20 August 2011 morning

I have to admit that the above address makes me sad. Sure, I agree that the Republicans have been obstructionist and care more about political power than doing what is right for the country…ok, they see it that doing things THEIR WAY is what is right.

Yes, I agree that things like the infrastructure bank are a good idea.

But this idea that just because small town America can work things out among themselves says anything useful about Washington is just nonsense. Here is why: people tend to congregate in small, self selected communities of like minded people. Of course they can work things out; the differences in opinion tend to be minor. But what happens when you have two drastically different groups of people; some think that a government stimulus is useful; others think “no, that is SOCIALISM”. There is no common ground and any attempt at compromise will mean just giving them “about 98 percent of what they want”.

We live in interesting times. Our Republican party used to be the party of intellectual elitism. But no longer:

That’s a perfect Keynesian answer, and also perfectly nonsensical. What the White House is telling us is that the more unemployed people we can pay for not working, the more people will work. Only someone with a Ph.D. in economics from an elite university would believe this.

I have two teenage sons. One worked all summer and the other sat on his duff. To stimulate the economy, the White House wants to take more money from the son who works and give it to the one who doesn’t work. I can say with 100% certainty as a parent that in the Moore household this will lead to less work.

You see how this moron (writing in the Wall Street Journal) understands it? Do you see how simple minded this is; how it panders to the Newsmax crowd? This is the Wall Street Journal for crying out loud!
Or here is another example: one of my “friends” tried to use the old Soviet Union as an example of why “demand side” economics doesn’t work.

No wonder this party embraces creationism and other non-scientific woo.

How things have changed.

Yes, I get it; many times, the text book doesn’t help in getting things done at the local level. There is a great deal of variation among small systems; for example a type of vehicle might be designed by engineering principles. But the scientists who developed those principles probably couldn’t repair these things as well as the competent practitioner who has done the job hundreds of times and knows the particulars. So, yes, there is a place for “common sense” (though people who claim to have it really don’t).
But being successful with a small business does NOT qualify one to run an economy at a national level.

Of course, being able to solve the heat equation doesn’t qualify one to run a boiler room either.

Other topics
Paul Krugman started an interesting discussion. He made a snarky post about being surprised that Sweden was a rather nice place and not the “socialist hell-hole” that the Republicans would have predicted (given the high tax rate and the high degree of social services).

One reader (comment number 2) commented to the effect: “it seems that way to you, but in Sweden restaurant patrons get upset if they think someone else is getting a larger portion than they are getting”. That comment started 12 pages of discussion.

Evidently this surprised Dr. Krugman who penned an interesting response.

Tidbit
This is a fun post about sayings that are NOT in the (English translations of) the Bible, but are attributed to it.

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