Category Archives: Politics

What We’re Up Against Regarding Guns

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The governor of Arizona has signed a law that requires guns acquired in gun buy-back programs to be sold. If a police department in Arizona buys your gun in order to reduce the likelihood that it will be used to commit a crime (such as shooting a police officer), they can’t destroy it. They have to sell it to a gun dealer, who can then resell it and return it to its rightful place in the community.

Police had argued that they were allowed to destroy guns acquired in such programs, even though an earlier Arizona law required that they sell any guns seized during crimes. The NRA and gun fanatics argued that destroying valuable weaponry is wasteful.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ariz-bill-requiring-resale-buyback-guns-signed

The Cutting vs. Spending Argument Should Be Over

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In a recent blog post, the (indispensable) economist and columnist Paul Krugman has summarized his view of our economic predicament and what we should do to get out of it. He did this in response to a billionaire who went on TV and spoke like a simpleton. Krugman makes his case as clearly as possible, so it’s worth reading if you have any doubts at all about whether the government should be cutting or increasing spending in our present circumstances. 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/the-ignoramus-strategy/

Henry Blodget, who isn’t an economist and was convicted of securities fraud when he was a research analyst at Merrill Lynch, argues that the argument about cutting vs. spending is over and Krugman won.

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-is-right-2013-4

It’s clear that Krugman and his like-minded Keynesian colleagues have won the argument in the sense of having offered enough evidence to prove their thesis to reasonable people. Whether they’ve won the argument in the sense of getting politicians to change their policies isn’t clear yet. The most we can reasonably expect is that the tide has turned.

As we know, most people, especially politicians and pundits, hate to be proven wrong. Admitting that they were wrong to promote government austerity in response to the Great Recession would require a lot of character.

What I would love to see is President Obama, who is said to be a reasonable person, admit that his search for a “Grand Bargain” with the Republicans has been a terrible mistake. He should admit that we need to repeal the Sequester immediately (not just as it affects air travelers) and increase spending on infrastructure, education, research, grants to local government, etc. etc.

If it would help, Obama could have Krugman sit next to him and explain the situation in terms that even billionaires would understand! Not everyone would be convinced (there are plenty of simpletons and others with their own agendas), but it would be a step in the right direction.

Postscript 4/29/13 —

This is a sensible summary from Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne (although it’s not really a “whodunit?” because we know who done it):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-the-economic-whodunit/2013/04/28/6948f9a4-aea9-11e2-8bf6-e70cb6ae066e_story.html

It’s Nice When the World Makes Sense

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Even if the underlying facts aren’t so great at all.

Case 1: Paul Krugman ties together two recent stories: how the economic evidence for cutting government spending during a recession is non-existent, and how cutting spending on programs like Medicare and Social Security is the preferred strategy of the rich. It probably won’t make any difference that the scientific support for government austerity during an economic downturn has been demolished, since facts don’t necessarily trump ideology. For the most part, the political class is subservient to the upper class. Marx, who helped generate a vast number of ideologists himself, wasn’t wrong about everything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/krugman-the-one-percents-solution.html?ref=paulkrugman

Krugman cites the study I wrote about under the title “What the 1% Want from Washington”:

https://whereofonecanspeak.com/2013/04/07/what-the-1-want-from-washington/

Case 2:  According to the New York Times, the Boston police commissioner admitted this week that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) and the boat in which he hid were both in the 20-block search perimeter all along. It’s not clear why Tsarnaev wasn’t found during the manhunt, but it wasn’t because the boat was 1 block outside the search perimeter, as the Watertown police chief claimed. (See the post below, which includes a transcript of the police discussing where to search.)

In this case, it didn’t make sense that a small army of police failed to search an area 2 or 3 blocks from where the guy dumped his getaway car. What didn’t make any sense now makes some sense. People make mistakes and then make excuses. No shock there. 

A Scandal of Enormous Proportions — And It’s Funny, Too

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Along with Paul Krugman, Stephen Colbert and his writers are among the best analysts of current affairs working today. Here, the brilliant Mr. Colbert discusses a recent discovery: the principal academic evidence for cutting government spending during a serious economic downturn is baloney, and not the nourishing kind. The Harvard professors who issued the study didn’t share their data with other economists, ignored data that didn’t fit their hypothesis and made a crucial Excel coding error.

The mind reels. And workers and families worldwide suffer.

(For some reason, I couldn’t get the video to embed, so you’ll probably have to put up with a brief commercial.)

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/425748/april-23-2013/austerity-s-spreadsheet-error?xrs=share_copy

Paul Krugman discusses the same issue with fewer laughs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-the-excel-depression.html?_r=0

In a Rational Country

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Or if we had the benefit of majority rule, the answer would be “Of course”.

 
There is a petition at:   http://www.supgv.org/