brainiac conspiracy

Meritocracy We Can Believe In

There's nothing really new here, but yet another reminder of what it takes to get people to return your phone calls in official Washington:

In addition to being a former lobbyist, Wheeler has been a big campaign contributor to President Obama, giving $38,500 of his own money between 2008 and 2011, and also bundling together contributions from friends and associates. In the 2008 campaign, he raised between two hundred thousand and five hundred thousand dollars in this way for Obama, according to OpenSecrets.org, and he then led the Obama transition team focussed on science, technology, and the arts. During last year’s campaign, he raised more than five hundred thousand dollars for Team Obama.

I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't retire this stupid blog. Devoting so much time chronicling the outrages of the people who govern us can't be beneficial for my mental health.

---Baron V

Everything That Ails Us

Truth to tell, there is no need for any of it to be happening:

“The crisis had no effect on our lives,” Jonas Frojelin, 37, a Swedish firefighter, said, referring to the global financial crisis that began in 2007. He lives with his wife, Malin, a nurse, in a seaside town a half-hour drive from Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city.

They each have five weeks of vacation and comprehensive health benefits. They benefited from almost three years of paid leave, between them, after their children, now 3 and 6 years old, were born. Today, the children attend a subsidized child-care center that costs about 3 percent of the Frojelins’ income.

Even with a large welfare state in Sweden, per capita G.D.P. there has grown more quickly than in the United States over almost any extended recent period---a decade, 20 years, 30 years.

The point being that there is a policy fix for virtually everything under the sun. However, policy fixes often involve trade-offs, like (in this case) policy fixes that benefit firefighters and policy fixes that benefit bankers and billionaires. There's no reason why we can't have all the nice things the Swedes have, but we will need to start electing political leaders who don't hold their constituents in contempt.

---Baron V

It's All About Policy

There are very few things that happen by accident in this world. Even so-called "acts of God" like earthquakes and tsunamis are utterly predictable---though we obviously can't quantify specific dates for them---and in the realm of human commerce, everything happens for a reason. All the cant you hear about "invisible hands" and "self-correcting" wisdom has always been primarily intended to immunize the winners from being denounced as immoral greedy assholes who hoard obscene amounts of wealth while millions of peasants starve---because the fact of the matter is, the reason those people can hoard so much wealth is that policymakers allow them to do it.

---Baron V

Nice Gesture. Inadequate Policy Fix. Same Old Same Old

Okay, I get that the administration wants to encourage our plutocrats-in-training to get involved, roll up their sleeves and pony up some part of their fortunes to effect positive social change. (At least that's the story they're stickin' to.) But we've kinda been there/done that before, whether it's the era of the Rockefellers and the Morgans or the era of the Medicis and the Borgias, and while those oligarchs each made important contributions to culture, the arts, education et al, they also amassed obscene amounts of wealth while 90 percent of their countrymen, walled off from their gated compounds, died in the streets by the millions from tuberculosis and plague. In other words, most other Western societies in our history came to the conclusion that relying too heavily on the largesse of rich people was woefully inadequate---and potentially dangerous---to address many of those societies' most pressing social problems. Maybe someone should remind the administration of that.

---Baron V

Are There No Prisons?

One thing that doesn't get mentioned nearly enough is that a guaranteed annual income, besides alleviating a great deal of human misery in America, would also make us, in the aggregate, a healthier---and hence more productive---nation. Because we have known for quite some time that poverty and positive health outcomes don't go hand-in-hand. Medicaid surely helps, but nowhere near enough.

---Baron V

Nothing a 100% Estate Tax Wouldn't Solve

Because oh, all the things we could do with the money:

Policy experts and donors recognize that there’s no better time than now to empower young philanthropists. Professionals in the field, citing an Accenture report from 2012, estimate that more than $30 trillion in wealth will pass from baby boomers to younger generations by around 2050.

(Via.)

---Baron V

Nothing New, Really

I know I kvetch and moan a lot on this blog about income inequality, widespread poverty that's about to get much worse, etc. And yeah, it's a problem! But it's probably instructive to remind ourselves that the fine Christian men who founded the Republic believed that only people like themselves deserved the franchise, and that inequality is a feature, not a bug, of American life. Doesn't mean we should stand for it, of course, but we also shouldn't act as though it's some modern-day phenomenon, either.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Ben Steverman:

[P]ut aside the tone-deaf rich and their caricatures in pop culture. Hold the class warfare. High-earning Americans who haven't found the right dodge, or who live in high-tax states, get socked. They contribute more or less like their compatriots in other developed nations, with few of the perks [...]

Consider a married couple living in New York with newborn twins and earning $450,000 a year. Here's roughly what they need to save . . .

I've got another idea. Let's consider a married couple living on the east side of Los Angeles with newborn twins and earning $9 an hour. There are sure a lot more people like that in America than there are six-figure wage earners! And to think these people can't seem to understand why they're so hated . . .

˘ ---Baron V

Tell Us Something We Didn't Already Know

I'm old enough to remember when people could leverage mass movements to directly affect public policy. They could take to the streets en masse to earn the franchise for women and minorities, gain bargaining rights for workers, and even stop wars! And eventually, the people who governed us were forced to accede to their demands, as is the normal state of affairs in a thriving liberal democracy.

But that's all a distant memory now. In postmillennial America, we no longer matter.

---Baron V

"Those People"

You know, they're the ones who don't want to work and who mooch all your hard-earned tax dollars in the form of food stamps and welfare. It's been a standard right-wing trope for nearly as long as I've been alive, and obviously, it's been quite successful at gaining them the allegiance of many white voters. One reason for this success, I think, is that a great many white folks have had very few real-life encounters with many of "those people" because America is still, you know, a deeply segregated society. It's easy to stereotype people you don't know, after all.

---Baron V

Tinkering at the Margins

Sure, it's great that people with pre-existing conditions can now get health insurance. And poor people can now obtain quality coverage for reasonable sums of money. But the bigger, most overarching problem afflicting our system of health-care delivery is the fact that we are all paying way too much money for health care in America. The Goldberg Act doesn't remedy that. It just shifts the costs around.

---Baron V

So Much That Needed to be Done

So much that was basically ignored.

I've been really getting the feeling that the period in our history circa 2008-2010 presented us with a once-in-a-generation window of opportunity to move the needle of the national compass in a profoundly different direction. You know, a Second New Deal! But for whatever reason(s), our political leadership class failed utterly at their jobs, so instead we were given a Second Gilded Age.

---Baron V

Anything But Prison

Doesn't it seem like you've read this same story at least once a month for the last five years?

Bank of America Corp. is said to be in talks for a multi-billion dollar settlement with the Justice Department over questionable mortgage securities sold to investors, according to media reports on Wednesday. The potential settlement could end a civil probe into several legacy issues that have plagued the bank since the financial crisis.

A policy failing, a moral failing, and an abdication of responsibility to enforce the law and to ensure public safety. And since they know they can do anything they want and face no penalty beyond comparatively small fines, we know that the looting will continue until they've burned down the house again. Might as well start stashing my money under the mattress . . .

---Baron V

Might Be Wrong About This

Regular readers of this lame blog know that raising taxes on America's job creators is a pet peeve of mine, but lately I've come to another realization: If these thieving assholes just paid the taxes they actually owe, we might be able to have nice things and not have to raise taxes on anyone. Just a thought!

---Baron V

Nothing Smart Policy Can't Solve

We really could solve the problem of income inequality tomorrow if we truly wanted to. No, it doesn't mean that you and I will get big paychecks in the mail right away (though it's not a bad idea!). But we will need a political leadership class with the vision and skill to craft economic policy that disincentivizes the hoarding of wealth. This can be accomplished in any number of ways, but they all involve (at least) substantial tax increases on rich people, who are, alas, the hunting buddies and golf partners of our current political leadership class, so I suppose it will be up to the Millennials to address when they take the assume of power in this country. The only question remaining is whether we can avert a total collapse of the existing social order until then.

---Baron V

Vo-Tech Education

I'm old enough to remember when the public-school curriculum here in the Marxist dystopia included vocational training: Drafting, wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, agriculture, etc. It started in middle school (where it was mandatory for boys), and continued through high school, where you could take the courses as electives. My own favorite of these was print shop, where we used to print the school newspaper, and it probably helps to explain---a little---how I ended up working the dead-tree business. I realize that public-school students can never have nice things anymore because Michelle Rhee and her band of privatizing grifters, but it might not be bad idea if policymakers would reconsider. Shop class-related program activities have proven effective elsewhere---they might work here again, too.

---Baron V

Nothing We Won't Do to Help Them

I don't know if this article is true or if it's just another attempt by some horrible people in our foreign-policy establishment to gin up another war in central Asia, but either way, it disabuses us of the notion that the people who govern us are, in the aggregate, anything other than a protection racket for a bunch of incompetently managed banks. Glad we're clear on that.

---Baron V

Demystifying

Our time in a single sentence: A handful of people in this country have too much money, and tens of millions of people have no money at all. You can probably run a civil society this way, but to keep the unwashed masses fearful and meek, it will probably have to be at the point of a gun. We're getting there!

---Baron V

Careful What You Wish For

Following up from a few minutes ago, our chickens just might be coming home to roost.

----Baron V

It's Only Called "Stealing"

When the little people do it.

it's unfortunate that the people whop govern us don't seem to realize how complicit they've been in fostering our culture of kleptocracy. No, they're not all grifters---though plenty of them are---but by their apathy and disinterest, they've enabled our corporate sector to morph into a network of organized crime syndicates. Just as we didn't break the power of the Mob until we started sending real-life mobsters to prison for their offenses, so to it will be with our latter-day mob bosses. Just a thought.

---Baron V