A Policy Wasteland?
Over at Crooked Timber, Australian economist John Quiggin describes the limited opportunities for intellectual policy debate in the United States. (Incidentally, Quiggin’s recent book, Zombie Economics, is a fun and thought-provoking read.)
… this reflects the fact, in the current US scene, the groups with whom productive discussion is possible are quite limited. The right lives in a parallel universe and the Very Serious centre defines itself by the presumption that both right and left are, and always must be, equally wrong (Cass Sunstein bases his entire worldview on this presumption) . There is no point in debating specific issues with these groups except to the extent that it may be possible to convince individual rightists and centrists to stop being rightists and centrists. That leaves someone like me talking to neoliberals (in the US sense) on my right and to those to my left who are interested in positive discussions of policy and political strategy (a subset of a group that is not all that large in the first place).
Midweek Humor: Class Warfare Edition
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show turns arguments about “class warfare” on their head.
Around The Dial – August 23, 2011
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
- Matt Taibbi reports on claims that the SEC is covering up for Wall St.
- Policy Shop explains the logic of financial transaction taxes.
- The New York Times wants to save U.S. savings bonds.
- Joel Berg notes “welfare reform’s forgotten goals.”
- Robert Skidelsky describes “the Keynes-Hayek rematch.”
- Econbrower points to new research about tax expenditures.
Global Economic Crisis, Round 2
Felix Salmon describes a “global crisis of institutional legitimacy” and is especially worried about the United States.
Looked at against this backdrop, the recent volatility in the stock market, not to mention the downgrade of the US from triple-A status, makes perfect sense. Global corporations are actually weirdly absent from the list of institutions in which the public has lost its trust, but the way in which they’ve quietly grown their earnings back above pre-crisis levels has definitely not been ratified by broad-based economic recovery, and therefore feels rather unsustainable. Meanwhile, the USA itself has undoubtedly been weakened by a shrinking tax base, a soaring national debt, a stretched military, and a legislature which has consistently demonstrated an inability to tackle the great tasks asked of it.
…
It looks increasingly as though we’re entering Phase 2 of the global crisis, with 2008-9 merely acting as the appetizer. In Phase 1, national and super-national treasuries and central banks managed to come to the rescue and stave off catastrophe. But in doing so, they weakened themselves to the point at which they’re unable to rise to the occasion this time round. Our hearts want government to come through and save the economy. But our heads know that it’s not going to happen. And that failure, in turn, is only going to further weaken institutional legitimacy across the US and the world. It’s a vicious cycle, and I can’t see how we’re going to break out of it.
Child Poverty Rate Near 20%
The PBS NewsHour reports on the latest “Kids Count” report prepared by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Among other findings, the report noted that nearly 20 percent of American children live in poverty.
Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.
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