Paul Krugman: Who Broke Politics? [feedly]

----
Paul Krugman: Who Broke Politics?
// Economist's View

 "Republican leaders have spent the past couple of decades ... trashing democratic norms in pursuit of economic benefits for their donor class":

Who Broke Politics?, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: ...This has been an election in which almost every week sees some longstanding norm in U.S. political life get broken. ... So how did all our political norms get destroyed? Hint: It started long before Donald Trump.

On one side, Republicans decided long ago that anything went in the effort to delegitimize and destroy Democrats. Those of us old enough to remember the 1990s also remember the endless series of accusations hurled against the Clintons. ...

When Mrs. Clinton famously spoke of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to undermine her husband's presidency, she wasn't being hyperbolic; she was simply describing the obvious reality.

And since accusations of Democratic scandal, not to mention congressional "investigations" that started from a presumption of guilt, had become the norm, the very idea of bad behavior independent of politics disappeared: The flip side of the obsessive pursuit of a Democratic president was utter refusal to investigate even the most obvious wrongdoing by Republicans in office.

There were multiple real scandals during the administration of George W. Bush, ranging from what looked like a political purge in the Justice Department to the deceptions that led us into invading Iraq; nobody was ever held accountable.

The erosion of norms continued after President Obama took office. ...

What was the purpose of this assault on the implicit rules and understandings that we need to make democracy work? Well, when Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1995, he was trying to, guess what, privatize Medicare. The rage against Bill Clinton partly reflected the fact that he raised taxes modestly on the wealthy.

In other words, Republican leaders have spent the past couple of decades ... trashing democratic norms in pursuit of economic benefits for their donor class.

So we shouldn't really be too surprised that Mr. Comey, who turns out to be a Republican first and a public servant, well, not so much, decided to politically weaponize his position on the eve of the election...

Despite Mr. Comey's abuse of power, Mrs. Clinton will probably win. But Republicans won't accept it. ... And no matter what Mrs. Clinton does, the barrage of fake scandals will continue, now with demands for impeachment.

Can anything be done to limit the damage? It would help if the media finally learned its lesson, and stopped treating Republican scandal-mongering as genuine news. And it would also help if Democrats won the Senate, so that at least some governing could get done.


----

Shared via my feedly newsfeed

Mainstream Economics [feedly]

----
Mainstream Economics
// Economist's View

Simon Wren-Lewis:

Ann Pettifor on mainstream economics: Ann has a article that talks about the underlying factor behind the Brexit vote. Her thesis, that it represents the discontent of those left behind by globalization, has been put forward by others. Unlike Brad DeLong, I have few problems with seeing this as a contributing factor to Brexit, because it is backed up by evidence, but like Brad DeLong I doubt it generalizes to other countries. Unfortunately her piece is spoilt by a final section that is a tirade against mainstream economists which goes way over the top. ...

Most economists have certainly encouraged the idea that globalization would increase overall prosperity, and they have been proved right. It is also true that many of these economists did not admit or stress enough that there would be losers as a result of this process who needed compensating from the increase in aggregate prosperity. But once again I doubt very much that anything would have changed if they had. And if they didn't think enough about it in the past, they are now: see Paul De Grauwe here for example.

There is a regrettable (but understandable) tendency by heterodox economists on the left to try and pretend that economics and neoliberalism are somehow inextricably entwined. The reality is that neoliberal advocates do use some economic ideas as justification, but they ignore others which go in the opposite direction. As I often point out, many more academic economists spend their time analyzing market imperfections than trying to show markets always work on their own. They get Nobel prizes for this work. I find attempts to suggest that economics somehow helped create austerity particularly annoying, as I (and many others) have spent many blog posts showing that economic theory and evidence demonstrates that austerity was a huge mistake.


----

Shared via my feedly newsfeed

Paul Krugman on Brexit, U.S. Election, and Fed Policy (Video) [feedly]

----
Paul Krugman on Brexit, U.S. Election, and Fed Policy (Video)
// Economist's View


----

Shared via my feedly newsfeed

Taxing the Rich More—Evidence from the 2013 Federal Tax Increase [feedly]

----
Taxing the Rich More—Evidence from the 2013 Federal Tax Increase
// Economist's View

Emmanuel Saez:

Taxing the rich more—evidence from the 2013 federal tax increase: One of the most contentious aspects of the tax policy debate in the United States today is the proper level of taxation of the rich. In the current presidential election contest, Hillary Clinton proposes to increase taxes on the rich while Donald Trump proposes to cut taxes on the rich. This policy decision is particularly important because the concentration of income at the top is extremely high. ...

Progressive taxation historically is the most powerful tool to reduce income concentration. The classic counter argument is that higher top tax rates might discourage economic activity among the rich. In a recent paper, I analyze the effects of the 2013 federal income tax increase on the behavior of top income earners to cast light on this issue. ...

After President Obama was re-elected in early November 2012, it was virtually certain that top income tax rates would go up in 2013. For the rich, shifting $100 of income from 2013 to 2012 saves $9 in taxes for capital income (and $6 for labor income), which means the rich had strong incentives to accelerate their incomes into 2012 to benefit from the lower 2012 tax rates and avoid the higher 2013 tax rates. ...

This retiming response is large—income earners in the top 1 percent shifted about 10 percent of their income from 2013 into 2012. Lost government tax revenues, however, were modest as income shifted into 2012 still were taxed at the 2012 rates, which were about three-quarters of the 2013 tax rate. ...

I estimate that only about 20 percent of the projected revenue increase from the 2013 tax hike is lost due to the behavioral responses over the medium term. Second, by itself, the 2013 tax increase will not be sufficient to curb the extraordinarily high level of pre-tax income concentration in the United States.

These findings echo the findings of earlier work analyzing the 1993 Clinton era tax increase, which also generated short-term retiming of top incomes into 1992 but did not prevent top income shares from surging in the mid-to-late 1990s. It is also striking that the best growth experience for the bottom 99 percent of income earners over the past 25 years took place in the mid-to-late 1990s and between 2013 and 2015—after tax increases on the rich. This suggests that taxing the rich more does not have detrimental effects on the broader economy; quite the contrary.


----

Shared via my feedly newsfeed

Re: [socialist-econ] Re: A different take on what happened and going forward

Every post has an unsubscribe link.

On Dec 3, 2016 11:41 AM, "Terrie Albano" <talbano@peoplesworld.org> wrote:

Dear John, please take me off the socialist-Econ list and blogger socialist. 

 It seems to me that especially in this time when "nasty" is the pinnacle of politics, another way of responding is in order. I always think of George Meyers' words- to disagree without being disagreeable.

I told my sobbing daughter who said through her tears that she was so afraid for the future and asked, what can we do, the only thing I really could think of that made sense: we have to weave the bonds of community stronger and broader, love more and dig deep for the courage to do and stand up for what is right.

I hope to live up to those words. Appreciate your attention to my request. Thanks, Terrie

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 2, 2016, at 4:15 PM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

Not an ounce of data this. I would call it analysis, if I had the slightest idea what it meant, other than a call to further "strategic" studies and inaction. It shuns economics. It abandons class as a relationship to economics. It shuns the F word. It shuns Marxism, which is OK by me since that ism is no less confused than the half-baked liberal speculation offered in its place. Good liberalism is at least evidence and data based. Lecturing the "white working class" -- IMO, a fraudulent, racist concept from the git -- on their sins is a meaningless and futile tactic. Maybe that's not what Sam is saying. Maybe I need to go back to school to understand.

But until then..

This leads nowhere. AND -- it is NOT serious. Not a moment of self criticism: which every critic on the left, at least, to should include at the outset.

We have to do better

On Dec 2, 2016 1:03 PM, "Samuel Webb" <swebb1945@gmail.com> wrote:

>

> >

> Dear Friend,
>
> Here is a new post of mine (http://samwebb.org/), which. no surprise i highly recommend. It's a bit of a different take on what happened and the challenges ahead. Have a good weekend. Sam

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Socialist Economics" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to socialist-economics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to socialist-economics@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/socialist-economics.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/socialist-economics/CADH2idJsYBT%2BDrx-Va8X_2oq3Zk4DwDLkwfYbXg52PFprznpyw%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Socialist Economics" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to socialist-economics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to socialist-economics@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/socialist-economics.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/socialist-economics/C0315827-BC4F-4A6C-B895-B3370B778D5F%40peoplesworld.org.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: [socialist-econ] Re: A different take on what happened and going forward

Dear John, please take me off the socialist-Econ list and blogger socialist. 

 It seems to me that especially in this time when "nasty" is the pinnacle of politics, another way of responding is in order. I always think of George Meyers' words- to disagree without being disagreeable.

I told my sobbing daughter who said through her tears that she was so afraid for the future and asked, what can we do, the only thing I really could think of that made sense: we have to weave the bonds of community stronger and broader, love more and dig deep for the courage to do and stand up for what is right.

I hope to live up to those words. Appreciate your attention to my request. Thanks, Terrie

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 2, 2016, at 4:15 PM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

Not an ounce of data this. I would call it analysis, if I had the slightest idea what it meant, other than a call to further "strategic" studies and inaction. It shuns economics. It abandons class as a relationship to economics. It shuns the F word. It shuns Marxism, which is OK by me since that ism is no less confused than the half-baked liberal speculation offered in its place. Good liberalism is at least evidence and data based. Lecturing the "white working class" -- IMO, a fraudulent, racist concept from the git -- on their sins is a meaningless and futile tactic. Maybe that's not what Sam is saying. Maybe I need to go back to school to understand.

But until then..

This leads nowhere. AND -- it is NOT serious. Not a moment of self criticism: which every critic on the left, at least, to should include at the outset.

We have to do better

On Dec 2, 2016 1:03 PM, "Samuel Webb" <swebb1945@gmail.com> wrote:

>

> >

> Dear Friend,
>
> Here is a new post of mine (http://samwebb.org/), which. no surprise i highly recommend. It's a bit of a different take on what happened and the challenges ahead. Have a good weekend. Sam

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Socialist Economics" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to socialist-economics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to socialist-economics@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/socialist-economics.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/socialist-economics/CADH2idJsYBT%2BDrx-Va8X_2oq3Zk4DwDLkwfYbXg52PFprznpyw%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

The Myth of the Rust Belt Revolt

22.3k

1.6k

1.4k

Donald Trump didn't flip working-class white voters. Hillary Clinton lost them.

By Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr

Commentators in charge of explaining Donald Trump's surprise victory seem to have settled on the idea that the white working class in the Rust Belt played a decisive role. In the New York Times, for example, Thomas Edsall notes that Trump won 14 percent more noncollege whites than Mitt Romney, and that those working-class voters Trump carried by "huge margins" were heavily concentrated in the Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (which we will call the Rust Belt 5).

But this emerging consensus around a Rust Belt revolt is wrong. People like Edsall have missed the real story: Relative to the 2012 election, Democratic support in the Rust Belt collapsed as a huge number of Democrats stayed home or (to a lesser extent) voted for a third party. Trump did not really flip white working-class voters in the Rust Belt. Mostly, Democrats lost them.

Our analysis projects publicly accessible exit-poll data for the past two elections onto turnout figures in the Rust Belt 5, to look at the whole picture, including third-party voters and those staying at home. Here's what we found.

1. In the Rust Belt 5, the GOP's pickup of voters making $50,000 or less is overshadowed by the Democrats' dramatic loss of voters in that category.

Compared with Republicans' performance in 2012, the GOP in the Rust Belt 5 picked up 335,000 additional voters who earned less than $50,000 (+10.6 percent). But the Republicans' gain in this area was nothing compared with the Democrats' loss of 1.17 million (-21.7 percent) voters in the same income category. Likewise, Republicans picked up a measly 26,000 new voters in the $50–$100K bracket (+0.7 percent), but Democrats lost 379,000 voters in the same bracket (-11.7 percent).  The working class is not the only part of this equation. Analysis elsewhere suggests that in states such as Wisconsin, a significant fraction of Democrats' loss relative to 2012 came from poor districts, and it's unclear how much voter ID laws affected those numbers.

Shift in absolute votes cast by income and party since 2012 in the Rust Belt 5. (Sources: CNN, NYT, US Election Project, US Election Atlas.)

Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr

2. Republicans in the Rust Belt 5 picked up almost as many wealthy voters making over $100,000 as voters who made less than $50,000.

Relative to 2012, Republicans gained 225,000 voters earning $100,000 and over (+8.1 percent). Recall that they gained 335,000 additional working-class voters who earned less than $50,000 (+10.6%). It's hardly a working-class revolt if wealthy voters are marching together with them, hand in hand. Democrats picked up more wealthy voters, too.

3. Trump did not flip white voters in the Rust Belt who had supported Obama. Democrats lost them.

Relative to 2012, Democrats lost 950,000 white voters in the Rust Belt 5 (-13 percent). This figure includes a loss of 770,000 votes cast by white men (-24.2 percent). Compare that number to the modest gains Republicans made in terms of white voters: They picked up only 450,000 whites (+4.9 percent).

Democrats also lost the black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) vote in the Rust Belt 5, with 400,000 fewer voters in this category (-11.5 percent). While disaggregated exit-poll data on BIPOC voters was inconsistently available across the five states we examined, in those places where numbers were available, Democrats saw losses among both black American and Latino voters. Importantly, some of the greatest losses in BIPOC votes were in states such as Ohio and Wisconsin, both of which adopted voter suppression laws beginning in 2012. But even in states with no such laws, such as Pennsylvania, BIPOC turnout was significantly lower this election cycle. In short, more people of color stayed home in the Rust Belt in 2016 than in 2012.

Shift in absolute votes cast by race and party since 2012 in the Rust Belt 5. (Sources: CNN, NYT, U.S. Election Project, U.S. Election Atlas.)

Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr

4. The real story—the one the pundits missed—is that voters who fled the Democrats in the Rust Belt 5 were twice as likely either to vote for a third party or to stay at home than to embrace Trump.

Compared with 2012, three times as many voters in the Rust Belt who made under $100,000 voted for third parties. Twice as many voted for alternative or write-in candidates. Similarly, compared with 2012, some 500,000 more voters chose to sit out this presidential election. If there was a Rust Belt revolt this year, it was the voters' flight from both parties.

In short, the story of a white working-class revolt in the Rust Belt just doesn't hold up, according to the numbers. In the Rust Belt, Democrats lost 1.35 million voters. Trump picked up less than half, at 590,000. The rest stayed home or voted for someone other than the major party candidates.

This data suggests that if the Democratic Party wants to win the Rust Belt, it should not go chasing after the white working-class men who voted for Trump. The party should spend its energy figuring out why Democrats lost millions of voters to some other candidate or to abstention. Exit polls do not collect information about why voters stay home. Perhaps it's time someone asked them.

--

John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, Eastern Panhandle Independent Community (EPIC) Radio Stream, 

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

Check out Socialist Economics.

Check out The EPIC Radio website