Comment from Alleen
Time June 13, 2009 at 3:44 am PDT

I was going to make the argument that right-wingers have a natural affinity for hatefulness, blaming and demonization of their critics. But the the tone of your column demonstrated the point better than I could.

Krugman is correct in his analysis. Too bad it puts such a twist in your BVDs.

Comment from Michael Merritt
Time June 13, 2009 at 4:53 am PDT

Alleen: While I agree that some conservatives are like this, from my experience over the past 10 months or so, the left seems to have it more, by far.

I might write an article on it soon analyzing some of the reasons. In short, I believe it has to do with their inherent activist nature.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 13, 2009 at 5:07 am PDT

I was going to make a comment about how left-wingers have a natural affinity for hatefulness, blaming and demonization of their critics. But the tone of Alleen’s comment demonstrated the point better than I could. Hayek is correct in his analysis. Alleen, too bad it puts the lie to leftist misinformation.

Seriously, no matter how many times we say it, it always bears repeating: so much about today’s left can be understood in terms of psychological projection. Jason does a great job of analyzing Krugman’s particular brand of projection.

Hey, “progressive” leftists, most of us conservatives, classical liberals, libertarians, and centrist “new” liberals don’t really hate you. We just need to unravel your insidious Cultural Marxism and statist ideologies from our institutions, media, government, educational system, etc. so that it does not destroy all of our children’s futures (including your’s silly). Then, you can all go back to being the spiteful little children that you are.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 13, 2009 at 5:24 am PDT

And, as many have pointed out, this wackjob Brunn was a vehemently anti-Israel, anti-Iraq War, 9/11 Truther who hated jews, GW Bush and McCain and was also targeting the “neo-con” Weekly Standard. Hmm, sounds like just the kind of hate that I’ve seen posted more times than I can count on leftist blogs.

National Socialism and/or neo-Nazism are diametrically opposed to classical liberalism.

Not surprisingly, in the last 10+ years, the hard left has been attracting a lot of neo-Nazis to its rallies, websites, “Truth Outs,” and so forth. The hard left has always worked so hard to reassign Nazism to the right side of the spectrum, but history speaks for itself.

Comment from Michael Merritt
Time June 13, 2009 at 6:39 am PDT

Buckeye: That says little about where on the political spectrum this guy actually is. For example, some of the most prominent 9/11 truthers I’ve seen, and almost all of those who’ve come to this site, have been far-right. Otherwise, they are very conservative in their views. Some tend libertarian, and a lot of that crowd is anti-Iraq War, though mostly on economic and next-to isolationist reasons rather than because they’re hippies. A lot of these people could be called traditionalists and are staunch 2nd amendment defenders.

However, Jason has made a good point in a previous post that, if you look at the left-right, usually defined as flat political spectrum, that some of these folks tend so far right that the spectrum begins to become circular, and eventually connects to the far-left. So while other policies may end up differing, both far-right people and far-left people that reach the area around that connection begin sounding the same in their conspiracy theories and bigotry.

Comment from Kastanj
Time June 13, 2009 at 10:58 am PDT

“Hey, “progressive” leftists, most of us conservatives, classical liberals, libertarians, and centrist “new” liberals don’t really hate you. We just need to unravel your insidious Cultural Marxism and statist ideologies from our institutions, media, government, educational system, etc. so that it does not destroy all of our children’s futures (including your’s silly). Then, you can all go back to being the spiteful little children that you are.”

Talk about contradicting yourself.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 13, 2009 at 2:40 pm PDT

Kastanj: we hate the idiocy, not the idiots. Kidding aside, I honestly feel no spite toward you as an individual, even though I think that you are the most misguided commenter on this blog. When the threats from Cultural Marxism and statism start to become more obvious to more people, we will need a certain percentage of folks like you, who now tend to absorb and reguritate leftist ideology, to see the threats and help turn back the tide.

I was once a moderate Democrat who accepted many aspects of the “progressive” agenda. I understand, first hand, that many of progressive ideas are compelling. Most of my baby boomer relatives, including my dad and my favorite uncle are staunch “progressive” leftists. How could I ever hate them? I love them. But I hold back no rhetorical punches when we discuss ideological matters. I try to explain to them in no uncertain terms how dangerous I think many of their ideas are.

Of course, their attitudes have shifted considerably in the last 10-15 years, and I do not attribute much of their transformations to their own independent thought. I mean, all they believe what they read in newsweek and from the NYT, see on CBS news, and hear from progressive pols and their peers. I admit that Americans have been trending left for quite awhile now. In particular, the intellectual, moral culture has trended left under the surface even when the political situation appeared to be trending right. I am optimist. If I hated all of the individual leftists out there, I would be as bitter as Letterman, and I am just the opposite.

But I do despise what “progressive” leftism is doing to the West. You should, too. Even if you never do, though, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the issues with you.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 13, 2009 at 3:39 pm PDT

Michael: you make several excellent points. A healthy percentage of 9/11 Truthers (although I do not agree that it’s a majority) could be described as fringe paeloconservatives (e.g, hard core Buchananites), John Bircher types, or extreme libertarians. Likewise, these elements could be placed on the right side of the political spectrum, because to have an all inclusive model, you have to place them somewhere.

However, members of these “movements” often have more in common with anti-”capitalist” (which progressives confuse or conflate with corporatism), anti-globalization, anti-Isreal leftists. Some of these groups could be called “reactionary.” But there are reactionaries on both sides of the political spectrum. Also, let’s not forget that term was invented by French “reign of terror” socialists to cast their political opponents as they wanted them casted; likewise,the term was frequently used by 20th century communists to reject factions within its own movement. Thus, they called Social Democrats and facists “reactionaries” even though these same elements supported many parts of the socialist agenda. Besides, at a certain point, extreme libertarians and/or rejectionists become anarchists, which has always been assigned as a leftist ideology.

As you and Jason note, though, any two dimensiona political model, that can be “mapped” on paper, is never going to be able to capture the complexity of reality. The linear model is most simplistic. But, even though I agree with the observation, shared by you and Jason, that fringe leftists and fringe rightists tend to converge (two ends of an almost complete circle), this model also has major limitations, too. Really, any model will always have major limitations. Hayek would recognize that human complexities are way too complex to “map out.”

In final analysis, fringe groups tend to manifest a mixed bag of hard “leftist” and hard “rightist” ideas, in different combinations even among members of the same groups. Perhaps the right v. left terms are mostly useful as an artificial means of dividing different elements into two roughly opposing camps. But these divisions themeselves are often in flux, with different groups making new coalitions on either “side” of the spectrum.

When the other “side,” however, tries to associate neo-Nazis with classical liberals, conservatives, and non-anarchistic libertarians, using the traditional political spectrum as a weapon (and which has a lot of currency), then we have no other choice but to use their use weapons against them in an effort to expose their real agendas.

Comment from Garland
Time June 13, 2009 at 4:25 pm PDT

“When the threats from Cultural Marxism and statism start to become more obvious to more people, we will need a certain percentage of folks like you, who now tend to absorb and reguritate leftist ideology, to see the threats and help turn back the tide.”

How reasonable and open of you. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll have to “reguritate” my lunch after reading that post of yours.

Comment from Mary
Time June 13, 2009 at 9:48 pm PDT

“Where were their complaints against demonization and the atmosphere of hatred when the far left was comparing Bush and Cheney to “Hitler” and was fantasizing about coups and assassinations? Where was Krugman’s oh-so-thoughtful critique of extremist rhetoric and violence during mass anti-war and anti-globalization protests dominated by the left wing all over the world? ”

I have to take exception to that comment, and I’d like to see some backup for this statement. I’ve been following political blogs for the last couple of years, and while I certainly can’t read them all, I certainly did not see any ‘far left’ posts about assassinating Bush. On the contrary, it’s always been my personal belief that probably no one in the entire world wanted to see anything happen to Bush, because then we’d have had Cheney for president.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 13, 2009 at 11:11 pm PDT

Garland, methinks you doth protest too much. That’s right, I am far more reasonable than you are, so maybe that would make you feel insecure and sick about yourself. In another thread a few weeks ago, you wrote about the AGW debate, “Considering this is a strictly scientific issue I think political or ideological viewpoints are completely unworthy of even being heard.” In other words, you were suggesting that we will need to have a coercive state run only by scientists who support the alarmist AGW position and who centrally plan the economy to combat the “threat” from AGW. Otherwise, how else would you ever be able separate out the scientific implications of AGW from the political? My point is that you should not have been offended by my post unless you, yourself are a Cultural Marxist and statist and you seem to be indicating that you are just those things. If so, debate me on philosphical and ideological grounds instead of telling us about your emotional state.

Comment from Kastanj
Time June 14, 2009 at 2:44 am PDT

” In other words, you were suggesting that we will need to have a coercive state run only by scientists who support the alarmist AGW position and who centrally plan the economy to combat the “threat” from AGW.”

I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort. More fantasizing about left-wingers coming to impose environmental fascism on you and yours. Basically as refined as screaming “Bushitler”.

When I said “not worthy of being heard”, I was only trying to convey the idea that the only statements, positions, recommendations, solutions, discussions and policies regarding the growth/pollution/AGW dilemma are those that can show the most scientific rigor and appropriateness. Why the heck should we listen to anyone except those who have actually done some work? I certainly don’t think you and I would be an asset to society by only using our own personal perspective when talking about the issue and possible solutions. We just have to defer to the people who have made criticism and scrutiny integral to their work – scientists. Not a bunch of bloviators who toss around jokes about Al Gore, say that AGW is a fluke because it’s chilly outside or call scientists alarmists simply for coming to the wrong scientific conclusions. Of course these people can be heard – they just haven’t deserved to be considered by any of the people who have to come up with environmental solutions. Because they refuse to do scientific work and only see everything from a warped political POW.

If you believe it is possible for someone who can show their work as being scientifically strong to be an “alarmist” then you are basically saying that if the facts support approaches or statements you don’t like then the scientists are by default wrong. The AGW position isn’t alarmist – it’s with a great certainty real. The real alarmists are the sad people who want to pretend they are under attack by a big hammer-and-sickle-wielding hippie fascist who want to destroy progress and growth. Nine out of ten of the scientists most active in doing research in the field believe AGW is an absolute fact, and if you think that’s alarmist you can take it up with them and promptly get nowhere in trying to smear their work with your lazy attacks. They can only repeat what they have found in their work, and their work is by default sieved through skepticism. If the science (triple-checked, peer-reviewed, you name it) says that we will all die in 10 years unless we cut pollution by 95%, then the scientist who report on the findings isn’t being “alarmist”, he’s just reporting the results of his work.

Now, if you believe that all scientists who have done the work, and have to agree that AGW is real, somehow all want to impose “statist” solutions then you are wrong again. There is a wide range of solutions recommended and discussed, many of them taking economical concerns into account. James Lovelock, a respected scientist who paints the bleakest picture of the climate’s future, is a huge supporter of nuclear energy.

“Otherwise, how else would you ever be able separate out the scientific implications of AGW from the political?”

We should meet the goals suggested by scientific investigations about AGW with a minimum loss of growth, but we must try to approach the goals because we do not have the right to economic growth unless we can keep our pollution from affecting already impoverished and harrowed humans who haven’t polluted a fraction of our total. There are no other political implications. I don’t give a flip about some fern trees or some rivers you can’t drink out of here in the rich countries. I just don’t want to have third-world citizens suffering just because we think we live in a closed universe. There is no perfect solution that will decrease pollution without decreasing growth – and we don’t deserve the privilege of stalling until we are close to that perfect solution, simply because it is not we who will suffer when the climate starts to shift. I don’t care about the Earth – because the Earth will kill us off long before we get close to threatening it with rampant pollution – but I won’t have people in Africa facing an even drier climate or see people in Bangladesh having no drinkable water. I never considered defending the environment that important until I learned who would be hurt the most by AGW. I don’t consider environmentalism to be a left vs right issue to begin with. It’s about science and economics.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bangladesh-is-set-to-disappear-under-the-waves-by-the-end-of-the-century–a-special-report-by-johann-hari-850938.html

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 14, 2009 at 5:50 am PDT

First, I’m a little confused: Am I responding to Garland or Kastanj? Or are those two identities the same person? If so, why do use different identities?

Anyway, I do not accept your premise that 9 out of 10 scientists with direct or related expertise in the field(s) of climate science accept the AGW almarmist position. There is a lot of diversity on the issue, on both sides. Not all AGW believers are alarmists. For example, some think that warming will be gradual, and then a portion of those scientists think that the warming will be mostly beneficial. There are lots of different types of “skeptics,” too, as well as many competing theories to be tested.

We still know very little about climate science. Can you think of any historical parallel by which a society decided to intentionally curtail its own economic development based on an alleged consensus in favor of a highly contentious theory?

Science has nothing to do with consensus, anway – in fact, consensus is a POLITICAL term. In America, elected representatives, on behalf of the people, make legislative policy. It sounded to me like you were suggesting that only scientists are qualified to weigh in on what AGW related policy should be. My point was that, if you accept the position that AGW will necessarily lead to profound negative consequences unless CO2 levels decline by very significant levels, then AGW POLICY is almost surely going to involve types of central economic planning – cap & trade is a prime example. Also, when societies have put scietists in charge of unaccountable government agencies, allowing them to make technocratic policies not bound by public consensus, they have been totalitarian states.

Naturally, the development of AGW mitigating technologies does not necessarily require the enactment of laws, restrictions, etc. But AGW activists are not content with waiting for new technologies to “fix the problem.” They always demand the immediate imposition of new regulatory and rent-seeking “incentive” policies, which necessarily involve central command-and-control industrial planning. Well, that is socialism whether you want to call it by its real name or not.

Most folks I know who argue that AGW is a major crisis in the making embrace the notion of deep ecology. Deep ecology is sort of a religion but it also tends to be a form of eco-socialism as well: it emphasizes moral equivelance (humans not above animals), anti-capitalism, collectivism. Its adherants dream of a Utopian future in which humans transcend their wasteful post-industrial economic systems to create a new green era. I gather that you do not ascribe to this particular brand of environmentalism? Well, if so, then maybe you’ll understand why freedom loving people would be anxious when deep ecologists begin to dominate American environmental and economic policy debates.

You seem to be concerned about people in Africa? Speaking of the deep ecology folks: how about all the Africans who died from malaria and other infectious diseases after DDT was banned in response to the scientific “consensus” that DDT was harmful to birds and people, which was mostly junk science that became POLICY.

Garland/Kastanj: can we at least insist that our elected officials not enact potentially economic ruinous policies like cap & trade until there has been thorough public analyses and discussions of all the related environmental, economic, and political issues from every side, including rigorous cost-benefit analyses? If you say no, that that might only contribute to further misinforming the public, blah, blah, and could jeopardize needed actions, then I will keep my original doubts about your true intentions.

Comment from Mary
Time June 14, 2009 at 2:35 pm PDT

It surely would have been nice if our elected officials not enacted economic ruinous policies; unfortunately they did exactly that time after time. Denying that doesn’t make it any less true. Blindly following Friedmanite economics put us in this hole we’re in, and I don’t see the current congress doing anything to keep it all from happening again. We need regulations, like them or not. We also need oversight and the application of what few regulations remain. Name calling doesn’t make that any less true either.

As for global warming, we can’t simply ignore the problem. It’s not as if this is just one or two crack-pot scientists crying ‘the sky is falling,’ and I’d far rather listen to scientists than politicians. I can’t imagine why anyone would feel differently.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 14, 2009 at 4:03 pm PDT

Mary, we have been and continue to be very, very far from following Friedmanite economics. The Reagan revolution helped to put a small speed bump in the way of government expansion and intervention in the economy, but much of those gains are now being obliterated.

First, we actually live in a hyper-regulatory state. Unfortunately, the regulations are often selectively applied, in part because of so-called crony capitalism (more like crony corporatism) – which the “progressives” used to scream about but now defend at all costs since Obama is in charge of the spoils.

When you layer regulation on top of regulation, bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy, it becomes more difficult to unravel all the contradictions and complexeties. No problem, we’ll just pass even more laws and keep expanding government to “clean up” the government-created problems. Yes, we need regulations. But government should be a referee, not an active player in the game. Do you really think that a government with likes of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Rahm Emanuel have been taking a “hands off” approach? Or, if you prefer, how about a government of Cheney and The Hammer?

Under Obama’s “stimulus,” massive TARP spending (which the Republicans also take a large share of the blame), and other recent expansionary moves, government employment as a share of total employment is threatening to climb back over its pervious late 1970s high of around 18 percent. Lately, the only new jobs created have semed to be government jobs. This does not even take into consideration that an increasing amount of employment referred to as private sector relies very heavily on taxpayer inputs – non-profits, farm, medical (Medicare), education, etc. Our economic system is more corporatist than capitalist. Social welfare + industry subsidies + corporate welfare. There is a far too cozy relationship between government and business, which is far removed from Friedmanite, but it does encouarge abuses of power, corruption, decline in personal responsibility, breakdown in the family unit, etc.

Yes, we also need oversight, lots more oversight given the relationship between government and the economy. Unfortunately, government expansion by its nature leads to either less or corrupted “oversight,” not the other way around. How is that Obama transperancy working for you? If it makes you feel any better, progressives have always talked a big game about oversight while having an even worse record than 19th century machine politicians. Ever heard of Robert Moses? He was an engineer, one of those experts to be trusted, instead of being a politician. The Nazis pretended to be “progressives.” They rose to power in part because they were supported by the great majority of non-Jewish engineers, scientists, and other technical experts who who rejected what they viewed as a chaotic and arbitrary parliamentary system (which, at that time in Germany, was democratic socialism).

The surest way to vastly improve oversight is to roll back the corrupt statism we’ve all helped to build over the decades (I’m not pointing fingers, we’ve all benefited from statism; it’s just that we didn’t realize we’d be doing even much better off without it). The people must insist that government limit itself to its constitutional responsibilities, which will seriously cut into the cronyism, corruption, corporate welfare, regulatory neglect and favoritism, and so forth.

Public efforts to demand transperancy and oversight are complicated when the government rushes through “emergency” 1500 page stimulus bills that few Congressmen even had to time to skim, let alone read. Or, when the Obama administration tries to ram through one new government program or expansion after another in the first few hundred days, using fear tactics against anyone who has the temerity to say, “maybe we should analyze and debate this thoroughly first.” Or, when the administration takes over GM and Chrysler, using billions of taxpayer dollars, with no oversight, in a manner that raises questions about the long-term viability of our rules of law, property rights, and representative government.

Friedmanite, please don’t make me laugh.

Comment from Kastanj
Time June 14, 2009 at 5:18 pm PDT

“The Nazis pretended to be “progressives.””

Yes, which is why the upper-class and well-to-do Germans used to worry about Hitler being a “steak” (“brown on the outside, redder in the middle”).

Comment from Mary
Time June 14, 2009 at 11:11 pm PDT

@Buckeye

You make it difficult to legitmately debate your points, Buckeye, because there are just too many topics to get into in depth. It makes the posts entirely too long, but I will try to hit the high points, AND be brief as possible. I’m sure there will be opportunities to expand.

We could debate the need for regulations, get into the nitty gritty of replacing Glass-Steagall with the Gram-Leach-Bliley Act, or passing the Commodity Futures Modernizations Act which unleashed the derivatives market and contained the infamous Enron loophole, but let’s let that slide for now. The fact is we did not enforce what regulations remained, so it could well be that simply putting more regulations into place is useless until we start enforcing what we already have.

I disagree that we haven’t been following Friedmanite economics. The very act of not enforcing regulations, of waving the free market banner as we’ve done for 30 years, has had the very effect of living under totaslly free market conditions. And that’s worked well for us, hasn’t it? Even Alan Greenspan has said this may have been a mistake.

Let’s talk about the increase in government jobs. It’s true that while the private sector lost 3.65 million jobs in 2008, government jobs increased by nearly 150,000 in the same time period. Now most conservatives will tell you that the government can’t create jobs, only the private sector can, yet even given the hands-off approach government has taken with the private sector, the tax cuts and credits, there’s just not too much job creation going on there. Unless you want to count those jobs created in India, South Africa, etc., but that doesn’t to have helped us here in the US.

And since we’ve decided to do away with our manufacturing base and operate on a service based economy, the government jobs are better than nothing at all. It’s not as if government workers don’t spend money on going out to dinner, haircuts, vacations, etc. That, of course, does create jobs.

TARP money and the various bailouts were mishandled, and I’ve certainly not supported them, but that was a Republican deal. Yes, the Democrats followed along like sheep, as they often do, but laying TARP strictly on Obama doesn’t cut it. I also want to remind you that the bailout for AIG was worked out in Sept, when the bailout plan didn’t even pass until Oct. No one appears to question that, however. Finally, don’t you find it interesting that once capping executive compensation came into the picture, then the various financials discovered they could pay the money back?

Comment from Jason Arvak
Time June 14, 2009 at 11:56 pm PDT

I disagree that we haven’t been following Friedmanite economics. The very act of not enforcing regulations, of waving the free market banner as we’ve done for 30 years, has had the very effect of living under totaslly free market conditions.

This is just factually untrue. Sarbanes-Oxley and the Community Reinvestment Act are only two examples of many of major government interventions into the financial markets in the past 20 years, let alone the last 30.

The fact that some necessary regulations may have gone missing (I might have agreed with that more moderate criticism rather than a bald regurgitation of far-left anti-capitalism ranting points) does not mean that all regulations have gone missing or that the regulations that were enforced were not part of the problem. However convenient it may be for those who advocate socialism to claim that all the current problems are exclusively the result of not enough government intervention to limit the scope of capitalism, it just isn’t true. Government intervention has been just as much problem as solution when it comes to governing the operation of the markets.

Comment from Mary
Time June 15, 2009 at 2:26 am PDT

@Jason Arvak

Ah yes, Sarbanes-Oxley, probably the best of any legislation enacted during the Bush years, and too bad it had to come as a response to the Enron et al mess that cost so many people so very much.

Mike Oxley had his head on straight, and it’s too bad we lost him to the private sector. Had we listened to him in 2005 with his Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, it might have saved us the disaster we live in currently. One of the better quotes was Oxley’s 2007 comment on this: “All the handwringing and bedwetting is going on without remembering how the House stepped up on this,” he says. “What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”

As for CRA, that act has been dinked with so much it’s really pretty irrelevant to anything these days. I do think it interesting that when the mortgage bust came along CRA was blamed with the mess, since it supposedly held a gun to bankers heads and forced them to make bad loans so black welfare moms could own houses while the rest of us had to work for ours. Total nonsense, as anyone who bothered to spend some time Googling the situation knew.

Micahel Barr, law professor and a Treasury official under Clinton’s administration, spoke at a February 2008 House Hearing: According to Barr, “…the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight” He also noted that 50% of the subprime mortgages were made by independant mortgage companies that were not covered by CRA at all, and another 25-30% were made by those financial institutions only partially covered by CRA.

The point to this is that the culprits were not the ones covered by regulation, but those that had free rein in this market. Whether it’s announced Friedmanite, “no government regulation”, economics or merely de facto, the effect is the same.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 15, 2009 at 3:24 am PDT

Mary, it seems like you didn’t actually read my comments, which is your prerogative, but maybe that’s why you had so much difficulty debating my points.

First, I covered only one topic: that our economic policy has been far from Friedmanite. Every point I made was in support of that position. Sorry if the comments ran long.

Second, you wrote, “we could debate the need for regulations.” Why bother? I explicitly noted that we definitely need regulations (government referee, not active player), so it would be pointless for us to argue about that.

Third, you say we could get into the nitty gritty of replacing one regulatory framework with another. Sure, we could, but that challenge does not seem to follow from any of my points. I made a series of mostly big picture theoretical points about our hyper-regulatory state. You bypass the theoretical arguments and instead suggest that we discuss the relative merits of different regulations written in consultation with insider lobbyists/lawyers. The thing is, you made my point for me: the regulations always have “loopholes.” The government then layers yet more regulations on top of the previous ones, which in turn have new loopholes, and so on, ad infinitum. My point was that, if government was not so intimately involved in every aspect of the economy, it would be much better equipped to enforce its regulations. Allow me to use an American football analogy: government needs to get back to its fundamentals, rather than trying to run a bunch of triple reverses that get tackled 17 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Fourth, we enforce more regulations at a local, state, and federal level than you could ever immagine, it’s just that they’re selectively applied based on access, pay to play, cronyism, etc. Power corrupts.

Fifth, I explicitly said that Republicans have large share of blame for TARP, even though it was passed by a Democrat Congress. But I also mentioned several other examples besides TARP, which you ignored.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 15, 2009 at 3:50 am PDT

Mary, I now see why you wanted to steer the argument into the specifics of different regulatory frameworks. You do seem to be pretty sharp in those areas. However, several of your points to Jason were examples of appeals to authority: some alleged expert made a statement that agrees with my view so therefore your view must be correct. Never mind that other experts will disagree with your experts.

Also, your remarks about CRA miss the big picture. Yes, it’s true that by this decade, the majority of these exotic mortgages were no longer being offered to low-income borrowers. But CRA and later ACORN-style activism did help set the ball in motion, contributing to the lowering of traditional lending standards. In turn, opportunists saw an opportunity to take advantage of the new rules and financial instruments, backed implicitly by the full faith and cerdit of the federal government. Again, that’s what happens when government has its fingers in every aspect of the economy. Your antidote is more and more regulations, but as Jason mentioned the remedy is worse than the cure.

Comment from Jay_C
Time June 15, 2009 at 5:16 am PDT

“But CRA and later ACORN-style activism did help set the ball in motion, contributing to the lowering of traditional lending standards. In turn, opportunists saw an opportunity to take advantage of the new rules and financial instruments, backed implicitly by the full faith and cerdit of the federal government. Again, that’s what happens when government has its fingers in every aspect of the economy. Your antidote is more and more regulations, but as Jason mentioned the remedy is worse than the cure.”

That says it all…Lefties, don’t hate the players, hate the game… (oh, but you set up in game in the first place.)

Comment from Alleen
Time June 15, 2009 at 5:27 am PDT

22 comments here and no one has really bothered to make clear what it is that Krugman said that you find so outrageous. You might DISAGREE with him…but you go further and accuse him of projection (WTF?) and fomenting hate?

Gimme some details, fellas.

Comment from Interested
Time June 15, 2009 at 6:51 am PDT

Mary :
@Jason Arvak
Ah yes, Sarbanes-Oxley, probably the best of any legislation enacted during the Bush years, and too bad it had to come as a response to the Enron et al mess that cost so many people so very much.

Sarbanes-Oxley is a disastrous piece of legislation that had the best of intentions. It costs an exorbinate amount of resources to comply.

Note – Enron’s excess’s were during Clinton’s years not Bush’s

TARP money and the various bailouts were mishandled, and I’ve certainly not supported them, but that was a Republican deal. Yes, the Democrats followed along like sheep, as they often do, but laying TARP strictly on Obama doesn’t cut it.

it would not have been possible at all without the Democrat majority in the Legislative branch. And since then you do recall OB promising 100% transparency (another lie).

Micahel Barr, law professor and a Treasury official under Clinton’s administration, spoke at a February 2008 House Hearing: According to Barr, “…the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight” He also noted that 50% of the subprime mortgages were made by independant mortgage companies that were not covered by CRA at all, and another 25-30% were made by those financial institutions only partially covered by CRA.

Someone testifying is testifying to what they believe to be true – at least under penalty of perjury.

Comment from Interested
Time June 15, 2009 at 6:59 am PDT

Buckeye

Garland/Kastanj: can we at least insist that our elected officials not enact potentially economic ruinous policies like cap & trade until there has been thorough public analyses and discussions of all the related environmental, economic, and political issues from every side, including rigorous cost-benefit analyses? If you say no, that that might only contribute to further misinforming the public, blah, blah, and could jeopardize needed actions, then I will keep my original doubts about your true intentions.

Garland has different elected officials entirely than you and I do

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 15, 2009 at 3:13 pm PDT

Alleen: I will take much of the blame for this thread veering off in new directions. To be fair, though, Krugman is a vicious partisan hack. Good natured non-porgressives are loathe to spend any more time than is necessary in the dark depths of Krugman’s little world.

You want details demonstrating Krugman’s hatefulness? To illustrate that, I have rewritten part of his column (below) to demonstrate what Krugmanism looks like coming from the other direction:

“With the murder of a soldier in Arkansas by an anti-neocolonialism fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by an anti-globalization socialist at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis [of threats from violent left-wing extremism] looks prescient.” [You don't believe that Neo-Nazis and domestic National of Islam-style terrorists should be designated as part of the "left-wing" family? Too bad, they share enough similarities with your platform to make the connection obvious, case closed!]

“There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in all of the years of the Bush administration but to an even greater extent, left-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the progressive media and political establishment, and progressive academia.” [hmm, wonder why I had to add the academia part to my rewrite?]

“Now, for the most part, the likes of MSNBC and the D.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Dick Durbin equating the conduct of U.S. military personnel and intelligence agencies with that of Pol Pot and the Nazis. But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they do whenever a Republican holds the White House.”

“And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream progressivism and the International Answer crowd seems to have been virtually erased . . . ”

Alleen: So, what’s outrageous about the above? Don’t get upset, just debate the points in an evenhanded manner.

Comment from Kastanj
Time June 15, 2009 at 5:50 pm PDT

“[hmm, wonder why I had to add the academia part to my rewrite?]”

Because the let wing has a superior presence in academia, and you somehow think this needs to be brought up.

Some right-wingers think that there are only two possible explanations for a heavy left-wing presence in academia: either left-wingers somehow “cheated” to achieve dominance or being dominant in academia is a bad trait anyhow. I hope you are intelligent enough to have a more nuanced POW.

Comment from Jason Arvak
Time June 15, 2009 at 6:27 pm PDT

I can testify from first-hand experience as well as a significant amount of survey research that non-leftists experience significant discrimination in hiring and tenure processes in much of academia. That is likely not the whole story, but it deserves to be talked about rather than suppressed by sneering sarcasm.

Comment from Doomed
Time June 15, 2009 at 6:57 pm PDT

Anytime people are passionate about their point of view or their beliefs then they tend towards extremes.

The difference is that the left is controlling the media and the universities and now they are controlling the debate.

Why?

Because what was once taboo to society and thus put the left on the defensive is now becoming mainsream and hence it has put the RIGHT on the defensive.

Hence the left who were once considered nuts are now starting to have mainstream acceptance and this is pushing the right to the fringe, or the WINGNUT arena where there ideas are considered fringe, extreme or non mainstream.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 15, 2009 at 8:43 pm PDT

Kastanj: I don’t think that the heavy left-wing presence in academia is due to widespread “cheating,” but I do agree with Jason that quite a bit of soft discrimination takes place.

I’ll admit, when someone makes an argument to me that comports with my classically liberal world view, I’m more inclined to miss the blind spots in their argument. Much of what that person says will probably sound reasonable to me, in part because I’ve heard similar arguments made more compellingly by the likes of Adam Smith, Hayek, Mises. Conversely, when a student submits a paper that entertains conservative arguments to a progressive teacher, that student may be less likely to get a fair grade. It’s not that the professor would consciously discriminate against a students, it’s more like a subconcious raising of the bar – which is human nature. Thus, in addition to being exposed mainly to progressive materials and lectures, the student learns to that the progressive path offers lesser resistance.

Think of a faculty meeting in a sociology or American Studies department. All things being equal, which of the following two professors will they recommend to be hired: a scholar with a strong background in conservative ideas, or one whose CV drips with Gramsci?

The other day, an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal by Peter Berkowitz on this topic, “Conservatism and the University Curriculum” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124484718091311321.html. His point was that a well rounded political science program should offer at least one course on the history of conservative thought, if for no other reason than to advance liberal education. Berkowitz rightly rejects the idea of “affirmative action” hiring of conservatives just to balance things out because he acknowledges that progressives do tend gravitate much more toward academia than conservatives. However, if a progressive can teach about the War of the Roses, what’s to stop him from teaching about 20th century conservatism?

Comment from Jason Arvak
Time June 15, 2009 at 8:55 pm PDT

Buckeye, the “scholar with a strong background in conservative ideas” would not exist in your hypothetical situation because it is generally not possible to build such a background in graduate school in the first place. When I inquired in my political theory core seminar as to why the syllabus contained literally dozens of left-leaning works (including multiple readings by Marx and Gramsci) and exactly zero elements from conservative thinkers (unless Plato suddenly counts as a conservative), I was met with stunned silence and a belatedly lame, “well, I guess I might consider a Hayek piece next year”. And even that paltry concession was considered intolerable by the overwhelming majority.

In addition, I have directly seen suspicions of conservatism discussed as a potential reason to reject a candidate for an academic position. Leftist bias is so pervasive and accountability so absent that ideological bigots sometimes don’t even feel the need to hide it beneath neutral-sounding cover stories about scholarship (and because the review process for journal and book publications is so opaque, ideological bias can even be used to CREATE a deficit in scholarly quality).

And if a conservative scholar did somehow manage to make it through the leftist grad school process and the hiring process minefield where s/he could be rejected for any reason — including ideologically arbitrary reasons — without ANY recourse, s/he certainly would not be allowed to create 100% conservative syllabi without being utterly destroyed in the peer teaching review and tenure review processes. The best s/he would be able to achieve would be a relative balance which, when combined with the 100% leftist content that characterizes the rest of academia in the humanities AND the social sciences, would result in effectively the same kind of marginalization and Balkanization of conservatives that characterizes the status quo. There are many tools for reinforcing the liberal ideological bias of academia, and they are used shamelessly.

Whether it is ideologically convenient for Kast to talk about or not (and there is a pretty consistent ideological pattern to the issues he considers unworthy of consideration and/or intolerable for discussion), the fact is that the liberal hegemony in academia is not a result of factors that are either purely accidental or purely meritorious. Whether you want to call them “cheating” or not, the behavior is definitely a betrayal of any genuinely liberal or soundly pedagogical principles.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 15, 2009 at 10:19 pm PDT

Jason, I’ve been hoping that academia isn’t always as hostile to conservative ideas as you describe it to be. I’m applying to PhD programs this fall/winter.

I have seen firsthand a lot of the bias you mentioned, both as an undergrad in the humanities and as a grad student. Because the latter was a professional program designed to prepare students for a field that is overhwelmingly dominated by “progressive” practices itself, however, the ideological matters were treated as if they were already settled in advance. Therefore, I can’t say that I’ve been openly fighting in the trenches yet. Or, you could say that I was in the trenches, wearing the uniform of a progressive. Back when I was grad school, though, I was not a full fledged “spy.” At that point, certain progressive ideas, at least those directly related to my field of study held some sway with me.

Now, I’m debating whether to go forward as a stealth applicant/candidate or be somewhat up front about my interests.

Comment from Rich Horton
Time June 16, 2009 at 6:47 am PDT

Buckeye, it depends a little on what field you are entering, but if it isn’t in a School of Business I would keep Conservative ideas to yourself. Unless you specifically choose one of the few programs that lean Conservative (I’m speaking from a Political Science/Political Philosophy perspective) you are only asking to not finish the program. In my experience, universities have become less open in the almost 20 years since I first entered grad school. Back then you still had a lot of PhD’s who finished in the early 1960’s and late 1950’s and they were far more open then those who got their degrees in the 70’s and 80’s. Now there are too few of the early folks around. These days its all “The System of Dr. Tarr & Professor Fether” (i.e. the nuts are running the asylums.) I know I’m painting with a broad brush here, but the open hostility shown to those who do not subscribe to specific ideological formulations proves that such broad strokes are justified.

My advice is to go stealthy at first. Once you get to know individuals you may be able to be more forthcoming…but dont count on it.

Comment from Doomed
Time June 16, 2009 at 4:20 pm PDT

The liberal left has absolutely idolized Krugman for years now. He was the one who stuck up for their agenda and SAID…if we dont end the war in Iraq these debts are going to destroy our country.

Now that the left is in charge he is screaming about other things to try and make people forget about the adoration they left had for him and his numbers that they used to castigate Bush over DEBT.

Krugman calling the kettle black…..nah…HE IS THE KETTLE.

Comment from Jeb
Time June 16, 2009 at 7:25 pm PDT

Buckeye

Anyway, I do not accept your premise that 9 out of 10 scientists with direct or related expertise in the field(s) of climate science accept the AGW almarmist position.

That would entirely depend on how you define alarmist. If, as you seem to, we define alarmist as those who think that anthropogenic climate change is real and has potentially severe consequences then the polling would indicate that Kast was correct in his statement.
Do you reject the polling in favor of your own opinion?

Science has nothing to do with consensus, anway – in fact, consensus is a POLITICAL term.

It is more of a garden variety English word.
Consensus:
1 a: general agreement : unanimity b: the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned
2: group solidarity in sentiment and belief
There is general agreement in the scientific community and in the climate science community. There is also a judgement arrived at by most of those concerned (scientists and more specifically climate scientists) that anthropogenic climate change is real and is happening now. According to Webster’s that means that there is a consensus. You may not like it and you may think that it is an unfair word to use, but it is accurate.

First, we actually live in a hyper-regulatory state.

What exactly do you mean by a hyper-regulatory state? If we are one, what does that make the rest of the industrialized world?

Yes, we also need oversight, lots more oversight given the relationship between government and the economy.

How is this accomplished? Extra points if you can do it without more regulation.

Yes, it’s true that by this decade, the majority of these exotic mortgages were no longer being offered to low-income borrowers. But CRA and later ACORN-style activism did help set the ball in motion, contributing to the lowering of traditional lending standards.

That was a small and manageable ball until the big private players moved in big. Opening up that market to securitizing and bundling in ‘95 and then loosening capitalization requirements to allowing better than 30:1 leveraging a little less than ten years later increased the size of that ball by more than an order of magnitude. In short regulations made a relatively small and manageable problem and subsequent deregulation made that problem an economy crushing behemoth.

Mary,

The very act of not enforcing regulations, of waving the free market banner as we’ve done for 30 years, has had the very effect of living under totally free market conditions.

There have been roll backs of some regulations and lax enforcement of other leading to a market that operated with less rules than before, but there never has been a large economy that had totally free market conditions and I very much doubt that it is possible as a real world application. What we are essentially arguing is about the appropriate level of regulation and what those regulations should be.

Jason,

I can testify from first-hand experience as well as a significant amount of survey research that non-leftists experience significant discrimination in hiring and tenure processes in much of academia.

Could you define ‘non-leftist’ in this context and link the survey research?

I would agree that the humanities and social science faculties and students are mostly of the left. I have not taken much upper division course work in those fields, but what course work I did have did not push a particular political agenda. The vast majority of my experience has been with math and science faculty. Here the political discussions are relatively rare (generally conversations were about the latest research or where to go for drinks), reserved for the break room rather than in front of undergrads, and did not tend to be dominated by one political perspective. My experience of business schools and MBA programs (through friends) indicate that these faculties are overwhelmingly of the right.

I think in most departments where there is a political trend that the issue is primarily one of inclination. How many conservatives are going to major in, much less get a PhD in women’s studies? The one department that seems most likely to have political content, high potential for political bias, and students of diverse political backgrounds is political science.

Original Post
I think that Krugman went steps too far in trying to link the recent murders to talking heads. The comments from O’Reilly and others that he points to in his column are odious and worthy of condemnation though. That some of these comments are coming from news outlets is also concerning. All of this including Krugman’s column are typical American political speak. Regardless of political affiliation or venue the punditry feel the need to demonize the opposition and remove all nuance from debate.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 16, 2009 at 8:48 pm PDT

Jeb,

AGW: Thanks for making my point for me that the so-called consensus can only agree that AGW has “potentially severe consequences.” Here’s a paraphrased dictionary definition for you: potential = possible. Did they poll the scientists to determine what they think is the likehood of this possibility happening? Maybe they think there is a 1/1000 odds of severe consequences and therefore 999/1000 odds of mild or moderate consequences. Would that argue in favor of the enactment of cap and trade rules that could cause potentially severe economic consequences?

Thanks also for the dictionary reference. Let me clarify: my point is that, we can take polls of climate scientists to measure ways in which they might “agree” about various scientific questions, but if and/or when this “consensus” is used to promote specific policies, then the consensus enters into the political realm. Sceince is not done by consensus. And I’m sure you’re not arguing that consensus indicates that something is true because that would be a logical fallacy.

If policymakers enact policies that cause moderate to severe negative economic impacts, they assume responsibility for the policies. Sure, they can try to blame the policies on “scientific consensus,” but the scientists don’t pass the laws.

Hyper-regulatory state: see federal code.

Oversight: in one respect, my point was pretty straightforward. Bigger government = more need for oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent. The Obama administration has been given a relatively free hand in the name of economic emergency to spend trillions of taxpayer dollas for TARP, stimulus, and other new government programs. Examples: few congressmen even bothered to read the 1500 page stimulus bill; the Chyrsler deal involved billions of taxpayer dollars, but no transperancy. If we cut the size of government, we’ll need less oversight, and no need for more regulations. Awesome, I just got bonus points!

But I was also making the point that an ever expanding craddle-to-grave nanny state will naturally become increasingly more susceptible to crony corporatism, lack of oversight, and the selective enforcement of regulations. Over time, the regulations become more complex and contradictory, as they are layered one on top of another, but there’s always “loopholes.” Also, the new regulations will be written in consultation with “friendly” lawyers and lobbyists. Like the tax code, federal regulations should be stripped down and streamlined, making them easier to enforce and less vulnerable to abuses of power.

Comment from Doomed
Time June 16, 2009 at 9:20 pm PDT

AGW.

I could. But I won’t. It don’t matter.

The facts of the matter are that core samples indicate a significant lack of iron sinking which is causing the co2 to rise. Global warming historically preceeds co2 build ups and not the other way around.

We are headed for a global cooling and not warming. Both are bad but if Global WARMING is debunked then those who are agenda driven find their entire argument riddled full of holes and Cap and Trade does not generate billions to pay for GREEN and health Care. It does not punish rich corporations and it does not socialize America.

Global warming? Afraid not.

Global cooling…absolutely.

Comment from Jeb
Time June 17, 2009 at 3:29 am PDT

Did they poll the scientists to determine what they think is the likehood of this possibility happening?

http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html

Let me clarify: my point is that, we can take polls of climate scientists to measure ways in which they might “agree” about various scientific questions, but if and/or when this “consensus” is used to promote specific policies, then the consensus enters into the political realm.

As a matter of practicality yes. Political decisions will be made based on the science so the science enters the realm of politics. That, unfortunately, does not endow the political questions with scientific rigor.

Hyper-regulatory state: see federal code.

Then there is no developed nation that is not hyper-regulatory. These are the most economically successful nations in the world. That in itself should tell you something.

If we cut the size of government

Far easier said than done.

Comment from Jeb
Time June 17, 2009 at 3:36 am PDT

Re: the polling of scientists
This
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2009/2009-01-20-02.asp
addresses some coverage issues about the above survey and finds similar results on parallel questions.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 17, 2009 at 4:03 pm PDT

Jeb, from the study you link above: “However, the survey finds that scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming . . . A slight majority (56%) see at least a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years . . . overall, only 5% describe the study of global climate change as a ‘fully mature’ science.”

The above poll reflects the true lack of “consensus” about potential threats from global warming. Only 56 percent can even commit to at least a 50 percent chance of 2 degrees warming, even though many of the climate researchers polled would benefit from hieghtened concerns about global warming. Yes, 41 percent of the scientists believed that global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years; but, again, “posing a danger” is not the same as will cause x & y. They’d have to be polled again to gauge the extent to which a 2 degrees celcius rise in 50 – 100 years would cause specific impacts which could then be calculated to determine projected net negative imapacts on human life. And their answers would just be OPINIONS not rigorous probability estimates.

In contrast, the expected net impacts on human life from cap & trade and other similar measures are still difficult to project, but at least they’re not based purely on opinions. Anyway, the cost-benefit models project that the impacts will be quite negative. You propose that we accept those negative impacts based on the opinion polls above?

I have an idea. Why don’t those who are most concerned about potential impacts from global warming concentrate for now on the following two fronts: 1). technological breakthroughs; 2). living by example. Hopefully, your efforts will enable us to avert suffering potential negative impacts from warming without having to enact potentially ruinous economic austerity measures. If necessary, though, if or when you have more than a hunch about potential catastrophic effects, we could then talk about enacting the disastrous policies.

Comment from Buckeye
Time June 17, 2009 at 4:16 pm PDT

Jeb wrote: “Then there is no developed nation that is not hyper-regulatory. These are the most economically successful nations in the world. That in itself should tell you something.” One thing it does not tell me is cause and effect, Jeb. Obviously, very large economies with tremendous volume and diversity of economic activities will generate more regulatory activity as well. One way to look at is that very large, prosperous economies can support more government workers, including regulators. A certain amount of regulation promotes greater economic dynamism, efficiency, fairness, etc. It does not necessarily follow, however, that the more regulation, the better.

One approach would be to compare the last 10 – 20 years of economic growth among the most advanced economies in relation to how they “score” on a regulatory scale. The score would inevitably involve some subjective criteria and/or prioritization; nevertheless, the exercise would be interesting.

Many studies have looked at the competitivess of different states in the U.S. in terms of how “friendly” are their busines climates: taxes, regulations, etc. These can be tricky, too, because of all the variables involved, but the data are very much on my side of this argument.

Since you place a lot of faith in polls, I do invite you to poll business owners in New Jersey on the question of whether we live in a hyper-regulatory state.