Dennis the Peasant

I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means...

Here's the sentence, such that it is:

I assume the entire progressive blogosphere will agree with me that trying to pursue a more “bipartisan tone” in Washington is a substantively foolish idea for the White House to pursue.

(Ah, such lapidary prose...)

Here's the word (an adjective) in question:

substantively

Here's the definition (via The Free Dictionary):

1. Substantial; considerable.
2. Independent in existence or function; not subordinate.
3. Not imaginary; actual; real. 
4. Of or relating to the essence or substance; essential: substantive information.
5. Having a solid basis; firm.
6. Grammar Expressing or designating existence; for example, the verb to be.
7. Grammar Designating a noun or noun equivalent.

And here's the culprit.

Note: How's This?

I assume the entire progressive blogosphere will agree with me that the White House's pursuit of a "bipartisan tone" in Washington is an extremely foolish strategy.

You know, if I'd been smart enough to go to Harvard, I probably could have written it.

Is It Matty, Or Is It Amanda?

I'm not saying until after you read this gem:

Meanwhile, this is probably just wishful thinking, but is it totally insane to think that with Republicans picking up tons of governor’s mansions and state legislative houses, that conservatives will start to realize that having continued waves of state and local budget crises is not in the national interest?

Now is that prose, or what?

Admit it, you couldn't tell, could you?

A Challenge: Which one of the two wrote this? 

This entire situation is a great demonstration of why the ready assumption that businesspeople are motivated mainly be a rational desire to increase profits is a really dumb one.  But you see that assumption all the time!  You see it with libertarians, who argue that we don’t need regulation because the profit motive makes markets self-correcting, as if they were mindless machines that aren’t influenced by some of the more irrational thinking of actual human beings.  And you see it with liberals, who make the opposite assumption---they believe that business is solely motivated by profit, and that means businesspeople are bound to make harmful choices if that’s how best to make a profit.  The truth is way more complicated.  Yes, profit motive is a big deal, and that sometimes results in good business decisions, as libertarians insist, and it sometimes results in BP spilling unimaginable amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, as liberals insist.  But insisting that businesspeople act mostly out of pure rationality is giving them too much credit.  I think it’s also important to remember how much irrationality impacts business choices.

The winner will win a genuine Barack Obama polished turd signed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

 
"Funny, it looked a lot prettier back in 2008!"

Methinks This Rings A Bell...

Strangely (and sowhat surprisingly), noted moral philosopher Charles Johnson and renowned business ethics expert Roger L. Simon aren't smack-dab in the middle of this.

Not for a lack of trying, I'll wager... 

A Private Note: And please, Roger, no more emails trying to con me that it was something you feel bad about... One was enough to last a lifetime. Remember: You'll always be my special shmuck, you shmuck.

First The Twit, Then The Twat...

If Matty's proved himself a twit on this Monday, Kevin Drum's proved himself a twat:

The uncertainty meme is just mind boggling. Businesses always have a certain amount of regulatory uncertainty to deal with, and there's simply no evidence that this uncertainty is any greater now than it usually is.

Excuse me for noting this, Kevin, but you're a "professional" blogger. A.fucking.blogger.

As far as I can tell you've never placed yourself in the position of being socially useful enough to start and run an actual, real-life business. You've never employed people or paid taxes on profits have you, Kevin?

Of course not.

So answer me this, Kevin:

What would you know about it?

Since you won't answer the question, I'll do it for you:

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Just because you've swallowed the Obama kool-aid doesn't mean it's reality. 

You see, Kevin, if you passed your days doing real work in the real economy, you'd find that the uncertainty surrounding things like Obamacare is very real. I've already received a letter from one of my companies' health insurance provider informing us that significant changes (and price increases) will be coming in 2011. My wife's employer - a Fortune 100 company - has sent the same to its' employees. Both specifically cite the requirements of Obamacare as factors in both the changes and the price increases. A number of my clients have received similar letters. And Kevin, insurance companies aren't doing that for funsies. Nor are they doing it because they're a part of the VRWC.

But you wouldn't know about that, now would you Kevin? You're sitting in front of a keyboard and a monitor. If Paul Krugman, Dean Baker or Robert Reich doesn't mention it in a column, then it's an economic issue that's passed you by... Isn't it, Kevin? And why is that?

Because you don't work in the real world doing real work.

I could go on about the other issues you raise and dismiss, but what's the point? Your job isn't to educate, inform or be useful. In the realm of real-world business and economics, you don't have the skills to any of those things. Your job is to comfort those too stupid to understand why what happened on November 2 happened. Right, Kevin?

And now, because you and your flock of Mother Jones turkeys cannot come to grips with the failure of Father Obama's Great Big Keynesian Economic and Unemployment Solution, you're left trying to find someone else - anyone else - to blame for the state of the economy.

That's pathetic, Kevin. Genuinely pathetic in the most dishonest, childish way possible.

Let me leave it at this:

Get Mother Jones to send your smart ass out here to Ohio. I'll drop what I'm doing and I'll spend a week introducing you to Reality On The Ground. I'll show you what's going on in real-life small businesses. I'll introduce you to real business owners who have real businesses and real employees and real bills to pay. I'll let you spend some time explaining to them why their feelings of uncertainty about the future aren't grounded in reality.

And then you can see just how much you really know about the economy and uncertainty...

Whatcha say, Kevin? 

Note: That progressive brainiacs like Drum and Yglesias are now reduced to blaming the state of the economy on the irrationality of businesses and consumers speaks volumes about the intellectual (and moral) bankruptcy of these so-called "progressives", doesn't it?

Some Good, Ol' Fashioned Matty Gibberish...

Ah yes, the affectation of knowledge one doesn't possess, courtesy of the Little One:

Policymakers can observe, however, that if economic actors’ level of uncertainty about the future increases that would manifest itself as an increased demand for money.

Think about that statement for a moment. Then note that other than the fact that it's completely wrong, Matty's on to something. What Matty's on to is this:

As uncertainty about the future increases, the actual (and rational) response by both businesses and consumers will result in a decrease in the demand for money. Why? Well, once again, think about it:

• If you're part of a household facing increased uncertainty about future employment, or even future earnings levels, what do you do to hedge against that uncertainty?
• If you're a business owner or manager, and your business is facing increased uncertainty about revenues, costs or profitability, what do you do to hedge against that uncertainty?

In both cases, the rational actor reins in spending, conserves cash and attempts to maintain their standard of living/profitability by finding new efficiencies. Heightened uncertainty leads to a reduction in aggregate demand. That leads to a reduction in the demand for money.

Duh.

What the rational actor does not do is go out and demand more money (via acquiring more debt) in the face of that reduced aggregate demand. Households do not buy new homes, cars and whatnot when said households cannot convince themselves they are going to have jobs six months from now. And businesses will not take on debt to finance expansion in the face of falling sales, increasing costs and lower profits if they cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, getting Economics 101 right doesn't actually matter to Little One. All he's interested in is stoking some anti-business sentiment for the morons over at Think Progress:

So if for whatever reason businessmen or politicians or media figures or anyone else feels more comfortable expressing the situation as one caused by “uncertainty” that’s fine. But the name of the game is still fiscal and monetary expansion. But instead the proposed cure typically seems to be “shift public policy in a more rightwing direction.” That wouldn’t do anything about uncertainty or a shortfall in aggregate demand. It’s just a faux-sophisticated way of saying “I’m a rich businessman who wants politicians to cater to my interests more.”

That's exactly the sort of sophomoric gibberish I'd expect to find over at Pandagon.

The real issue here is that Matty's hung his hat on Obama/Krugman idea that all you need to do is have the gubbermint spend boatloads and everybody will go back to partying like it's 1999. It obviously hasn't worked. And, Matty being Matty, the best he can come up with to explain away the failure is that's really all the fault of those "bad old Republicans and nasty old businessmen".

So there we have it. The boy is nearly eight years into his "career" and where is he now?

Shoulder to shoulder with Amanda Marcotte.

An aside: Yes, for you the name of the game is  "Fiscal and Monetary Expansion", Matty. It's the economist's equivalent of "Chutes and Ladders", and that's all you could possibly handle.

Let's Play "What Did Matty Really Mean?"...

OK, here's the sentence:

I’m not surprised that liberals don’t like the Simpson-Bowles proposals and I’m not surprised that people who aren’t liberal disagree with liberals about that.

To play "What Did Matty Really Mean?", you have to do the following:

1. State what Matty actually said in the above sentence, and
2. Suggest what Matty was actually trying to say in the above sentence.

The winner will win a genuine Pandagon Vagina O' Death combination bottle opener and doorstop.

 
"Me hungry... Sarah Palin ate my hamster."

Note: Personally, I don't disagree with the proposition that Matty isn't surprised that liberals don't like the Simpson-Bowles proposals. But that's just me. However, I am surprised that liberals and non-liberals can't agree about what Matty's not surprised about. Or is it they're disagreeing about whether Matty's not surprised at all. You'd think there'd be sort of common ground there. Maybe Matty wasn't the very most not surprised he could be, and that threw everybody off.

"Oh, Brucie, Remember The Good Old Days Of Disco And Roses..."

Once again, Amanda proves that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy is vast, right-wing, and, well, a conspiracy:

When people think of the culture wars, they think of abortion, gay rights, guns, or Sarah Palin shoving cookies on innocent children. But they don’t often think of what I think of as one of the most interesting cultural happenings in the past 40 years, the disco riot of 1979, which was a culmination of the baffling Disco Sucks movement of the late 70s.  Not baffling in the sense that people were tired of disco, which dominated the airwaves, but baffling in how angry it was, how semi-organized.  Enough, apparently, to kick off a riot.  Cultural critics with more heft that I have analyzed the entire thing, looking over the way that Disco Sucks movement channeled of lot of straight white male resentment at women, people of color, and GLBT people---groups that culturally dominated and defined disco, especially in its early days.  Disco Sucks was supposed to be straight white men reclaiming the radio dial that was rightfully theirs.

Remember: No matter what it is, it's always about Amanda and the Angry White Males.

Always.

Wild Guess: I'm not quite sure the Bee Gees would buy into her analysis.

Next Up: Amanda analyzes the various sackings of Rome between 387 BC and 546 AD and discovers that the Gauls, Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths were - you guessed it - just bunchs of angry white males venting on various Romans demographic sub-groups because they'd had their masculinity threatened.

"Hey, Look At Me! I'm Pointless!"

Little Matty furrows that oft-furrowed brow and comes up with the sort of pointless observation we've come to expect of him:

The flipside of the Simpson-Bowles document’s unsound aggregate cap on revenue is that they were very uncreative in their exploration of revenue options. For example, what about a tax on greenhouse gas emissions? The mere fact that the conservative movement is currently engaged in a massive fit of pretending that greenhouse gas emissions aren’t a problem doesn’t change the fact that greenhouse gas emissions are, in fact, a problem. Taxing them would reduce the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions and help mitigate the problem. It also creates revenue.

That's not necessarily correct, Matty. At least some producers could (and would) simply pass along the costs associated with the tax to consumers. Others would move their manufacturing facilities to environs less taxing. But that's not the point...

The point is that neither Barack Obama nor Harry Reid could presuade Democratic Senators (such as Ohio's Sherrod Brown) that a similar tax called "Cap-and-Trade" wouldn't result in further flight of manufacturing jobs out of the country.

So why prattle on about how wonderful a greenhouse gas emissions tax would be when you know there isn't a chance in Hell one will become law? Well, in Matty's case, it relieves you of the truly daunting task of trying to come up with policy solutions that could actually be workable.

That would require work!

Note: If this is the very most best the boy can do, then he's a twit.

Note the Second: Prattle, Harvard, prattle. Prattle, prattle, prattle.

A Not Insignificant Member Of The 99.99%...

Paul Krugman, every now and then, manages to get it half right. Today is one of those half-right days. Here's the part he gets right:

Count me among those who always believed that President Obama made a big mistake when he created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — a supposedly bipartisan panel charged with coming up with solutions to the nation’s long-run fiscal problems.

And here's the part he gets wrong:

It seemed obvious, as soon as the commission’s membership was announced, that “bipartisanship” would mean what it so often does in Washington: a compromise between the center-right and the hard-right.

Krugman's error stems from the fact that he is one of the 99.99% of "professional" economists who are completely full of shit. Here's why:

Simpson-Bowles doesn't address the central isssue of the problem at hand.

What is the central issue?

Why, over the long run, do Congress and presidents choose to incur deficits and why, over the long run, do voters consistently reward them for doing so?

Until someone can offer a meaningful (and comprehensive) explanation as to why Democratic and Republican legislators and presidents tend to behave in exactly the same manner when it comes to federal spending and governmental finance, exercises such as Simpson-Bowles will remain just as obviously silly as they are now.

What we need to understand is this: 

Why is choosing deficit spending rewarded?

Note: I'm sure Krugman, DeLong and the rest know this, and it's useful to remember that they avoid the issue because for them, this is all about partisan politics... Which is why they're part of the 99.99%.

Sarah Palin Ate My Hamster!

Just when you thought Time couldn't get any worse, they treat us to this:

Will Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Cause Hyperinflation?

This is stupidity at its most breathtaking.

Evidently, Stephen Gandel has decided to start a write-in campaign for an evening slot at MSNBC.

Note: You know the most valuable fact I learned in the process of acquiring a BSBA in Economics?

99.9% of all economists are full of shit.

I learned that 99.9% of all journalists are full of shit on my own.

Mostly from reading stuff like Gandel's.