I've had some debates with Market Monetarists about austerity-they insist that it does no harm and that Obama would have served himself if he'd only 'done a Clinton'-ie, came in pushing austerity in 2009.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-market-monetarist-counterfactual.html
No mater how the MMers want to size it, arguing that austerity does no harm-attacking anyone who criticizes austerity-is the same thing as advocating it. There is no meaningful difference.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/morgan-warstler-on-sumners-wicked-evil.html
I don't agree with them-and evidently, Clinton doesn't either as he offered an endorsement of Obama during 2012-and in Clinton's book-that was as full-throated as it gets.
Whether it would be politically advantageous is one-certainly not unimportant-argument. Whether it is the right thing is another. I also think that the MMers and others who say Obama should have done a Clinton are obscuring just how different the picture was in 1993 than it was in 2009. I don't think that Clinton himself would have done a Clinton if he had been President in 2009.
I don't know what all the austerians want. It's not like we didn't have plenty of it between 2010 and 2013. The deficit is now it's lowest since 2008.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/sumner-liberals-arent-allowed-to-change.html
I met with one of my most loyal readers-Nanute-as we went to Popeye's like old times. Back in 2012 when I was broke and living in my Mother's basement his treating me to a big bucket of Popeye's was the highlight of my month. He seems to think though that Sumner is someone for liberals just to ignore.
I just don't agree with this. His point is that Sumner is basically playing from an old conservative playbook. I agree it's old wine in new bottles but these bottles are very seductive. Again, there is always 2 discussions in debates like this.
Do you agree with the MMers? Are they politically effective? I don't think I agree with them-I've given Sumner plenty of chances to make his case but he seems not to want to do so but rather hide behind facile snark.
Still, I think it has been politically effective. This is something that Krugman gets wrong as well. You can't construe being politically effective too narrowly-whether or not the House GOP are committed MMers. I do think MM has been effective, the only debate is how effective.
As I've said previously the brilliance of Sumner is to have something or both conservatives and liberals. Again, MM has two main prongs.
1. Replace inflation targeting with NGDP targeting.
2. Monetary offset
Liberals buy into 1 as they never liked inflation targeting anyway but conservatives allow 1 because they get 2. Sumner might try to quibble by saying that NGDP targeting is not his preference-ideally he'd like a nominal wage target. Yet his reasoning or not pushing that makes my point: a wage target is less palatable politically to liberals.
I'm glad to see that Obama is not buying the koolaid and is doing something radical at least in American politics: he's not advocating further deficit reduction.
"Today is budget day in Washington, and the big news in the budget President Obama will introduce today is that he is trying to break the Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-market-monetarist-counterfactual.html
No mater how the MMers want to size it, arguing that austerity does no harm-attacking anyone who criticizes austerity-is the same thing as advocating it. There is no meaningful difference.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/morgan-warstler-on-sumners-wicked-evil.html
I don't agree with them-and evidently, Clinton doesn't either as he offered an endorsement of Obama during 2012-and in Clinton's book-that was as full-throated as it gets.
Whether it would be politically advantageous is one-certainly not unimportant-argument. Whether it is the right thing is another. I also think that the MMers and others who say Obama should have done a Clinton are obscuring just how different the picture was in 1993 than it was in 2009. I don't think that Clinton himself would have done a Clinton if he had been President in 2009.
I don't know what all the austerians want. It's not like we didn't have plenty of it between 2010 and 2013. The deficit is now it's lowest since 2008.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/sumner-liberals-arent-allowed-to-change.html
I met with one of my most loyal readers-Nanute-as we went to Popeye's like old times. Back in 2012 when I was broke and living in my Mother's basement his treating me to a big bucket of Popeye's was the highlight of my month. He seems to think though that Sumner is someone for liberals just to ignore.
I just don't agree with this. His point is that Sumner is basically playing from an old conservative playbook. I agree it's old wine in new bottles but these bottles are very seductive. Again, there is always 2 discussions in debates like this.
Do you agree with the MMers? Are they politically effective? I don't think I agree with them-I've given Sumner plenty of chances to make his case but he seems not to want to do so but rather hide behind facile snark.
Still, I think it has been politically effective. This is something that Krugman gets wrong as well. You can't construe being politically effective too narrowly-whether or not the House GOP are committed MMers. I do think MM has been effective, the only debate is how effective.
As I've said previously the brilliance of Sumner is to have something or both conservatives and liberals. Again, MM has two main prongs.
1. Replace inflation targeting with NGDP targeting.
2. Monetary offset
Liberals buy into 1 as they never liked inflation targeting anyway but conservatives allow 1 because they get 2. Sumner might try to quibble by saying that NGDP targeting is not his preference-ideally he'd like a nominal wage target. Yet his reasoning or not pushing that makes my point: a wage target is less palatable politically to liberals.
I'm glad to see that Obama is not buying the koolaid and is doing something radical at least in American politics: he's not advocating further deficit reduction.
"Today is budget day in Washington, and the big news in the budget President Obama will introduce today is that he is trying to break the Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop."
"The $4 trillion budget, which has already been dismissed by leading Republicans, outlines an ambitious — and, yes, redistributive — government role in combating inequality and wage stagnation, through investments in public works and education, and tax breaks for working Americans. The budget calls for those lower-end tax breaks to be paid for by a boost in taxes on inherited wealth and on capital gains, which would target the top one percent. It envisions hundreds of billions in spending on infrastructure, funded by a tax on profits that corporations have parked overseas. The budget allots hundreds of millions for free community college."
"The budget does contain some deficit reduction — in the form of immigration reform and health care savings — but it does not seek to reduce the deficit overall. As Max Ehrenfreund puts it: “Officials say the plan would yield a $474 billion deficit, or 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product, about where deficits have been over the past 50 years.” Or, as Jonathan Weisman notes, the deficit would continue at “a level most economists see as manageable,” and indeed, “measured against the economy, the deficit would remain stable.” Debt would remain a long-term problem, though as Weisman reports, Republicans may seek to avoid bruising confrontations over it this year."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/02/morning-plum-obama-seeks-to-break-the-beltway-deficit-feedback-loop/
So even in principle a balanced budget is no longer the objective-the goal is not deficit reduction but a stable deficit. There's a word for that: progress. Maybe that's why he's a progressive...
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