Stable Genius Liberal

Reagan Was a Keynesian

Reagan, not Obama, was the big spender. While there was a brief burst of government spending early in the Obama administration — mainly for emergency aid programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps — that burst is long past. Indeed, at this point, government spending is falling fast, with real per capita spending falling over the past year at a rate not seen since the demobilization that followed the Korean War. Why was government spending much stronger under Reagan than in the current slump? “Weaponized Keynesianism” — Reagan’s big military buildup — played some role. But the big difference was real per capita spending at the state and local level, which continued to rise under Reagan but has fallen significantly this time around.
… if you want to see government responding to economic hard times with the “tax and spend” policies conservatives always denounce, you should look to the Reagan era — not the Obama years.

The current GOP is so far removed from the GOP under Reagan it is almost unrecognizable.

Taxi Medallions: How New York’s terrible taxi system makes fares higher and drivers poorer

When New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission held a public hearing last week to consider whether to raise taxi fares by 20 percent, cabdrivers pled poverty and passengers argued that fares are too high. Paradoxically, both groups were right.
This lose-lose scenario is only possible under the taxi medallion system, a regulatory scheme in which the right to operate a taxi is thoroughly divorced from the actual work of driving one. It’s a classic example of the perils of financialization, the process through which economic potential is turned into a liquid and leveraged asset. By converting a portion of cabbies’ future revenue into a freely tradable asset, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and a host of other cities have created a powerful investor class, medallion owners and financiers, whose interests routinely compete with those of drivers and passengers.

Financialization also makes what should be a trivial deregulation nearly impossible as it would make the Medallion owners very upset. They would be willing to spend big bucks to prevent any attempt at deregulation.

Economic Theory Doesn’t Say That Small Business Owners Maximize Profits

to the best of my knowledge there is no economic theory that says small business owners maximize profits. Think about it from a workers’ perspective. People who work on commercial fishing operations earn a lot more money than most people with comparable levels of education. But nobody thinks it defies economic theory that America’s retail clerks don’t quit their jobs en masse to go fishing. Commercial fishing is dangerous and you have to live on a boat. All else being equal, people prefer to earn more money but they also prefer to do safe work and have the opportunity to socialize. What economic theory says is that workers maximize utility and therefore employers who want to get workers to do something that’s unusually dangerous or unusually unpleasant will have to pay a premium. A small business operator is in the same situation. She’s balancing income against other lifestyle factors, including the hours put in on the job, the pleasantness of the work, the sense of self-esteem that comes from having something to do, possibly a sentimental attachment to a particular location or certain employees. What economic theory says is that a profit maximizing small business person has to be someone with a very unusual utility function.

This can not be repeated enough. Small businesses rarely behave the way politicians describe.

Untitled

Conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less. Can this campaign be constructive? – The Washington Post

The New Political Correctness

Today, however, the big threat to our discourse is right-wing political correctness, which — unlike the liberal version — has lots of power and money behind it. And the goal is very much the kind of thing Orwell tried to convey with his notion of Newspeak: to make it impossible to talk, and possibly even think, about ideas that challenge the established order. Thus, even talking about “the wealthy” brings angry denunciations; we’re supposed to call them “job creators”. Even talking about inequality is “class warfare”.

Krugman is 100% on the mark here. The real epidemic of political correctness is from the right not the left.

Untitled

one thing I’ve noticed is that everyone on the right, and a fair number of people who should know better, basically believes that Gordon Gekko was right. Before the Gekkos came along, they assert, American business was sluggish, unproductive, and uncompetitive. Then came the LBOs and all that, and our economic energy was unleashed. As… Continue reading Untitled

Ray Dalio calls for more stimulus

We will also need fiscal stimulation by the government, which of course, is very classic. Governments have to spend more when sales and tax revenue go down and as unemployment and other social benefits kick in and there is a redistribution of wealth. That’s why there is going to be more taxation on the wealthy and more social tension. A deleveraging is not an easy time. But when you are approaching balance again, that’s a good thing.

Dalio leaves Team Friedman and joins Team Keynes.

The Real Source of Corruption in Congress: Members’ Good-Faith Efforts To Help People

But why does Rogers care so much about Phoenix Products that he wants to send all this business his way?
What Phoenix Products has is something unique. It’s based in Kentucky, just like Harold Rogers. Its employees live in Harold Rogers’ district, they shop in stores that are in Harold Rogers’ district, their spouses and siblings live in Harold Rogers’ district, their incomes bolster the tax base for municipalities in Harold Rogers’ district. So if Harold Rogers wants to do the right thing for Harold Rogers’ constituents, he needs to do the right thing for Phoenix Products.

Hayek differentiated between an welfare state of Law versus one of administration. The former would function based on a set of rules in openness and transparency. The latter would be run by bureaucrats who distributed favors for their own political gain. The former would be compatible with a free democratic society, the later would subvert it.

I think we need to start looking at the defense industry as favor distributing patronage system that no longer serves its defined public purpose.

Nouriel Roubini: Greece will leave the eurozone sooner or later. Sooner is better.

The first option, a sharp weakening of the euro, is unlikely, as Germany is strong and the ECB is not aggressively easing monetary policy. A rapid reduction in unit labor costs, through structural reforms that increased productivity growth in excess of wages, is just as unlikely. It took Germany 10 years to restore its competitiveness this way; Greece cannot remain in a depression for a decade. Likewise, a rapid deflation in prices and wages, known as an “internal devaluation,” would lead to five years of ever-deepening depression.
If none of those three options is feasible, the only path left is to leave the eurozone. A return to a national currency and a sharp depreciation would quickly restore competitiveness and growth.

This is a must read. Nouriel Roubini on why Greece must leave the Eurozone.

Untitled

In 47 of America’s fine states, if you want to accept people’s money in order to give them advice on decorating and other people want to pay you to give advice on decorating, then congratulations—you’re an interior decorator. In the other three states, and the District of Columbia, you need undergo 2,190 hours of training… Continue reading Untitled