Election 2016

[stip]

That's one of the cardinal differences between these sorts of centrist democrats and the democratic populist socialism that built the welfare state. The later understood that in the United States you cannot have discussions about growth without also having conversations about distribution, and that in the US distribution is more important than growth, as we have long ago conquered the problem of scarcity (how do we make enough to provide everyone with a decent standard of living).

Not the thread for this discussion, but this is simply not true.

I beg to disagree, obviously.

[b_i_revisited]

It is interesting to watch the Democratic establishment turn against Sanders, now that he is seen as a semi-credible threat.

They turned on him the moment he really started to pick up momentum. They are terrified of him because he exposes them for what they've been for so many years: the party that tries to fight for social and environmental issues but cozies up corporate leaders to maintain their tenuous grip on power.

I think it's fascinating to watch them twist themselves into knots arguing that less change is somehow better.

It's tragic. There is obviously demand in the party for those ideas, they should embrace them.

[Norah]

It is interesting to watch the Democratic establishment turn against Sanders, now that he is seen as a semi-credible threat.

They turned on him the moment he really started to pick up momentum. They are terrified of him because he exposes them for what they've been for so many years: the party that tries to fight for social and environmental issues but cozies up corporate leaders to maintain their tenuous grip on power.

I think it's fascinating to watch them twist themselves into knots arguing that less change is somehow better.

It's tragic. There is obviously demand in the party for those ideas, they should embrace them.

But the Clinton/Carter model makes them more money.

[Mine]

That has historically been the case, and I suppose it is truer than not. She won't offer any serious challenge to the overall structure, and she does represent the left side of a right wing paradigm, as opposed to a truly different alternative. But that's not to say active social movements can't pressure her in that direction.

That's close to my impression of her. Hillary formed her political persona when being anything more left than the left side of the right wing paradigm rendered you practically unelectable and she can't really shake it off now that it may not be working any more.

[4/5]

The left in the 1930’s understood rising inequality as the core cause of the Great Depression. Because wealth was concentrating in the hands of the top 1%, the amount of investment steadily increased while the amount of consumption stagnated.

I still don't like this quote from the article. I don't think that there is consensus that this was a cause of the depression (or that there is consensus that any single thing is THE cause), rather I think what he describes is largely a result of the debt deflation that resulted from the great depression. In part because of how poorly The Fed responded to the downturn (not foreordained to become the great depression IMO), in part because of massive bank failures, in part because of a sharp decrease in credit, in part because of poor legislative actions (Smoot-Hawley), coupled with rising unemployment placed extreme downward pressure on prices and wages, or deflation. As the value of the currency rose and there was a tremendous increase in inventories caused by the huge drop off in consumption the cycle became worse as both consumption and investment became less attractive. Additionally, as the deflation of the dollar got worse borrowers were further crushed as the burden of their debt rose even as their income fell. Oh, and millions of Americans lost their savings, further wiping out demand. It was a cruel, cruel cycle, and I won't argue that his point is incorrect or that anything I said refutes it, but I think to attempt to boil down the great depression to "rising inequality as the core cause" is just not something you would find a lot of support for. It can be in there as part of the issue perhaps, but this was a perfect storm of events in many ways.

Actually, that's part of my issue with his point about the oil crisis and aftermath. He ignores any of the domestic causes for the inflation (perpetually trying to trade off inflation for lower unemployment--I'm looking at you 1971 Nixon) or the fact that economists have proven both theoretically and empirically that the government cannot trade inflation for lower unemployment in the long run. He also leaves out the result of a decade of guns and butter government spending during the sixties on the international value of the currency and its tenuous link to gold. During the 70's inflation was spiking and Carter waffled on what to do, mixing both contractionary and expansionary policies until Paul Volker and The Fed decided for him that they were going to restore the value of the dollar, greatly reducing the inflation rate and we've had very low inflation for basically 30 years now. One of the consequences of low inflation/deflation is that it benefits lenders, whereas higher inflation benefits those in debt as they are able to pay back what they owe with cheaper dollars. It's no coincidence that the wealth gap would narrow during the inflationary Sixties and Seventies at least in part due to this. Again, that's just one factor and I agree that there have been a number of legislative changes since Reagan that have caused it grow ever more, but I find his argument a bit reductionist.

I just reread his section on the Seventies after writing this and I didn't really address what he was getting at, but I think these are important things he left out to make his story nice and neat. He did offer a link to a more in depth discussion of the decade, so maybe he addresses these things there. Ultimately, I'd say that there are real costs to redistribution of wealth programs, and that some of them really may not have been indefinitely sustainable as he implies they would have been. But I do agree with him that the right did successfully and dramatically take over the message on all things economic and Democrats have largely fallen in line while nominally protesting.

[Simple Torture]

Unsurprisingly, both races have been called, for Sanders and Trump. Early returns make it look like Kasich is going very well.

[nyquillyn]

I'll be shocked if Sanders doesn't win by 20+ percent tonight. CNN and other places are already overplaying his victory, but I'd guess his campaign will actually be pretty disappointed.

[Simple Torture]

I really just want to see if Vermin Supreme laps Martin O'Malley.

[The Argonaut]

If Rubio sticks in fifth and stays below 10%, this opens this whole thing back up. In terms of winnowing the field, this is the worst possibility. Christie/Fiorina may be the only casualties of tonight. All that means is that it will take a little longer for three from the 'establishment lane' to get kicked out, allowing Trump to win more primaries.
The sad thing about the Dems is that even if Sanders pulls a miracle and is able to win states and stay close to tied with Clinton for delegates, won't the super-delegates hand it to Clinton? I would imagine that most of the people that the Party make super-delegates are behind Clinton, no?

[96583UP]

OMFG Bloomberg just won the general election

[96583UP]

do it cillizapella:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... hire-loss/

damn agenda-setting media

[nyquillyn]

This just confirms that Iowa doesn't mean shit for the GOP and N.H. doesn't mean shit for the Dems.

[Simple Torture]

If Rubio sticks in fifth and stays below 10%, this opens this whole thing back up. In terms of winnowing the field, this is the worst possibility. Christie/Fiorina may be the only casualties of tonight. All that means is that it will take a little longer for three from the 'establishment lane' to get kicked out, allowing Trump to win more primaries.
The sad thing about the Dems is that even if Sanders pulls a miracle and is able to win states and stay close to tied with Clinton for delegates, won't the super-delegates hand it to Clinton? I would imagine that most of the people that the Party make super-delegates are behind Clinton, no?

Christie sticks around, I think, because he was basically tied with Kasich until a week ago in the polls, so his camp could probably envision a similar bump.

[Green Habit]

[Simple Torture]

Only one reason why people wouldn't support it: fireworks.

[nyquillyn]

The sad thing about the Dems is that even if Sanders pulls a miracle and is able to win states and stay close to tied with Clinton for delegates, won't the super-delegates hand it to Clinton? I would imagine that most of the people that the Party make super-delegates are behind Clinton, no?

Hilldog already has a ~280 delegate lead. Realistically, there's a pretty good chance she'll have this thing wrapped up in about a month.

[stip]

Slightly off topic - I was chatting with a colleague about who trump might pick for a running mate. He suggested bill Oriley, which is terrifyingly clever

[Simple Torture]

It's gotta be a woman or a person of color, right? You might almost say it should be some policy wonk or brainy guy, but Romney tried that with Paul Ryan, and he was boring as funk.

[Simple Torture]

Trump in victory speech (paraphrasing): "People in France got killed by terrorists because they're pussies!"

[Jorge]

(paraphrasing)

Thanks for clarifying, ST