been in other times+places and recovered nicely.
The US was pretty seriously fucked up under Warren G Harding, for instance, and crazy issue politics built on a pyramid of ill-informed wacko voters is nothing new. William Jennings Bryan, Wayne Wheeler.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photolibrarian/4594083290/
For EU batshit craziness, this is the style to look for:
http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regcomitology/index.cfm?do=FAQ.FAQ
Not yet up to UN standards, and there may be US congressional equivalents, but committee committees are excellent.
239: I don't think anybody outstupided us.
I know! It doesn't seem possible, does it? But it's true.
Beyond the various bubble-related errors that had analogs in the U.S., Ireland joined a monetary union that wasn't designed for this circumstance, and rather than try to overcome the poor design of that monetary union, Europe has decided that it's best just to fuck Ireland. So bad decisions all around!
Eh, the economy is pretty fucked no matter what Congress and the President do. We don't make things anymore. Not useful things. It's unsustainable in any meaningful sense. "Service economy"? Please. We can't just service ourselves
We don't make things? Not 'useful' things. What does that mean? I hear it all the time but it doesn't make sense. In 2009 our net imports of products classified as 'goods' as opposed to 'services' were roughly half a trillion dollars in a fourteen trillion dollar economy. Personal consumption of goods was about three and a quarter trillion. Gross private sector domestic investment over one and a half trillion dollars. And that's not even getting into the absurdity of drawing a line between useful 'things' and not useful 'services'.
|| Hey, a blast from the past.|>
Ireland joined a monetary union that wasn't designed for this circumstance, and rather than try to overcome the poor design of that monetary union, Europe has decided that it's best just to fuck Ireland.
That might be slightly misrepresenting/over-simplifying the situation. Overcoming the poor design of the monetary union is non-trivial in the extreme, what with it involving a lot of countries, and constitutions, and referendums and shit.
252: How about, "An economy which was more closely structured around the manufacture of durable goods proved better able to support a robust middle class than the current economy where the provision of services is proportionately larger."
but, interestingly, one maintained by recent Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both of whom left the military budget bigger than they found it in real terms.
How about GDP terms: 1968 9.4%, 1974 5.4%, 1976 5.2%, 1980 4.9%, 1988 5.8%, 1992 4.8%, 2000 3.0%.
Carter kept things flat, Nixon, Clinton, and Bush 1 reduced spending, Reagan and Bush II increased military spending.
255 proved better able to support a robust middle class than the current economy where the provision of services is proportionately larger.
You're saying the average American is worse off than back in the twenties? We don't need to hark back to a partially mythologized and in any case never returning era of very high levels of manufacturing employment. The industrial sector was transformed from hellish work for crap money to unpleasant work for good money. We need to increase wage levels in the service sector in the same way that we did in the manufacturing one in the forties and fifties.
255: hmm, wasn't there quite a lot of manufacturing in the US in the 1890s to 1920s? How was the middle class doing then?
We've had this discussion before-- the US certainly still makes things, but employs a smaller fraction of the population to do so. Semiconductors, jet engines, sequencing equipment and reagents, anything for high vacuum, low temperature, or strong magnetic field is mostly made in the US. Chinese military jets use kit-built engines with Russian parts.
The US doesn't make oil anymore! That has a huge impact on the trade imbalance.
I wanted to say something like 252 in 232, but decided I wasn't well-enough informed to argue it. I'm glad teraz is saying it.
You're saying the average American is worse off than back in the twenties?
hmm, wasn't there quite a lot of manufacturing in the US in the 1890s to 1920s?
Mostly rural back then.
Agricultural work has always made for a large number of really shitty jobs.
If you look at the trade balance graphs over at CR you can see that rather clearly. The US runs a huge trade deficit in petroleum goods and with China, ex those two it's roughly in balance. Not that that really changes the fact that we have a serious long term trade deficit, but it does point to some ways of reducing it. An aggressive program of reducing oil consumption through efficiency regulations and replacing oil based energy by non oil produced energy is the easy one. The China issue is much more difficult since even if the Chinese did increase the value of their currency and ended protectionist policies, that would still be only a partial solution. A lot of stuff would simply migrate to other low wage countries.
I see that Congress has acted to protect us from a species of carp. What would Emerson say?
Specifically Asian carp. Racists.
232: Doomsaying is all well and good, but people who could actually be working if the government followed sensible economic policy probably don't care so much about your sweeping narratives.
Look, if you want to resurrect Zombie FDR and run him for president, I'll go out and canvass my neighborhood. But even Zombie FDR wouldn't be making different plays than Obama is right now. 2 years into FDR's first term we were almost certainly closer to a social revolution in this country then at any time since the Civil War. But where are the revolutionists now? The leftwing ones are hiding in our bookstores and coffeehouses. The rightwing ones are ascendant. FDR could create huge job programs and put together confiscatory income tax deals because the capitalist class was VERY CONCERNED that they were about to be toppled. We can argue about how correct that perception was, but it was still there. You want to start a new CCC or WPA? Be my guest. But good luck getting it through Congress or the Supreme Court without something on the order of the wave of strikes in the early 1930s.
261, 265: First, let me get my rake to keep people from my lawn.
Back when I was younger, I built barns for pigs. This was more or less immediately beneficial for people who got economic utility from consuming pork or psychic utility from causing pain to pigs. Now I type stuff on a computer making more money than the people still building pig barns, but I produce no pork and cause no pain to pigs. This somehow seems unfair, especially since I don't have to smell pig shit anymore. I suppose my work might make a pig farmer healthier and better able to produce pork and pig pain, but that's not really the same thing.
252: And that's not even getting into the absurdity of drawing a line between useful 'things' and not useful 'services'.
When part of the GDP is chemical companies making carcinogens, and another part is cancer treatment services, and there's no accepted official method by which those two components cancel each other out, then that's the absurdity.
Same goes for:
Cars/roads/bridges vs. asthma treatments
Logging vs. flood clean-up
Coal mining vs. acid rain costs
Policing vs. private prisons
and on and on
chemical companies making carcinogens, and another part is cancer treatment services
Dude, that's like a perpetual motion jobs program. What's not to love?
Next, we build giant greenhouse-styled ballparks, and keep every glazier in the country employed forever!
Now I want a Twix-dispensing tread mill.
272: Yin and yang, man. The world needs both.
272: A better example:
Fitness clubs vs. restaurants
If you steal my Twix-Mill idea, I'm suing.
271: This somehow seems unfair, especially since I don't have to smell pig shit anymore.
Well, yes, but you explained your contribution to society in 217.
(At least, you've confirm here that you're richer, and reading your comments, I assume you're drunker.)
275: That's actually brilliant: exercise equipment that dispenses food-pellets. (Presumably desirable food-pellets.) I see it as the exercise machine giving you a magnetic ticket that would operate a vending machine set to dispense exactly as many calories as you'd burned off, but you could choose the form. Leftover calories would stay on the card for the next time you exercised (or maybe the vending machine could make change in sunflower seeds or something.)
280 continued: I'm not actually sure what the point would be, but someone should do it.
262 About two fifths of the US workforce was emplyed in agriculture in 1900. By 1930 that had dropped to one fifth. By the end of WWII that had dropped to one sixth, by 1970 to four percent. Manufacturing employment as a percentage of the workforce was much higher in the twenties than it is now. In 1920 employment was very roughly 25% agriculture, 25% manufacturing and 40% services (public and private sector combined) With the remainder being mining and construction.
Mostly rural back then.
I hate disagreeing with Moby -- because I assume he'll kill me -- but this is wrong. The country became urban in the 1890 census. Which is to say, the balance of the population counted in that census lived in cities rather than outside of them. Carry on.
Also, there were fascists in the 1930s, but liberals were a lot more sanguine about killing them back then.
282, 283: I'm ceding on that. My family didn't become urban until the 1960s, but apparently we were slow.
285: Correction to my correction.
I mean my family didn't become primarily non-agricultural until the 1960s (roughly). We didn't become primarily non-rural until later.
Okay then, if nobody's going to be my friend, then it's no more Mr. Nice Guy. I'm going back to being "gonzo". I don't really know what that means, but I think it has something to do with the Muppets. Also, I know dirty words.
Poop. POOP! POOOOOOOP!
Oh, who am I kidding? You guys are the best.
268: So if I understand correctly, your argument is that it's unrealistic and naive to hope for moderate but effective government policies like further stimulus, and therefore the more sensible aim is to completely restructure our economy from the ground up?
(Presumably desirable food-pellets.)
That's what we missed, desirable.
288: I think it's more a "Martin needed Malcolm" argument. We're not going to get moderate but effective policies unless the Powers That Be are afraid of anarchists and the like Burning Shit Down. I actually kind of sympathize with this line of thinking, despite being very queasy about actually Burning Shit Down.
I don't even think you need to go so far as saying we need the threat of BSD. Stimulus itself buffers some people from economic difficulties more than others making it harder to get any adjustment because fewer people (especially fewer people with resources) notice the need.
I think part of what Natilo & Moby might be getting at is this: as a society, we've ('we' used throughout in a bullshitty handwavy way) gotten used to more-or-less trusting that The Market more-or-less rewards producing valuable goods/services. We know that some things that we want won't be provided that way, hence gov't & nonprofits, and most of us know there are problems with this reasoning even aside from externalities, but, outside of Greens and other radical movements, there's been a consensus that markets basically reward the production of things that genuinely have value.
And the punchline is: the last few years have made it very, very hard to sustain this faith. So now, even if you're not working in an obviously evil job, so long as what you're doing is fairly detached from directly contributing to authentic/autonomously formed/legitimate human needs/desires, it becomes quite difficult to make a strong argument that what you do is a genuine contribution to human welfare.
I think we should see the 'we don't make stuff anymore!' cry against this background. What TKM et al say is totally right, but I think it's important to understand where this longing for creating things that have clear utility comes from.
285,6: It kinda depends on how you define "family", but my extended family (out to 3rd cousins or so) is still probably majority rural/very small city. And among the close extended family -- great-aunts & great-uncles, and aunts and uncles and first cousins -- we never got anywhere near being majority urban. My mother grew up (partly) in a house that didn't have electricity or indoor plumbing until the 1960s. But by contrast, the number of people in the close extended family who make their primary living through fishing/agriculture/similar is zero right now, and hasn't been above 5% during my lifetime.
290: Fair enough. I'm being mean. It's one of those days. The ones when I am mean.
291:I don't even think you need to go so far as saying we need the threat of BSD.
Somebody is wrong on the Internets again.
292: Yes, plus fear that my balls are shrinking because I never get to use a buzz saw.
291: Stimulus itself buffers some people from economic difficulties more than others making it harder to get any adjustment because fewer people (especially fewer people with resources) notice the need.
This seems wrong to me. Recessions (I have the impression) tend to increase inequality; people who stay employed are fine, the only people who are hurting are the un or under employed and their dependents. So, to the extent a stimulus creates jobs, I suppose it buffers some more than others in that there will still be some people unemployed after those jobs are created, but I think it nets out to reducing inequality.
292: But I really don't find this convincing. Why are we in the economic mess we're in now? It has nothing to do with whether most people are working in factories or at desks or behind counters. It has everything to do with a small number of people in the finance industry being allowed to make enormous bets on whether other people could pay their debts, and the government's failure to prevent this by regulation or by acting quickly to limit the damage once the crisis was clearly beginning to take shape. Yes, there's a lesson to draw here about our economy, but it's that we shouldn't allow banks and hedge funds and whatever else makes up the financial sector unlimited leverage on risky foundations.
297: What if I would have said "Bailout" instead of "Stimulus"?
299: There we get into stuff that I don't understand well enough to be sure about. I sort of believe that if there wasn't some kind of bailout, Western Civilization would have collapsed into a post-apocalyptic hell leaving the living envying the dead, because lots of reasonable people say so. I would have liked a different bailout, with more heads on pikes, but I don't have the detailed knowledge to design it.
the last few years have made it very, very hard to sustain this faith
If only this were broadly true, it might all have been worth it. Alas.
I also lack that knowledge, but, if the choice were mine, I think I would have treated the threats to collapse Western Civ as a bluff that needed to be called.
302 to 300. Also Kobe is doing just fine, regardless of the economy.
298: I agree with you, insofar as desks v. factories, goods v. services, etc. is a red herring. But there's a bigger truth behind it, which is: productive vs. wasteful or actively predatory economic activity. It's not just about the financiers 'getting out of control' in an isolated sense; it's about our entire economy becoming increasingly oriented around finance, and our upper-classes being increasingly drawn towards finance/law (where much of law increasingly is a specialized sort of finance; papering out commercial transactions). And a concomitant lack of any serious moves towards an economy that isn't based on cheap energy as an input, & artificial legal scarcity (copyright, patents, trademark, subsidized 'bigness' generally) structuring both the B2B and B2C arena.
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Does anyone else notice how similar all of this Julian Assange/Wikileaks brouhaha is to the Bruce Sterling story "Deep Eddy"?
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Okay, need to get offline and get to the gym today. In happy news, I finally translated my doctor's "Herr Trapnel is too fragile* to work at the moment" letter and sent in my official Request for a Leave of Absence.
Next step: applying to be a secretary at Frankfurt's Exzellenzcluster!
* yes, I went with "rather fragile" for "nicht belastbar." Questionable choice, I know!
Ari, the Census disagrees with you about 1920. For 1890, the Census said the frontier would no longer be tracked as it had ceased to exist. It was also the 1st Census to use Hollerith cards. Automation!
304: Well, I think I mostly agree with you. But I would emphasize that while it's true that finance occupies a large sector of the economy, it involves a relatively small number of people. So to the extent that we need a large shift in the economy to deal with the problem, it still wouldn't have much effect on what most people do. Largely it would just be a matter of having actually effective government regulation.
I actually kind of sympathize with this line of thinking, despite being very queasy about actually Burning Shit Down.
I think the solution here, LB, is that you need to be funding the BSDers. Sort of like middle-class fundamentalist managers funding jihadis rather than going to Pakistan themselves. Perhaps Bob can set up a paypal donate button.
as it had ceased
The frontier that is. And whether the Census was correct is another issue.
Yeah, I am being obsessiveley someone is wrong...
I think the solution here, LB, is that you need to be funding the BSDers.
I should do more, but we've done a little of that here, when Frowner had friends who needed help paying for legal representation after the 2008 Republican convention.
302 is right to 300
70% of people had jobs at the worst of the Great Depression.
Here's Steve Randy Waldmann approaching recalculation. Just, ya know, to pretend I know anything.
Look, I'm calling for a Global Jubilee. I realize that means that all insurance and pensions go poof. This is really the bluff that needed to be called. Something would have to cover that responsibility. What could it be?
I didn't heighten the contradictions, they did. They forced a choice, direct and immediate, between socialism and neo-feudalism. That is always how coups are done.
304: But I don't think it's just the upper classes. If you're a machinist, or you work in a creamery, or even if you deliver soda pop to convenience stores, there's a legitimate reason for your job to exist. If you're not there, things don't get machined, cream doesn't get separated, soda pop doesn't get delivered. But well below the level of Wall Street quants and the lawyers who love them, we're seeing an economy that's increasingly pointless. Vast numbers of people are responsible for some tiny part of managing customer service interactions. To what end? There's people in our economy, at the low end of the middle class, who spend their entire time at work listening in to other people's phone calls to make sure they don't exceed the maximum allowed time per interaction. If all of those people stopped coming in to work, would things grind to a halt? No, of course they wouldn't. People who design web surveys all day, people who monitor the self-checkout line at the grocery store, people who greet customers at Wal-Mart, people who are MMPORPG gold farmers, ferchrissakes! They're not contributing in any meaningful way to the important functions of the economy. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, you have this increasingly tiny class of people who do the essentials -- my former cow-orker's uncle who farms 7,000 acres just north of the Twin Cities, for instance -- who are increasingly specialized and yet also relatively poorly compensated. I just don't think this is tenable as an overall strategy for providing for ourselves.
310: A friend of mine's radical leftist Jewish great-grandmother had this advise for her grandson when he went off to college: "Don't buy stock, don't read the Wall Street Journal, and if you ever cross a picket line, you're no grandson of mine!"
So, you know, it's also negative action that's necessary.
if you ever cross a picket line, you're no grandson of mine!
This, also a cornerstone of my relationship with my mother.
people who monitor the self-checkout line at the grocery store
This seems like an odd example. When those people aren't there (as happens occassionally), those self-checkout lanes sink into hell. And when those people are there, they're doing as much to assist the flow of commerce as four or six "regular" cashiers.
soda pop doesn't get delivered
I haven't heard "soda pop" used together as a compound noun for years.
314: In the pre-WWI neighborhoods of Minneapolis, which is most of them, you can drive down main streets and see building after building that used to house a small grocery, and maybe a hardware store or a furniture shop or something like that on the corners. Usually with apartments above them, where the owners often lived, at least until they made enough money to buy a house. Virtually everyone was within a few blocks of one of these markets, since even middle-class people were unlikely to have a car, or to use it just to get some milk and flour or a pound of nails or whatever. So there wasn't as much need for all of this customer service/emotional labor malarkey being concentrated into giant call centers. You knew your grocer, if he sold you a bad head of lettuce, you'd take it back and he'd give you a new one. Division of labor has really jumped the shark at this point. We're not even talking about diminished returns, but rather negative returns on the investment that society has made in training and maintaining these battalions of customer service reps. Does anyone NOT dread calling up a customer service line? Wading through 2 minutes of voicemail, being on hold for another 7, and then spending a frustrating 11 minutes trying to haggle with someone who wanted you off the phone 8 minutes ago? By contrast, would you EVER dread stopping by your local hardware store with a defective widget? Things get more and more awful at every level as capitalism progresses. It's not exactly the way Marx saw it unfolding of course, but he was correct in spirit if not in letter.
318: Well, some debased people might not understand if I just wrote "pop".
We have different understandings of important and meaningful. I see your view as something akin to the old peasant view that what they were doing mattered to the economy, but getting the goods to the cities, transport, or making any manufactured goods except those essential to agricultural production is all useless and people employed in such pursuits are parasites on the 'real' economy. And in it I also see a nice insight into why central planning works so horribly for anything except basic industrial goods production. Once you get beyond those, figuring out what kind of employment is useful, and how much of it you need is basically impossible as the economy moves on from whatever your starting point was.
By contrast, would you EVER dread stopping by your local hardware store with a defective widget?
I might have, since I could never figure how the guy stayed in business with his policy of pricing everything like the 70s didn't happen. Also, the drug store didn't sell birth control, the grocery store stocked 12 different items in total, and the dude at the liquor store wouldn't fall for a fake ID because he knew me.
but getting the goods to the cities, transport, or making any manufactured goods except those essential to agricultural production is all useless and people employed in such pursuits are parasites on the 'real' economy.
At least part of that view is easily explained by the role of the railroads in the rural midwest.
But well below the level of Wall Street quants and the lawyers who love them, we're seeing an economy that's increasingly pointless.
There are two parts to this. One is exemplified by the spa-and-salonification of NYC: in an economy dominated by inequality, jobs become oriented around serving the rich ("that means that the market system's social welfare function gives each individual a weight inversely proportional to his or her marginal utility of wealth.")
The other is about the deskilling of sub-college-degree employment. Here, it's a bit complicated, but part of the story is simply that creating a high-training/high-skill/high-wage equilibrium is tricky; it involves many different institutions, from firms to schools to governments, and has never ever "just happened." With the disappearance of a certain segment of highly paid blue-collar jobs, and the entrance of huge numbers of women into the labor market, new institutions needed to be created--and they just weren't.
OK I AM LOGGING OFF NOW GODDAMNIT.
324: Mostly running over Sweet Sue after Snidely Whiplash tied her to the tracks, right?
I'm not saying that there aren't any useful services. Sure, it's good if you know how to fix minor problems with your car or your bike, but it's a worthwhile use of societal resources to have some people who are experts at car or bike repair to advise you or undo your fuckups or whatever.
But there is some point on the continuum, I would argue, where you're just piling useless frippery on top of useless frippery. When your Pilates instructor's yoga instructor's insurance agency's call center manager's dog-walker's Pilates instructor is taking a class at the local Whole Foods about what enzymes to give his kids so that they're not so depressed about going to school, then, yeah, I think "meaningful" and "important" are nowhere to be found.
(I realize that example makes me sound like I hate New Agey people disproportionately. Same goes for your concealed-carry instructor's minister's accountant's SUV dealer's concealed carry instructor's web developer is going to a seminar about how to be a better Christian mother)
319 That is a very romanticized version of the old service economy. You ended up spending more on poorer quality goods with less selection. Dealing with the customer service line sucks. Not being able to purchase the product at all, or having to pay a far higher price for it sucks more. There's a reason why supermarkets turned small local groceries into a niche market for high density areas. There are also reasons why department stores were killing off so many mom and pop stores. Modern retailing was simply far more efficient at delivering products conveniently and cheaply. Those old style small retail establishments weren't the equivalent of the sort of small stores that you have in middle to upper class urban neighbourhoods today. They were the kind of crap retail options that you get in a dirt poor urban area.
Things get more and more awful at every level as capitalism progresses.
In the specific category you're talking about you've got it exactly backwards.
327: Are you going to be forced to bring up racism to get you out of this goofy nostalgia thing?
Marx hated nostalgia!
328: You ended up spending more on poorer quality goods with less selection.
Sure, there was less selection. So? Have you looked at the cookie aisle in a big box supermarket recently? If the price of having 120 different kinds of cookies to choose from is (a) Loss of middle-class incomes; (b) Nobody knows how to make cookies from scratch anymore; and (c) We have 2.5 million long-haul truckers on the road because that's the only way you can distribute that many cookies efficiently, then I will take a little less selection and a little higher price. I'm very dubious about the quality claim. Virtually every processed food at the supermarket is going to have more preservatives in it than would be necessary with a more local economy. And as for produce, I can't believe that a local market, stocked with local heirloom varieties grown by nearby truck farms is going to have worse produce than what you get in a supermarket. That's absurd.
To the extent that people are free to vote with their feet, they flee less specialized economies for more specialized ones. Even if the end result is demeaning retail or pointless computer work, there are just more options for an individual when work is specialized.
Extrapolating from unregulated credit markets creating self-destructive boom/bust cycles to a criticism of any trade is a big jump, a mistake.
327: My concealed-carry instructor take Pilates.
332 was me, except that I had subject-verb agreement.
When your Pilates instructor's yoga instructor's insurance agency's call center manager's dog-walker's Pilates instructor is taking a class at the local Whole Foods about what enzymes to give his kids so that they're not so depressed about going to school, then, yeah, I think "meaningful" and "important" are nowhere to be found.
What are you talking about? How does it serve your higher point that my yoga instructor has insurance at an agency with a call manager, who perhaps has a dog-walker, who perhaps takes Pilates with a particular instructor? My yoga instructor has relationships with people of all sorts of professions and yes, I'm sure that if you go out enoug levels, you'll get to some wonky ones.
120 different kinds of cookies to choose
You mean you've never gone to the store to find that your favorite brand of widget is no longer available? Heartbreak! There are only as many brands as people want, given the freedom to choose. Granted, the number of choices may be overwhelming, but consumer goods have never been cheaper. Although incomes have been stagnant or falling, if consumer goods are relatively cheaper the average person is still ahead.
Does anyone NOT dread calling up a customer service line? ..... By contrast, would you EVER dread stopping by your local hardware store with a defective widget?
I'd take the customer service line over having to go someplace where I would have to deal directly with another human being. Even better would be some kind of automated web form that cuts out the personal interaction element entirely.
336: Now you're just an example of how our dehumanized society ruins people. Back in the 30's people enjoyed human contact when they huddled together to stay warm.
331: To the extent that people are free to vote with their feet, they flee less specialized economies for more specialized ones.
Even if that were completely true, I'm not arguing that we're likely to see a return to earlier economic structures. Remember that my initial thesis in this thread is that we're completely screwed and that no change is possible within the current system.
However, having said that, I would argue that your point smacks a little too much of Econ 101 for me. Giant chain stores don't just spring fully formed from the brow of Zeus. They have to be financed, permitted, licensed, zoned, marketed, staffed and managed. In the 1930s there was serious debate in Congress about whether multi-state chains should even be allowed to exist. Obviously, and unsurprisingly, they were, but what if things had gone the other way? Domino's can come in and put half a dozen local pizzerias out of business in 6 months, not because they make better pizza, but because their size and heavily externalized costs make it possible for them to undercut prices to the point where smaller shops simply aren't viable. What if we had a working-class that was organized such that no one would staff a Domino's? Or such that enough pressure could be brought to bear on a city council to make it impossible to find a zone that would allow the Domino's to be built (this does already happen sometimes of course). Or what about a federal statute such that the increased environmental burden of another chain store had to be figured in to the retail prices paid by consumers in the form of an excise tax? Obviously not going to happen in this country in the near future, but it's within the realm of the possible.
Although incomes have been stagnant or falling, if consumer goods are relatively cheaper the average person is still ahead.
Not if housing and medical care and etc. are getting more expensive.
And as for produce, I can't believe that a local market, stocked with local heirloom varieties grown by nearby truck farms is going to have worse produce than what you get in a supermarket
A couple points. First, have you seen how much heirloom type products cost? Secondly, the kind of distribution structure you imagine for this and other products requires far more 'last mile' type work than the one we have today. Finally, in ye olde days most food products in the cities marketed to the non-rich were not pretty heirloom stuff like you get in your farmers market. They were items produced by poor farmers who cared little about quality and less about safety and hygiene. The stuff went bad very quickly, meaning you had to shop more often and the distribution system meant you had to visit several stores. In those stores the items were stocked behind a counter, so still more time lost. Tell your average working mother that she'd be better off having to shop four or five times a week with more time spent on each excursion, with less choice. And then tell her that she would have to spend more money for this wonderful privilege and that in season produce would taste better if you ate it immediately, but there would be no out of season produce. Plus she'd have to make all her food from scratch.
Loss of middle-class incomes
Huh? Who do you think was getting those middle class incomes back in the sixties? Small local farmers, retail clerks working in small stores? It was the middle echelon white collar workers and manufacturing workers in industries that had undergone the sort of radical standardization and efficiency gains you see as a bad thing.
334: At the end of the day, most of the money circulating in the service economy just reinforces the need for a service economy. Which means that most of the work in the service economy doesn't actually produce anything outside of the service economy. Which means that you can squeeze and squeeze the productive work of the economy onto a smaller and smaller group of people, who are either (a) so immiserated that they have little chance to organize for something better or (b) can be bought off for far less than the value of their labor, because there exists enough distance between them and the downtrodden that they'll work against their own long-term interests to maintain their relative position now.
And as for produce, I can't believe that a local market, stocked with local heirloom varieties grown by nearby truck farms is going to have worse produce than what you get in a supermarket
I can believe it, from December through May, at least.
It's easy for people to overstate the returns from scale, and it's important to keep in mind how much the extended supply chains of the Walmart model depend on externalized costs, both infrastructural and environmental, as well as historical path-dependence.
For an accessible book on some of these themes, albeit one written by an (IMO) overly optimistic radical, folks might be interested in Kevin Carson's Home Brew Industrial Revolution, or his "Organization Theory: An Individualist Anarchist Perspective".
342: But, aren't we missing something when our diet doesn't correspond with the natural rhythms of the seasons?
What if we had a working-class that was organized such that no one would staff a Domino's?
You say this, but it looks like you completely miss the significance of that statement. We have had a revolutionary rise in the productivity of many service sectors, yet the financial benefits of the productivity gains have flowed mostly to the upper class. Exactly like in the industrial sector back in the day. We changed that by use government to shift the relative power of employers and employees in manufacturing. The left back then, whether meliorist or revolutionary, did not insist that everyone would be better off if we moved back to previous modes of manufactured good production. So the answer to your question is that either Domino's would have enough of an efficiency advantage to be able to afford to pay its workers a better wage than small local pizzerias can, or they would fail.
But, aren't we missing something when our diet doesn't correspond with the natural rhythms of the seasons?
Yes. Lack of nutrients and variety for half the year. Cabbage, onions, and beets. How many ways can we cook them with lard, potatoes, flour, dairy, and eggs.
Finally, in ye olde days most food products in the cities marketed to the non-rich were not pretty heirloom stuff like you get in your farmers market.
Slow, bumpy transportation presented real problems with soft-skinned fruits and vegetables taking the biggest hit to quality. Without disposable paper products or plastic, cushioning these items was too expensive for most consumers. The rich could get better. They found that human hair was the best way to protect fruit in transit, but only the wealthiest could afford to wrap each item in hair. For the regular rich, they would weave a mat from hair and use that to cushion the blow. Then the wealthy could come to the nice market to get their hair-loom tomatoes.
347: Wow. Stanley is going to have to step up his game.
346: You really thought I was serious, didn't you?
347, 348: Yes! Up there with "steam-plunk" in the Unfogged pun pantheon.
TKM, I think you're largely right, but you really are going too far in the other direction, by entirely discounting the massive distortions in the cost structures of decentralized vs. centralized production brought about by the industrial-era interventionist state, both directly (internal improvements etc) and less so (patents).
340: Who do you think was getting those middle class incomes back in the sixties?
Well, this is where we're already talking at cross purposes. I'm not talking about the sixties. The fix was already in at that point. I'm talking about the pre-car culture early 20th century. Which had many downsides, of course, but...
Secondly, the kind of distribution structure you imagine for this and other products requires far more 'last mile' type work than the one we have today.
Precisely! But the thing is, you can do the last mile on foot, or by bicycle. Furthermore, when you have a lot of last-mile workers, their relative power in the economy is multiplied. Are we ever going to see a union of long-haul truckers? Of course not. The system is set up so that you have to work towards owning your own $200,000 piece of equipment for the economics to work at all in your favor. But of course, it's really the bank that owns that equipment, and if you strike, like the Teamsters did here in 1934, you're going to lose your whole investment.
They were items produced by poor farmers who cared little about quality and less about safety and hygiene.
Um, Atrazine? GMOs? Peak Oil? It doesn't really matter whether most farmers "care" about "safety and hygiene" -- when the system is set up so that they can only function within the strictures set by capitalist agribusiness, they have to use that Round-Up, or else. You can wash shit off a tomato in your own sink. It's a little bit harder to clean all the groundwater for 100 miles around, or to prize the death genes out of a GMO seed.
Tell your average working mother that she'd be better off having to shop four or five times a week with more time spent on each excursion, with less choice. And then tell her that she would have to spend more money for this wonderful privilege and that in season produce would taste better if you ate it immediately, but there would be no out of season produce. Plus she'd have to make all her food from scratch.
Well, yeah, I'm not saying that change is just around the corner. With a huge segment of our population doing useless work which leaves them no time to do anything other than find the cheapest, fastest option for every function in their life, you really couldn't change, for example, the food production and distribution structure of the economy very much without some kind of breakdown. But that is precisely my point. Our entire economy -- not just the finance/legal part of it -- is completely fucked up, there's no way to save big parts of it by changing little parts. If this society were going to survive, which seems increasingly doubtful, major changes would have to be effected in every part of it on an ongoing and sometimes painful basis.
NP's discussion fails to explain why there are no fewer than four hole-in-the-wall non-chain pizza places within half a mile of my house. I would attribute what success that chain has to chain-level standardization, with its attendant costs and benefits. As my last several adventures in trying different local pizza places were complete disasters, it's not hard to see the point of standard mediocrity.
As my last several adventures in trying different local pizza places were complete disasters, it's not hard to see the point of standard mediocrity.
Seriously, you've found local pizza places that are worse than Dominos/Pizza Hut? That's weird. I've been in scary awful diners where I'd rather have been in a McDonalds, but I've never seen pizza sink below chain level.
Seriously. And appallingly. I assume it's because drunk college students will eat anything at 2am.
I haven't had Dominos in recent memory, but I remember it as being a passable imitation of cardboard. Pizza Hut, on the other hand, beats a lot of bad college-town hole-in-the-wall pizza places, and Papa John's is better yet.
I've never seen pizza sink below chain level.
This, I believe, is a regional, not a national phenomenon. Papa John's is better than many, many local places, depending on your locality.
Also, I sadly don't eat much pizza these days, but the "new" Domino's is not really that terrible at all.
I don't even think you need to go so far as saying we need the threat of BSD.
Yes we do. This is the unspeakable secret that made social democracy ("liberalism") work for just under a century. It was spoken aloud in Germany in 1918/19, and that was enough. Whenever they forget, it's necessary to speak it aloud again.
The other thing that needs to be spoken aloud more often is that the ruling class is ALWAYS waging class war from their point of view. It only becomes noticeable when the rest of us wage it back.
Well, this is where we're already talking at cross purposes. I'm not talking about the sixties. The fix was already in at that point. I'm talking about the pre-car culture early 20th century. Which had many downsides, of course, but...
Like today's level of inequality but with far lower incomes. Yay.
With a huge segment of our population doing useless work which leaves them no time to do anything other than find the cheapest, fastest option for every function in their life, you really couldn't change, for example, the food production and distribution structure of the economy very much without some kind of breakdown. But that is precisely my point.
So they wouldn't be working at all? Or would they be working producing 'real' things, but have to use far more of their non-work time on errands?
Are we ever going to see a union of long-haul truckers? Of course not. The system is set up so that you have to work towards owning your own $200,000 piece of equipment for the economics to work at all in your favor.
Yes, the system is set up that way. The solution to that is to change the system, not to eliminate job categories and make everybody's life more miserable.
You can wash shit off a tomato in your own sink.
Yet strangely enough, food was far more dangerous back in the day than it is now. Most of the environmental problems can be solved by regulation at far lower cost to consumers, and without forcing a large number of those consumers into farm labour jobs that make life as a checkout clerk look like paradise.
354: I forget what the technical euphemism is, but there's a lot of research around creating genes that prevent seeds of GMO plants from germinating -- i.e. it's not just that they don't breed true, they don't breed at all.
This, I believe, is a regional, not a national phenomenon. Papa John's is better than many, many local places, depending on your locality.
That's what I found out doing campaign work in 2008. Your run of the mill local pizza place in small town USA seems to be at best at the level of a generic 'Ray's' down to godawful crap far worse than the chain products. New York really does have much better cheap fast food than most of the country.
Huh. I haven't read much beyond comment 300 or so in detail, and here and there beyond, but I like Natilo, I do.
Affirming the consequent.
We've had 50 years of Domino's, 52 years of Pizza Hut (obviously they weren't national chains right then, but I remember eating at Pizza Huts in the very early 80s, so presumably there's some date in the not-too-recent past when they became widely distributed). The independent pizzerias that are left now are the super high-end ones which cater to a refined audience, and the crappy hole-in-the-wall ones that the big chains don't bother to compete with because the profit margin isn't there.
the "new" Domino's is not really that terrible at all
I recently tried Domino's for the first time in years, and it was utter crap. Halford is right about jewelry, though.
I forget what the technical euphemism is
Monsanto, of course, is currently the driving force behind GURT "suicide seeds".
360: The solution to that is to change the system
Not gonna happen, not incrementally at least, and not without some BSD action from your friends the DFHs.
368: Right! Suicide seeds/Terminator genes. I was blanking on that term.
Wow, its really only a matter of time before plant genetics get weaponized.
OK, BSD by DFH can only work after the TP movement has completely run its course. What would it take for TP folk to stop viewing DFHs as the enemy? A cultural change that is not yet even imaginable (except by Bob).
372: Or a huge bunch of corn whiskey.
OK, BSD by DFH can only work after the TP movement has completely run its course.
Spell this out? Why can't it?
The other thing that needs to be spoken aloud more often is that the ruling class is ALWAYS waging class war from their point of view. It only becomes noticeable when the rest of us wage it back.
Testify.
359 was a good comment, wasn't it.
Hey, the House passed the under 250K tax cuts only bill. Now the Republicans filibuster, of course, but it's a gesture at least.
Apropos, Bernie Sanders: "There is a war going on in this country."
From 377:
"Regardless of what the majority forces House Republicans to do, it's not going to go anywhere," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Wednesday night. "We are going to extend the current tax rates; we're not going to raise taxes on anybody. The only thing we're discussing now is just how long that extension will be."
Those coments are pretty damn assured coming from someone whose party only has 41 votes in the Senate (and only 47 even come January).
379: If I were him, and I were reading what commenters are saying about the situation, I'd be confident too. Everything reputable is assuming the Democrats will fold -- it's all "Why did they fold in a situation where they had all the cards?" not "Are they going to fold?" Maybe they won't, but I don't think he's deluded to be confident.
And of course Republicans are very good at changing the situation by assuming their victory is inevitable -- it annoys me, but I can't say it doesn't work.
Zasloff at the RBC has a good line on this:
The Democrats' fear is that the public won't get it; the Republicans' fear is that they will get it. Obama can change that calculus. That would even be change I can believe in.
Right, I agree completely. But really, now that it's passed in the House (which was supposed to be the stumbling block come January), wouldn't it still be so very easy for the Democrats in the Senate to propose the same bill, and force the Republicans to filibuster it? Then the only thing preventing the tax cuts from passing would be the Republican filibuster. And when everyone's taxes go up as a consequence? Point to the Republican filibuster.
I mean, really: it's so easy. If that's what the Democrats really want to do, of course.
That'd be great. If he did that, I'd go all whirly again until the next giant fuckup.
I'm honestly not even sure McConnell could hold his caucus together for the filibuster. They were preemptively breaking ranks on this exact issue a few months back, when it looked like that was the direction the Democrats were going to go.
Also from 377:
"While those in the highest income brackets comprise only two to three percent of American taxpayers, economists estimate that they are responsible for 25 percent of national consumer spending," the four congressmen wrote. "As retailers and other businesses continue preparations for the holiday season, and employers make seasonal staffing decisions and consider possible raises and holiday bonuses for their employees, now is the time for action."
I wonder if this first sentence is actually true.
I might believe the first sentence. Something that I find continuously freaky about living in NY is the amount of retail space devoted to selling goods and services that I can't afford and couldn't afford when I was a Big Law associate, in the top couple of percent in the nation income-wise. Now, my sense of what I 'can't afford' is pretty conservative compared to my income, but still, the market for goods and services aimed at the top few percent of the nation incomewise is huge.
But of course the tax hike isn't going to come out of their spending on anything like a one-for-one basis, so the conclusion is fucked up.
385 -- And I think the quote in 379 is a factual report of the negotiations that are going on. Maybe Van Hollen lit a fire under Pelosi and Hoyer to get the bill passed, and force the President's hand.
I still think McConnell holds firm, but he and the President have a couple of days to road test elite reaction, and Republican base reaction, to their positions. We'll see if Obama can tip it enough.
388.1(a) -- It's also likely that in the course of the discussions, harking back to the pre-election phase, Republicans taunted Van Hollen (and Obama) on the House's inability to pass the Dem proposal. I mean why should he give in on something they can't even do themselves. And there were a whole lot of defections, but it still passed.
Look, Boehner is right about chicken-shit and "the election was a month ago."
What, big victory in December? Republicans can filibuster it to death, come right back with tax cuts for everybody in January, and Obama has already said he will sign it.
Whatever "victory" happens will be in December, by making a deal on UI etc.
However, this House vote was supposed to lose and Jane Hamsher is embarrassed. Supposedly the vote was supposed to come up under closed rule and need 290 votes. Open rule meant amendments. I am in whappan mode.
Best would be to let them all expire. That is a reversal of Bush. Then veto any more tax cuts.
This would force Congress to figure out what to with $400 billion a year. That's a ton. Give it to bondholders by paying down debt?
But I don't think this is Obama.
Look, Boehner is right about chicken-shit and "the election was a month ago."
Wait, I thought that the only things worse procedural liberals are incompetent procedural liberals? Well, it seems they used each and every rule they could get their hands on this time, mcbobus.
and Jane Hamsher is embarrassed
Oh dear God no.
392: To what purpose?
Hamsher was saying it was symbolic and nothing but damaging to House Democrats. Hamsher said that Obama had to promise to veto tax cuts for the rich in order for there to be real negotiating room.
McConnell is right, the only bill that will reach Obama is one that will include all the tax cuts, and if it takes til January, that bill will pass Congress. Republicans can wait 6 weeks for a trillion dollars.
I wish House and Senate staffers would spend half as much time gaming out strategy for Unfogged commenters as we do for them.
215
They can attach it to must-pass legislation, like raising the debt ceiling, or to an omnibus appropriations bill next fall, and let Obama shut down the government.
Because this startegy worked so well for the Republicans when they tried it against Clinton.
374
Spell this out? Why can't it?
Because in the present political climate DFHs BSD just serves the interests of the right.
This seems likely to be true for the forseeable future. Leftist nostalgia for BSD like leftist nostalgia for unions is just indicative of how hopelessly mired in the past the left is.
397 -- Gingrich wasn't trying to reverse a tax cut that had expired (after 10 years, during a recession) because the socialist Muslim president wouldn't heed the will of the voters, but instead wanted to pursue class warfare.
An awful lot has changed in the last 15 years, little of it helpful to Obama in winning the public relations battle.
But Boehner isn't a very sympathetic figure, and he's got a base that's also pretty difficult to manage (eg, Cantor endorsing a constitutional convention to bring back state veto of federal legislation). So he can mess it up.
