Political Economy category archive
The Galt and the Lamers 0
In the Hartford Courant, Colin McEnroe looks at the results of Tuesday’s elections and makes a some predictions. In particular, he suggests that the inside-the-beltway punditocracy will invariably draw the wrong conclusions (after all, that’s what they do–he doesn’t say that, I do).
I particularly want to highlight his “Three Commandments of Political Analysis”:
II. Thou shalt occasionally ignore I.
III. If a Libertarian lieth with a Green, everything whereon they subsequently sitteth shall be unclean.
In the bulk of his column, he focuses on item II, suggesting that Tuesday’s outcomes may well offer lessons for the 2018 national races; follow the link for his reasoning.
I want to comment a bit on item III:
Remember, a Libertarian is one who seeks an elaborate, fancy-smancy rationale for denying the existence of the common good. Libertarianism is a creed that appeals most notably to 15-year-old boys, regardless of their ages.
For all practical purposes, a Libertarian in today’s political scene is little more than a Republican who’s ashamed to admit it.
The Axman Cometh 0
Paul Krugman has the details. Here’s a nugget:
Oh, wait — did you think I was talking about Donald Trump? I’m talking about Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, an obvious phony who nonetheless convinced the rubes — that is, much of the news media and the political establishment — that he was a brilliant fiscal expert. What we’re witnessing now is the end of the charade, the political equivalent of what happened when graduates of Trump University tried to get some value in return for their money.
Tax Cheats 0
Jay Bookman considers Republican justifications for tax “reform” and finds them questionable.
By the Numbers . . . 0
Thom asks, “Is this the America you wanted?”
Twits on Twitter, Ryan’s Derp Dept. 0
Farron skewers Paul Ryan’s efforts to promote trickle-on economics.
Puerto Rico, the Plundering 0
Warning: Language.
(Video embed fixed. I had assistance from the cat while I prepared the initial post. She’s a nice cat, but she knows nothing about HTML5.)
Taxing Thoughts 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Peter Ubel explores why people hate taxes, despite that fact that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., once pointed out, taxes buy civilization.
What he finds is not what you might expect.
The Art of the Con 0
In The Sacramento Bee, Hedrick Smith points out that the Republican con long predates the antics of Donald Trump. A snippet (emphasis added):
Matched against history, that’s a hollow claim bordering on economic fake news. Factually, it flies in the face of the performance over the past 40 years of American business, which has generated what Citibank called the greatest inequality of income in any major nation since 16th century Spain – that is, over the past 500 years.
The Empty “Wars” of Empty Souls 0
At The Bangor Daily News, Lance Dotson skewers the duplicity of our endless metaphorical domestic “wars” on this, that, and the other thing. A snippet:
(snip)
This is why it is so disheartening to see the malice toward the underclasses that feeds so much of our political discourse in Maine in the age of Gov. Paul LePage.
LePage, and his welfare protege Mary Mayhew, have adopted the foolish and cruel position that poverty and crime can be eliminated by tightening the clenched fist.
Follow the link for the rest.