Political Cartoon: Job Creators

LOVE this cartoon, and it's rooted in fact: http://m.nber.org//papers/w16606

The link above is to a study from Stanford University in 2011 that focused on the economic impact effective teachers have on lifetime earnings for students, and found that an increase of .25 in overall test scores (a standard deviation) would increase GDP by 44 trillion (yes, trillion). Finland is .58 ahead of the United States, and the study showed that 112 trillion would be added to GDP if we simply raised student achievement to Finland's level. It also found that in order to pay a teacher in alignment with their measurably postive lifetime economic impact on students (400k per 20 student class), we'd have to raise starting salaries to more than $200,000. Think of the property taxes...

Forbes Writer LOVES Sam Zell

WARNING: Read this article at least one hour removed from your last meal.

"Most importantly, we can learn that the rich got there, in the vast majority of cases, through their dedication, effort, and ingenuity. Begrudging them their success will not make our success any more likely. And whatever you may think, pushing for more income redistribution by the government is definitely begrudging the rich their success. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we should all spend less time condemning the rich and more time flattering them by copying their habits."

One of his other points is that in 2013, 273 of the Forbes 400 richest people were "self-made". Not sure what Horatio Alger fantasy world he lives in, but not a single individual on that list (or any list) made it on their own. Even if we accept that those 273 people lived in a vacuum, attended private schools, never benefitted from government interference through economic redistribution, affirmative action, taxes, etc., that still means 127, or 31%, of those individuals aren't "self-made", according to this writer. Not exactly the strongest argument there Ragged Dick. He also mentions the number of workers per household, TV habits and marriage rates for the quintiles he presents in the article, with no acknowledgement of the environmental and economic circumstances that create conditions that lead to work, more creative leisure activities, and marriage. Why not mention that 40% of American men born in the bottom quintile will die in the bottom quintile, and less than 10% of them make it to the top quintile? Or that 35% of American men born into the top quintile will die in the top quintile, and less than 10% will fall down to the bottom quintile? I'll stop saying quintile now, but it's clear why he avoids such statistics. They make him look ridiculous for focusing on TV habits when there's more important stories to be told with that data.

Privatization: Profit > People

Privatization is a hideous monster that cannot be effectively regulated. Where is the national media on private prisons, probations, etc? It's ready made for TV- investor meetings talking about growth models for the future (more arrests), widespread sexual abuse, indicted judges involved in prisoner for pay schemes, people being jailed because they can't afford to pay fines...is there something I'm missing? What could it be about this demoralized population of people that the national media isn't cutting up into slick advertisements for local news media tragedy porn outlets?

Oh yeah. They're mostly black and Hispanic.

"Soft bigotry of low expectations"

Question for all the genetic lottery winners out there, like myself (tall, white, male, upper middle class and above)- do you ever feel cheated out of achievement, like you succeeded because others weren't allowed to try, or were just simply unlucky where you were fortunate?

I always regarded the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to be ridiculous because it ignored the actual circumstances minorities lived in, and how difficult it is to overcome one's environment through hard work alone. But I think it works if you flip it to look at how white privilege insulates millions of us from true competition, and an accurate measure of self-worth.

A Federal Reserve economist determined that 60% of one's income is based on one's parents income- it's a stronger predictor than genetically inherited traits such as height. White families have an average of 99k in wealth, black families have an average of 4k in wealth, according to Peter Edelman in So Rich, So Poor.

How are we supposed to be proud about not being born a poor minority in America?

The answer is we can't. But we can recognize our own privilege, and the history of how it became entrenched and defended in our society. And then we can change it.

Climate Change Science- Show Me The Money

Can someone tell me what the supposed nefarious end game is for climate change scientists? What shadowy interest group/pair of evil brothers is bankrolling 98% of the scientific community to declare fossil fuels a threat to humanity?

We know that climate change denials in both the media and academia are rooted in the monetary rewards doled out by interested parties, namely the oil, gas & coal industries. That these industries funded anti-academic research and sought sympathetic allies in the media establishment isn't a wild conspiracy bandied about in the online forums of people dedicated to saving the environment. It's public record.

So, I ask again, what is the equivalent of this in the climate change community? Are the CEOs of wind turbine companies hiring scientists and lobbyists to muddy the waters on the science of how fossil fuels interact with the environment and humans? Was the solar panel industry donating tens of millions of dollars to climate scientists working at East Anglia University to create data that supports a preconceived notion desperately tied to protecting private profit?

I have a difficult time finding questionable motives behind climate change scientists. In my opinion, the only thing climate scientists seem interested in is securing a healthy environment for future generations living on the only habitable planet for humans discovered in the known universe thus far.

Am I wrong? Am I missing the billion dollar payday somewhere? 

The Great Recession Reading List (expanded)

Paul Krugman's learning material for his class on the Great Recession has been released online, and you can check it out in the link below.

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugmans-recession-reading-list-2013-12?utm_source=Pulse&utm_medium=App&utm_campaign=partner

This got me thinking about what I would include as a professor for this class. I've read a staggering amount of books on the GR (humblebrag alert!), including some of Krugman's own work. The following is a list of books I personally read and recommend for everyone looking to understand what happened, and how the forces of the political arena in Washington fostered an environment where systemic fraud can masquerade as legitimate, albeit risky, business:

1. Austerity by Mark Blyth

2. Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang

3. Bailout by Neil Barofsky

4. The Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald Barlett & James Steele

5. The Big Short by Michael Lewis

6. Boomerang by Michael Lewis

7. The Bubble and Beyond by Michael Hudson

8. Debtor's Prison by Robert Kuttner

9. EConned by Yves Smith

10. End This Depression Now by Paul Krugman

11. The Great Divergence by Timothy Noah

12. Griftopia by Matt Taibbi

13. The Myth of the Rational Market by Justin Fox

14. Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank

15. Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland

16. Predator Nation by Charles Ferguson

17. The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz

18. So Rich, So Poor by Peter Edelman

19. The Unwinding by George Packer

20. White House Burning by Simon Johnson & James Kwak

21. Winner-Taker-All Politics by Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson

There are a few other books, like Free Lunch The Fine Print by David Cay Johnson, not listed here but are essential reads for progressives looking to grasp the larger economic forces at work here.

Would you add any books to this list? Am I a douche for making a blog post about a list of books I read? Sound off in the comment section!

Will The Centrists Ever Go Away?

Addressing inequality in a society with rampant unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, low wages, record child homelessness, etc. won't resonate with voters. Not at all.

Voters don't want certainty in their lives- they want competition. Voters don't want living wages- they want corporations to feel loved. Voters don't care about the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few- they just want a chance to be one of the few.

All voters really want is the opportunity to swim after the carrot dangling from the stick attached to the back of a speeding yacht just christened with a $1,000 bottle of champagne.

Potential Democratic voters ignore buzzwords like "inequality" and campaigns that focus on the 1% vs 99%, or "us vs them" politics. What voters really crave is reconciliation for the financial industry, and bipartisan proposals that ask everyone to sacrifice equally.

Those centrists sure know their politics.