In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On May 01 2014 07:15 oneofthem wrote: what do you think modern economic thought is? friedman? lucas? sure, extreme believers of rational markets perfection may challenge picketty's policy conclusions or explain away his empirical results, but the guy did his homework and facts are facts.
Facts are facts, but not everything in Picketty's book are facts. He did do a lot of work collecting and discussing historical facts, but predictions on the future and policy recommendations aren't facts.
i agree about the open discussion with respect to policy. i am probably opposed to a global tax system (mostly because it won't be executed and implemented at all according to design.)
but the book's significance is bringing an often neglected issue to the forefront, and raising the need for solutions at all. i'm personally looking at some sort of higher inflation effect to erase built up wealth, more new businesses to generate growth and employment, and making the fruits of financialization more equitably distributed
On May 01 2014 07:15 oneofthem wrote: what do you think modern economic thought is? friedman? lucas? sure, extreme believers of rational markets perfection may challenge picketty's policy conclusions or explain away his empirical results, but the guy did his homework and facts are facts.
Facts are facts, but not everything in Picketty's book are facts. He did do a lot of work collecting and discussing historical facts, but predictions on the future and policy recommendations aren't facts.
Maybe I'm biased or blind, but I don't see a lot of left leaning people calling for wealth taxes or anything so extreme. Most of the references to those policy opinions are coming from those attempting to discredit Piketty as a Marxist reboot.
The collective drooling over this man's book, now what -- out a month? -- resembles that of the a new video game. It's the best thing ever and will be the summit of the genre!!! Maybe he has collected an impressive body of work to try to support his analysis of why and suggestions of what has to be done (not that some haven't already attacked that aspect). That's credit to his academic pursuits. He's not immune to criticism, his flavor-of-the-month acolytes may very well be. Say but one word against this inequality manifesto and you'll get the same reaction if you had brought up that your new girlfriend has a history of cheating and short relationships. You won't hear it. Radical egalitarianism has its allure.
We'll see if the liberals are still so enamored a year from now. Here's a little tidbit of criticism on the methodology and data in the book, enjoy.
you didn't say 'just anything' you said it's marginalized in mainstream economics or the like. i asked you what robert solow, as mainstream and central to economics as they come, said about the book and i don't think you responded.
On May 01 2014 08:45 Danglars wrote: The collective drooling over this man's book, now what -- out a month? -- resembles that of the a new video game. It's the best thing ever and will be the summit of the genre!!! Maybe he has collected an impressive body of work to try to support his analysis of why and suggestions of what has to be done (not that some haven't already attacked that aspect). That's credit to his academic pursuits. He's not immune to criticism, his flavor-of-the-month acolytes may very well be. Say but one word against this inequality manifesto and you'll get the same reaction if you had brought up that your new girlfriend has a history of cheating and short relationships. You won't hear it. Radical egalitarianism has its allure.
We'll see if the liberals are still so enamored a year from now. Here's a little tidbit of criticism on the methodology and data in the book, enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT3bFLmgDho
Your story is hilarious. A lot of criticism of Piketty in fact comes from people to his left (and while I haven't read it, I have myself a lot of problem of what I've read about him), while The Economist, The Financial Time and The Washington Post, obviously socialist propaganda agecies, wrote very positive reviews about it. But we get it, you don't want to discuss the book at all, you want to close your ears and your eyes and dismiss without having to make any effort.
On May 01 2014 08:45 Danglars wrote: The collective drooling over this man's book, now what -- out a month? -- resembles that of the a new video game. It's the best thing ever and will be the summit of the genre!!! Maybe he has collected an impressive body of work to try to support his analysis of why and suggestions of what has to be done (not that some haven't already attacked that aspect). That's credit to his academic pursuits. He's not immune to criticism, his flavor-of-the-month acolytes may very well be. Say but one word against this inequality manifesto and you'll get the same reaction if you had brought up that your new girlfriend has a history of cheating and short relationships. You won't hear it. Radical egalitarianism has its allure.
We'll see if the liberals are still so enamored a year from now. Here's a little tidbit of criticism on the methodology and data in the book, enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT3bFLmgDho
I wish your critiques Danglars were remotely as reasonable as this. This is at least a somewhat reasonably logical position (not really close to anything you yourself have claimed)
My favorite part of of this guys criticism was when he said "I think capitalism has... definitely increased inequality in the developed world."
But in a close second is toward the end when he starts arguing forincreasing transfer programs (SS, SNAP, Medicaid,etc...) He asserts that the transfer programs NEED to be politically supported and funded if you are using his analysis of 'income' inequality at all.
So you post a critique of Picketty that supports more Transfer Payments and/or systems to continue to balance inequalities in income by increasing funding and distribution of programs like Medicare and SNAP.
I'm starting to think you were just scrambling for someone critical of Picketty and in your disarray you neglected to notice the person you were posting was saying.... the main thing keeping the problem Picketty suggests and you deny in check are the same programs Republicans/conservatives want to slash, cut, remove, or restrict at just about every opportunity.
But thank you for posting some substance among your ranting. I'm just sorry the guy you posted took such a huge dump all over your position.
EDIT: Your other source was such a joke I didn't think it warranted a response but here goes anyway
Last month 500 economists, including Nobel laureates Vernon Smith, Eugene Fama, Robert Lucas, and Edward Prescott, wrote a letter opposing increases in the federal minimum wage: "According to CBO, raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would cost the economy 500,000 jobs by 2016. Many of these jobs are held by entry-level workers with limited experience or vocational skills, the very employees meant to be helped."
I guess ignoring (not bothering to mention) the 600 economists with more Nobel laureates that wrote a letter supporting the raise of the minimum wage to $10.10 doesn't just reek of partisanship not to mention the whole rest of the article is almost as focused if not more at claiming credit for republicans than it is repudiating Picketty... But yeah it's the 'Marxist socialists' that are so partisan...
On May 01 2014 09:18 IgnE wrote: Ah yes, the author of _Dow 36,000_. You sure know how to pick your critics Danglars.
I just threw one up there in the interests of the comments on the previous page. I linked two criticisms. Frankly, I thought you had more qualms about attacking the man and not his ideas ... considering how much you regard as unjust criticism and labeling of Piketty. Oh well.
I examine his extreme popularity amongst today's left. If you want a 10 page essay on economics attacking his premises, methodologies, analysis, and policy solutions, look elsewhere. The book on the whole is fairly radical, evoking Marx, wants a second Soviet experiment, just adjusted a wee bit. This is the guy that our Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary, and the CEA & GAO meets with? I thought my distinguished opposition would play the center and advocate for maybe a 10% increase in top marginal tax rate to reduce inequality etc. But a guy who wants 60% on 200k and 80% on 500k/1mm? None of this, of course, would destroy economic growth either! I never expected someone who advocates those sort of policy changes to be so quickly accepted into the liberal fold here in the USA. People who would introduce themselves as rational moderates.
On May 01 2014 09:45 Danglars wrote: The book on the whole is fairly radical, evoking Marx, wants a second Soviet experiment, just adjusted a wee bit
Can I laugh ? Hint : the book title is as much a disavowal of Marx as an allusion. And the idea that Piketty has anything to do not even with soviet union, but with any kind of communism proves instantly you misunderstand either the book or the "ideology", probably both.
On May 01 2014 09:18 IgnE wrote: Ah yes, the author of _Dow 36,000_. You sure know how to pick your critics Danglars.
I just threw one up there in the interests of the comments on the previous page. I linked two criticisms. Frankly, I thought you had more qualms about attacking the man and not his ideas ... considering how much you regard as unjust criticism and labeling of Piketty. Oh well.
I examine his extreme popularity amongst today's left. If you want a 10 page essay on economics attacking his premises, methodologies, analysis, and policy solutions, look elsewhere. The book on the whole is fairly radical, evoking Marx, wants a second Soviet experiment, just adjusted a wee bit. This is the guy that our Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary, and the CEA & GAO meets with? I thought my distinguished opposition would play the center and advocate for maybe a 10% increase in top marginal tax rate to reduce inequality etc. But a guy who wants 60% on 200k and 80% on 500k/1mm? None of this, of course, would destroy economic growth either! I never expected someone who advocates those sort of policy changes to be so quickly accepted into the liberal fold here in the USA. People who would introduce themselves as rational moderates.
Taxes were roughly as high or higher during the greatest period of growth in our national history.
The criticism about Piketty's treatment of the minimum wage is garbage and doesn't really deserve comment. Suffice it to say that the critic cites one article that finds no employment effects from raising the minimum wage before raising possible unaccounted for variables. Ok. The overwhelming consensus is that raising the minimum wage would likely have no effect on employment, and at worst, an unpredictable but slight effect either up or down.
Hansset is a ridiculous person whose positions and logic changes with political circumstance. Dow 36,000 is just one of his greatest and most prominent intellectual blunders.
Another former aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has been subpoenaed to testify before the legislative committee investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures.
The committee wants to hear from Matt Mowers, who worked for Christie's re-election campaign last year and is currently the executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Tom Hester, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Assembly Democrats, confirmed to TPM on Wednesday that a subpoena had been issued to Mowers.
Mowers was the Christie re-election campaign staffer who reached out last year to Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich, to ask if the Democratic mayor would endorse Christie. Sokolich ultimately did not endorse Christie, and one theory of the scandal has it that the endorsement issue motivated the plan to close Fort Lee's access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, causing days of traffic jams in the town.
Chicago has become the latest U.S. city to approve a ban on plastic shopping bags.
The City Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of a partial plastic bag ban in Chicago on Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reports. The proposal was backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and passed with a vote of 36-10.
The new ordinance will first go into effect in August 2015, when retailers occupying stores that are more than 10,000 square foot will no longer be allowed to offer plastic bags. The ban will be extended to smaller chain stores and franchises in August 2016, while small independent or non-franchise stores and restaurants will not be affected by the legislation.
Fines run between $300 and $500 each time the ordinance is violated.
Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno (1st), the ordinance's lead sponsor, said a yes vote for the bill was in the best interests of both the environment and the economy, DNAinfo Chicago reports.
Justice Antonin Scalia's factual error in a dissenting opinion Tuesday has become the talk of the legal community as experts puzzle over the extraordinary nature of the Reagan-appointed justice's blunder, which the Supreme Court quietly corrected as of Wednesday morning.
It's common for the Supreme Court to make typographical corrections and insubstantial edits to a decision after its release. But it's exceedingly rare to see a factual error that helps form the basis for an opinion. Legal experts say Scalia's mistake appears to be wholly unprecedented in that it involves a justice flatly misstating core facts from one of his own prior opinions.
"This is a topic I know fair amount about, and I do not know of any other instance when a Justice has mischaracterized one of his own prior opinions, let alone in such a loud fashion and when he is otherwise criticizing others for their blunders," said Richard J. Lazarus, a Harvard law professor. "I strongly doubt it has ever happened before."
"I have seen sloppy footnoting before but nothing this bad," said Garrett Epps, a constitutional law professor at the University of Baltimore.
Dan Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, called it "an unusually major mistake, and all the more surprising because Scalia wrote the American Trucking opinion" that he mischaracterized in Tuesday's ruling.
Justice Antonin Scalia's factual error in a dissenting opinion Tuesday has become the talk of the legal community as experts puzzle over the extraordinary nature of the Reagan-appointed justice's blunder, which the Supreme Court quietly corrected as of Wednesday morning.
It's common for the Supreme Court to make typographical corrections and insubstantial edits to a decision after its release. But it's exceedingly rare to see a factual error that helps form the basis for an opinion. Legal experts say Scalia's mistake appears to be wholly unprecedented in that it involves a justice flatly misstating core facts from one of his own prior opinions.
"This is a topic I know fair amount about, and I do not know of any other instance when a Justice has mischaracterized one of his own prior opinions, let alone in such a loud fashion and when he is otherwise criticizing others for their blunders," said Richard J. Lazarus, a Harvard law professor. "I strongly doubt it has ever happened before."
"I have seen sloppy footnoting before but nothing this bad," said Garrett Epps, a constitutional law professor at the University of Baltimore.
Dan Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, called it "an unusually major mistake, and all the more surprising because Scalia wrote the American Trucking opinion" that he mischaracterized in Tuesday's ruling.
haha. Not even Scalia can keep up with his own constant stream of bullshit interpretations straight... I think the real surprise is that it took him this long to make such a mistake.
Platts confirmed CSX Corporation's train that exploded in Lynchburg, Virginia was carrying sweet crude obtained via hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in North Dakota's Bakken Shale basin. CSX CEO Michael Ward has also confirmed this to Bloomberg.
"Trade sources said the train was carrying Bakken crude from North Dakota and was headed to Plains All American's terminal in Yorktown," Platts explained. "The Yorktown facility can unload 130,000 b/d of crude and is located on the site of Plains oil product terminal."
In January, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a Safety Alert concluding Bakken crude is more flammable than heavier oils. Hence the term "bomb trains."
At least 50,000 gallons of the oil headed to Yorktown is now missing, according to ABC 13 in Lynchburg. Some of it has spilled into the James River, as previously reported on DeSmogBlog.
These guys were inches from shooting each other...Interesting how the racism in camp was distasteful but not the racism displayed by Bundy?
I guess since Bundy's racism was directed at dark brown people and not light brown people they were ok with it?
I don't know how anyone can think these people are not crazy.
If this was really about government overreach there are so many better examples to glom onto. I mean they are still spouting the 'Bundy's have been on this land for over 100 years" even though there were no Bundy's in Bunkerville (too fitting of a name) at all in 1930 or 1940, and they bought the damn ranch in 1948 when Cliven was 2 yo.
Looks pretty obvious that he was fed a story and never bothered to vet it and just continued telling people it... It is so painfully clear the whole defense of Bundy was a total cluster to start with I don't understand why it's taking so long for the militia's to see what even Bundy champion 'Hannity' has seen.
All this seems a bit problematic for conservatives/republicans that were claiming Bundy's racist wonderin's were enough to discredit him in a post racist America and disperse the militias. Small problem the racism didn't bother many of the Bundy supporters (shocked I know).
Seattle will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour over the coming years under a deal brokered by Mayor Ed Murray and blessed by labor and business groups alike, city leaders announced Thursday afternoon.
The new pay floor will phase in at different speeds for businesses of different sizes, but all employers will have to meet the $15 minimum wage by the end of the decade. Businesses with more than 500 employees nationwide will have a three-year phase-in period, while smaller employers get five years to ratchet up their payscales.
After reaching $15 an hour, the city’s minimum wage will automatically climb by 2.4 percent each year regardless of the rate of inflation. Even among states with relatively strong minimum wage laws, automatic increases are uncommon. Thursday’s deal will make Seattle the national leader on municipal minimum wage laws. Washington currently has the highest pay floor of any state at $9.32 per hour.
The deal was a long time coming, with Murray first indicating he wanted to establish a $15 floor back in September during the mayoral campaign. Murray created the 24-member advisory group that crafted the compromise package back in December, and the group of local business owners, restaurateurs, and labor leaders has been grinding toward an agreement for the past four months.
Approval from restaurant owners is especially noteworthy given the deal’s provisions for tipped workers. Tips can only be counted toward worker minimum pay for the next five years. After that, the separate minimum hourly pay rates for tipped and non-tipped workers will disappear, and all employees citywide will have to be paid $15 hourly or more.
EPT
