OK, Diary of a Republican Hater has now hit another watershed since last Friday morning. The first was when Nick Rowe left me a comment on a post I wrote about Scott Sumners.
For the original post please see http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-scott-sumners-intellectual.html
Now in another exciting moment in the life of Diary of a Republiclan Hater, Brad Delong put the link about Rowe answering my post here.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/11/nick-rowe-answers-my-post.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
Rowe even answered my answer to me answering his answer...
He was very modest and let me know that he's not a bigshot in the economics world and that Krugman hadn't known him before he started writing his blog. Whatever... LOL. If Krugman reads you that's a big deal, regardless of whether or not you ever hung out with him back at his university. See that's the beauty of the Internet, it's a great equalizer. If you have something interesting to say you can get someone like Krugman to read you even if you didn't go to all the right schools. More and more ideas matter rather than pedigree. It's Krugman's Very Serious People who are overly preoccupied with a pedigree. All superficial people are.
This past weekend was unusual for me in that I was visiting someone, who for whatever reason, my connection was not picking up there. It used to but lately I can't get a wireless connection there anymore. A real frustration. Why is it that in 2011 we can't get more reliable Internet service?
When I finally got in front of my computer late last night I got another sudden excitement-someone who calls himself JD Tapp gave me to understand that my post about Nick Rowe answering me had been taken by Brad Delong and put on his Twitterstorm. Whoa! Another great excitement here at Diary of a Republican Hater.
Thanks to that the Nick Rowe Answers Me! post is already my most read post ever. It's funny but until this latest excitement, the previous watershed for Diary was the time Andrew Breitbart sent his trolls after me to Twitter stalk me. This served to to nothing but encourage me. It gave me a great Chirpstory about being stalked by Andrew Breitbart-someone who some Very Serious People actually take seriously, including, alas, at Krugman's own New York Times-for the record I love the paper, though I would love it even more if they would man up about Breitbart. Who does he own on the NYT board I'd like to know...
For the whole-very funny-episode please check it out.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/08/andrew-breitbart-answers-my-phone-call.html
For those who would like to sign our petition-we met our original goal so I came up with a new goal; the recent success of a young woman in forcing Bank of America to give up on it's $5 debit card fee shows these petitions at Change.Org work- please click here
http://www.change.org/petitions/mike-l-sax-indict-andrew-breitbart
Breitbart finally backed off as he realized that he can't possible help himself picking a fight with an unknown blogger-of course with his help I was already less unknown. It's all about getting your name in the paper-even if they don't spell your name right as long as they're close. My name though is easy to say, easy to remember, easy to spell: Mike Sax.
Returning from this not unpleasant digression about Breitbart, what I do truly find inspiring is that there seems to be a genuine meeting of the minds recently between the so-called Market Monetarists-Scott Sumners, Nick Rowe, et al-and the New Keynesians-Krugman, Delong, Yglesias, etc. This is proof positive of why I am such a fan of economics. In an age when here in the U.S. the political sphere is so dysfunctional, so broken, in economics we have what we never see in politics-an informed, intelligent discussion which offers us some actual light rather than just heat.
In economics we can get what is apparently impossible in politics-an actual meeting of the minds between "Left" and "Right" where something is actually learned.
In saying this I again maybe feel something of what Plato felt in his vision that what the CommonWealth really needs are some Philosopher-Kings to impose reason. Compared with politics, it seems economics is the scientific analysis of society-while politics is basic quackery. It always seems that Very Serious People have all the power. That's what happened to Socrates-the Very Serious People ultimately killed him. So often it seems like the people who might actually be able to shed some light are kept far away from policy making.
I certainly will follow Sumner in thinking it would be dream walking to have twelve Krugman's at the Fed.
It seems to me that the real problem we have in political debates more than ever these days is that morality based sentiments are allowed to replace what should be an economic analysis. In a post I read at Sumners he did talk a little about the sentiment that the mortgage holders don't deserve help because of what could be called the Rick Santelli argument-they were irresponsible and don't deserve our help. He did admit he felt some of that though he admitted that envy is not the proper sentiment of an economist.
Seems to me this is why it's been so hard to solve this financial crisis. Too often morality replaces economics-in other words, emotionalism replaces logical analysis. The Right wing sentiment in the U.S. with those underwater in their mortgages, but also with the Germans and the Finns in Europe over "irresponsible" Greece is a kind of envy-tinged moral indignation. Why should these people be let off the hook?!
Yet the Left is guilty of this too, for them the real enemy is the banks who must suffer for their sins, haven't sufficiently done so, and that is the real evil.
So many on the Left-including some friends and associates of mine-insist that what needs to be done first and foremost is put some bankers in jail. For me this is a visceral, emotional argument. What matters most, what is the sole thing that should matter is what will actually help the economy and put people back to work? As I have made clear in previous posts this concern about the unemployed on my part is not just intellectual and abstract-it's been something I have struggled with personally, even with a college degree.
As I made clear in a recent post called "Anarchists With Money to Burn" is that it is easy for those who don't have any immediate financial problems-at least they have enough to pay their bills and feed themselves to "burn money" to free themselves, it's doubtful that the dollar they burn is their last.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/11/ows-anarchists-with-money-to-burn.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
Recently there was a movement for a "call-in Tuesday" where everyone was going to call in sick on the same day: somehow this teaches their boss a lesson. It certainly is a bonanza for him in cutting down payroll expenses. I still don't get why people would be willing to throw a day's pay down the drain but not willing to simply send their pay check to those of us who could really use it...
As far as going after the bankers my question is simple. I can believe you think they should be burned in effigy but explain to me how it will improve the economy, or I'm not interested. I have heard decent arguments: someone argued that because none of the worst offenders were convicted or punished this made it impossible for the kind of confidence needed to return to the system. Essentially banks won't lend to each other as they know very well...
Maybe. At least it's an economic argument and not a moralistic-ie, emotional-one. At present there are some conflicting feelings about Bernanke's performance last week. Some feel-a fairly common view-that Bernanke disappointed. However, Sumners himself, felt more optimism, reasoning, that it's not as if Bernanke can say he was reading the work of some "Market Monetarists" and they say he should target NGDP.
I am not sure myself. It was promising that he pushed back on those who asked him about the Republican attempts to bully him into not doing any more stimulus by pointing out that it was the Fed's employment mandate rather than inflation where it had clearly failed. That line was right out of Charles Evans.
No comments:
Post a Comment