Is this the end of the Reagan/Rove right?

A

aMinadaB

Well-known member
It's sickening to watch what clinton, who has already lost fair and square, is doing in her cynical embrace of Obama's 'bitterness' comment

For a $110 million dollar couple who have been international political superstars for 15 years to accuse a racially mixed fellow raised by a single mother on food stamps (and then by grandparents) who chose after graduating from harvard law not to join a DC lawfirm but to work on the southside of chicago of elitism is beyond the pale

the clintons have diminished themselves in the judgment of history and intellectuals on the left, and to watch them doggedly borrow the republican playbook on a day to day basis is enough to make a person go absofuckkinglutely insane with anger and disappointment ...

her whole strategy amounts to 'we lost, but the schedule allows us to stay in, so let's do so until we can cause the collapse of his campaign' is vile and completely transparent. bill clinton was once beloved by the left, i'd say he's become something of a combination of laughing stock and disillusioned egotist whom history has already passed by ... obama won this thing fair and square, can we please get on with it ??? !!!
 
P

polystyle

Well-known member
With you on that AmB.
She's sad,
glad to see Obama's poll number's going up during this latest 'opening'
the Clinton -Rove routine have grasped onto.
They are holding tight ...
Little blue on the face and around the edges !
 
R

ripley

Well-known member
vimothy said:
Thought I'd post this graph of American political economy. It's from Larry M. Bartels' new book, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Pretty stark stuff:

clip_image002%5B21%5D_thumb.gif
Click to expand...

yes, it shows politics is the engine driving inequality in this country.
from Dani Rodrik's comment on Bartel's book:

"When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom--a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups. If you are in the bottom quintile, the difference between having a Democratic or a Republican president in office is an income gain (or loss) of more than 2 percent per year! Strikingly, compared to Republicans, Democratic presidents generate higher income gains for all income groups (although the difference is statistically significant only for lower income groups)."

so if people really take this to heart it could be the end of the Reagan right, since there's far more voters at the bottom quintiles who stand to do better under democrats.
 
P

petergunn

plywood violin
ripley said:
so if people really take this to heart it could be the end of the Reagan right, since there's far more voters at the bottom quintiles who stand to do better under democrats.
Click to expand...

yeah, but people have known this since Reagan, yet still re-elected him and Bush Sr and Jr... Reagan and co. were pretty upfront about helping out their cronies and fucking poor people...
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
petergunn said:
Reagan and co. were pretty upfront about helping out their cronies and fucking poor people...
Click to expand...

Really?

It's at least a bit more complicated than Rodrik's quote makes out. For one thing, Bartels focuses on presidents, and so leaves out things like who was in charge of Congress, or the Federal Reserve, or any number of other things. For instance, Nixon was president during the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. This lead to a period of massive inflation. One outcome in the US was to transfer wealth from S&L to mortgage holders. Who's credited with that? Who get's the credit when house prices inflate and with them housing based net worth of the average American? Where does the move to soft-currency fit into all this? There's all sorts of interesting stuff to add to the picture, particularly -- as should be obvious given recent events -- monetary policy.

Also, two of the Dem presidents (Kennedy & Clinton) were (horror of horrors) strongly supply-side in their economic policies -- just like Reagan.

Alex Tabarrock:

I'm a little surprised that the Bartels result is receiving so much attention because the result, in slightly different form, has long been known to political economists under the rubric of partisan business cycle theory. In a nutshell, the theory of partisan business cycles says that Democrats care more about reducing unemployment, Republicans care more about reducing inflation. Wage growth is set according to expected inflation in advance of an election. Since which party will win the election is unknown wages growth is set according to a mean of the Democrat (high) and Republican (low) expected inflation rates. If Democrats are elected they inflate and real wages fall creating a boom. If Republicans are elected they reduce inflation and real wages rise creating a bust. Notice that in PBC theory neither party creates a boom or bust it's uncertainty which drives the result - if the winning party were known there would be neither boom nor bust.​

Bartels acknowledges as much in his guest post at Rodrik's blog:

Douglas Hibbs did important work along these lines in the 1980s, documenting significant partisan differences in post-war macroeconomic policies. He found that Democrats favored expansionary policies producing substantially higher employment and growth rates, while Republicans endured and sometimes prolonged recessions in order to keep inflation in check.​

Even Paul Krugman is skeptical:

Now, I’m a big Bartels fan; I’ve known about this result for quite a while. But I’ve never written it up. Why? Because I can’t figure out a plausible mechanism. Even though I believe that politics has a big effect on income distribution, this is just too strong — and too immediate — for me to see how it can be done. Sure, Republicans want an oligarchic society — but how can they do that?​

Jim Manzi:

Bartels’s thesis is primarily the statistical artifact of the combination of two very simple observations: (A) there has been a higher proportion of Republican presidential years during the period 1980 – 2005 than the period 1948 – 1979 (64% vs. 48%), and (B) starting in 1979, U.S. income inequality began to rise dramatically after a post-WW II period of relative wage equality. Accepting these two statements of fact does not imply accepting Bartels’s thesis that A caused B, and his academic paper on the subject provides no compelling evidence of causality.​

yes, it shows politics is the engine driving inequality in this country.
Click to expand...

I'm not convinced, and I think there are smarter analyses than Bartels' "who ever was in office at the time (+ one year lag)".
 
R

ripley

Well-known member
well, vimothy, what did you think was stark about it? ;)

no seriously I think your comments are really interesting. and less flippantly it's clear that causation =/= correlation. (woah!)

but, actually, what DID you think was stark about it?
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
It is pretty stark. I mean, just look at it. But it is also a bit misleading.

I posted it because I think it's interesting, not because I think it's accurate. Bartel's thesis is certainly worth considering, because the Dems are going to be in power very soon, but it's not necessarily correct. There is obviously a correlation, but like you say, it doesn't prove causation. Jim Manzi identifies the real relationship, IMO: that inequality has been increasing since the late '70s, and there have been more Rep presidents since the late '70s. Look:

Bartel_completed.PNG
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't really have too much to add to this thread except that it seems like the best thread at the moment for this awesome gif:

emot_911.gif
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Tom's worried:

Both Clinton and Obama, if elected, present the frightening spectacle of a pandering Democratic White House looking for easy wins with an angry citizenry on protectionism because getting such wins on Iraq will be almost impossible.

Both Clinton and Obama now bash NAFTA, China and oppose the free trade pact proposed with Colombia, the rejection of which would constitute one big F.U. to Uribe and the magnificent effort he's put in despite our still foolish, supply-side-focus on the drug "war."

McCain would scare me on many levels, but a Dem prez plus strengthened Dem majorities in both houses? Yikes, that's got Smoot-Hawley written all over it, and that would be significantly more damaging to world stability than even nuking Iran--I kid you not.

The longer such nonsense gets pushed by the Dem candidates, the more presidential McCain looks--I kid you not.​
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Many of you will enjoy this if you've never seen it; from my archive of neoconservative arcana.

Also, you're all reading the new George Packer piece, right?
 
A

aMinadaB

Well-known member
polystyle desu said:
Going , going , gov >
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/a-warning-from-the-white-house/
They wanna stay in the news somehow ...
Click to expand...
Are you referring to the dustup where the white house publicly complained about keith olbermann and msnbc being pro-obama and anti-bush?

What a truly hysterical and pathetic act of desperation on the part of the white house to complain about precisely the kind of media from which they have benefitted for seven years: 24-hour cable news networks and their freedom to favor one party over the other.

Olbermann's awesome attacks on bush ONLY EXIST because keith o willingly chose to adopt the Fox News method of partisanship, which has buttressed the bush administration from day one. The white house CREATED keith olbermann, he is their own offspring, albeit a lovely mirror image of the fox news trash.

The story polystyle links is absolutely typical of the bush white house: hypocrisy, dishonesty, and barefaced lying cynicism. Lie, then accuse the people who call you on it of being liars. Adopt the most barefaced media partisanship (fox news) and then whine and moan publicly when someone takes the same approach in opposition to you. It's hilarious, in a pathetic too-ridiculous-to-be-true-but-is kind of way. Ffs, Olbermann is one guy with an evening news show who regularly bludgeons and satirizes bush, which is EXACTLY what the entirety of Fox News has been doing to anyone who opposes bush - on virtually every show on its station, for years.

Olbermann is fab, check this one:


the bush white house is a joke even to many in its own party, and the republican party is unravelling at its core ... watching them lose special elections even in MISSISSIPPI recently was truly entertaining, and encouraging

the obama presidency is going to be one big blast of fresh fucking air, that's for sure
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top