socialist-economics

Sunday, September 4, 2016

RE: [CCDS Members] [socialist-econ] Sam Webb doesn’t get Robert Reich [feedly]

Was the BClinton win a victory?

(will it be any kind of a win when-if Hillary wins in Nov – all the invading by treaty and bombs…?)

Norma

From: Members [mailto:members-bounces+normaha=pacbell.net@lists.cc-ds.org] On Behalf Of Stewart Acuff Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2016 5:19 PM To: John Case jcase4218@gmail.com Cc: Socialist Economics <socialist-economics@googlegroups.com>; Blogger Socialist Economics <jcase4218.lightanddark@blogger.com>; PWW Editors <editors@peoplesworld.org>; CCDS-Members members@lists.cc-ds.org Subject: Re: [CCDS Members] [socialist-econ] Sam Webb doesn't get Robert Reich [feedly]

Thanks, John, for this clear and strong defense of our friend, Sam. We have an election to win in November. It is not a referendum. The other candidate on the ballot is the hero of neo-Nazis and unrepentant Confederates, sexists, bigots of all kind, Donald Trump. The stakes for this country and the world could not be more high--either moving forward or turning or turning the governance of the nation over to those seemingly solely motivated by hatred of the other and love of a past in their mind dominated by slavery and genocide.

I strongly supported My friend Bernie and will do it again if ever given the chance. But Bernie is not on the ballot. I supported Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Tom Harkin in 1992, but they weren't on the general election ballots. I worked my ass off for Dukakis and Bill Clinton. And I'm working hard for Hillary.

Elections are won with passion, will, strategy and money.

Elections are not won with dithering. I salute my friends, John and Sam, for knowing how to win and refusing to act as if they live in a world and universe that doesn't exist.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 3, 2016, at 8:34 AM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

I get Robert Reich -- a social democrat (that's not a negative in this context) with a big ego and a longstanding grievance against both Clintons for being fired as Labor Secretary by Bill for not being a team player. He does not get invited to Clinton parties or events anymore. If I read the news right, he was not exactly a team player with Bernie either: first he says (on the Clinton endorsement) he will respect whatever Sanders decides -- then -- when Sanders endorses Clinton, Reich publicly criticizes him for it! Typical crappy team player. If you hang your hat on Reich, you will be disappointed.
Hillary was to the left of her husband from the beginning. ON health care, on poverty, on women, on children. She is a politician who listens, and changes her mind based on evidence: something some of her critics could take some fucking time to learn. She is, like Bill, and like Obama, also a politician focused on winning, not posturing for the narcissistic mirrors.
I did not agree with Sam Webb's skeptical, critical stance on the Sanders campaign. But then I know Bernie Sanders and his history well. I KNOW he is not a splitter. But most out side northern New England did not know him well.
Between the working class and progressive .supporters of Sanders, and the working class and progressive supporters of Clinton, there is a majority, if it can be organized and united, ready to reverse austerity, inequality, racism, and hold back from the slippery slopes that can lead to world war.
Any effort that seeks to divide this unity -- such as the reprehensible, dogma drenched, posts of Rick Nagin -- should be sanctioned.
Reich is a friend, even if unreliable
Sam is a much better friend.

John Case

Sam Webb doesn't get Robert Reich
http://peoplesworld.org/sam-webb-doesn-t-get-robert-reich/

As supporters of Hillary Clinton, we disagree with some of the assertions and implications in Sam Webb's opinion piece, Robert Reich on Hillary Clinton: too smug, too sexist, which is Sam's critique of a Robert Reich blog. For example, he says that "Hillary-hating ... is nearly a national pastime" and implies that Hillary Clinton herself did not play a key role in the Clinton Administration.
If hating Hillary were truly a "national pastime," we supporters might get discouraged. However, we are bolstered by opinion polls from around the country that show Hillary is, for the most part, ahead of Donald Trump.
In taking issue with Reich, Sam implies that Hillary was less than an equal partner in the Clinton Administration with statements such as "Reich ... assumes that what Bill did, Hillary will do. In other words, she has to not only pay for the sins of her husband, but, as a dutiful woman and wife, she is programmed to repeat them."
By implying that Hillary, herself, separately and as an individual did not play a leading, responsible role in the Clinton Administration Sam is actually discounting one of the most important items on her resume and one of the reasons we believe she is so well prepared to be President.
Reich worked in the Clinton Administration. He saw firsthand that what "Bill did" Hillary in fact, "did," too.
No one we know says Hillary Clinton "has to pay for the sins of her husband." She, herself, in all her speeches takes full responsibility for the central role she played in Bill's Administration.
To deny that she was an equal partner is to deny her credit for efforts such as trying to establish universal health care.
Is Sam trying to discourage people from supporting Clinton? We don't think so. We think he is shadow boxing a specter he calls "some" on the left and that he did not think through the possible impact of what he wrote.
As an example, he states "Reich (and some others on the left) ... are far more likely to critique - at times blast - [Clinton]. I guess they think that to do otherwise might leave them open to criticism from others on the left, thereby tarnishing what is most precious to them - their progressive and radical credentials."
Sam presents no evidence for "guessing" that Robert Reich does not write what he really thinks or that Reich is pandering to the left. For that matter, Sam does not say who exactly are the "some others on the left."
Without evidence for Sam's claim, there is no way to evaluate it. However we doubt that Reich feels a need to protect his "credentials," radical or otherwise. Moreover, as a nationally known liberal thinker he has never, to our knowledge, identified himself as a "radical."
Along with mislabeling Reich as a "radical," Sam misrepresents him. Contrary to Sam's assertion, nowhere in his piece does Reich lock "Hillary into a tightly constructed political category from which he allows her no space to escape."
On the contrary, Reich is giving Hillary advice he thinks she needs to win. He obviously thinks Hillary is flexible enough to make changes. Furthermore, in other pieces he's written, Reich has fully described how the Clinton campaign has changed in ideas and tone.
Sam seems to take the approach that the only good Hillary supporter is a Hillary-right-or-wrong supporter. But, to paraphrase one of the best known quotes in American history, Reich believes in "Hillary right or wrong. If right, to keep her right, if wrong to make her right."
Furthermore, Sam uses ad hominin attacks against Reich, accusing him of being "sexist" and "smug." Those characterizations are not really descriptive, we think, of the arguments made by Reich.
Sam also says "Reich brings no evidence to bear on his claim that Hillary is tacking to the right."
Perhaps Reich assumes his readers already have some "evidence" of that. He might be thinking that they see the newspapers or listen to the news on TV or radio or see it on the Internet. In recent weeks, among other things, Hillary has asked Henry Kissinger and George W. Bush's former Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, for their endorsements.
The media has also widely reported that Hillary is courting "moderate" voters.
Is there something "wrong with this?" Sam asks.
Reich's position is that formulating a strategy to reach "moderate" voters is counter-productive because, Reich says, "There are no longer 'moderates.' There's no longer a 'center.' There's authoritarian populism (Trump) or democratic populism (which had been Bernie's 'political revolution,' and is now up for grabs)."
Reich presents evidence to back up his claim. Even though one might question Reich's conclusion, as supporters of Hillary, we feel we must carefully consider those conclusions. After all, Reich is a leading Hillary supporter and an experienced political campaigner. His opinion matters when we are considering tactics that will be useful in the fight to get her elected.
Reich says in his piece that he's worried that Hillary Clinton does not get that the "biggest divide in American politics is no longer between the right and the left."
Sam assures us that "The biggest divide - and Hillary clearly understands this well - has never been between the right and left." However, he does not tell us how he knows what Hillary does or does not understand.
Reich, on the other hand, is abundantly qualified for describing the ideas and attitudes of both Clintons. He knew them both during their college years and has remained friends ever since.
He says, as we stated above, that he's worried that Hillary doesn't get that the "biggest divide in American politics is ... between the anti-establishment and the establishment."
Sam agrees, "the establishment/anti-establishment idea has increasingly fractured U.S. politics and shapes popular thinking."
Therefore, one would assume that Sam would urge Clinton to zero in on this "popular thinking." That's what candidates do to win elections.
But Sam strongly implies that instead of doing what needs to be done to win, Hillary is somehow adhering to Sam's personal belief that "the main political division ... is between right-wing extremism on the one side and a broad, diverse, multi-class people's movement on the other."
Sam seems to think there's a difference between what he calls a "people's movement" and what Reich calls a movement for "democratic populism."
We think that the difference between the two formulations is mainly a rhetorical one, not a real one. But in election campaigns, language means a lot.
Reich's formulation may well help lead Hillary to victory in November. On the other hand, Sam's could lessen enthusiasm for Hillary among some former Bernie Sanders supporters and other progressives. In a close election this important that could mean disaster.
Photo: AP
-- via my feedly newsfeed

Union decline lowers wages of nonunion workers: The overlooked reason why wages are stuck and inequality is growing

http://epi.org/112811

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Re: [socialist-econ] Sam Webb doesn’t get Robert Reich [feedly]

Elections are won with passion, will, strategy and money.

Elections are not won with dithering. I salute my friends, John and Sam, for knowing how to win and refusing to act as if they live in a world and universe that doesn't exist.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 3, 2016, at 8:34 AM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

I get Robert Reich -- a social democrat (that's not a negative in this context) with a big ego and a longstanding grievance against both Clintons for being fired as Labor Secretary by Bill for not being a team player. He does not get invited to Clinton parties or events anymore. If I read the news right, he was not exactly a team player with Bernie either: first he says (on the Clinton endorsement) he will respect whatever Sanders decides -- then -- when Sanders endorses Clinton, Reich publicly criticizes him for it! Typical crappy team player. If you hang your hat on Reich, you will be disappointed.

Hillary was to the left of her husband from the beginning. ON health care, on poverty, on women, on children. She is a politician who listens, and changes her mind based on evidence: something some of her critics could take some fucking time to learn. She is, like Bill, and like Obama, also a politician focused on winning, not posturing for the narcissistic mirrors.

I did not agree with Sam Webb's skeptical, critical stance on the Sanders campaign. But then I know Bernie Sanders and his history well. I KNOW he is not a splitter. But most out side northern New England did not know him well.

Between the working class and progressive .supporters of Sanders, and the working class and progressive supporters of Clinton, there is a majority, if it can be organized and united, ready to reverse austerity, inequality, racism, and hold back from the slippery slopes that can lead to world war.

Any effort that seeks to divide this unity -- such as the reprehensible, dogma drenched, posts of Rick Nagin -- should be sanctioned.

Reich is a friend, even if unreliable
Sam is a much better friend.

John Case

Sam Webb doesn't get Robert Reich
http://peoplesworld.org/sam-webb-doesn-t-get-robert-reich/

As supporters of Hillary Clinton, we disagree with some of the assertions and implications in Sam Webb's opinion piece, Robert Reich on Hillary Clinton: too smug, too sexist, which is Sam's critique of a Robert Reich blog. For example, he says that "Hillary-hating ... is nearly a national pastime" and implies that Hillary Clinton herself did not play a key role in the Clinton Administration.
If hating Hillary were truly a "national pastime," we supporters might get discouraged. However, we are bolstered by opinion polls from around the country that show Hillary is, for the most part, ahead of Donald Trump.
In taking issue with Reich, Sam implies that Hillary was less than an equal partner in the Clinton Administration with statements such as "Reich ... assumes that what Bill did, Hillary will do. In other words, she has to not only pay for the sins of her husband, but, as a dutiful woman and wife, she is programmed to repeat them."
By implying that Hillary, herself, separately and as an individual did not play a leading, responsible role in the Clinton Administration Sam is actually discounting one of the most important items on her resume and one of the reasons we believe she is so well prepared to be President.
Reich worked in the Clinton Administration. He saw firsthand that what "Bill did" Hillary in fact, "did," too.
No one we know says Hillary Clinton "has to pay for the sins of her husband." She, herself, in all her speeches takes full responsibility for the central role she played in Bill's Administration.
To deny that she was an equal partner is to deny her credit for efforts such as trying to establish universal health care.
Is Sam trying to discourage people from supporting Clinton? We don't think so. We think he is shadow boxing a specter he calls "some" on the left and that he did not think through the possible impact of what he wrote.
As an example, he states "Reich (and some others on the left) ... are far more likely to critique - at times blast - [Clinton]. I guess they think that to do otherwise might leave them open to criticism from others on the left, thereby tarnishing what is most precious to them - their progressive and radical credentials."
Sam presents no evidence for "guessing" that Robert Reich does not write what he really thinks or that Reich is pandering to the left. For that matter, Sam does not say who exactly are the "some others on the left."
Without evidence for Sam's claim, there is no way to evaluate it. However we doubt that Reich feels a need to protect his "credentials," radical or otherwise. Moreover, as a nationally known liberal thinker he has never, to our knowledge, identified himself as a "radical."
Along with mislabeling Reich as a "radical," Sam misrepresents him. Contrary to Sam's assertion, nowhere in his piece does Reich lock "Hillary into a tightly constructed political category from which he allows her no space to escape."
On the contrary, Reich is giving Hillary advice he thinks she needs to win. He obviously thinks Hillary is flexible enough to make changes. Furthermore, in other pieces he's written, Reich has fully described how the Clinton campaign has changed in ideas and tone.
Sam seems to take the approach that the only good Hillary supporter is a Hillary-right-or-wrong supporter. But, to paraphrase one of the best known quotes in American history, Reich believes in "Hillary right or wrong. If right, to keep her right, if wrong to make her right."
Furthermore, Sam uses ad hominin attacks against Reich, accusing him of being "sexist" and "smug." Those characterizations are not really descriptive, we think, of the arguments made by Reich.
Sam also says "Reich brings no evidence to bear on his claim that Hillary is tacking to the right."
Perhaps Reich assumes his readers already have some "evidence" of that. He might be thinking that they see the newspapers or listen to the news on TV or radio or see it on the Internet. In recent weeks, among other things, Hillary has asked Henry Kissinger and George W. Bush's former Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, for their endorsements.
The media has also widely reported that Hillary is courting "moderate" voters.
Is there something "wrong with this?" Sam asks.
Reich's position is that formulating a strategy to reach "moderate" voters is counter-productive because, Reich says, "There are no longer 'moderates.' There's no longer a 'center.' There's authoritarian populism (Trump) or democratic populism (which had been Bernie's 'political revolution,' and is now up for grabs)."
Reich presents evidence to back up his claim. Even though one might question Reich's conclusion, as supporters of Hillary, we feel we must carefully consider those conclusions. After all, Reich is a leading Hillary supporter and an experienced political campaigner. His opinion matters when we are considering tactics that will be useful in the fight to get her elected.
Reich says in his piece that he's worried that Hillary Clinton does not get that the "biggest divide in American politics is no longer between the right and the left."
Sam assures us that "The biggest divide - and Hillary clearly understands this well - has never been between the right and left." However, he does not tell us how he knows what Hillary does or does not understand.
Reich, on the other hand, is abundantly qualified for describing the ideas and attitudes of both Clintons. He knew them both during their college years and has remained friends ever since.
He says, as we stated above, that he's worried that Hillary doesn't get that the "biggest divide in American politics is ... between the anti-establishment and the establishment."
Sam agrees, "the establishment/anti-establishment idea has increasingly fractured U.S. politics and shapes popular thinking."
Therefore, one would assume that Sam would urge Clinton to zero in on this "popular thinking." That's what candidates do to win elections.
But Sam strongly implies that instead of doing what needs to be done to win, Hillary is somehow adhering to Sam's personal belief that "the main political division ... is between right-wing extremism on the one side and a broad, diverse, multi-class people's movement on the other."
Sam seems to think there's a difference between what he calls a "people's movement" and what Reich calls a movement for "democratic populism."
We think that the difference between the two formulations is mainly a rhetorical one, not a real one. But in election campaigns, language means a lot.
Reich's formulation may well help lead Hillary to victory in November. On the other hand, Sam's could lessen enthusiasm for Hillary among some former Bernie Sanders supporters and other progressives. In a close election this important that could mean disaster.
Photo: AP

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Looking under the hood of today’s jobs report [feedly]

Looking under the hood of today's jobs report
http://www.epi.org/blog/looking-under-the-hood-of-todays-jobs-report/

Today's jobs report came in somewhat underwhelming. This morning, I compared payroll employment growth to weak tea and the labor market saw little to no improvement in other key measures. Yesterday, I urged readers to look under the hood of the headline jobs day numbers and see how well the economy is treating workers across various demographic groups. Today, I'm going to take one statistic from today's report and see how various groups have fared.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the official unemployment rate is 4.9 percent. Let's just remember for a moment that the unemployment rate only counts people actively looking for work, taken as a share of the labor force. So, this leaves out the estimated 2.2 million workers who we expect will return or join the labor force as job opportunities improve. With these missing workers, the unemployment rate would be 6.2 percent. It also leaves out workers who want to work full-time but could only find part-time work or those who might have looked in the last year, but not in the last month. Adding these in, the underemployment rate would be 9.7 percent.

Even with those caveats, I must admit the official unemployment rate is still quite a useful measure. And, along with nominal wage growth, it's a key measure the Federal Reserve watches when deciding how to act on interest rates. At 4.9 percent, the unemployment rate is 0.3 percentage points higher than it was in 2007, before the recession began, and 0.9 percentage points higher than the last time the economy was at full employment (2000). In fact, for five months in 2000, the unemployment rate was below 4.0 percent, hitting a low of 3.8 percent in April 2000. Examined another way, the unemployment rate is 1.1 times higher today than in 2007 and 1.2 times higher than in 2000.

-- via my feedly newsfeed

James Galbraith Tells Us What Everyone Needs to Know About Inequality [feedly]

Suppose I accept Galbraith's basic premise: abandoning progressive taxation drove the rising inequality trend that followed it. Does if follow that restoring progressive taxation will reverse the inequality trends? Or, is more required? What impact would reversing tax policy have on corporate governance now?

James Galbraith Tells Us What Everyone Needs to Know About Inequality
http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2016/09/james-galbraith-tells-us-what-everyone-needs-to-know-about-inequality.html

By Polly Cleveland

Inequality has surged in the U.S. over the last forty years; many observers now blame the deregulation and tax cuts for the rich starting with the presidency of Ronald Reagan in 1980. In his new short book, Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know, James Galbraith explains how this happened through the change in U.S industrial structure:

"In the early postwar period, the dominant American industrial corporation–such as General Motors, General Electric, American Telephone & Telegraph, International Business Machines–was an integrated behemoth that contained within itself not only production, but every phase of basic research, product design, and marketing that was relevant to its mission. Therefore incomes were distributed within the corporation by administrative decisions, governed by the bureaucratic imperatives and prerogatives of those in charge, and strongly responsive to the incentives of a highly progressive income tax structure. Top scientists and engineers, as well as top executives, were paid salaries, and salaries were regulated by the corporation. Tax structures also gave strong incentives for the corporation to retain profits, rather than pay them out as dividends, and to reinvest the proceeds–whether in factories or in the palatial towers that grew up in Manhattan, San Francisco, and Chicago in those years.
All of this changed with the tax "reform" movements of the 1970s and 1980s, which pushed for lower top marginal tax rates, fewer special exemptions from the tax, and for a "shareholder-value" model of corporate compensation. And a special feature of this change was that it created strong incentives to restructure the corporation itself.
"In particular, as the digital revolution came into view, the top technologists in the big corporations realized that they would be far better off if they set off on their own, incorporated themselves as independent technology firms, and then sold their output back to the companies for which they had formerly worked in salaried jobs.…
The effect of this structural transformation on the distribution of household incomes in the United States, as recorded in the tax records, is astonishing. For there were created, mainly in the 1990s, a handful of citadels of stratospheric incomes, previously unknown in the country and concentrated in the tiny handful of locations. One of these was Manhattan, the home of Wall Street and the source of finance. A second was Silicon Valley, a cluster of counties in Northern California. And the third was Seattle, Washington, and its near suburbs."

Galbraith is describing the same phenomenon that Barry Lynn documented at length in his chilling 2010 exposé: Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction. That is, the transformation from vertically integrated firms to horizontally-integrated monopolistic trading companies, buying inputs from all over the world, squeezing both their suppliers and their customers. But Galbraith adds a new insight: not only did the postwar high-tax regime induce corporations to keep executive pay in check, it also induced them to retain profits and reinvest them in the corporation. With the 1980's "greed is good" transformation, rates of reinvestment slowed as executives started taking more for themselves—surely helping slow the overall rate of growth.

Wait a moment! High taxes on income and profit produced more investment and growth? That's the exact opposite of today's Republican, and often Democratic, mantra that high taxes kill investment and growth. But the postwar taxes that tamed the corporate behemoths were in fact high marginal rates, top rates in a steeply progressive system. These were the very taxes imposed at the beginning of World War II to prevent war profiteering. These were taxes designed to capture the "unearned income" or "economic rent" of powerful corporations and wealthy individuals. It was perfectly logical for such corporations and individuals to "avoid" such taxes by investing money they would otherwise lose.

If high marginal income and profit taxes are so beneficial, is there any prospect—given the political will— of returning to such tax levels? Unfortunately, now that so many multinational corporations and wealthy individuals are registered or domiciled in tax haven countries, any simple effort to impose truly high marginal rates on profits or income will simply lead to more creative evasions, corruption (see Panama), and tax wars.

But, assuming the political will, are there other approaches? Galbraith proposes:

A much older and yet, to this day, still more promising alternative to taxing financial wealth is to tax land value, including the value of mineral and energy resources in the ground. The economic concept behind this idea is that of Ricardian rent–the argument that rents (which are inherently unproductive) flow to the owners of the fixed and non-reproducible asset, namely land. By taxing land and minerals, one reaches the least defensible forms of accumulated wealth, while at the same time doing the least to distort market decisions as between capital investment and hiring of labor. And there is another advantage: unlike financial wealth, land stays put. It exists in fixed jurisdictions with registered ownership; all the taxing authorities need to do is to send an appraiser, and then a bill. Local property taxes already work this way; however, in the United States landowner opposition to land taxes has been fierce, and many states are barred by their constitutions from levying property tax on a statewide basis. In California, notoriously, even local property taxes were capped in the late 1970s by a ballot measure strongly supported by wealthy landholding interests.
Land taxation has been for a century the program of the followers of the 19^thcentury American economist Henry George, whose influence was vast around the world a century ago. One of his followers was the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen, founder of the Republic of China in 1911. And Maoist China, by conducting an early war against landlords, ended up having the world economy most like the Georgist program in the modern age. But instead of taxing land value, the Chinese state actually owns it, and collects the land rent for itself. By doing this, Chinese municipalities and provinces have enjoyed ample revenue from which to make capital improvements, which is why Chinese cities have been able to grow like weeds in the reform era…

To this I would add that land taxes weren't new in China: they financed Chinese empires as early as 2000 BC. Stiff land taxes of four shillings to the pound of assessed value financed the transformation of British finance in 1688; Adam Smith deemed them "the most equitable of all taxes." Taxes on high profits and incomes and on land values all capture unearned income, or rents, forcing taxpayers to invest productively to pay the tax.

-- via my feedly newsfeed

Sam Webb doesn’t get Robert Reich [feedly]

I get Robert Reich -- a social democrat (that's not a negative in this context) with a big ego and a longstanding grievance against both Clintons for being fired as Labor Secretary by Bill for not being a team player. He does not get invited to Clinton parties or events anymore. If I read the news right, he was not exactly a team player with Bernie either: first he says (on the Clinton endorsement) he will respect whatever Sanders decides -- then -- when Sanders endorses Clinton, Reich publicly criticizes him for it! Typical crappy team player. If you hang your hat on Reich, you will be disappointed.

Hillary was to the left of her husband from the beginning. ON health care, on poverty, on women, on children. She is a politician who listens, and changes her mind based on evidence: something some of her critics could take some fucking time to learn. She is, like Bill, and like Obama, also a politician focused on winning, not posturing for the narcissistic mirrors.

I did not agree with Sam Webb's skeptical, critical stance on the Sanders campaign. But then I know Bernie Sanders and his history well. I KNOW he is not a splitter. But most out side northern New England did not know him well.

Between the working class and progressive .supporters of Sanders, and the working class and progressive supporters of Clinton, there is a majority, if it can be organized and united, ready to reverse austerity, inequality, racism, and hold back from the slippery slopes that can lead to world war.

Any effort that seeks to divide this unity -- such as the reprehensible, dogma drenched, posts of Rick Nagin -- should be sanctioned.

Reich is a friend, even if unreliable

Sam is a much better friend.

John Case

Sam Webb doesn't get Robert Reich
http://peoplesworld.org/sam-webb-doesn-t-get-robert-reich/

As supporters of Hillary Clinton, we disagree with some of the assertions and implications in Sam Webb's opinion piece, Robert Reich on Hillary Clinton: too smug, too sexist, which is Sam's critique of a Robert Reich blog. For example, he says that "Hillary-hating ... is nearly a national pastime" and implies that Hillary Clinton herself did not play a key role in the Clinton Administration.

If hating Hillary were truly a "national pastime," we supporters might get discouraged. However, we are bolstered by opinion polls from around the country that show Hillary is, for the most part, ahead of Donald Trump.

In taking issue with Reich, Sam implies that Hillary was less than an equal partner in the Clinton Administration with statements such as "Reich ... assumes that what Bill did, Hillary will do. In other words, she has to not only pay for the sins of her husband, but, as a dutiful woman and wife, she is programmed to repeat them."

By implying that Hillary, herself, separately and as an individual did not play a leading, responsible role in the Clinton Administration Sam is actually discounting one of the most important items on her resume and one of the reasons we believe she is so well prepared to be President.

Reich worked in the Clinton Administration. He saw firsthand that what "Bill did" Hillary in fact, "did," too.

No one we know says Hillary Clinton "has to pay for the sins of her husband." She, herself, in all her speeches takes full responsibility for the central role she played in Bill's Administration.

To deny that she was an equal partner is to deny her credit for efforts such as trying to establish universal health care.

Is Sam trying to discourage people from supporting Clinton? We don't think so. We think he is shadow boxing a specter he calls "some" on the left and that he did not think through the possible impact of what he wrote.

As an example, he states "Reich (and some others on the left) ... are far more likely to critique - at times blast - [Clinton]. I guess they think that to do otherwise might leave them open to criticism from others on the left, thereby tarnishing what is most precious to them - their progressive and radical credentials."

Sam presents no evidence for "guessing" that Robert Reich does not write what he really thinks or that Reich is pandering to the left. For that matter, Sam does not say who exactly are the "some others on the left."

Without evidence for Sam's claim, there is no way to evaluate it. However we doubt that Reich feels a need to protect his "credentials," radical or otherwise. Moreover, as a nationally known liberal thinker he has never, to our knowledge, identified himself as a "radical."

Along with mislabeling Reich as a "radical," Sam misrepresents him. Contrary to Sam's assertion, nowhere in his piece does Reich lock "Hillary into a tightly constructed political category from which he allows her no space to escape."

On the contrary, Reich is giving Hillary advice he thinks she needs to win. He obviously thinks Hillary is flexible enough to make changes. Furthermore, in other pieces he's written, Reich has fully described how the Clinton campaign has changed in ideas and tone.

Sam seems to take the approach that the only good Hillary supporter is a Hillary-right-or-wrong supporter. But, to paraphrase one of the best known quotes in American history, Reich believes in "Hillary right or wrong. If right, to keep her right, if wrong to make her right."

Furthermore, Sam uses ad hominin attacks against Reich, accusing him of being "sexist" and "smug." Those characterizations are not really descriptive, we think, of the arguments made by Reich.

Sam also says "Reich brings no evidence to bear on his claim that Hillary is tacking to the right."

Perhaps Reich assumes his readers already have some "evidence" of that. He might be thinking that they see the newspapers or listen to the news on TV or radio or see it on the Internet. In recent weeks, among other things, Hillary has asked Henry Kissinger and George W. Bush's former Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, for their endorsements.

The media has also widely reported that Hillary is courting "moderate" voters.

Is there something "wrong with this?" Sam asks.

Reich's position is that formulating a strategy to reach "moderate" voters is counter-productive because, Reich says, "There are no longer 'moderates.' There's no longer a 'center.' There's authoritarian populism (Trump) or democratic populism (which had been Bernie's 'political revolution,' and is now up for grabs)."

Reich presents evidence to back up his claim. Even though one might question Reich's conclusion, as supporters of Hillary, we feel we must carefully consider those conclusions. After all, Reich is a leading Hillary supporter and an experienced political campaigner. His opinion matters when we are considering tactics that will be useful in the fight to get her elected.

Reich says in his piece that he's worried that Hillary Clinton does not get that the "biggest divide in American politics is no longer between the right and the left."

Sam assures us that "The biggest divide - and Hillary clearly understands this well - has never been between the right and left." However, he does not tell us how he knows what Hillary does or does not understand.

Reich, on the other hand, is abundantly qualified for describing the ideas and attitudes of both Clintons. He knew them both during their college years and has remained friends ever since.

He says, as we stated above, that he's worried that Hillary doesn't get that the "biggest divide in American politics is ... between the anti-establishment and the establishment."

Sam agrees, "the establishment/anti-establishment idea has increasingly fractured U.S. politics and shapes popular thinking."

Therefore, one would assume that Sam would urge Clinton to zero in on this "popular thinking." That's what candidates do to win elections.

But Sam strongly implies that instead of doing what needs to be done to win, Hillary is somehow adhering to Sam's personal belief that "the main political division ... is between right-wing extremism on the one side and a broad, diverse, multi-class people's movement on the other."

Sam seems to think there's a difference between what he calls a "people's movement" and what Reich calls a movement for "democratic populism."

We think that the difference between the two formulations is mainly a rhetorical one, not a real one. But in election campaigns, language means a lot.

Reich's formulation may well help lead Hillary to victory in November. On the other hand, Sam's could lessen enthusiasm for Hillary among some former Bernie Sanders supporters and other progressives. In a close election this important that could mean disaster.

Photo: AP

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Friday, September 2, 2016

Ten Open Questions for the Techno-Optimist [feedly]

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Ten Open Questions for the Techno-Optimist
// Digitopoly

From what I can gather from several recent articles, many serious pundits have arguments with the views of 'techno-optimists.' A techno-optimist appears to be somebody who has blind faith in the power of technology to cure all ills, and particularly, to create economic growth. (See e.g., here, here, here, here, or here, and there are many more…)

I understand skepticism with an optimist, and asking someone naïve to 'show me the money.' As a rule of thumb, it is a good idea to be skeptical of bloggers and futurists who lack hard economic statistics.

That said, skepticism is an attitude, not a conclusion. Go ahead and ask for hard data, but do not close an open question. Sometimes innovative IT has had spectacular impact on the economy and sometimes it has not. It takes work to recognize the difference. Indeed, there is a set of norms and a range of standard tools for settling these questions – such as quality-adjusted price indices, revenue adjusted for inflation, and a range of economic accounting techniques.

This column (shamelessly) aims to educate journalists about some of the big open questions in research that studies productivity growth from innovative IT. While I am at it, I hope the topic informs graduate students about great topics for a thesis. Be forewarned, however. It is a little shocking how much (or how little) we really know about recent experience. Many of these questions are wickedly difficult.

The only thing I can promise with certainty is the absence of an easy answer.

1. Online pictures and videos are everywhere except in the productivity statistics. Tim Berners Lee invented the web to share graphs and pictures and other media, and nobody paid anything for licenses for the software. It spread everywhere, so we got a combination of low cost and wide use. Seems good for economic growth, right? To be sure, a space alien might see the web for the first time and might conclude that the web was invented primarily to share baby pictures and cat videos, and to illustrate men and women in, um, acts of procreation. Reflect for a thoughtful moment and really look beyond the superficial. There are millions of web pages. An enormous ecosystem of browsers and server software and networking infrastructure supports its use, and some of these actors – mainly Internet Service Providers – make some revenue, well north of fifty billion in wireline access. Online advertising is a little less. Is that it? How about online sales, which is less than eight percent of US sales revenues, but does not make large profits? What boost did the US get – a one-time surge in growth or a steady set of gains until now?

2. How much productivity does email produce? Email has a different history than the web, but its rise motivates almost the same types of questions. Nobody ever paid a licensing fee to make use of this invention. Last year over 200 billion emails were sent per day. To be sure, 75% of those emails are spam, but that still leaves a lot of quality communication. Where do we see those gains? Gmail and HoTMaiL, the two largest providers of email, charge nothing. Microsoft's Outlook makes revenue, but that is not the contribution of email to GDP. Surely not. So how much does it contribute? When did email lead to growth – twenty years ago, when email largely displaced postal mail of letters? How about recently?

3. What were the gains from reduction in search costs? Who among you uses portals, search engines, recommendation sites, and online maps? OK, everyone can put down the hands. Remember how your parents used to fumble through the Yellow Pages? Remember how a cross-city trip involved laying out a great big paper map on the kitchen table? Remember when a cousin's recommendation determined which restaurant in a new neighborhood you visited? Difficult as it might be for teenagers today to comprehend, everyone did manage in those dark ages. Still, today is much better. How much did the reduction in search costs bring to GDP, if anything, and when? Advertising supports some of this activity, which surely is only one aspect of a broad economic gain. Well, how do you measure those gains?

4. What were the gains from making the long tail available? Ebay, Amazon, Craigslist, and a gazillion sites made the long tail available – of books, music, clothing, memorabilia, and millions of other products. What an enormous variety lies at everyone's finger tips. What does the long tail contribute to economic growth? There have been some estimates in specific product categories, such as books and shoes, but none across the entire economy. Were most of those gains realized in late 1990s? Do those gains today simply grow along with Amazon's growth? Are most of the gains not realized as revenue, and, therefore, not measured?

5. Up to date online news is addictive. Is it productive too? The creation of online media ushered in an era for news-junkies. Again, hard for a child to comprehend how anybody checked the sports scores or learned timely financial news (without access to expensive Bloomberg terminals), but we did manage before. More deeply, what is the contribution of more timely information to economic productivity? Seems like many gains are not measured. If they are, where do those gains show up in national statistics? In which industries?

6. Did the rise of remote work change productivity? The cell phone and smart phone made work more mobile. The deployment of cloud is pushing in the same direction. There have been a few studies of a consumer's willingness to pay for mobility, but very little about its effect on work. How did the economy gain from the introduction of mobility into work life? Just like the other questions: Some of the gains might show up in productivity statistics, or in prices, or in the hours worked, or in labor participation rates. Or not. How do we know?

7. How much did Wikipedia benefit the economy? Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is the third largest repository of human knowledge in the world today, exceeded only by the British Library and the Library of Congress. It is a top twenty site in every developed country. Traditional GDP measurement would value the advertising, but Wikipedia does not have any. Is Wikipedia's value the displaced revenue at Encarta, Britannica, World Book and Colliers? Or is Wikipedia's worth the value of the time put in by all its volunteers? Or is it the value to users, and the time savings it affords? What concept of value is appropriate, how would you implement it and measure its growth?

8. Enterprises do not own all their IT. Does that mean they are more productive? We are well past the days when an organization owned all its IT. Today we live in the era of cloud, networked services, rented manufacturing facilities, and marketing with social graphs. We are far past the era when a firm bought inputs and produced outputs in a manufacturing process and its productivity could be measured inside the manufacturing plant. In the extreme examples today firms such as Uber and Lyft own very few cars and employ very few people, and, yet, the firms are worth tens of billions. Has more value been created for GDP, if any, by these new organizational forms, that leverage external resources? How would you know?

9. How big were the gains from serving low density areas? Improvements in Internet access led to gains in GDP in places that had limited access to retail outlets. Traditional price indices have an urban bias, because the information is easier to collect in urban stores. Rural America comprises the experience of 15% of the US population (45m people), and a much higher percentage (and number of people) in the developing world. Again, how big were the unmeasured gains? Were most of the gains realized in 1995, or has there been steady progress since as the Internet has gotten faster?

10. What is the value of the creative commons license? A little less than twenty years ago some legal scholars invented the licenses known as the creative commons license. It is designed to permit sharing of copyrighted material in much the same way that open source has licenses for sharing code. Millions of web sites operate with this clever legal adaptation, it is integral to some popular sites with user-provided content, such as YouTube. What is the value of this invention? Do the price indices properly capture the extraordinary decline in the cost of sharing photography and video recordings? If not, how would you make a more accurate index?

These questions presume that many economic gains from the deployment of the commercial Internet went largely unmeasured. Blame flaws in traditional price indices, inadequate definitions of revenue, and flawed productivity attribution exercises.

These questions also tend to imply that the processes that created growth in the recent past will continue to create growth in the future. That motivates the research question. While it is good to fix recent growth statistics, it is even better to measure the gains in the near future.

If these two features make me an optimist, then call me that.

More to the point, if you're an economic researcher and you do not like this list of ten questions, then make your own. Let's focus on one of the biggest unaddressed economic topics of our time.

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