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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Gimme some details, fellas.

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