Monday, October 24, 2016

Romney and Exploitiation

Reading the transcript of Romney's infamous "47%" speech, I find this:
Oh, I just, we didn't talk about immigration today. Gosh, I'd love to bring in more legal immigrants that have skill and [unintelligible]. I'd like to staple a green card to every Ph.D. in the world and say, "Come to America, we want you here." 
Think about that. Romney would like countries poorer than ourselves to educate some of their citizens to Ph.D. level, and then have those people abandon their home countries to bring their expensively provided skills to the US, so those poorer countries gain nothing from their investment in educating those people, and the wealthy US would become the beneficiary of that investment.

We know the Romney business model: enrich his investors by leaving empty shells of companies behind, with workers losing their jobs, and often their pension funds.  This desire to exploit the investment in education made by other countries shares the same moral emptiness.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Well, duh!

Brad DeLong quotes from an article by Jason Furman in the Financial Times:
But the post-crisis experience, as well as research on the effects of fiscal policy, is establishing a “new view” grounded in five principles:
  1. At a time when conventional monetary policy faces limitations in a world of lower interest rates, fiscal policy can be a particularly effective complement....
  2. In today’s conditions fiscal policy may... “crowd in” private investment through stronger growth....
  3. [In] advanced economies... under today’s economic conditions effectively crafted investments could raise output by more than they raise debt--reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio....
  4. Prolonged lower interest rates and economies operating below potential suggest that fiscal expansion should be more sustained....
  5. Fiscal policy is even more beneficial if co-ordinated more across countries...
To which my reaction (as a lay reader, not an economist) is: Well, duh!  Wasn't all that obvious (except maybe for  #5) seven years ago?

Friday, October 14, 2016

Potty Humor

Ah, the Engish, they love it so!

Monday, October 10, 2016

The Moscovian Candidate?

From Kurt Eichenwald:

"The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin?

The Russians have been obtaining American emails and now are presenting complete misrepresentations of them—falsifying them—in hopes of setting off a cascade of events that might change the outcome of the presidential election. The big question, of course, is why are the Russians working so hard to damage Clinton and, in the process, aid Donald Trump?"

Why, indeed!!

Sunday, October 9, 2016

More on GOP Sabotage

Jonatan Chait's interview with President Obama sheds more light on the Republicans' deliberate strategy of sabotage.

"When I came into office, my working assumption was that because we were in crisis, and the crisis had begun on the Republicans’ watch, that there would be a window in which they would feel obliged to cooperate on a common effort to dig us out of this massive hole.
Probably the moment in which I realized that the Republican leadership intended to take a different tack was actually as we were shaping the stimulus bill, and I vividly remember having prepared a basic proposal that had a variety of components. We had tax cuts; we had funding for the states so that teachers wouldn’t be laid off and firefighters and so forth; we had an infrastructure component. We felt, I think, that as an opening proposal, it was ambitious but needed and that we would begin negotiations with the Republicans and they would show us things that they thought also needed to happen.
On the drive up to Capitol Hill to meet with the House Republican Caucus, John Boehner released a press statement saying that they were opposed to the stimulus. At that point we didn’t even actually have a stimulus bill drawn up, and we hadn’t meant to talk about it. And I think we realized at that point what proved to be the case in that first year and that second year was a calculation based on what turned out to be pretty smart politics but really bad for the country: If they cooperated with me, then that would validate our efforts. If they were able to maintain uniform opposition to whatever I proposed, that would send a signal to the public of gridlock, dysfunction, and that would help them win seats in the midterms."
Smart politics, bad for the country.  Pretty much sums up today's GOP, until nominating Trump caught up with them.