Things to Read at Brunchtime on January 12, 2014
Must-Reads:
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Paul Krugman: A Hammock In Kentucky?: “National Review has an actually interesting report by Kevin Williamson on the state of Appalachia… [the] moral: the big problem, it argues, is the way government aid creates dependency. It’s the Paul Ryan notion of the safety net as a ‘hammock’…. But do the facts about Appalachia actually support this view? No, they don’t. Indeed, even the facts presented in the article don’t….
“Williamson dismisses suggestions that economic factors might be driving social collapse: ‘If you go looking for the catastrophe that laid this area low, you’ll eventually discover a terrifying story: Nothing happened.’ But he almost immediately contradicts himself, noting that employment in eastern Kentucky has fallen with the decline of coal and what little manufacturing the area once had…. The underlying story of Appalachia is in fact one of declining opportunity…. Is it any surprise that people have turned to food stamps? And what would they do if they didn’t have food stamps? Williamson is too good a reporter to argue that people could find jobs in eastern Kentucky if only they really wanted to work.
“Instead, he implicitly argues that the ‘dole’ fosters dependency by allowing people to stay in their home counties rather than going someplace else. Maybe–but as he also notes, many people are leaving…. My take on Williamson’s report (like my take on Charles Murray’s recent book) is that it basically says that William Julius Wilson was right. Wilson famously argued that the social troubles of urban blacks emerged, not because there was something inherently wrong with their culture, but because job opportunities in inner cities dried up. Sure enough, when the God-fearing (and definitely white) people of Appalachia face a loss of employment opportunity, their region turns into what Williamson calls the Great White Ghetto.
“And this in turn says that the problem isn’t that we’re becoming a nation of takers; it’s the fact that we’re becoming a nation that doesn’t offer enough economic opportunity to the bottom half, or maybe even the bottom 80 percent, of its citizens.”
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Jared Bernstein: Bob (Rubin), Paul K, Brad DL, and the Changing Budget Outlook: “Rubin’s piece had some redeeming qualities–he calls for a jobs stimulus and getting rid of the sequester–… [but] it’s a) very strange, and b) suggestive that his friends are telling him what they think he wants to hear. Re ‘a,’ the damn deficit has come down from 10% of GDP in 2009 to 4% in 2013, the largest four-year drop since 1950–that’s even before I was born! And what business person thinks this way?: “Hmmm…let me see. There’s a lot of demand for the thing I produce, and I can still borrow very cheaply. But despite the sharp decline in the budget deficit, CBO says that by 2040, the debt-to-GDP ratio will be really high. So… better not expand.” If there is someone out there doing that calculus, then with respect, they probably should go out of business.“But here’s the part of Bob’s piece that stuck me as misguided: ‘Recent reductions in deficit projections do not change the basic structural picture – except that healthcare cost increases are slowing – and are partly based on sequestration, a terrible policy that already looks too onerous to stick.’ According to our own long-term forecasts here at CBPP and to CBO’s recent estimates of the impact of the health cost slowdown on the budget, the structural picture has in fact changed significantly….
“It’s essential to update one’s fiscal outlook to account for both recent and future improvements in that outlook. I see no reason to be impenetrable to that evidence…. Anyone who’s basing their fiscal analysis on such data needs to account for these facts. Anyone who’s basing their hiring or investment plans on them is kinda crazy.”
Should-Reads:
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Floyd Norris: Government Stimulus Lifts Japan: “Nearly a quarter-century after the Japanese stock market bubble burst at the end of 1989, the stock market leapt by more than 50 percent in 2013, as the era of deflation appeared to be finally ending. Final figures are not in, but it appears the economy grew faster in 2013 than in any year since 1996.”
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Rich Yeselson: David Brooks’ Conservatism of Skeptical Reform Is a Daydream: “David Brooks has put down the joint he’s been toking in his boutique hotel room. His Friday column extols what he calls the ‘conservatism of skeptical reform’…. There is a ‘vacuum’ of policy now, he surmises, so the wonks ‘won’t have to argue with or defeat the more populist factions on the right’ (think Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or the back bench choir of, say, Steve King and Louis Gohmert) and should ignore ‘the gripes and obsessions of the Republican donor class’. The new thinking will just ‘fill the vacuum’ and GOP pols will see ‘there is no other game in town’. Isn’t it pretty to think so? But the chasm between the wonks and the Republican Party itself is the most important issue in American political culture today. There may be a ‘vacuum’ of policy, but there is not a vacuum of passionate tribal affinity in today’s GOP…”
And
Parker Higgins: Remembering Aaron Swartz | Travis Waldron: Poverty Rate Would Be Nearly Twice As High Without Government Programs | New York Times: No Jobs, No Benefits, and Lousy Pay | Eli Lehrer and Lori Sanders: Moving to Work | Ryan Avent: Free exchange: All men are created unequal | Robin Harding: Inheritance should not be an alternative to hard work | Matthew O’Brien: Does the U.S. Economy Need Bubbles to Live? |
Should Be Aware of:
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Ben Jacobs: In Harvard Law Review, Ted Cruz Blows Dog Whistle for Conspiracy Nuts: “Cruz argues in favor of overturning a 100-year-old Supreme Court case… Missouri v. Holland… about whether a treaty that required the federal government to enact laws regulating migratory birds was constitutional. The court, in a 7-2 decision, said it was… the treaty power is broader than the Congress’s normal lawmaking power…. The difficulty for most Republican presidential hopefuls in 2016 is to find ways to appeal to this vocal minority of primary voters without alienating everyone else. The central point of the Texas senator’s argument: ‘The president cannot make a treaty that displaces the sovereign powers reserved to the states.’…
“Cruz warns [that] ‘if Justice Holmes was correct, then the president and Senate could agree with a foreign nation to undo the checks and balances created by the people who founded our nation’. This phraseology serves as red meat to those on the right concerned about the United Nations, especially those who believe that Agenda 21, a non-binding plan for sustainable development, is a Trojan horse for instituting world government. Voters with these concerns make up a surprisingly substantial portion of Republican primary voters, but are relatively hard for mainstream politicians to pander to without coming across as wacky. Cruz is using language and arguments that appeal to these voters…”
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Nicole Winfield: Vatican Tells Poles It Won’t Extradite Archbishop Accused of Pedophilia “Polish Archbishop Josef Wesolowski is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be investigated for alleged sex abuse, and his case has raised questions about whether the Vatican, by removing him from Dominican jurisdiction, was protecting him and placing its own investigations ahead of that of authorities in the Caribbean nation. The Holy See recalled Wesolowski on Aug. 21 and relieved him of his job after the archbishop of Santo Domingo, Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez, told Pope Francis in July about rumors that Wesolowski had sexually abused teenage boys in the Dominican Republic. Dominican authorities subsequently opened an investigation, but haven’t charged him. Poland, too, has opened an investigation into Wesolowski and a friend and fellow Polish priest.”
And:
- Jill Filipovic: Let’s Be Real: Online Harassment Isn’t ‘Virtual’ For Women
- Alan Auerbach: Taxation and Saving: A Retrospective
- Arloc Sherman, Sharon Parrott, and Danilo Trisi: Chart Book: The War on Poverty at 50
Sy Mukherjee: Doctors Slam Proposed Food Stamp Cuts: ‘The Dumbest Thing You Can Do Is Cut Nutrition’ | Nick Kolakowski: White House Dismissing Key Healthcare.gov Contractor |