One interesting sociological wrinkle in my life among the econ was a pervasive weird belief that all members of the tribe in good standing weren't just the bestest and the smartest, but were also highly ethical.This is from my memory of a biography of the great physicist Richard Feyman -
When Gell-Mann came back from receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969, Feynman thought it was a disgace that the economists were allowed to be on the same stage with the science Nobelists.
Israel okays 1,600 E. Jerusalem settler homes
By Sara Hussein | AFP – Thu, Aug 11, 2011
The announcement was criticised by Washington, leaving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu red-faced as he sat down for talks with Biden and prompting a mini-crisis in ties between the allies.
Taxes on wealthy people should be kept low because
they invest their money in the private sector and that
helps the economy and creates jobs 34%
Taxes on wealthy people should be kept high so the
government can use their money for programs to
help lower-income people 62%
Did Mark Cuban Predict The Market Crash?
Thursday, August 11, 2011 7:53 am
Written by: Eric Adelson
Yahoo Sports
"The only people who know what business Wall Street is in are the traders," Cuban wrote on May 9, 2010. "They know what business Wall Street is in better than everyone else. To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, Wall Street has nothing to do with creating capital for businesses, its original goal. Wall Street is a platform. It's a platform to be exploited by every technological and intellectual means possible."
Markets can adjust to a downgrade of global growth, but they cannot cope with a spiralling loss of confidence in leadership and a growing sense that policymakers are disconnected from reality.The Baggers are certainly disconnected but the disconnect applies more to the MOTU, the banksters and the whole Wall Street apparatus. I've noted before that a lot of people were upset with Standard & Poor's for its malfeasance that helped cause the Great Recession. Nate Silver demonstrated that S & P has a lousy track record and other competent people are in agreement, No wonder a broker paid for a little pushback:
A Plane Saying "Thanks For The Downgrade, You Should All Be Fired" Flew Over The S&P Building Tuesday
Adventures in tea-party cognitive dissonance
Aug 5th 2011, 14:58 by M.S.
THE ECONOMIST
Rather than downsizing from 11 to 9 carrier task forces, Mr Phillips says, we should be building even more aircraft carriers:
If we decided to build a couple of new carriers, thousands of workers would be hired for the shipyards. Thousands of employees would be hired for the steel mills that would provide the steel for the hull and various sub contractors would hire thousands. Do you know what that means?
It means they would receive paychecks and go out and spend that money. That would help a recovery. That is a shovel ready project!
Increasing spending for the military does a couple of things. It not only not only stimulates the economy, it protects our nation. That is a better investment than say spending money on teaching Chinese prostitutes how to drink responsibly.
By 69-28, voters support raising taxes on people with annual incomes of more than $250,000.I was a little disappointed that more people aren't willing to dismantle the Imperial Forces:
By 62-32 they support eliminating subsidies to oil and gas companies.
By 50-46, they support cutting defense spending.
“I know you’re scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn’t work out. And it didn’t work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can’t promise that we won’t make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again.”I think this is pretty close to what Pres. Obama needed to say but other liberal bloggers have been giving Westen some flak. Jonathan Chait flat-out thinks it's foolish for Westen to concentrate on political rhetoric and that's pretty much the tack Steve Benen took. Given the tremendous damage the Noise Machine has done to our political discourse, I am frankly astounded at their criticisms.
The downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges…
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge.
The new figures indicate that corporate profits accounted for 14 percent of the total national income in 2010, the highest proportion ever recorded. The previous peak, of 13.6 percent, was set in 1942 when the need for war materials filled the order books of companies at the same time as the government imposed wage and price controls, holding down the costs companies had to pay.
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