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Naked Came The Class Warriors

If you look for an overarching theme for overall conservative policy these past four decades, it definitely isn’t liberty — by and large the GOP has been enthusiastic about expanding the security and surveillance state. Nor is it in a consistent fashion smaller government, unless you define military and homeland security as not government. Instead, it has been about making the tax-and-transfer system harsher on the poor and easier on the rich. In short, class warfare.

Giving housing to the homeless is three times cheaper than leaving them on the streets

The most recent report along these lines was a May Central Florida Commission on Homelessness study indicating that the region spends $31,000 a year per homeless person on “the salaries of law-enforcement officers to arrest and transport homeless individuals — largely for nonviolent offenses such as trespassing, public intoxication or sleeping in parks — as well as the cost of jail stays, emergency-room visits and hospitalization for medical and psychiatric issues.” Between 2005 and 2012 the rate of homelessness in America declined 17 percent By contrast, getting each homeless person a house and a caseworker to supervise their needs would cost about $10,000 per person.

Closing Education Gap Will Lift Economy, a Study Finds

If Americans were able to match the scores reached in Canada, which ranks seventh on the O.E.C.D. scale, the United States’ gross domestic product would rise by an additional 6.7 percent, a cumulative increase of $10 trillion (after taking inflation into account) by the year 2050, the report estimated.

Education pays for itself.

The Sickeningly Low Vaccination Rates at Silicon Valley Day Cares

The scientists, technologists, and engineers who populate Silicon Valley and the California Bay Area deserve their reputation as innovators, building entire new economies on the strength of brains and imagination. But some of these people don’t seem to be vaccinating their children.

Shocking article.

Something economists thought was impossible is happening in Europe

Something really weird is happening in Europe. Interest rates on a range of debt — mostly government bonds from countries like Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany but also corporate bonds from Nestlé and, briefly, Shell — have gone negative. And not just negative in fancy inflation-adjusted terms like US government debt. It’s just negative. As in you give the owner of a Nestlé bond 100 euros, and four years later Nestlé gives you back less than that.* In my experience, ordinary people are not especially excited about this. But among finance and economic types, I promise you that it’s a huge deal — the economics equivalent of stumbling into a huge scientific discovery entirely by accident.

This the exact opposite of a the sovereign debt crisis that the austerity crowd has been warning about. The demand for debt is so high that people are willing to lose money to purchase it.

Rand Paul has a victim complex

Paul’s problem is that he doesn’t really see anything wrong with what he said – or at least he won’t admit it. In the tweet showing his booster shot, he commented, “Wonder how the liberal media will misreport this?” It’s the same victim complex he displayed the last time he jousted with the media. In late 2013, multiple reports pretty clearly showed plagiarism in Paul’s speeches and book. Paul’s response? Play it off, blame the “haters,” and issue a non-apology apology.

The people who quoted him correctly and in context are haters.

Vaccine Skepticism Isn’t a Conservative Problem, but It’s a Problem for Conservatives

The two most straightforward ways to increase vaccination rates or otherwise reduce the risk of losing herd immunity are: Imposing government mandates and stigmatizing the white, affluent people who comprise the core of the anti-vaxx movement. Hectoring white people and imposing mandates on their families doesn’t fit comfortably in the GOP wheelhouse these days, and Christie’s awkward walkback underscores the bind that places on conservatives exquisitely.

Plus there is the issue of recognizing that big government stuff like the CDC and health care are actually good things that save actual lives.

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Photo from Obama’s India trip looks exactly like a Wes Anderson movie

Those Radical VSPs

although many of the press reports describe Syriza as “far-left”, it’s actually preaching fairly conventional economics, while the supposedly responsible officials of Brussels and Berlin have been relying on radical doctrines like expansionary austerity and a growth cliff at 90 percent. The same has to a certain extent been true in the US context. Once again: textbook macroeconomics says that focusing on deficit reduction in a depressed economy, where the zero lower bound constrains the effectiveness of monetary policy, is a very bad idea. And although nobody will believe it, textbook macro has actually been a very good guide to the economy since the financial crisis, as Jared Bernstein also emphasizes.

Krugman points out how current right of center economic theory isn’t based on conservative economic or on textbook mainstream economics. Its based on very radical and very untested ideas that aren’t working out.

Obama’s bank tax is a big idea that might actually get done – Vox

What Obama proposed was a 0.07 percent tax on borrowing by America’s largest banks. The way this works is that banks with over $50 billion in assets (which is about 100 banks) would need to pay a 7 cent tax to the federal government on every $100 that they borrow. That has two goals — raising revenue and restraining risky debt from bailout-prone institutions. And Congress isn’t going to pass it.

This would both make a bailout less likely, it would create a fund that would pay for a bailout. And it would fall onto the banks directly. Why is anyone against this?